A Far Out Fantastic Site

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I should say it now: I’m only going to have this one blog post for the week and I apologise for missing posting on Monday. Easter weekend kept me busier than most other weekends and so I didn’t have time to do the regular Monday post. And next Monday I have family from out of town visiting and so I don’t think I’ll be doing a post then either. I’ll be back with the Monday blog post on April 15th. In fact, I’m only now getting to this post on the Wednesday evening that it should have already been out by. So, I’m going to have to limit it to answering the IWSG question of the month which is: How long have you been blogging? (Or on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram?) What do you like about it and how has it changed? I’ve been blogging sin

Credit: Wikimedia Commons Because March is Women's History Month, I decided to do this week’s post on a female horror writer. However, before that, I wanted to make sure to read something by one. So, I went to my local library to check out a book last Friday afternoon. The book was "The Magic of Shirley Jackson" first published in 1966 and edited by her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman. It contains several of Jackson’s short stories, (including the famous "The Lottery") and three of her novels, although only one of these is even only remotely related to horror and is actually more suspense/psychological thriller (“The Bird’s Nest”). So, if you haven't already guessed, the woman horror author I've decided to focus this post on is, surely, Shirley Jackson! Shirley Jackson: A Brief Bio Shirley Jackson was born December 14th, 1916 and in 1965, sadly, died an early death at 48 years old. She was a native of San Francisco ("next door" to my home region o

  Author Shannon Lawrence. (Photo Credit: Shannon Lawrence) Today I have the pleasure of interviewing guest author Shannon Lawrence! Shannon has published stories in more than 50 anthologies and magazines, and in her own collections. She’s a regular contributor to the Insecure Writer's Support Group monthly blog hop with her blog, “The Warrior Muse” , and co-hosts the podcast, "Mystery, Monsters & Mayhem". Shannon has an upcoming horror/dark fantasy novel, "Wendigo Nights", which features a Native American spirit. My own knowledge of the Wendigo myth mostly comes from a story in Alvin Schwartz's "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark", a children’s book of scary folk tales that a movie was based on back in 2019. The story from that book, "The Wendigo", involves an invisible creature that drags its victims until they burn up into ashes. However, Shannon's book features a variant of the mythical creature which she talks about here. So,

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I apologise for missing Monday’s monthly post. Because of that, I’ve decided to do a bit of a double-up on this evening’s post. That said, today I answer the blog hop's optional question of the month and I have mini reviews of two psychedelic, science fiction movie sequels, both of which are based on books: the underground short film, "Space Disco One", and "Dune: Part 2"! IWSG Question of the Month The IWSG question for March is: Have you "played" with AI to write those nasty synopses, or do you refuse to go that route? How do you feel about AI's impact on creative writing? My answer to the first part of the question: no, I haven't and I don't ever plan to. Read on to know why and

Credit: Pixabay Already we're coming to the end of February! Although that shouldn't be too surprising since it’s the shortest month of the year, even with a Leap Day this year. This will make us have to wait less for the book-to-screen science fiction adaptations coming out next month. There are two of them that I know of off-hand: "Dune: Part 2" and "3 Body Problem".  Dune: Part 2: this movie continues from where Part 1 (titled just “Dune”) left off in 2021. The movie series is based on Frank Herbert's 1965 novel, "Dune". In this sequel, the hero, Paul Atreides, (Timothee Chalamet), who has been stranded on the desert planet Arrakis, teams with warrior Chani (Zendaya) and the planet's natives, the Fremen, to avenge his family who were killed by the Harkonnens. BBC says that this movie is psychedelic and art house. However, after seeing the latest trailer, it comes across as more art house than psychedelic to me, but then the trailer onl

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I hope everyone's having a great start during this new month of February. Mine started off great since I had the pleasure this past Monday of interviewing a fellow IWSG contributor and author, Diane Wolfe! In that interview she talks about her newest book of paranormal romance fiction, "In Darkness: The Alien" and the "In Darkness" series that it's an installment to. She had a lot of interesting things to say about the book, the series and her writing career. So, check out my interview with Diane if you haven't done so yet! Thanks, again, Diane, for letting me interview you!  Most of the rest of today's post will be answering the IWSG Question of the Month which is What turns you off when visitin

