Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff

The Truth About Grief by Ruth Davis Konigsberg

The Truth About Grief by Ruth Davis Konigsberg

Jan 1, 2011 |

The five stages of grief are so deeply imbedded in our culture that no American can escape them. Every time we experience loss-a personal or national one-we hear them recited: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The stages are invoked to explain everything from how we will recover from the death of a loved one to a sudden environmental catastrophe or to the trading away of a basketball star. But the stunning fact is that there is no validity to the stages that were proposed by psychiatrist Elisabeth KÜbler-Ross more than forty years ago.

THE PLAY’S THE THING: Part 3: Rewriting– On Your Own

Dec 25, 2010 | ,

With the new year I am beginning Part III of my series on the nuts and bolts of playwriting, inception to production. Part III will focus on the rewriting process. Remember as in all forms of writing, plays are not written, they are rewritten. I cannot stress enough the importance of that statement. There are, in reality, two different parts of the rewriting process, the private and the public.

Inhabiting a Work of Prose

Dec 20, 2010 |

  Inhabiting a Work of Prose by Rochelle Jewel Shapiro January 2011 ". . .live inside the novel for both the writer and the reader." —Shapiro In reviews on the back of a jacket, aside from “lucid,” and “scintillating,” I...

American Rose by Karen Abbott

Dec 12, 2010 |

Rose Louise, known to the world as Gypsy Rose Lee, was an enigma: a beautiful woman with an ever changing story who had more secrets hidden up her sleeve than a magician. Her history changed as often as she changed her gloves and, like the tease she was, she obscured more with each retelling. Gypsy Rose Lee was intelligent, frustrating, talented, gifted and damaged.

Feelings First

Feelings First

Nov 29, 2010 |

FEELINGS FIRST by Rochelle Jewel Shapiro December 2010 "Your best writing will arise from feelings." —Shapiro A daily writing practice is an important commitment to be a writer. You can’t hang out indefinitely and wait for inspiration to come....

THE PLAY’S THE THING: Crisis, Climax and Resolution

THE PLAY’S THE THING: Crisis, Climax and Resolution

Nov 29, 2010 | ,

In past columns, I have mentioned the terms Climax and Resolution. I would like to explore these story elements in more detail along with Crisis, another important element. In my column on Rising Action, I explained how each scene builds incrementally and logically to a climactic scene. That scene, often called the “obligatory scene” is essential to good playwriting.

Hell’s Corner by David Baldacci

Nov 20, 2010 |

A woman sits on a bench napping and then chatting on her cell phone. An older man in a suit stoops to read the inscription on a statue. An overweight man in jogging clothes, but too fat to jog, wanders into the park. Oliver Stone watches it all until bullets rake the park after the older man and the woman leave and the overweight jogger jumps into a hole and explodes.

Songs of Love and Death: All Original Tales of Star-Crossed Love

Songs of Love and Death: All Original Tales of Star-Crossed Love

Nov 1, 2010 |

IN this star-studded cross-genre anthology, seventeen of the greatest modern authors of fantasy, science fiction, and romance explore the borderlands of their genres with brand-new tales of ill-fated love. From zombie-infested woods in a postapocalyptic America to faery-haunted rural fields in eighteenth- century England, from the kingdoms of high fantasy to the alien world of a galaxy-spanning empire, these are stories of lovers who must struggle against the forces of magic and fate.

Freud’s Blind Spot by Elisa Albert

Freud’s Blind Spot by Elisa Albert

Nov 1, 2010 |

Relationships with our siblings stretch, as an old saying has it, all the way from the cradle to the grave. Few bonds in life are as significant, as formative, as lasting, and as frequently overlooked as those we share with our brothers and sisters.