In the 2002 film Orange County, an English professor tells one of his students: “Every writer has a conflicted relationship with the place where they grew up.” I didn’t think much about that statement at the time, but the more I evolve as a writer and a thinker, the more I realize that it’s true. How authors feel about their places of origin is often reflected in they’re writing. Here are five writers that can’t seem to shake their roots. James Joyce Image courtesy of likesuccess.com Irish modernist James Joyce rose to prominence writing about his native city of Dublin. It’s no secret …
It’s impossible to count how many book-to-screen adaptations have been a disappointment. Such occurrences are often the right of poor screenwriting. If the script is well written, though, the film is typically well done. While we would guess it’s easy enough to create a great screenplay from a great book, what about creating an exciting screenplay out of a boring book? I have noticed that seemingly boring books, such as The Big Short, have been getting big screen adaptations. The Big Short movie, based on the nonfictional book by financial journalist Michael Lewis, came out in 2015. It focused on the housing market bubble and the …
You know that moment when you realize that the author of your favorite book was just a baby when they published it? Me too. And by baby, I mean below the legal U.S. drinking age. Professional sports teams are dotted with 18-year-old athletic prodigies and the music industry is seeing more and more teenagers being offered million dollar record deals. We don’t always think of the publishing industry in the same way, but more and more teenage writers are seeing their work published before becoming legal adults. Christopher Paolini Image courtesy of rollingstone.com What were you doing age at 15? If …
When we think of our favorite writers, we often imagine them sitting behind beautiful wooden desks, completing their manuscripts on fancy typewriters or with quills and parchment. It seems so strange to consider that before achieving literary stardom, many of these authors worked regular day jobs. Often, though, these jobs helped inspire the literary masterpieces that would get them out of working them. Charles Dickens Image courtesy of telegraph.co.uk Charles Dickens is widely considered one of the most important writers in history, largely because his books had such a significant impact on the child labor laws of his day. He …
There’s isn’t a single person among us who doesn’t read at least one blog. Most of us read several and even more of us have our own. Blogging is easy, fun, and typically free. It also provides a platform for writers everywhere to express themselves and have their work be read. If you take a look through a modern bookstore, though, you might see a surprising number of books written by people who started out as bloggers. Not every blog achieves such popularity, but as platforms evolve, more and more random people are finding more success than they ever thought …
