What Do We Owe Our Own Values?

Daisy over at Dear Diaspora attempts to reconcile the abhorrent parts of the Bible with her modern liberal Jewish values. I plan to venture deeper into other literature in this post, but for now let’s stick with religion. One of her commentators, Rebecca, wrote:
I feel like there’s a barrier I can’t push through, of seeing [...]

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Do you Re-read Books?

Over at Socrates’ Book Reviews, Yvonne ponders the essential question that secretly haunts every book blogger: to re-read or not to re-read? This comes shortly after I suggested to Steph at Steph and Tony Investigate that she might profit from re-reading Kelly Link’s first short story collection ”Stranger Things Happen” at some point.
Yvonne shares the multiple reasons she [...]

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“Who Really Wrote Othello?” link roundup

I’ve been busy finishing up the semester . So for the enjoyment of my readers here is a link round-up until I can get back to our regularly scheduled program:
Supreme Court officially declares Shakespeare many not have written his own works after all. Or at least a single justice is making the argument anyway. This is an old scholarly debate with little merit [...]

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“He Knew Everything about Literature Except how to Enjoy it!”

“Everyone agreed that Clevinger was certain to go far in the academic world. In short, Clevinger was one of those people with lots of intelligence and no brains, and everyone knew it except those who soon found it out. . . .It was impossible to go to a movie with him without getting involved afterward [...]

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Why Do I Read?

Literature, movies, visual art, and music are first and foremost entertainment. I don’t go to the movies or read a book or visit a museum because I want to improve my soul. If that was my goal I would be better off consulting a rabbi or spending my hours working in a soup kitchen or [...]

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Web of Knowledge

Ancient Tablet about Messiah and Ressurection: rethinking Judaism? Rethinking Christianity?
Seldom Wrong explains the potential implications and issues surounding the tablet.
Oldest/first Christian Church Found?
The intolerance and frustration some religious people feel when engaging in progressive circles.
Apparently many Saudis don’t know much about Judaism either.
The Ivory Ceiling: How Academia Keeps Women out
Ph. D. Comics!!!! [...]

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Appearance is Everything in Fiction: Strike a Prose

My Clarionmate Trent discusses his experiences submitting to literary markets versus genre markets. He also talks about the advice that we received at Clarion that “every word has to matter.”
Having read select issues from many of the major genre short story markets and having read an assortment of genre novels, plus my English Major background, [...]

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“Safe” Versus “Unsafe” Fiction: A Response to Larry

Larry over at the Other Fantasy section of Wotmania writes about a discussion he had with an anonymous author about readers/reviewers dismissing difficult or challenging writing:
“The discussion began with talking about how frustrating it can be for an author to have his or her work dismissed with a curt “too challenging” or “too difficult” [...]

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