Located in the rural village of Huckamore, England is the Obscurrum known as the "HornHouse Zoo." The place can be found by traveling a winding path through the nearby woods, which leads to various "exhibits" of extraordinary size. Some of the cages are seven to eight stories high and twice as wide. Moreover, giant claw and teeth marks have been found on the stone walls of some exhibits, along with large feeding pits filled with human, and inhuman, remains. Some believe that giant beasts or monsters were housed there for viewing during the Great Darkness of 1999. Skeptics, however, see it as just another symptom of the madness humanity suffered due to a unique solar event that caused them to lose both their minds and memory.
Today in Writing History May 11, 1916: Spanish author, fascist and Nobel laureate, Camilo Jose Cela, was born. He was a staunch homophobe and a supporter of Franco, fascist leader of Spain. During the dictatorship, he worked as a censor for the fascist state and as an informer for the secret police.
Today in Writing History May 11, 1880: The Mussel Slough Tragedy occurred on this day in Hanford, California. It was a land between squatters and the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), one of the nation’s most powerful corporations. Former California governor, Leland Stanford, was president of SP. The conflict began as a picnic of settlers and their supporters. However, when word spread that the railroad was actively evicting settlers, a group of twenty left the picnic to confront them. Seven died in the confrontation. A federal Grand Jury indicted seventeen people and five were found guilty of interfering with a federal marshal. The newspapers seized on the event as an example of corporate greed and the excesses of capitalism. Several great historical novels were based on this incident. Frank Norris wrote The Octopus: A Story of California (1901), about the incident. W.C. Morrow’s 1882 novel Blood-Money was also about this tragedy. And May Merrill Miller wrote about it, as well, in her novel, First the Blade (1938).
Today in Writing History May 10, 1933: The Nazis staged massive public book burnings, beginning in Berlin, with students from Humboldt University, destroying thousands of titles. German poet, Heinrich Heine, said back in the early 1800s, "Where one burns books, one will soon burn people."
Hey there. I'm an Australian flash fiction author. I've been working on a novella which I'd like to share.
In the fifth instalment of the 'New Beginnings' series titled 'A mother's love' Lee's worst nightmare has come to fruition and the move to Malandra has thrown her life into chaos. She is hanging on by a thread as she contemplates the worst thing that a parent could imagine. Mick, the local constable goes on the hunt for the children, fearful of what he may find out.
While you're there, read the rest of the 'New Beginnings' series and browse through my other stories.
Today in Writing History May 9, 1981: Nelson Algren, American novelist and short story writer died. His most famous book was “The Man With The Golden Arm,” which was made into a film in 1955. He was called the “bard of the down-and-outer” based on his numerous stories about the poor, beaten down and addicted. Algren was also called a “gut radical.” His heroes included Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs and Clarence Darrow. He claims he never joined the Communist Party, but he participated in the John Reed Club and was an honorary co-chair of the “Save Ethel and Julius Rosenberg Committee.” The FBI surveilled him and had a 500-page dossier on him.
So I am a week into my #Zizek#Lacan#Hegel studies, through Zizek's lens. All good. I think Zizek's #philosophy of looking at Hegel through the Lacanian lens is seductive. That said, where I find the lens of Zizek lacking, and I now wish he'd not talk about these 2(3) things any more are:
I was a serious #catholic half my life, seminarian for minute, and an ordained deacon, still, even after I confessed my #atheism. So I get what he is saying. My atheism has never felt the same as #Dawkins or #Hitchens, whom we adore, and Zizek sneers. Slipping through the profound safety net religion and a transcendent, all powerful, personal god into the #existentialism of nothing was terrifying, it was my first experience of the "#real." This is it. This is all there is. The problem is it appears Zizek commits the #fallacy of #reification (if we understand it correctly). Clearly he knows it is #fiction, even if profound from a #psychoanalytic Hegelian #CriticalAnalysis, we get it we really do, but it is not real. The #event is real, and the fiction caused the event, but the fiction is still fiction. There is no God, IOP, that became an atheist. The #story Zizek emphasizes is powerful, the changing of the cosmos when #Jesus on the cross questions Gods love. Good story and that is all. Some RCC positions from recent popes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlBZy_iu0m8 and https://www.romereports.com/en/2021/09/14/full-homily-of-pope-francis-at/
So please, Zizek, can I say stay in your lane where you are brilliant, please.
Between 2014 and 2019 I co-created a 6 part space saga called Space Captain: Captain of Space. Originally planned as a fun romp through space, quickly turned into a space opera of sorts, with some darker moments.
Today in Writing History May 7, 1867: Polish author Wladyslaw Reymont was born. His best-known work is the award-winning four-volume novel Chłopi (The Peasants), which won him the 1924 Nobel Prize in Literature. Also in 1924, he published his novel “Revolt,” about a rebellion of farm animals fighting for equality. However, the revolt quickly degenerates into bloody terror. It was a metaphor for the Bolshevik Revolution. Consequently, the Polish authorities banned it from 1945 to 1989. Reymont’s farm animal rebellion predated Orwell’s by 21 years.
I'm ... kind of done with most #Fiction, I think, no matter the form it takes. And I've read / watched enough fiction for a couple of lifetimes, all genres and time periods.
I loved "Better Call Saul," but my life has changed a lot in a spiritual sense even in the short time since that ended. I'm not even sure I'd be as thrilled with that if I were watching it today. And when I return to authors I loved even as recently as early last year ... their work seems so despairing, bleak, or just downright haram. (R.F. Kuang is a notable exception.) And the word "cozy" with respect to mysteries leaves me cold.
Makes it hard to find "light" entertainment, tell you what.
#writingwonders
This month I am going to focus on a #fantasyseries of books I began a long time ago that I call my Threads Series that I want to return to and decide whether I should #self-publish.
#writingwonders
2.
What is Mags relationship with the MC like?
Well, there's actually 4 MCs , so:
Siona Stewart: She likes Siona, sees good things in her, but worries about what will happen to her.
Tara Gordon: Tara frightens her, but she feels happy that Tara is with one of her Irish Bards.
Aithne: She is aware of Aithne, but Ainthe is beyond Mags influence.
Rachel: I doubt she has heard of Rachel yet, even though she is aware of the Vampire community. #writing#threads#fantasy#fiction