In the late 80s I had a friend who was an abstract artist. His goal was to be a successful painter. He studied art, subscribed to every important creative magazine, and lived in a granny flat that was converted into his studio most of the time. He once explained that the purpose of a review …
How Gay does a GLBTQI book need to be?
Some time ago, author David Pratt wrote a novel named Bob the Book. In the story, Bob is a gay book. At a literary festival we both attended, David talked about the absurdity of a book being deemed gay. That's why he questioned the notion and came up with this character. This came to mind …
Getting to know your reviewers
Over a decade ago I heard an interesting radio interview. The guest did his thesis on how Bob Dylan and The Beatles shared a public conversation. The key was to the titles of their songs. Dylan would release a track, then the Beatles would respond to his ideas with their new hit. The dialogue would …
Reviews – A Living Terror!
When I was studying acting many years ago, one of our drama teachers put us through an interesting exercise. She asked each of our classmates to critique each other's acting. So one by one we sat and heard advice from each of our fellow students. Did the sky fall? Did we want to bury ourselves …
