Ben East Books

Tag: Writing

  • Review: Foreign Service Fiction

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    Ben East
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    Anyone who thinks diplomacy is about choosing the right fork at the right time should think again and read James O’Callaghan’s clever satire No Circuses (Tacchino Press, 2015). Forget preconceived notions of dinner-party diplomacy: keeping one’s elbows off the table, tangoing the rival into submission, and writing it up the next day in communiqués to DC. What diplomacy’s really about, in O’Callaghan’s world,…

  • Inertia: What’s Under the Writer’s Hood?

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    Ben East
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    Writer Jason Howell hosts a weekly Q&A with writers & readers on his blog, mostly aimed at the place where writing, reading, and life intersect. This week’s question(s): What gets you back on the horse again? Keeps you trying? I was grateful for the chance to chime in this week. Stop by and see the range of responses. Post your own in…

  • True Crime Review: Ivory Tower Cop

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    Ben East
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    George Kirkham and Leonard Territo pair up to deliver an informative, fast-paced police procedural in Ivory Tower Cop, exploring a serial rape case based on actual events. The thriller digs into half a dozen savage crimes, the latest developments in forensic science, arcane Biblical studies, historical detail from The Third Reich, and Nazism’s reach into…

  • Reviewers’ resource

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    Ben East
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    If you’re looking to sink your teeth into reviewing books, Atticus Review is a good place to start. You can hear from their book review editor, Sam Slaughter, at Citizen Lit. He offers up a few thoughts on the art of the review and his approach to guiding writers in the process. Listen to the whole thing…

  • Work out! Rock out! Write on!

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    Ben East
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    Here’s an inspiration to kick off the new year. John Grisham built a reputation as a writer (love him, hate him, it’s unimportant) by turning tax lawyers into the kind of people who drive fast cars, plot murders, and enjoy lives of sinister intrigue. Tax lawyers. Whatever you do for a living, it’s got to be more…

  • The Patron Saint of Juvenile Delinquents

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    Ben East
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    Everyone who’s grown up Catholic has a few stories to share, long or short. The good folks at The Citron Review were good enough to publish one of my really short ones: CONFIRMATION Mrs. Dever sees their faces but can’t remember what to call them. They all look alike. They all look bored. They all look…

  • Debut San Francisco Cyber-Noir

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    Ben East
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    Mark Richardson’s Hunt for the Troll (New Pulp Press) is a step up from ordinary pulp. It’s what happens to San Francisco noir when the shiny new promise of Silicon Valley comes to town, pushing back the fog to play some light in the corners. In this case, the light is more ominous than the dark. Our…

  • Better Than the Local Library

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    Ben East
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    Anyone interested in reviewing books should know about Edelweiss, a free online catalog housing a seemingly endless collection of forthcoming and recently-released titles. I can tell you what Edelweiss is, and I can walk you through how I use Edelweiss to select books for review. But the best way to really understand what’s available there…

  • Writers at Rest

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    Ben East
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    Taking a break from producing fiction? A couple of reads that offer ridiculous, pathetic, sad, witty, funny–fun–looks at the fiction-writer’s life include The Visiting Writer, a short story from Matthew Vollmer’s collection Gateway to Paradise, and Chris Belden’s novel, Shriver. The Visiting Writer delivers us into the world of literary aspiration, a lament on the lack of success, a self examination,…

  • Review: Gateway to Paradise

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    Ben East
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    The six stories in Matthew Vollmer’s Gateway to Paradise (Persea books) plow dark furrows across the landscape, furrows at once unified yet unique, parallel channels promising individual reward. The unifying darkness is subtle, distinct, reassuring in its way. It is a darkness that blooms rather than dooms, mesmerizes rather than terrifies, reveals rather than obscures. As for…