Category: Writing

Producing Writing

May His Memory Be a Disturbing Blessing, R.I.P., David Lynch

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Filmmaker and singular artist David Lynch died on January 15, 2025, just days before today, what would be his 79th birthday. You can read obituaries and remembrances from: Variety also has a collection of remembrances from Steven Spielberg and others about Lynch and the Hard Times has an appropriately satirical take on Lynch’s passing. As fate would have it, the first David Lynch film I saw was his least favorite, if for no other reason…

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Writing

The Perils of Doing Something 700,000 Times

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Thinking of Saturday’s post, when it comes to writing implements, one shouldn’t be limited to pens of course, but for writers (vs. illustrators) I can’t recall scribes being as agog about pencils these days (I may be wrong, send links!). However, when it comes to markers, Sharpies have not only become ubiquitous when someone reaches for “a marker,” but they come in more colors than Oreos have flavors, i.e., slightly less than the number of…

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Writing

One Pen to Rule Them All

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I forgot to post this over the holidays, but this appreciation of the humble Pilot G2 by Trishna Rikhy for Esquire is one I fully endorse. Yes, being a gel pen means you need to not be impatient for a second or two while the gel ink dries, but I adjusted to that decades ago when I first made the switch from scratchy ballpoint to this smooth-gliding wonder and I have no regrets. In truth,…

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Producing Various and Sundry Writing

More Public Domain Highlights for 2025

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I think I’m going to need to expand my list of usual suspects for 2026, because there’s two more public domain pieces I want to share beyond the resources shared yesterday. First is an article, with plenty of audiovisual samples, by Ellen Wexler for Smithsonian Magazine. As you might imagine, the Smithsonian is very into collections, culture, and curating. Here, Wexler relies in part on Jennifer Jenkins, and the Center for the Study of the…

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Producing Various and Sundry Writing

Public Domain Day, 2025

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Happy New Year! One of my favorite new traditions since 2019 has been noting all the creative works that enter the public domain here in the United States every January 1st. For this year, 2025, that means creative works first published in the U.S. in 1929 as well as sound recordings from 1924. There’s a host of caveats and, of course, U.S. copyright is different from other parts of the world, often markedly so. That’s…

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Writing

A Few Galaxies’ Worth of Space Opera

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I’ve been trying to read more, including audiobooks while I’m on the road, so naturally I’m looking for some science fiction, including space opera… all the better to inform my own operatic tales. Thankfully, Tim O’Brien has a list of 55 space operas from the past not-quite century done for Barnes & Noble, who admittedly has a vested interest in getting you hooked on series. I have read many, but far from all, of the…

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Writing

Any Sufficiently Advanced Science Fiction Editor is Indistinguishable from Magic

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I grew up reading scores of science fiction short stories from the Golden Age and “New Wave” of science fiction… and then went on to various fantasy and science fiction novels of the day, many of which were published by Del Rey Books, still active today as an imprint of the mammoth publisher, Penguin Random House. What I didn’t know was the role one Judy-Lynn del Rey played in the creation of Del Rey Books…

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Writing

Writing and Rejection: Toni Morrison Edition

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

So let’s say you’ve been reading the posts last week during Banned Books Week and you’re thinking you’d like to write your own tome that will one day vex some censorious-minded individual by its very existence. Well, first off: great bucket list item. I’ve yet to meet an author who doesn’t find it as amusing to be in that circle of writers even as they’re annoyed at the small-mindedness of others that put them there.…

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Various and Sundry Writing

Short Stories to Get the Imagination Flowing

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Okay, so I’ve been posting daily during this Banned Books Week, but perhaps you’re reading this and feeling guilty that you haven’t dived into some banned book. You shouldn’t. The only people who should feel guilty should be people who are say, trying to burn books they haven’t read in a school’s furnace. Bear in mind: Enter Emily Temple compiling a list of 43 of the most iconic and engaging short stories in the English…

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Various and Sundry Writing

Children’s Books are Dangerous

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

As I continue to celebrate Banned Books Week 2024, I feel I need to follow up yesterday’s post about Kurt Vonnegut’s “dignified fury” with mockery… and when they’re cooking with gas, few folks mock as well as McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Shanna Walsh, who as a former middle school teacher knows a thing or two about the dangers facing kids, gives us a list of children’s books that will make their brains rot… or possibly their…

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