Category Archives: Sample Essays

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

“Show, Don’t Tell” – a RAT STEW Column

Posted on November 6, 2014 by Gene Stewart

Rat Stew A Column for The Reluctant Famulus by Gene Stewart “Show, don’t tell.” We hear this echoed in English composition classes. We hear it parroted in writing workshops. We hear it cited in reviews and quoted in interviews. We … Continue reading →

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Ideologues On Parades

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Gene Stewart

“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” / Thomas Paine /// Yet some Crazies are not so easy to spot as Teabaggers and GOP haters. They call their … Continue reading →

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The picture that got me banned from FB

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Gene Stewart

They allow images of grotesque violence. They allow hate speech, racist speech, and calls for the rape, torture, and murder of women. They allow calls for acid to be thrown in the faces of women who won’t put out. They … Continue reading →

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Where DID I Put My Code Keys?

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Gene Stewart

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-government-researchers-think-we-may-be-living-in-a-2d-hologram /// More science, and increasing numbers of scientists, agree on this every year, and it’s beginning to worry me because I think I’m a glitch. More seriously: Information system, they postulate. Reminds me of VALIS. Vast Active Living Information … Continue reading →

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Heart Eater: How I Got Here

Posted on July 19, 2014 by Gene Stewart

I’m a successful writer. It’s the publishers failing me. That sounds like an ironic joke but consider: I’ve been a writer for 48 years, submitting (at first sporadically, I admit), for 40 years, and publishing for 24 years. My first … Continue reading →

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Boiling the Censorship Frog

Posted on July 18, 2014 by Gene Stewart

First they come for your “porn”. To protect the children, don’tcha know? Then they come for your erotica. Slippery slope when wet, right? Then they come for your horror. All those unhealthy images. Next they come for your young adult … Continue reading →

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Writerly Whining

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Gene Stewart

I’ve just finished fixing galleys of an anthology story made juvenile and riddled with errors by the editors, who evidently don’t know to from too from two, among other horrors such as inserted exclamation marks, italicized words that are also … Continue reading →

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A Blurt About TV Writing

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Gene Stewart

Remember when the Fonz jumped the shark?  That phrase has come to mean when a series, out of ideas, goes too far into the ridiculous, going against established character and general series logic, solely for something to to so the … Continue reading →

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Ben Franklin, Space Alien Psycho Killer

Posted on June 4, 2014 by Gene Stewart

Rat Stew A Column by Gene Stewart for Tom Sadler’s APA Zine The Reluctant Famulus Ben Franklin stood out. Even set against the blazing lights of the Founding Fathers, brilliant men all, he dazzled. He was so brilliant the likes … Continue reading →

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FB LitChat w/ JC & SL

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Gene Stewart

“Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places.”–H.P. Lovecraft. It’s not just horror I search for. It’s that ‘something else’ that might inspire awe, too. A shifting in the writing focus? Hmmmm… We’ll see. Anyway, good Wednesday morning, friends. On the … Continue reading →

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