Tag Archives: retold legends

The latest 411

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Hey folks!

I’ve been neglecting my website a bit as I haven’t had any big, shiny news to share in a little while. Still, it helps to keep this place alive and breathing. I thought I’d share some of the work I’ve been doing offline, and online elsewhere, come to think of it.

First, there is big, shiny news coming up, which I’ve hinted at before. I sold a title to NineStar Press last summer, and the book is working its way through production with a scheduled release date of late August-ish.

We’ve settled on a title: The Greatest Greek Love Story Ever Told, which plays with hyperbole, literary references, and the source material–the story is a modernized, gay retelling of the first ever, extant romance novel by a 1st century AD Greek author. Over the past month, I’ve been busy working with my editor to get the manuscript polished up and ready for the copyeditor. That stage is complete now. I’m looking forward to getting together with the cover artist next and sharing an early cover reveal over the summer! Lots more to come.

I’ve also been keeping busy with my Patreon campaign. I’m posting exclusive content there and just finished releasing my first serial, which is a retold short based on “Ma’aruf, the Street Cobbler” from The Arabian Nights.

I have five fabulous patrons so far to help me work toward my goal of publishing a collection of short stories based on classical myths and folklore. You can see a few of them here. I posted “Theseus and the Minotaur,” “Telemachus and his Mother’s Suitors,” and “Nerites” earlier this year.

Next up on Patreon, I have another short that I’ll be releasing as a serial, based on the Hungarian folk story: “The Boy who Could Keep a Secret.” In case you were wondering, yes, I could definitely use more patrons. The platform is super easy to use, you can make a pledge by credit card, and the most popular pledge is just one dollar. You can see my video and sign up here. 🙂

Last, related to that short story collection project, I have been working on new material, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. I’ve written a short based on Calypso from The Odyssey, I have a work-in-progress based on the Rabbit myth from Mayan folklore, and I’m playing around with a short re-boot of Beauty and the Beast, which can’t decide if it’s long or short actually.

So, my short story collection is getting there! Wishing all my visitors a happy Spring, happy Mother’s Day if it applies, and all good things. 🙂

Oz The Great and Powerful

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Image courtesy of Disney.com

I went through several stages in anticipation of Disney’s “Oz The Great and Powerful.”

First, I felt resentful. If Hollywood was going to produce a big-budget epic on the subject of Oz, how could they overlook the material from Gregory Maguire’s Wicked series? No, I committed to myself. I was not going to shell out my money to support that unforgiveable betrayal.

Then, through a combination of my partner’s enthusiasm and the ubiquitous movie trailers, my curiosity was piqued. They came up with a compelling cast. I thought: could a movie really be bad with James Franco, Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz? It looked like fun. And really, maybe the film world is big enough for more than one new story about the legend of Oz.

But next, I read the New York Times review. Wow. I haven’t read such a lambasting in quite awhile. I was back to the stage of writing off this new rendition of The Wizard of Oz as a highly likely disappointment. Here’s a little excerpt from film critic Manohla Dargis:

Can the major studios still make magic? From the looks of “Oz the Great and Powerful,” a dispiriting, infuriating jumble of big money, small ideas and ugly visuals, the answer seems to be no.

Ultimately, I decided to judge for myself. I went to see the movie with my honey-bunny and a friend just this afternoon.

The one sentence synopsis: “Oz The Great and Powerful” is about a charlatan magician Oz (James Franco) who learns how to change his shifty ways when he’s transported to a fantasy world, and he’s the one person who can serve up justice for a people terrorized  by a wicked witch.

So what can I say? The kids in the audience liked it (and there were plenty of them). But as a cross-over movie for adults, “Oz The Great and Powerful” fell flat for me. There wasn’t much to hold my interest in the story. Meanwhile, the one-dimensional characters and cutesy devices (a rescued porcelain doll) worked against that interest, in an eye-rolling and cringing way.

It’s unfortunate because I think kids’ films can work for adults, through delightful imagination (the Harry Potter series) and/or an interesting subtext (The Golden Compass). “Oz The Great and Powerful” has a little bit of the former, but mostly it felt to me like an unsuccessful mash-up of vintage and modern fantasy sensibilities. On the latter score, you could find a more intriguing subtext in a pre-school picture book. Good is good. Evil is evil. And according to Sam Raini’s Oz, only men have the psychological complexity to waffle a bit in between the two.