Bøger af Andrew Burt

While the poems in this collection are inspired by the story of Fievel Mousekewitz, the cartoon mouse of the author's childhood, they are gut-wrenching in their examination of the American dream. Fievel's family history-and the author's-is one of a Jewish family immigrating from the Old World to the New and eventually being pulled across the plains: "When migrant boys looked west in leather hats, their slang pierced with Polish accents." Even though "tomorrow is made of rocks and time; is the draft that sweeps sleepily through the fallen branches," it is also where immigrants "watch their dreams decompose on plywood" as they search "for whatever it is that makes men free."Using the story of Fievel, Burt plays masterfully with the ambivalence of hope and cynicism, as if he had traversed the ocean and the continent westwards himself: "I am the hope that has not been forgotten, because I declare myself welcome here, as if there is nothing in history I will not make mine."

(Shhh! A Secret of Great Writing) An article originally published in the SFWA Bulletin on fascinating statistical correlations found between the amount of interpersonal relationships in "well regarded" vs. "ordinary" SF/F stories. In addition to the article are supplemental materials, including much that wasn't published because of space limitations. This has huge implications for your writing (at least in terms of what sells better) and also offers a possibly useful tool for you to find books you want to read while browsing in the bookstore. Vital information for both writers and readers!

How to avoid anachronisms in fiction to keep your prose timeless... So you're reading along in the Bourne Ultimatum, you're with Jason Bourne on the run, he's caught sneaking out to the car-interrogated by the baddies-and boom, he says, "I'm just driving out on the highway to find a phone, that's all." He what? Doesn't he have a cell phone? While in 1991 there were no cell phones to speak of, today it's awkward for a character not to have one, and this leaves the reader feeling the story is dated, or at least wondering why such a notable absence isn't explained. Yet it could have been easily avoided. Technology changes so fast-and changes life so fast-that if you aren't careful as a writer, your masterpiece could quickly sound dated, and needlessly rob you of readers and sales. You can't avoid technology, as that can be just as bad; though with a few careful choices of words you can lengthen the shelf-life of your work. It used to be only science fictional accounts of the future that became outdated as tomorrow rolled in, but now unless you're writing in a historical time period, the pace of change is so rapid that stories intended to be set in the modern day may be dated by the time readers see them. Science fiction is even more prone to this problem, when fictional technologies become real-but not in the way described-or, worse, are bypassed and laughably unreal. The good news is that, other than the Major Assumptions of your story (such as faster than light travel), chances are little of your story truly relies on you nailing down specifics about many things that might get outdated, nor would they be harmed if you described them more generically. Your story is uniquely yours anyway, so carefully sidestepping pitfalls won't hurt your story, only make it more robust. This book presents techniques to "futureproof" your writing, whether set in the distant future or the ever-changing "modern day."