This Saturday inspiration comes from Kotaro Chiba, a Japanese illustrator with an interesting vision. The lines in his work are always thin, gentle and curve into delicate, fragile shapes. His style mashes anime as represented by the mandatory high school girl with traditional woodcuts as you can see in the giant rabbit, which seems to be confused as to why it’s all saddled up. Does the girl ride the bunny upon full’s moon to spread tiny baby bunnies in the forest? One will never know.
Title: “The Girl with No Hands & Other Tales”
Author: Angela Slatter
Genre: Fantasy / Fairy Tale / Lore
Pages: 210
Type: Collection
Stories: 16
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What’s Friday Story Dissection?
It’s a weekly feature on the blog where I cast a more in-depth look into short stories, either in a collection or in an anthology. The idea is for these short stories to exist within the context of a loose narrative, determined by a theme, intent and story order intended by author or editor.
Anthologies have adopted detailed prompts to narrow down the wiggle space of submissions, thus creating a more focused narrative. I believe short story collections tell a larger story with individual stories feeding off and layering a top each other. Read More [Friday Story Dissection] “Bluebeard” by Angela Slatter
Fungi, fungi, fungi! As the image suggests, this post concerns mushrooms, but not REAL mushrooms. No! I’m talking about SENTIENT…
New Year, New Luck.
This is the go-to catchphrase Bulgarians abuse days before New Year’s Eve and well after the old year has stiffened the grips of rigor mortis. As expected the expression doesn’t quite carry the same sing-song quality as it does in Bulgarian, but then again translation steals the thunder of pretty much everything.
New Year’s Eve has come and gone. The calendar has clocked out its last day. People have murdered the hell out of 2013 and look with thinly veiled warning at 2014. I’m probably in a food comma somewhere and the world has reset again. Read More What 2013 Taught Me about Life, People and Writing
This has been a long time coming. It’s been probably so long this piece of information isn’t news at all, but I’d nevertheless wish to speak about the geektastic project Marvel has in its works.
You have heard it. Carol Danvers has graduated from the Ms. Marvel moniker, gotten a costume change and a short cut, kicking supervillain ass under the name Captain Marvel. What this means is that the Ms. Marvel persona remains open for anyone willing to don a mask and trade punches in alleyways. And Marvel has the perfect person for the job.
I have a weird fascination with bad songs, which are covered by capable musicians. It just proves that talent can take something as obvious, irritating or plain dumb as Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop” – a really bad song, not really because of its lyrical content (filled with grammatical blasphemies as it is), but because how unsuitable for Miley’s voice it is along with the general cocky attitude. Read More Song for Sunday: Bastille covers “We Can’t Stop” by Miley Cyrus
This Saturday’s inspiration comes from successful illustrator, book cover designer and painter, David M. Bowers, who has graced us with “Heart Throb” – an astoundingly delicate and surreal oil painting. The colour palette and the brush strokes are something to truly marvel. Perhaps the most common thing you might have thought is ‘why has she opened herself so much?’. My first thought was ‘well, open-heart surgery won’t pose much difficulty with this one’. Read More Saturday Inspiration: “Heart Throb” by David M. Bowers
I often don’t talk about the cultural scene in Bulgaria, personally because I don’t think there’s an integrated and unified scene to speak of and because Varna (my town) seems barren in terms of a cultural life. Or at least I did, because I attended an incredibly necessary event, which proves me happily wrong. Turns out Varna brims with talented folk, who have continued success abroad but lack the environment to gather and strike up a conversation.
The Behance Portfolio Review brings in designers, developers and illustrators of all career stages and provides the platform to showcase their work to locals, strike up conversations and exchange contacts. Saturday, November 9th, saw the second event, which I found to be a finely organized, pleasurable experience with emphasis on a relaxed, feel-good vibe in direct opposition to what I normally expect from a networking event.
Read More Behance BG – Creating an Infrastructure for Creatives
I have a book buying habit, which I can’t sustain. Perhaps if I marry a guy in the publishing industry, there’d be a high chance I’d get all the books that I want, but that’s not happening. The deal I have made with myself is that I have to get through at least six books of my own before I even consider buying a new tome. No matter what.
So what I’m left with is to salivate over books I desperately want. Hence why I’ll return to a book blogger favourite: Waiting & Wishing on Wednesday, where I talk about the books I want and hope I find a handsome gentleman who will donate (though ladies are also encouraged to donate). Kidding aside, this is a collection by Molly Tanzer that’s been popping up my feed and I find it to be quite intriguing: Read More Waiting & Wishing on Wednesday: “Rumbullion and Other Liminal Libations” by Molly Tanzer
After yesterday’s post on my successful sugar-free challenge (or quest), I’ve been thinking about what it means to be healthy and the divide between brains and brawn, a divide which society has chosen to embrace and reinforce through popular culture. Bear in mind, I’m mostly observing as a novice to concept of lifestyle change since routines and the known offer me solace, so this post will mostly present thoughts I’ve been distilling in my head for some time.
Bulgarians as I see my countrymen are not too keen on living healthy lives. It’s mostly economic as money doesn’t allow for an entirely nutritious diet, especially if you’re providing for children. Nevertheless, I have realized language has a lot to do with this. In Bulgarian, ‘healthy’ (здрав, zdrav) as linguists have decided translates only in its most basic meaning, namely ‘to be in good health’, the normal condition of the body prior to any illness. It’s a popular word, used in expressions, sayings and the go-to place for birthday wishes. Read More The Myth That There Is a Myth about Brains and Brawn