Category Archives: Literary

Bukowski: The Worst Hangover

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I had a somewhat Bukowskian experience of my own recently, when I arrived at work just after a woman had been beaten, raped, and thrown from a fifth-story window at the Regent Hotel, just across the alley from my office. I didn’t hear the thud, but I did arrive in time to see the many various vehicles with the flashing, multi-coloured lights, and to listen to her cousin wailing in grief for three-quarters of an hour before Victims’ Services calmed her down.

And so, with that intro, welcome to our Bukowskian interlude:

via CelluloidBlonde

Harry Potter and the Homework of Vengeance!

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Spammers

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Spammers

Oh, this is good. This is goooood. Or bad, but really GOOD bad, if you know what I mean, and you will, instantly, once I tell you that this is a true story involving the now-standard Nigerian Email Scam turned around by a very, very smart man who, instead of paying the scammers, played on their greed and got them to write out BY HAND (for, they thought, $100 a page) all of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, then stiffed them.

Awesome.

GOING PRO: Getting Real in the Writing World: our September meeting

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Shakespeare got to get paid, son

You think them sonnets write themselves?

Who: The Shebeen Club presents author, editor, Federation of BC Writers Executive Director Sylvia Taylor

What: GOING PRO: GETTING REAL IN THE WRITING WORLD

When: 7-9pm Monday, September 27th (one week later than our usual date)

Where: A private dining room in Rogue Wetbar in Waterfront Station

Why: Because in this economy, you either go pro or you go out of business

How (much): $20 early-bird tickets/$25 at the door includes dinner and a glass of wine

Come Out of the Cave and Into the Village!

Getting published and making a living isn’t just about writing anymore – it’s about building a solid foundation, a platform, of credibility and expertise. For experienced and emerging writers alike, we need to build our presence from the ground up, with good planning, good tools, good materials and creative flair. Treat yourself as an entrepreneur and you add to your chances of business success, particularly in a hostile economic climate like this one.

About Sylvia Taylor: Sylvia Taylor is an award-winning writer, editor, consultant, journalist, and educator with a passionate commitment to communication. As an entrepreneur and Executive Director of the Federation of BC Writers she brings what needs to be said into the world through the sublime balance of the Art & Engineering of Creativity.

New! Improved! Tonight, for the first time we’ll be at a new downtown location: a private dining room in the beautiful Rogue Wetbar in Waterfront Station. Register in advance and save $5!

If Hamburger Has a Helper…

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…why isn’t there a Writer’s Helper? If there were, it would look something like this:

Tipsy the Novel Assistant

Tipsy the Novel Assistant, the Writer's Helper

Oh, if ONLY Microsoft made assistants that useful.

Tony Blair, criminal mind?

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Tony Blair

Tony Blair, crime fiction author?

There’s a new  and amusing Facebook Group in town: Put One of Tony Blair’s Books in the Crime Section of Your Bookshop, and there’s some new evidence that they should at least be in Fiction generally.

The Torygraph (via Gawker) reports that contained within my Secret Boyfriend‘s autobiography is a passage cribbed, apparently, from the movie The Queen, and completely, utterly made up.

In A Journey, Blair claims that the Queen said to him: “You are my 10th prime minister. The first was Winston. That was before you were born.” In [screenwriter Peter] Morgan’s script to the 2006 film The Queen, Mirren, in the title role, tells Michael Sheen’s Blair: “You are my 10th prime minister, Mr Blair. My first was Winston Churchill.”

As a longtime reader of Majesty Magazine, I can tell you that there is very, very little likelihood that the first quotation is correct. The Queen just does not express herself this way in a formal and historically loaded context. She would surely have said “Churchill” or “Winston Churchill” if she said anything. And the screenwriter is adamant that he didn’t base it on any facts, just made it up entirely. So, when you do your substitution at the bookstore, you’d best put his book with Crime Fiction rather than True Crime!