I have many memories of reading and writing when I was a kid. So, it’s actually kind of hard to put those thoughts into perspective, especially when I think about the most important books of my life. Without a doubt, the stories that come to mind have impacted me as a reader, writer, and a teacher. They are numerous. I know I could try to explain them, but there are just so many stories that changed me. In this post, I would like to discuss my literacy journey. It started when I was very young. But, by reflecting on it, I hope it inspires you to think about your experiences as well.
Continue reading My Literacy Journey and the Books that Made MeTag Archives: literature
“what love isn’t” by Yrsa Daley-Ward Analysis
In this post, we are going to analyze by my own estimation, maybe the most important poem about love ever written. Yrsa Daley-Ward’s “what love isn’t.” It perfectly encapsulates the dichotomy and contrast of what love really is and not what the poets often say. Which, as it stands, is something akin to Heavenly purgatory. Humans have no choice but to think of their relationships, as they are beset by their communal needs in life. One such communal need is love, which is as ephemeral and transient as any abstract noun.
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An Analysis of “The Moon” by Robert Louis Stevenson
On nights when we have clear skies, no matter where you are, we happy faces look to the stars–and the moon. Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island (1883) and the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), wrote “The Moon” to speak to the foreboding nature of the moon, and the calmness that it can bring. Poetry lives in contrast, and the moon conveys this notion expertly.
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True Detective Season 1: Weird Fiction, The Yellow King, and Cosmic Dread
Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, which had a profound impact on True Detective season 1, was a strange book even for its time. While ostensibly a collection of short stories, it is in fact a hidden narrative of psychosis and madness. There (somewhere) in the text is the story of The King in Yellow and a play that drives anybody who reads it mad.
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Book Review: Mark Twain’s ‘Letters from the Earth’
It goes without saying that Mark Twain has a myriad of books that are worth reviewing. In fact, I’ve reviewed A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court in excessive detail on The Writing Post. Yet, Twain has a great many short-form pieces that are worth discussing, including his essay collections. In Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth, published “posthumously” in 1962, the author expresses his feelings about Earth and governance–and a few other life-adjacent topics.
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Folklore: The Botched Destruction of a Vampire on Mykonos
When I was a kid, I had a book about vampires that explored a host of different undead lore. Also, how to stop vampires in their tracks. This book also mentioned some real-life examples of vampire slayings. As with many types of folkloric creatures, the monster in the following tale may inform us about more than the horror of the undead. Here is an interesting tale of one such re-killing that involves a vampire on Mykonos.
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Exploring the Origins of the Bogeyman in Folklore
What child has not had a million nightmares about creatures bursting out of their closet door or crawling out from underneath their bed? While the threat of a horrible creature is a fairly simplistic fear for a child, understanding the exact reason for the bogeyman’s existence is more complex. In this post, we will look at the origins of the bogeyman and how it has been used to keep children in line for centuries.
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Mark Twain’s Sorrowful Last Words
Mark Twain allegedly was born during a visit from Halley’s Comet and died upon its return some 76.8 years later. Twain certainly has a lot of mystic about his legacy. His death and final words are up for debate as well. While this may be morbid, it’s therapeutic to spend time deciphering the last words of the dead if only to understand our own mortality and what they have to say before crossing over. In this post, we are going to look at Mark Twain’s last words, and see how they are in fact a little sadder than one would think.
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What is ‘Analysis’ and What is ‘Literary Analysis’?
The academic world throes the word analysis around often. If you are unfamiliar with the term then that’s a little confusing, as it appears to imply numerous ways to understand one particular thing and in no particular discipline. This is okay because academia is all about how you define a term as long as you define it. This includes analysis and literary analysis.
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Formative Reading Experiences with the Vampire Almanac
In a previous post, we looked at a book entitled Strange Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Alex Hamer. I expressed my love for that book because it did a lot to steer me in the direction of short-form storytelling, which I love dearly. In this post, I would like to discuss another book that had a profound impact on me in my youth: The Vampire Almanac.
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