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The Floating Camera Technique In Writing
Here’s an example of the floating camera technique opening a novel by Marian Keyes: June the first, a bright summer’s evening, a Monday. I’ve been flying over the streets and houses of Dublin and now, finally, I’m here. I enter through the roof. Via a skylight I slide into a living room and right away […]
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How To Leave A Stranger: Short Story
A man stops to pick up a teenage girl hitch-hiker on a foggy New Zealand highway one night. Why does he do these things when he’s shown no gratitude?
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Film Study: Finding Nemo Is Trans
Sure, I’ve never been the target audience for Finding Nemo. I was already an adult when the film came out in 2003. But even my own offspring didn’t enjoy it. Could Finding Nemo be the most boring and unimaginative of all the Disney Pixar feature-length animations? I won’t do a complete film study, because for […]
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Welcome to the Creature Cafe
A fantasy cafe website showcasing AI generated images of cute fantasy food and some unusual staffing choices.
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Choc-egg Surprise: A Short Story
Professor Cornelius Stoppelbeim is a long-time collector of Choc-Egg Surprises and hopes to accumulate all pieces of the Robo-Bird. However, he would like to lodge some complaints.
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Alice Munro’s Jubilee
**UPDATE LATE 2024** After Alice Munro died, we learned about the real ‘open secrets’ (not so open to those of us not in the loop) which dominated the author’s life. We must now find a way to live with the reality that Munro’s work reads very differently after knowing certain decisions she made when faced […]
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Summary: “The Princess” by Tennyson
“Princess Ida” (1847) is a long narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Like many misogynist stories, Tennyson presents it as comedy. Well, technically this is ‘serio-comic’, or ‘comedy drama’.
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Eagle: A Great Low Cost Font Manager
I was actually looking for a way to manage all of my AI generated images when I came across Eagle, and realised this nifty low cost software would make a great low cost font manager. At time of writing, there is a free trial, followed by a one-off cost of $USD29.95 for two devices. This […]
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How To Write Like Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury was an influential American science fiction author born in 1920. He died in 2012.
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Heirs of the Living Body by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“Heirs of the Living Body” is the second story in Lives of Girls and Women (1971), sometimes considered a novel, sometimes a collection of short stories. Each of these stories can be read in isolation, but all concern the life of a woman called Del Jordan growing up in the small fictional Ontario town of Jubilee. This story is about…
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What does it mean to be human?
What does it mean to be human? Dancing, music, love, sex, cooking, other people… You’ll have heard these answers. Many are problematic. We’ll talk about ‘what makes us human’ and say it must be ‘language’ or ’empathy’ or ‘culture’ or ‘the capacity for thought’ or ‘the need for stories’ — I could go on. The […]
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The Flats Road by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“The Flat’s Road” is a short story by Canadian author Alice Munro. This story opens Munro’s 1971 collection Lives of Girls and Women.
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Definition of Logos in Literature
Logos is one of three main persuasive techniques as categorised by Aristotle alongside ethos and pathos.
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Postcard by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“Postcard” is a short story by Canadian author Alice Munro, first published in Dance of the Happy Shades, Munro’s first short story collection (1968). This one’s about a player, and his unwitting bit-on-the-side who thinks he’ll eventually marry her.
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My Year Of Reading Queer
This is an ongoing post about my 2023 reading goal of reading queer books by and about queer people. After half a lifetime of absorbing and analysing story, there remains only one sure way to find interesting and surprising perspectives and narratives: Actively seek the perspectives of marginalised voices.