Tag Archives: Margaret Atwood

Infodump and Identification: Thinking about Fantastic First Pages with Anne McCaffrey

Posted on August 15, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

I’m having trouble getting into the (sort of) second Dragonriders of Pern book, Dragonquest. I loved Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonsong, caught up by the protagonist’s heartsore struggle to express her creativity in a world of martial law. In dire threat of the biological terror of … Continue reading →

Posted in Fictional Worlds, On Writing, Thoughtful Essays | Tagged Anne McCaffrey, Dragon Riders of Pern, Dragonflight, Dragonquest, Dragonsong, fantasy, feminism, Harry Potter, Madeleine L'Engle, Margaret Atwood, Middle Earth, Narnia, On Writing, Science Fiction, Suzy McKee Charnas, The Divine Comedy, Ursula K. Le Guin, writing | 6 Comments

2017 Mythopoeic Awards Finalists and A Review of “The Chapel of the Thorn” by Charles Williams

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

The Mythopoeic Award shortlist is out (see here). I’m not often at the same table as the cool kids on the newest and hottest fantasy lit–I’m just now reading Patrick Rothfuss, and wondering what I have done with my life … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged A Grief Observed, Arthuriana, Beowulf, Bodleian Library, Chapel of the Thorn, Charles Williams, fantasy, Gladstone's Library, J.R.R. Tolkien, Margaret Atwood, Marion E. Wade Center, Mythopoeic Award, narrative poetry, Patrick Rothfuss, Poetry, religion, Science Fiction, Shakespeare | 9 Comments

Five Words We Should Banish from our Vocabulary, Or Preventing Verbicide with C.S. Lewis

Posted on June 6, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

As a voracious reader and great lover of language, C.S. Lewis was concerned about “verbicide,” what he called the “murder of words.” As Lewis describes in Studies in Words (7-8), verbicide happens in a number of ways: Inflation of a Word’s Value: “Inflation is … Continue reading →

Posted in Thoughtful Essays | Tagged allegory, C.S. Lewis, George Orwell, Harry Potter, Madeleine L'Engle, Margaret Atwood, neologism, post-truth, Studies in Words, The Allegory of Love, The Handmaid's Tale, truthers, Ursula K. Le Guin, verbicide | 41 Comments

William Morris’ Nonsense from Nowhere

Posted on May 29, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

One of C.S. Lewis’ great literary conversation partners was William Morris. Lewis wrote literary criticism about him beginning in his first collection of essays (Rehabilitations, 1939, now in Selected Literary Essays). In that early literary essay, delivered first to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, C.S. Lewis, g k chesterton, George Orwell, Left Behind, libertarianism, Margaret Atwood, News from Nowhere, philosophical novel, Politics, Socialism, The Hunger Games, The Quest of Bleheris, The Well at the Worlds End, Voltaire, William Morris | 8 Comments

Stephen King and the Genre of Genius

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

This year for my Stickin’ Huge Awesome Novel Winter Awesome Read (SHANWAR), I chose Stephen King’s The Stand (1978) I have never read it before and I don’t think I have ever had a conversation with someone about it. Still, … Continue reading →

Posted in On Writing, Reflections, Reviews, Thoughtful Essays | Tagged 'Salem's Lot, Carrie, fantasy, genre, Harold Bloom, IT, literature, Margaret Atwood, On Writing, Science Fiction, speculative fiction, Stephen King, The Green Mile, The Shining, The Stand | 13 Comments

New Approaches to Academic Writing: An Unusual Marking Note for a Good Student

Posted on December 8, 2016 by Brenton Dickieson

I am at that time of year when the marking pile on my desk is higher than my laptop screen. Like a fool, each year, I go into the marking expecting great things. So far, I have never had a … Continue reading →

Posted in On Writing, Thoughtful Essays | Tagged academic, Alice Walker, autoethnography, B.R. Myers, Christopher Hitchens, Corey Olsen, Dorothy L. Sayers, Flannery O'Connor, George Orwell, Harold Bloom, John Updike, literary criticism, Margaret Atwood, Marilynne Robinson, research, Roxane Gay, Slavoj Žižek, Stanley Fish, Teaching, Terry Eagleton, theology, Ursula K. Le Guin, Virginia Woolf, writing | 5 Comments

The Problem with Moralistic Art: A Note on the Expository Demon

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Brenton Dickieson

I am not an avid theatre goer, but it is something I secretly love. Rather than the grand urban stages, I especially enjoy the small, intimate theatres that we have here in Atlantic Canada and tucked away in cities … Continue reading →