home of author & poet E. Kristin Anderson

Posts in category pop culture

Short Story Month: Guest Post from Priya Chand: Horror and the Familiar

May 21, 2013 1 Comment ~ Written by E. Kristin Anderson
Short Story Month: Guest Post from Priya Chand: Horror and the Familiar

Horror and humor are probably the two most subjective genres out there, which makes it difficult to provide a list of tips for success. Maybe this is because I regularly read “The Cask of Amontillado” before bedtime when I was six, but I don’t find Stephen King vaguely scary. Or Lovecraft, or Poe. (I do get nice tinglies from the latter. Also Shirley Jackson. WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE is amazing.)

I’m almost glad I didn’t see this in the theaters. Almost.
At the same time, I’m terrified of heights. I don’t need something that’s horror to give me sweaty palms. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol? Fun movie with great action, but…yeah. And for those of you who have a problem with viscera, I don’t think George R. R. Martin would be called horror by anyone other than the most sensitive, but some of the scenes in the book and the show are gut-churning.

~ read more ~
Posted in advice, books, graphic novels, grown-up books, guest post, horror, literature, movies, reading, short stories, Short Story Month, writing - Tagged , , , , ,

National Poetry Month: Tamera Wissinger: A Mighty Bridge Over the River — The Unlikely Influence of Les Misérables

Apr 22, 2013 5 Comments ~ Written by E. Kristin Anderson
National Poetry Month: Tamera Wissinger: A Mighty Bridge Over the River — The Unlikely Influence of Les Misérables

Several years ago, I first saw the musical Les Misérables with friends at a Broadway in Chicago presentation. I was so excited to be seeing the show live for the first time and it lived up to my expectations in every way, and in one way it far exceeded them. That moment of shifting perspective is still so clear: During the seminal song I Dreamed a Dream sung by the tormented character Fantine, there is a line: “But the tigers come at night/With their voices soft as thunder…” Wait a minute…tigers with voices soft as thunder…a simile right there in middle of Les Misérables. And more than that, the word choice of “softest” when the librettist could have easily chosen to write “loud as thunder” or “roaring thunder,” but he didn’t.

Right there in the theater I felt down to my toes: this was written by a poet, and from that moment on I viewed the libretto for Les Misérables in a different, more exalted, way. After the show I bought the CD and listened to it countless times, eventually adding it to all of my mobile devices so that I could hear it anywhere.

~ read more ~
Posted in books, guest post, literature, middle grade, national poetry month, poetry, reading, writing - Tagged , ,

Guest Post from Brent Hartinger: They Turned My Book Into a Movie

Mar 21, 2013 1 Comment ~ Written by Guest Blogger
Guest Post from Brent Hartinger: They Turned My Book Into a Movie

They’ve turned my 2003 gay teen novel GEOGRAPHY CLUB into a movie. It’ll be released later this year, and people have already started asking me how it all happened and what I’ve learned from the whole experience.

What did I learn?

The story starts when I graduated from college and decided to try to make a career writing novels and screenplays. It was the early 90s, and one of my first books was a young adult novel about a gay teen named Russel Middlebrook and his misfit friends. It was an extremely personal topic for me, because I had been a gay teenager, and I had also co-founded one of the United States’ very first gay teen support groups, in 1990.

~ read more ~
Posted in books, guest post, lgbtq, movies, reading, writing, YA - Tagged , , ,

International Women’s Week: Priya Chand: BOSSYPANTS — Life lessons on doing whatever you want from Tina Fey

Mar 08, 2013 2 Comments ~ Written by Guest Blogger
International Women’s Week: Priya Chand: BOSSYPANTS — Life lessons on doing whatever you want from Tina Fey

What does a lady who is the Boss of Ladyhood do?

Smack in the middle of BOSSYPANTS, there’s this chapter called “I Don’t Care If You Like It,” evidently one of multiple love letters to Amy Poehler. The point of this chapter, which is centered around an episode from when Poehler and Fey were writers for ‘Saturday Night Live,’ is best summarized in Fey’s own words at the end. So, spoiler alert: this book contains some absolutely fantastic advice.

[D]on’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions. Go “Over! Under! Through! and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares?

Unlike Tina Fey, I grew up in the 1990s. And I’m sure not everyone had this, but my experience of feminism was that things had reached a point where the only people who went on protests for women’s rights were disgruntled UCSD students who’d burned all their bras and thrown out their razors, and could therefore no longer spend all their free time at the beach. (Try jogging without a bra. I dare you.)

