RECENT BLOG POSTS
The Strain and the Ever-Changing Vampire
Apr 29th, 2009 | Posted in Genre, Writing
Guillermo Del Toro (creator of one of my favorite films of dark fantasy, Pan’s Labyrinth) has partnered with Chuck Hogan to create a trilogy of vampire stories called The Strain, the first book of which is set for release in June. The publisher, HarperCollins, has released a video of Del Toro discussing his inspiration for [...]
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Apr 27th, 2009 | Posted in Education, Folklore, Writing
Joss Whedon was recently honored with the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism at Harvard University. Part of his acceptance speech is below (link).
If you know me, you know that I’ve been a long-time admirer of Whedon as a creator, thinker, and activist as well as a fan of his work, particularly Firefly/Serenity and [...]
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Apr 27th, 2009 | Posted in Asides
His vision is inspiring, as is his message: "We will lose our economy right after we’ve lost our morality."
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Apr 23rd, 2009 | Posted in Writing
Cory Doctorow spoke at the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference1 recently and warned against allowing platforms to determine whether or not publishers would use DRM on digital works.
Ultimately, Doctorow argues against DRM altogether, and this speech is a concise and convincing presentation of that argument. His message for publishers in particular is that, [...]
Celtx Update Released
Apr 23rd, 2009 | Posted in Writing
Celtx has just released version 2.0.1. The 2.0 release added a number of features, including the Celtx Studios online component and the ability to add extensions. This latest version fixes a few bugs [release notes].
Celtx makes it easy to format scripts for screenplays, stage plays, AV scripts, audio plays, and even comic books. Big [...]
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Apr 16th, 2009 | Posted in Asides
I’ve been reading Joseph Ellis’s Founding Brothers, a book that’s been on my shelf for a while, and I’m fascinated by the echoes between the struggles this nation faced in its early years and the ones it faces now.
In chapter one, Ellis explains that America was founded in the conflict between the opposing principles of [...]
Amazon is Not Your Friend
Apr 13th, 2009 | Posted in Writing
If you don’t already know about the “#amazonfail” controversy that occurred over the weekend, these sources will get you caught up:
Neil Gaiman’s explanation of his involvement
Two possible explanations for the problem: thing one and thing two
Publisher’s Weekly summary and Amazon’s first official response
From these, it should also be clear why all of this matters: Amazon [...]
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Apr 12th, 2009 | Posted in Asides
When I started blogging, it was to record my thoughts about teaching. I moved the blog around a bit in the process, from a hosted site at Edublogs to a personal domain and, finally, to its current address. Along the way, I also left classroom teaching and, in the process, my blog lost some of [...]
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Mar 14th, 2009 | Posted in Education
Yesterday, I lamented another piece of fuzzy-headed writing about education from a major news source. Today, I want to add that the comments, at least, give me hope. Most of them take Brooks to task in one way or another. And even better, the comments chosen in the “Editor’s Selections” list all point to the [...]
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Mar 13th, 2009 | Posted in Education
I can identify at least two reasons my educational blogging has dwindled so dramatically in the last year: (big obvious one) I left the classroom and (increasingly more obvious one) the arguments around education reform make me tired. I feel like there’s very little that hasn’t already been said, and ignored, by someone, somewhere.
Take this [...]
