Book Fight!

Tough love for literature


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Writers Ask: The Children Are Our Future

A very special episode this week, listeners! We’re fielding questions from a creative writing class at Tom’s high school alma mater, La Salle College High School in Philadelphia. It’s time for some serious mentoring. Changing lives!

But there’s plenty in here for the adults, too. In fact, despite our best efforts, there might be more cursing than is ideal for a high school class. Sorry for the swears, pre-adults! But we hope our answers are helpful: on revision, mining stories from Facebook, how to craft a good piece of literary nonfiction, and more.

Stream the episode here:


Or download the episode (right-click, save-as).

Or, as always, you can find us in the iTunes store, where you can subscribe (for free) and never miss another episode.

Thanks for listening! Tell your friends! Sorry about the swears!


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Episode 9: Stephen King, The Dark Tower Book One: The Gunslinger

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

This is the opening line that came to Stephen King as a nineteen-year-old college senior, and one he followed for the next thirty-odd years, resulting in a nearly 4000-page book series–The Gunslinger–considered by many to be King’s magnum opus.

But will the opening book in the series withstand the harsh desert-sun glare of the Book Fighters’ critical eyes? Will their critiques bring the book to its knees, begging for water and mercy or perhaps a multiverse portal through which it can escape to friendlier terrain? Will the whole thing wither and die under the strain of this increasingly terrible metaphor? Continue Reading →

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