Cliff Burns's Blog
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Sep.06.2009
My muse is a pretty eclectic gal.
She likes EVERYTHING. Over the course of the past 25 years, I've written short stories, novels, poetry, prose poems, song lyrics, radio drama, stage plays, screenplays, reviews, essays, rants and just about anything else you can name--except haikus and limericks...
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Aug.31.2009
I'm forty-six years old in October and I'm still building plastic model kits. I don't know if this is a sign of creeping dementia or an indication I've never really grown up.
I especially love any kit associated with old TV shows or the space age. I own everything from an Area 51 alien space...
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Aug.14.2009
Just added one of my most anthologized and best known stories to my blog. A tale that appeared in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror (thank you, Ellen Datlow) and leads off my 1997 short story collection The Reality Machine. Just letting folks download and read it for absolute nada. As in nada...
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Aug.10.2009
I'm delighted to announce I've posted "New World Man" on my site, as of this morning. I consider this tale to be one of the ten best I've ever written--it appears in my Reality Machine (1997) collection and posits a near future world where even the traditional family has broken up...and...
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Aug.09.2009
Finally, some new work to show to my readers.
I've posted the text of my radio play "The First Room" on my blog. Do pop over for a look--you can download and read it for absolutely nuttin'. Let me know what you think of this piece--I think it's the best radio drama I've ever created, a...
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Aug.05.2009
Look, I love the short story format, I really do. Cut my teeth on it, short prose taught me all I needed to know about sentence structure, pacing, syntax, proper word choice...
But this summer I didn't have short stories on my agenda, I was supposed to be editing my third novel. But something...
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Jul.27.2009
Preparing to submit SOMETHING to Esquire's fiction contest: but which of the three stories I've written and edited over the past month? Aye, there's the rub.
I wrote about my dilemma in a bit more detail here. Your sympathy and understanding would be much appreciated...
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Jul.16.2009
That's right--once again thanks to my wife's know-how, our short film tribute to the 1969 Apollo 11 lunar landing is now up on YouTube and available for viewing.
Have a look here...or pop over to my blog (and catch up on my latest hijinks).
Remember to raise a glass to Neil and the boys on July...
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Jul.10.2009
I've been going through another writing binge. I know, I said I was going to try to take it easier. But (adding defensively) I've tried to keep some balance, taking breaks to stretch, work outside in the yard or go for rides on my new bike.
And when I finish at night, I'll unwind with a glass or...
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Jun.30.2009
Hard to believe but it's true. Forty years since Neil and Buzz tromped around up there on ol' Luna, while Mike Collins circled overhead, their ticket home and the only ride going their way for a quarter of a million miles.
The moon has been much on my mind this year--and through my reminiscences...
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Jun.23.2009
I confess: I am a terminal, untreatable catastrophist. The slightest setback, the oddest little twinge in my heart, a bump where there should be one, and my fears expand and billow up like a zeppelin (in this case, the Hindenberg).
It might be brain chemistry or the fact that my childhood was, er...
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Jun.17.2009
Meet the owner of a brand, spanking new iMac computer.
Took a good deal of time to work up the nerve to upgrade from my old, old, OLD Mac but, I have to say, I'm stunned by what this new beauty can do. This is all part of the process of addressing some of that sense of stagnation I reported...
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Jun.09.2009
Last week I was enduring a kind of low period, my writing (I felt) in something of a rut...and, in one of those fortuitous accidents (synchronicity, anyone?), happened to pick up a copy of the surrealist classic The Automatic Message (Atlas Press), which I had ordered from the U.K. some time ago....
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Jun.04.2009
How do I introduce myself?
I'm a writer, period--I offer no country of origin or comfortable niche I can be slotted into.
My latest blog post on "Beautiful Desolation" explains what I mean.
Get your butt over there and read it!
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May.27.2009
That's the question I pose in my latest blog entry...and I wonder how many other writers out there will empathize?
After spending all day in my office, staring at a screen over-flowing with words, how do I summon the energy to pick up a book only to be confronted by, y'know, more WORDS.
Pop by my...
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Cliff Burns is a literary pioneer, going independent two decades before it became fashionable. For Burns, it was never about the money; it’s always been about artistic integrity and connecting with his audience.”
—Robert Runte, Canadian critic and academic
About Cliff
I've been a professional author for more than 25 years and an independent publisher since 1990, when my first book, Sex & Other Acts of the Imagination, was released through an imprint my wife and I created. That little publishing concern, which...
Connections
Causes Cliff Burns Supports
The Stephen Lewis Foundation, Community Radio
Cliff’s Favorite Books
Ah, now this is a tough one. "Favorite" books or "best" books? Because that's two entirely different things... Still, here are a few of the ones that have...