~ read more ~
Posted in books, culture, feminism, grown-up books, guest post, International Women's Week, literature, reading, tv, writing - Tagged ,

International Women’s Week: Carolyn Boriss-Krimsky: On Writing Yoko

Mar 08, 2013 Leave a Comment ~ Written by Guest Blogger
International Women’s Week: Carolyn Boriss-Krimsky: On Writing Yoko

I was inspired to write Yoko Ono: Collector Skies because I wanted to know more about Yoko’s life and work. A pioneering boundary-crossing artist who somehow manages to reinvent art along the way–how does she do it? What was her childhood like? I knew she felt like an outsider, unsure of her identity or where she belonged, but how did that affect her art ? And I’ve always loved her Zen-like instruction poems, (like, “Earth Piece: Listen to the sounds of the earth turning”) completed in the mind of the reader. I was curious to know how they evolved. What was going on in her life at the time?

Writing the book gave me some insights. I learned that Yoko came from an emotionally distant, aristocratic Japanese family and was raised primarily in Tokyo, mostly by nannies. Her father left a career in classical music to become a banker, and her mother, a beautiful socialite, was a painter who stopped painting . When she got older, Yoko saw her parents as artists who gave up their dreams. At age four, she was enrolled in a top music school in Japan where she was not only encouraged to listen to sounds in her environment (like traffic, or bird song ), but to try to turn the sounds into musical notes. By the time she was in high school, she was creating visual art, music, and poetry, as well as writing, directing and starring in her own plays . Looking back at those days, she said, “I knew about making art from the word go.”

~ read more ~
Posted in books, culture, guest post, International Women's Week, literature, music, nonfiction, poetry, reading, writing, YA - Tagged , , , , ,

International Women’s Week: Nell Beram: Two Virgins, OneYoko

Mar 05, 2013 1 Comment ~ Written by Guest Blogger
International Women’s Week: Nell Beram: Two Virgins, OneYoko

What’s that, you say? It’s International Women’s Week?
Among our most indefatigable advocates is surely Japan-born and
(largely) -raised modern-day Manhattanite Yoko Ono. From her perch
in New York, it’s a good bet that among the usual baker’s dozen of
artistic and activist projects she’s working on are a few with the
global good of women in mind. This has forever been Yoko’s gambit.
While her most well-known political contribution is probably her
peace activism with John Lennon during the Vietnam War, her
feminism has always been in evidence, and its effect is, I think,
more measurable. Take my favorite hysteria-courting example. One of
the most iconic album covers of all time is the one that Yoko and
John provided for their first experimental record, Two Virgins;
notoriously, the artists posed butt naked for it. But the album
cover is iconic for the wrong reason. In YOKO ONO: Collector of
Skies, my collaborator, Carolyn Boriss-Krimsky, and I quote the
music critic John Rockwell on the Two Virgins cover: “For John and
Yoko, nudity was a challenge to a stuffy and overserious society, a
statement about innocence and openness and a talisman of trust
between them.”

~ read more ~
Posted in books, culture, guest post, International Women's Week, literature, music, reading, writing, YA - Tagged , , , , , ,

International Women’s Week: Ann Angel: Finding, Writing, and Revising Janis Joplin

Mar 04, 2013 1 Comment ~ Written by Guest Blogger
International Women’s Week: Ann Angel: Finding, Writing, and Revising Janis Joplin

In high school I was the teen in the corner writing insipid poetry or sketching flowers in the margins of my notebook and considering how badly I fit into the world of beautiful people. My older sister was the popular one in the cafeteria surrounded by all the equally popular girls and boys. Every once in a while I would hear their laughter ring across the room and I would look up from my notebook. It hurt to see them all so happy, with arms draped around each other’s shoulders, and heads together in conversation—so comfortable in their world. How I wished I’d fit in like that.

I sat on the sidelines and watched and wished while I sketched and wrote more poetry. On occasion, my sister would try to encourage me to be cool. But I was just too bookish and shy.

But then I heard the voice.

