The creative task for my Future of Storytelling course this week was quite interesting – doing a video presentation about my three favorite inspirational books, films or what.
Pity I’m technologically impaired at the moment – a power surge cooked my USB mike and all that.
And so, back to basics – a PowerPoint presentation, shared through SlideShare.
Here it goes.
Enjoy!
Good starting point for a noir, I’d say…
And so the Italian state TV, RAI, decided to do what everybody said would be a bad idea – a talent show for writers.
They gathered 5000 “aspiring writers”, who submitted 5000 manuscripts, and then they did the classic reality/talent routine.
They set up a judging panel of three popular novelists, and let the circus begin.
For the winner, a promised print run of 100.000 copies through a major publisher.
100.000 copies, in a country in which the average citizen reads 0.73 books per year, and 5000 copies are considered an solid success for a well-established author.
The show is ugly.
Granted, a reality show is probably supposed to be vulgar and simplistic, but here we go a lot farther than usual along that road. Continue reading
A great essay on how to write a pulp western, according to western legend Ben Haas
I’m keeping busy.
While I put the finishing touches on my PhD and on the second ebook in the series of pulp history essays started with Avventurieri sul Crocevia del Mondo, I’ve finally taken the first step towards making an old dream of mine reality.
Last week I published my Italian translation of Frank R. Stockton‘s The Lady or the Tiger?, and its sequel, The Discourager of Hesitancy.
Short ebook, great cover, cheap price tag.
I hope this will be a first in a series of translations of old classics in the field of imaginative fiction, of adventure and of fantasy.
There’s a lot of public domain stories, out there, that were never translated in my language – or that have not been reprinted in the last sixty or seventy years.
So I’ve a dream-list of public domain stories – shorts, novelettes and short novels, mostly – which I dreamed of reading as a kid, but were not available in my language… and are still unavailable.
I’ll work slowly, I’ll translate them, and put them forth as cheap ebooks.
I’ll call them I Dimenticati – The Forgotten Ones.
Let’s give the kids something different from Twilight clones and other soul-less narratives.
Wish me luck.
This Sunday, a double feature.
From the absolutely excellent “radio drama” Thrilling Adventure Hour“, a two-part episode of what’s my favorite segment…
This is better listened-to in the dark. Continue reading
Art by Virgil Finlay
I’m a pulp SF guy at heart…
This one might suggest a few developments – what’s the story?
Karavansara 