Chip Kidd: Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is
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Found on SFSignal, Chip Kidd discusses the art and deep thought behind his cover designs. Hilarious.
Video: John Cleese on Creativity
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Found on Boing Boing, John Cleese gives a thirty-five minute lecture on creativity, conveniently subtitled in Danish (I think):
More Awesomeness from The Sword: The Firelances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians
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Behold the Awesome Music of The Sword: Tres Brujas
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Kevin Weir
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I found Kevin Weir‘s work through an article on Boing Boing. I think it’s awesome. Check out his site for cool, Cthulhu inspired, animated GIF goodness. Enjoy!
Video: The Power of Storytelling by Jay O’Callahan
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Jay didn’t think Callahan was Irish enough so he threw an O in front of it. It must be magic too, because he was hired by NASA to write a story about when America went to the moon (remember that?), and commemorating their fifty year anniversary. He’s also brilliant. Watch:
Blog Review: SpecTechnique by Nick Tramdack
This is the blog I would write if I could write about writing.
Nick Tramdack is a graduate of Clarion 2011 and the author of several published short stories. He shares my love of speculative fiction and writes about writing it at his blog SpecTechnique.
The blog itself is new, with only two entries so far, but already a must read. Nick (can I call you Nick?) isn’t rehashing the same advice and tips we’ve all heard a hundred times already. In his latest post, Totalizing Claims, he discusses how to show the not-so-modern world views and attitudes of your characters. In his words:
What I’m talking about is a way for progressive writers to prevent their historically grounded work from feeling too contemporary.
One of the fastest and most elegant techniques is to throw a few totalizing claims into your tale. This is a way of achieving a premodern feel economically. This way you convey an effect of a socially repressive & reactionary setting simply by suggesting a totalizing way of thinking about things.
This is a variable I have never even considered. Nick explains the concept clearly and with useful examples from Balzac, and Poe, and Wolfe. The posts have meat to them and are long enough to get deep into the topic without beating the shit out of it. It’s definitely a blog to watch.
Let MIT Teach You to Write
MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course
content.
OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity. There is no registration required and it is free of charge. There is a wealth of engineering courses, as you would expect from MIT, but also a selection of writing lessons with interesting titles such as:
- The Creative Spark
- Writing with Shakespeare
- Writing and Reading Short Stories
- . . . and many more.
I haven’t tried one of these yet courses yet so you tell me if it’s worth the time.
Semper Scriptus!

