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Recent Publications on Medium

Medium is an interesting blogging platform, since it has the potential to provide a bit of extra income to its writers through royalties. Most of my experience on the site has been fairly static with somewhat low readership — but something shifted over the past six months and my writing has seen a boost in views.

As a result, I’ve been playing around with posting in various publications on the site more regularly, with positive results. Here are a few of the the things I’ve shared on Medium recently (with friend links, so you can bypass the paywall).

Poems Published:

Essays Published

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Run Lola Run Is Still Exhilarating 25 Years Later

Still image from Run Lola Run | Credit: Prokino Filmverleih

Recently, Run Lola Run (the English title for the German film Lola Rennt, literally “Lola Runs”) returned to theaters in honor of its 25th anniversary. As I sat in the darkening theater, I eagerly waited to see one of my all-time favorite movies for the first time on the big screen.

When Run Lola Run premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 1998, it received critical acclaim and went on to collect accolades at a number of other festivals, including the Audience Award at Sundance and the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language, among others.

The mid ’90s to early 2000s were a kind of Golden Age for indie movies, with filmmakers being able to make innovative, impactful movies on the cheap, submit them to film festivals, and gain financial success. Directors like Kevin Smith (Clerks in 1994), Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs in 1992), Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides in 1999), and Darren Aronofsky (Pi in 1998) launched their careers on small indie projects.

These indie projects were further bolstered by a strong VHS and DVD market, with viewers discovering movies from around the world at their local video rental store — which is where I first discovered Run Lola Run, a film that immediately captured my attention with its flame-haired lead on the poster.

Continue reading on The Ugly Monster…

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Culture Consumption: May 2024

Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations is a fantastic debut short story collection by Carina Bissett. The collection includes a wide range of stories that blend horror and the fantastical in order to explore the ways in which women can reclaim their power.

In the titular “Dead Girl, Driving,” a girl is murdered by a local boy—only to resurrected by Godmother Death, who wishes to give her a second chance a life. But as she grows older, the girl becomes increasingly frustrated with her own seeming immortality and so continues to place herself in danger, with unexpected consequences.

In “Twice in the Telling,” a young ogress is accused of killing her human sister. So, she leans into her monstrousness for the sake of revenge.

In “Water Like Broken Glass,” a drowned women transformed into a watermeid, a birch bride bound to the river and capable of drowning passersby. She is drawn out of her solitude by a red-haired woman, who carries her own burdens and seeks a bloody retribution.

And these are just a few of the beautiful tales that can be found in this book. So many of these stories are powerful and moving and so wonderful.

Continue reading on Infinite White Space…

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Culture Consumption: April 2024

The Night Eaters is a gorgeous graphic horror novel by by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, which tells the story of a Chinese American family. Ipo and Keon, the parents, are in town visiting their children, twins Milly and Billy, who are working hard to keep their restaurant afloat. Despite their hard work, however, the parents wonder if they’ve been too soft on their children, wondering if they are going to be able to stand on their own.

Underlying this struggle is a deeper mystery. The house across the street is overgrown and eerie in appearance. When Ipo enlists her children to help her clean up the house, the hellish truth behind the haunted structure is revealed, as well as hidden family truths.

The story feels both grounded in family conflict, while at the same time providing an interesting exploration of the fantastical — along with darker and more dangerous threats that are likely to come in future volumes. This, combined with the stunning, layered artwork makes for a beautiful, unsettling book. I can’t wait to read more from these authors, and I may have to also catch up on their previous work, Monstress.

Continue reading on Infinite White Space…

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Demo for Monochrome Heights Available!

Awesome news, friends! Monochrome Heights, a challenging platformer with a unique mechanic created by Patrick Knisely of One Frog Games, now has a demo available (which he also updated recently)!

I’ve been working with Patrick to help develop and write the narrative for this game, in which Happy the robot must climb a tower to defeat an old comrade before she destroys the last of humanity. It is so amazing to see Patrick’s hard work as this game comes together.