Category: Writers
P. Djeli Clark’s A Master of Djinn 🧞
On Surf Ninjas: Lessons Learned From Bad 90s Cinema
I feel like an Iggy in a Surf Ninja movie, waxing my board rather than climbing on and carving some waves. I talk a good game, and do just enough to convince myself I'm doing good work [...] Can't rightly be a writer if I don't actually write, can I?
Night Drive by Manuel Gonzales
Strange Dreams
Saturday evening, for the most part, is pizza night in the ol’ Purdy abode, and last weekend I must’ve ingested the right amount of cheese and peppers and green olives to make for one of most bizarre dreams I’ve ever experienced (that I can remember). I was staying in a mansion of the Xavier Institute … Continue reading Strange Dreams
Launching a Gumroad Page: “Rests Like a Bastard Sword”
I've also taken the time today to set up a Gumroad page as a landing spot of sorts for independently publishing and selling some of the stories I'm working on. The first piece is a just-a-hair-past-nano piece of short fiction, "Rests Like a Bastard Sword," from my Short as Fictober 2019 endeavor.
Looking Ahead: Disco Elysium
As much as I've read and watched on the game's conceit and design, I've tried to avoid narrative spoiler as much as possible. I know that you play a detective who can't remember who he is, but is tasked with solving a murder. You traverse a fictional world (with over 6,000 years of history), interviewing all sorts of folks, and the choices for both words and deeds are vast, and determine the type of person you are/become.
Reading Rec: The Forever Sea by Joshua Phillip Johnson
Last Tuesday, The Forever Sea was published by DAW books, and while I'm not too far into yet, I'm absolutely enjoying the hell out of it.
On Augsburg University’s Creative Writing MFA Program
I really can't speak highly enough of the transformative power of the program, its faculty, and its students on the life of a writer. I know that mine is but one story in the larger tale of Augsburg's Creative Writing MFA program, and that many students could and most likely will share similar experiences. It's my hope that you would take these into consideration and reconsider your decision to cut the program.
A Note on Messages from Ursula K. Le Guin
Her piece "A Message About Messages" offers a pointed and humorous rebuttal (of which only Le Guin was capable of) to those who insist on strangling messages out of the fiction they read
Ryan L. Purdy 