The idea for this article occurred to me a few seconds into “Life is a Gamble,” track 10 on Marvin Gaye’s score for Ivan Dixon’s Trouble Man. The churning sax and bubbles of Moog rolled over me, and suddenly I was in Los Angeles, circa 2019. I pulled […]
What makes a compelling book tick? Sometimes I find it hard to tell, especially if the story works so well that I don’t even think about the craft involved. A good way to get to know a book, especially for an otherwise quick reader like myself: listen to […]
Flatter your reader. That sounds like a pretty solid narrative strategy! Make your audience think they are really smart, and they’ll probably come back for more. Books can do this automatically, just by the virtue of taking us into the thoughts of other people – not so easy […]
I’ve noticed recently that otherwise good stories have been let down by their endings. It’s partly due to the expectations of the audience: you can imagine any kind of ending you want, but when the ending finally arrives, it’s been narrowed down to a single one of those […]
Jamie Friston compares Lucky Wander Boy to Philip K. Dick’s VALIS and Haruki Murakami’s The Wild Sheep Chase and calls it a “delightful surreal trip through geek culture.”
This is Gutter Founder Jim Munroe’s thoughts onthe Cultural Gutter! ~~~ For a long time, I’ve always felt a little weird about the third question people ask me at parties. “What do you do?” “I’m a novelist.” “Oh! Really! Have you had anything published?” “Yep, I have three […]
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The Cultural Gutter 