ATWOOD’S ARTISTIC ADVANTAGE

Source: buffalonews
Margaret Atwood didn’t study for a liberal arts degree with any idea that she was going to become a great writer –indeed, a dean of modern Canadian letters.

All that lay far in the future in her young adulthood; too far to imagine, even for an imagination as prodigious at the one that created “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Robber Bride” and “Oryx and Crake.”

But when her career did take her into writing, and across a variety of genres –from fiction and poetry to literary criticism and children’s literature and, now, blogging and Twittering –Atwood found her skills at boundary-crossing nimble and adept.

And her education, in English, philosophy and French, at Victoria College and then Radcliffe College, may be part of the reason why.

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“THIS DREAM CALLED DEATH”, A NOVELZINE BY STEPHEN JANIS

Source: americanchronicle
Stephen Janis is an awarding-winning investigative reporter. The urban crime scene is his beat. His engrossing, surreal novel, “This Dream Called Death,” is his second book.

The fast-paced story is set in the decaying, crime-saturated and once-highly industrialized, “City of Balaise.” It´s a look into a grim, but maybe a not-too-distant future, where your worst fears of an ultra-controlling “Homeland Security-like” agency running amuck are a reality. Preventing crimes means the municipal bureaucrats, at the urgings of a paranoid “Deputy Mayor,” can check out your “dreams” for any “negative” thoughts, and if necessary, restrict your liberties.

Janis told the audience at his book reading, on Feb. 18, 2010: “Baltimore is Balaise!” He once wrote for the now-defunct “Baltimore Examiner” and he´s currently part of the staff of the “Investigative Voice.” If you ask me, he looks like a character right out of HBO´s “The Wire.” Janis had his book-reading at the “Atomic Books” store in quirky Hampden, a neighborhood that the film-making icon, John Waters, used as a base for so many of his comic flicks, such as “Cry-Baby.” In fact, “Atomic Books” is also a “mail drop” for Waters! (I´m not making this up.)

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What did you think of today’s Book News? Are you a Margaret Atwood fan? Which of her books are your favorite? For me, A Handmaid’s Tale, hands down.

Are you a Stephen Janis fan?