Category Archives: Sample Essays

Some examples of essays written for APA zines. Yes, I’m that old.

A Trolling Of Humanity

Posted on December 5, 2015 by Gene Stewart

Any gods being imaginary, conceptual and not factual, Hitler and his ilk of psychopaths, fascists, GOP yeast infections, and other nihilists can rest assured they will never face divine retribution nor have their eternal spirits damned to suffer in any … Continue reading →

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Tempestuous Teapottery –

Posted on November 13, 2015 by Gene Stewart

Tempestuous Teapottery – Should an artist’s flaws count against the art? Should an image, a grotesque caricature really, of HPL be dumped because the man himself was a racist? Is hate by association sufficient? Ask the same of Nazi documentariste … Continue reading →

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Droodish Memories

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Gene Stewart

Being more detailed, complicated, and serious than necessary for a thriller, The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl is a work of scholarly obsession.  How much fiction is flensed in he carefully details in the end notes and the clever interview … Continue reading →

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RAT STEW: TV, and HistorLatelyy – What’s Been In My Head

Posted on July 11, 2015 by Gene Stewart

A few days ago in Omaha, near where I live, a man was killed by gunfire at a park. He was driving and tried to escape the bullets by going cross-country, breaking through a split-rail fence onto a grassy field. … Continue reading →

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What Editors Do, A Rebuttal

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Gene Stewart

It strikes me that editors asking for changes is simply another way of stripping our voices from the work. Whatcha think? Yes, a good editor can focus a work but I don’t see that happening more than once in every … Continue reading →

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A Survey of Forteana & Weirdness

Posted on May 2, 2015 by Gene Stewart

This is for sheer fun. Have at it. In 1939, in London, ex Nazi officer Hermann Rauschning published Hitler Speaks, ostensibly a transcript of conversations he’d had with Adolf Hitler. In them, Hitler reveals he was what we’d now call … Continue reading →

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Finding Your Own Voice In Writing

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Gene Stewart

Developing writers with ambition all want to find their own voices, craft their own styles, and become known as the only source for their particular writing. Then they grow up and discover that editors hate that and want mostly pastiche … Continue reading →

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Art & Artist Considered As a Venn Diagram

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Gene Stewart

About the Woody Allen and Jerry Seinfeld and even Bill Cosby thing: I’m all for keeping considerations of the art apart from the artist, but when it’s as blatant as MANHATTAN makes it, you’ve got to deal with it. When … Continue reading →

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Victorian Now Literacy

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Gene Stewart

Why has 50 Shades of Gray sold like crazy despite everyone of any relevance condemning it as a badly-written, badly-conceived infantile book unworthy of attention? No one reads for style. Maybe a handful of us, sure, but mostly people read … Continue reading →

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I Still Carry A Knife

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Gene Stewart

Root causes are often breathtakingly ugly. We don’t generally let boys play with dolls because they might become… good fathers. This turned up in a brief online discussion. By the way, dangerous toys were mooted, too, and I have to … Continue reading →

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