Loren Rhoads's Blog
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Oct.27.2011
"If you can manipulate your own consciousness, and perhaps that of others -- which is something that all artists are trying to do, whether they're magicians or not -- then you will have effected an act of magick." -- Alan Moore
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Oct.26.2011
It amazes me the people who don’t understand the economics of running a café. If you’re lucky enough to find a place that allows you to come in and sit for a spell, you have to pay to rent the table. If you’re staying for a little while, then a coffee drink is okay. If you’re...
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Oct.21.2011
After I paid for the Haunted Mansion retreat, I worried what I’d do if the mansion really was haunted. I wouldn’t be able to drive to Mount Tamalpais for the long weekend, since I couldn’t leave my family without a car. If I caught a ride with a stranger, I would be trapped at the...
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Oct.20.2011
Images of America: Calistoga by John Waters Jr. (Arcadia Publishing)
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I love going up to visit Calistoga for a weekend. The little spa town lies 75 miles north of San Francisco, at the northern end of California's Napa Valley. It has a fascinating geologic...
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Oct.18.2011
"I love narrowing the world down to 20 pages, so I can keep an eye on every word." -- Martha J. Allard, author of Dust and Other Stories
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Oct.17.2011
I've struggled with coffee for years. I know I really shouldn't drink it because of my blood pressure, except that a little caffeine speeds up my slow heartbeat and actually lowers my blood pressure temporarily. It's just that when the caffeine wears off -- and my heart rate drops --...
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Oct.16.2011
Last night was the 5th time I've had the pleasure of reading at the Lit Crawl. I think they keep getting better and better.
The Instant City reading packed Dalva, which is a long narrow bar whose bartenders were slammed by all the people needing beverages before the show began. I managed to...
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Oct.14.2011
Instant City: the Genre issue
San Francisco's longtime literary magazine Instant City features its first genre issue: science fiction, speculative fiction, magical realism, westerns, mystery, cyberpunk, horror, steampunk, etc.
Location Dalva at 3121 16th St. San Francisco, CA
Time 6:00 - 7:00 pm...
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Oct.13.2011
I paid a friend who's a voice teacher for an hour's lesson one morning in 2008. It was amazing. She is a singer who's performed with gamelan groups and now sings with a women's choir that goes into hospices. We sat on her living room carpet and she listened to me describe how awful reading my...
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Oct.11.2011
In 2006, I attended a one-day seminar on reading in public. It taught me more about what I didn't need to worry about than what I wanted to address. My expectations were undoubtedly too high. The workshop promised "tips on vocalization skills that will help you strengthen your voice...
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Oct.10.2011
I tend to go to cafes for breakfast these days. I'm out in the morning, dropping my daughter off at school, so it's easiest to swing by a cafe and get some breakfast and write. You know it's going to be a good day when you get some good words down first thing.
Breakfast is a tricky and...
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Oct.07.2011
This is a sweet little book with a story reminiscent of A Very Brave Witch, except this time it's a witch *and* a vampire who discover that children are nothing to be afraid of. The text is better written this time around. Brown's illustrations are truly charming. There are also...
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Oct.04.2011
"Look. It doesn’t matter if there’s a ghost, or a robot, or a detective in the book, the question that should still preoccupy you is: Are the sentences worthy of hanging on the wall, one by one by one?” -- Ben Percy, quoted on Salon.com (http://entertainment.salon.com/2011/09/25/...
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Oct.03.2011
I write longhand. In a spiral-bound notebook. With a medium-point blue ink pen. It makes me old-fashioned, but I'm okay with that. I don't ever worry about anyone stealing my writing tools if I get up from my cafe table.
I started keeping a notebook in high school. My...
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Sep.30.2011
I saw Stanley Burns's Sleeping Beauties at the counter of Dark Carnival many, many years. The collection of postmortem photographs shocked and startled me. Who would collect pictures of dead people? Who would buy a book of them? Fascinated, horrified, I closed the book cover...
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Curiosity is the single most important attribute with which humans are born. Curiosity is a powerful tool, like a scalpel or a searchlight. It is a way to affect change -- even to initiate global change -- on a personal level.”
—Loren's introduction to Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues
About Loren
For 10 years, I edited the nonfiction magazine Morbid Curiosity. Scribner published Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues in 2009. Now I'm blogging about graveyards as travel destinations at Cemetery Travel (http://cemeterytravel.com). A collection of my cemetery...
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Causes Loren Rhoads Supports
Clarion Write-a-Thon
Nanowrimo
Loren’s Favorite Books
Tinker at Pilgrim Creek, A Natural History of the Senses, How We Die, Something Wicked This Way Comes, American Gods, The Bloody Chamber, Owls Hoot in the...
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