Credit: L. Diane Wolfe Today we have an interview with an author whose name you may have seen during the monthly blog hops that Far Out Fantastic participates in since she’s an administrator for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group website : L. Diane Wolfe! Diane is author of the paranormal romance series of books, "In Darkness", in which her latest, releasing tomorrow, is "In Darkness: The Alien". She’s the founder of Dancing Lemur Press which has published more than 50 books, including best sellers and award winners. Diane also offers writer consultation services. It was a pleasure to interview her! Steven Arellano Rose: Diane, can you tell us a little about, the overall arc to, the "In Darkness" series? L. Diane Wolfe: “In Darkness” refers to where the main characters are at the beginning of each story. They are either lost, lonely, or in a bad place. The stories reveal that with love, the darkness can be overcome. SAR: Now, can you tell us a little a

Credit: Wikipedia I didn't know it until this week, but January 1st is Public Domain Day! This means that on the first day of the year any works of art or literature--paintings, movies, novels, music, etc.--that’s copyright has not been renewed are considered Public Domain works and so are free to use without acquiring permission from the creator or a license. However, Public Domain law does very between nations. So, always look at the public domain notice that's stated in the source where a copy of the work exists before using it. It was when I came across author Jacqui Murray 's blog post last week [link to interview] when I found out about this special day. So, thanks to her for letting us know about it and please take a look at her blog post on it if you get a chance; it's really interesting. To celebrate this day, even though it’s a little late, I thought I would provide a short list of science fiction and fantasy books that have gone into the Public Domain this y

Credit: Pixabay I have my writer’s resolutions for 2024. I also had plans to see my first movie of the year on the big screen this past weekend but the movie seemed to be missing.  The ‘Missing’ Big Screen Film I was getting ready to see “Distant”, the new science fiction film by Amblin Entertainment that was supposed to release last Friday January 19th. However, when I tried looking for it on Fandango, it wasn’t listed anywhere. I did a Google search for it and checked the movie’s official website which stated that its release date was January 19, 2024 . Other results that came up from the search seemed to be contradicting information of when it was due for release and in what venues, such as theatres and streaming video. Of what I had read back in December, the movie was supposed to release on the big screen.  Then I came across an article about “Distant” on Wikipedia. It said that, ever since 2022, there had been several planned releases but it kept getting postponed and that it mo

Credit: Pixabay Today in the U.S. is Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday. For those of you outside of the US, Martin Luther King was a Christian minister who led the fight for the civil rights of Black Americans in the 1960s. Besides this movement winning such rights as the right for blacks to dine in the same section of a restaurant as white people, it would eventually lead to the wide recognition of African American and other minority science fiction and fantasy writers.  Even though Dr. King’s leadership in the civil rights movement brought many opportunities to blacks and other Americans of colour, the demand for civil rights still goes on because, unfortunately, racism and bigotry still continue in many of our country’s institutions. This is also the case in science fiction and fantasy culture. As much as writers of colour have become recognized by publishers of speculative fiction such as TOR in the last 10 years or so, there are still groups of white fans and creators trying t

Credit: Pixabay   I can't believe that, myself, a science fiction writer, only found out yesterday that January 2nd is National Science Fiction Day for the United States! Maybe that's just because it's unofficial. But I'm delighted that the new year can be opened with such a holiday! I'm also delighted to write this first post of the year which will serve both as my contribution to today’s Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG) blog hop and as a late version of my weekly blog post which I moved to today due to the New Year’s weekend. In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. Normally I've been answering the optional IWSG question of the month which this month’s is:  Do you follow back your readers on BookBub or do you only follow back other authors? But I’m going to pass on this one since I don't use BookBub and so know very little about it. Instead, I