~ read more ~
Posted in books, guest post, International Women's Week, literature, music, nonfiction, writing, YA - Tagged , , , ,

International Women’s Week: Lea Nolan: The Importance of the Female Mentor

Mar 03, 2013 9 Comments ~ Written by Guest Blogger
International Women’s Week: Lea Nolan: The Importance of the Female Mentor

My most important mentors have been women. When I look back over my school, career, and now writing lives, I’ve had the privilege of being surrounded by smart, accomplished women who taught me the necessary skills to succeed. They didn’t just share their technical knowledge, they also imparted essential life lessons like the importance of humility, diligence, perseverance, and taking pride in my work. Their impact helped shape who I am and made me a better woman.

Often in popular culture, the mentor character is male. In many cases this works, particularly with a male protagonist. Who could ever quibble with JK Rowling’s perfect pairing of Harry Potter with Professor Dumbledore? Not me. Or how about Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and Dr. Brunner/Chiron? Or Roald Dahl’s match up of Charlie and Willy Wonka? These relationships are essential to the hero achieving his journey.

But what about the heroine? Who does she typically learn from?

~ read more ~
Posted in books, culture, feminism, guest post, International Women's Week, literature, middle grade, reading, writing, YA - Tagged , , ,

International Women’s Week: P.J. Hoover: Don’t Diss the Cheerleader!

Mar 02, 2013 2 Comments ~ Written by E. Kristin Anderson
International Women’s Week: P.J. Hoover: Don’t Diss the Cheerleader!

Hi, P. J. Hoover here, author of the upcoming dystopian/mythology YA novel, SOLSTICE (Tor Teen, June 18, 2013), and today I want to talk for a bit about the stereotyping of girls in young adult literature. Namely, I want to talk about why I think it’s wrong and would love nothing more than to see it stop.

Let’s go with the stereotype that riles me up more than any other: the cheerleader. Lots of times . . . (and for the record here I will attempt to refrain from generalizations. Yes, for everything I say, I am *sure* someone will be able to refute it. And I don’t want to go there. So anyway . . . ) lots of times when I read books with cheerleaders in them, there are certain defining characteristics of said cheerleader. For example, she’s got a really rocking figure. She also very pretty. And yes, she’s very popular. I mean, she is the personification of what so many others want to attain. And sure, having a nice figure is a pretty enviable character trait, but there are other traits that are not so enviable. Like this cheerleader is often bitchy. She’s cruel to those less popular than her (many times our sympathetic main character). She’s scheming. And let’s not forget the slutty factor. This poor cheerleader is often seen in the halls making out with her boyfriend of the week.

~ read more ~
Posted in books, community, culture, feminism, guest post, International Women's Week, reading, writing, YA - Tagged , , ,

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop!

Feb 06, 2013 1 Comment ~ Written by E. Kristin Anderson
The Next Big Thing Blog Hop!

Oh, hello. So this blog hop thing has me back in the blogging saddle. The Next Big Thing Blog Hop is celebrating authors’ works in progress, the stuff we have up our sleeves, and all that jazz.

I was tagged by the amazing Ilsa J. Bick, a long-time friend of mine from the Dear Teen Me project. She’s the author of the ASHES trilogy (read with the light on, dudes), DRAW THE DARK and most recently THE SIN-EATER’S CONFESSION, which I’m so psyched to read. You should definitely stop by her page to learn more about this amazing woman and perhaps join her in a bit of Star Trek nerdery.

1: What is the working title of your book(s)?

COME ON EILEEN- with Priya Chand (between drafts)
GRUNGE – in progress
AUGUST TIDES – out there in the submission ether, thanks to Agent Christina & team!

~ read more ~
Posted in books, community, literature, reading, writing, YA - Tagged ,
←

EKA

E. Kristin Anderson grew up in Westbrook, Maine and is a graduate of Connecticut College. She has a fancy diploma that says “B.A. in Classics,” which makes her sound smart but has not helped her get any jobs in Ancient Rome. Ms. Anderson is the co-editor of Dear Teen Me, an anthology based on the popular website. Her poetry has been published worldwide in many magazines and she is an assistant YA and Children’s editor at Hunger Mountain. Once upon a time she worked at The New Yorker. Look out for Ms. Anderson's work in the forthcoming anthology Coin Opera II, a collection of poems about video games from Sidekick Books and Futuredaze, an anthology of YA SciFi from Underwords. She now lives in Austin, TX and blogs at EKristinAnderson.com and MetreMaids.com. She is represented by Christina Hogrebe at the Jane Rotrosen Agency.

View Full Profile →

Follow @ek_anderson!

Follow Me on Twitter

Powered by Twitter Tools

May 2013
S M T W T F S
« Apr    
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  

NaNoWriMo Badges