“Life should fulfill me.” Who asks what life expects from them? Anyone? Here I am stopped in my tracks by our town’s “Before I die…” public art installation. I am impressed, as you can tell. Seriously. Young people would appear to have dug deep to chalk up their hopes and dreams. Walk the Camino Travel [...]
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“We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness…” Joseph Conrad’s famous tale concerns an expedition up the Congo River. The mission: to repatriate a company agent. And with each bend in that jungle river, the protagonist’s belief system proves increasingly unreliable. The Heart of Darkness…the perfect metaphor for the hero’s journey. And the [...]
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A poet dies. Is it dust to dust and that’s it? Or is there such a thing as a lasting legacy? What can we learn in the aftermath of an art-committed life? Does a life have meaning? Andy Suknaski grew up in Sitting Bull country in southern Saskatchewan. He remained there, in his [...]
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Hit Lit: Cracking the Code of the 20th Century’s Biggest Bestsellers, by James W. Hall, performs a group autopsy on the biggest blockbusters of the last century. From Gone with the Wind to The Da Vinci Code, a dozen mega-novels reveal their common story elements: The heroes are mavericks. Forget about characters’ interior dialogue. [...]
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Story Structure To Die For is essential reading for anyone who has ever wondered why readers read and why writers
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A phone call out of the blue sends ROXY on a mercy mission to a Greek island. Her estranged grandfather is dying. When her mother refuses
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The Flight of the Patriot
Yadi Sharifirad, Iranian Top Gun, national hero, and poster boy for the military forces of the Islamic Regime, thought his record spoke for itself. But he underestimated Ayatollah Khomeini’s antipathy for American-trained fighter pilots—all but a few were executed. Sharifi’s luck ran out when one fine day ...more
