Holy Recaps, Batman!

Some of you may have caught the first episode of Gotham last night, the police-procedural-cum-superhero-origin-show about the early days of Gotham City before Bruce Wayne became Batman. As an avid fan of both noir and comic books, I've been looking forward to this show for a while, and I'm excited to announce that I will be handling the weekly Gotham recaps / reviews for Tor.

My overview of the pilot episode is already up (though admittedly, it's rather long and overly-detailed — not unlike the tepid episode itself), so please stop by and add your comments, then join us in the weeks to come!

In the meantime, to tide you over to next week's episode, here's a supercut of every instance of Bruce Wayne's parents being murdered on television and film:

Free eBook of "Stuff Every Geek Should Know" (featuring an essay from Yours Truly, because 'natch)

The fine folks at Quirk Books have just released Stuff Every Geek Should Know, the latest in their ongoing sampler series of free eBooks. These samplers often feature snippets from Quirk's other offerings, along with fun little teasers and games, but Stuff Every Geek Should Know is chock-full of brand new content from writers including Eric Smith, Kyle Cassidy, E.C. Myers, and, oh yeah, me! I've had comic books and scripts published, and plenty of non-fiction, but this is technically my first eBook from a real official fancy publisher. Here's the official blurb from Quirk:

Packed with tips, articles, and how-tos on everything from performing Jedi mind tricks to creating your own cosplay gear to wooing the geek of your dreams, Stuff Every Geek Should Know is an indispensable guide to life, the universe, and everything geeky. Featuring content from Quirk's nerdiest titles plus all-new, never-before-seen good stuff from the geekiest bloggers in the known universe. Chapters include: 

GEEK SKILLS FROM POP CULTURE: How to survive a haunted house, perform the Vulcan nerve pinch, decode ciphers, and master other survival skills. 

GEEKS IN ACTION: How to make amazing YouTube vids, create comic books, handle yourself in an online multiplayer game, and generally get your geek on. 

THE GEEK GATHERING: How to have the best convention experience of your life. 

GEEK LOVE: How to craft an online dating profile, plan a geeky marriage proposal, pass on geek wisdom to your kids, and otherwise enjoy the human emotion of "love."

You can download the book on Scribd, Amazon, Nook, Kobo, or iBooks, for all your e-reading pleasure — and tell your friends to do the same!

Writing Process Blog Tour: June 10, 2014

I'm on vacation this week, but my Clarion comrade / favorite robosexual Patrick Ropp tapped me for this Writing Process Blog Tour, so as long as my fiancé is still napping, of course I must oblige.

Me and Patrick (with Eliza Tiernan in the middle) battling to the death in a  water gun fight against Robert Crais & Kim Stanley Robinson

1. What am I working on?

Too many projects, all the time. I'm working on a novel, tentatively titled either The Good People or Dirty Old Town, which I usually describe "Magical Realist Irish Folklore Punk Rock Noir Set in Modern-Day Boston." Yes, I know, it sounds like pretty much the most stereotypical Thom Dunn project imaginable — but hey, write what you know, right? This story started as a short story at Clarion, though the idea had been bouncing around in my head for a while.

I'm also working on a play based on a short story I wrote (which I'm also editing to send out) called Autojektor, or Experiments In the Revival of Organisms, which I similarly describe as "Gay Russian Zombie Jew Ballet," and thus requires no further explanation. Then there's Evil Academy, a young adult graphic novel series I've been working on with my friend Dave about a private high school for aspiring supervillains. It's a black comedy, with each storyline basically taking the shape of a "Very Special Episode" of a high school sitcom, but it goes to some pretty dark places, and at the center of it explores what it's like to fight against the system when the system that you're inside of already claims to be fighting a system, but is still a system in and of itself (I don't know, I have authority issues).

Just a little sneak peek at Dave's artwork for Evil Academy

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

That's a great question that I'm not sure how to answer without coming off as pretentious about my own work, but sure, I'll try. Because of the nature of my hypomanic brain, my stuff tends to be, well, pretty ADHD, and/or very high concept. I draw as much from (post-)postmodernism as I do from magical realism and speculative fiction. Coming from a background in theatre, I tend to use a lot of snappy dialogue as well, regardless of the medium I'm working in. I like to think I'm pretty witty, too, even when I'm going to dark places. On the more thematic side of things, I've always leaned towards stories about outsiders and people or cultures who don't quite fit in, even amongst their own subversive subcultures. The outsiders amongst outsiders, I guess. I've also had that inclination, but as I've gotten older, it's made me more attuned to diversity and inclusion in my work. I pull a lot from my own subcultures of indie / punk rock and comics / nerdy pop culture. Of course, I've never felt completely comfortable in those worlds either, which probably explains my I gravitate towards characters that don't fit in to a world that already doesn't fit in with the rest of the world. I also draw a lot from my Irish-Catholic upbringing — I'm agnostic, but I have an intimate understanding of Biblical symbology (I'm less interested in blatant religious metaphors than I am in the archetypal symbols that have permeated all religions and cultures), and I draw a lot from Irish literature as well, whether it's folklore, oral traditions, or the black humor of writers like Martin McDonagh.

I also just got this sweet 1985 Word Processor, though I haven't quite figured out how to fit it into my workflow yet.

3. Why do I write what I do?

I think I kind of covered this above. But I write because I have to, because no one is telling the stories that I want to experience. That's kind of a cliched answer, but there is a lot of truth to it. I'm a very curious and also very empathic person, so a lot of times, I'll happen upon a situation — something I read in the news, or a story told to me by a friend — and I start to wonder how it got to that point, or why a person might have made those decisions (or, sometimes, how the opposite situation could have worked out). And I want to know the answers, and I want to understand them, even if I don't like them. So I write to make that happen.

4. How does your writing process work?

As far as "where ideas come from," a lot of mine spring up when I'm reading things in the news or hearing about my friends' lives. I read or hear or see a story, and (as I said above), I wonder how it got to that point, and then I start to wonder, "Well, what if...?" Sometimes it's "What if this horrible person was actually the good guy?" or "What if this technology had gone this way instead?" or "What if she had left for the party on time?" and then I extrapolate. I hook into a person caught in a situation, and then I go from there. How did they get there? Why? Where do they go from here?

As far as the actual act of writing is concerned, I do most of my first drafts by hand in a composition notebook. This prevents from self-editing too much; I get into a flow, and then I just keep pouring stuff out. Sure, there's a lot of crap that comes out that way, and only so many times you can scribble out a page, but I write a lot of notes to myself in the margins, that are often as simple and straight-forward as "Make this better" or "Less shitty next time" or "No, you idiot, of course she's going to lie about that." Then I start to type it into my computer using Scrivener (which has made my life / writing so much better and I could not recommend more highly) or a simple .txt file in PlainText on my iPad, taking my margin-notes into consideration as I go. A lot of these early by-hand drafts read like plays, even when I'm not writing a play — there's a lot of dialogue, with a mention of some action whenever it happens, which I then flesh out when I'm actually​ typing it into the computer. 

Also I just kind of compulsively consume liquids as I go. The art of WHICH liquids to consume, well, that's a delicate balancing act.

I think I was supposed to plan ahead and tape some other people to write this for next Tuesday but uhhhhh I forgot to do that. So if anyone wants on, let me know!

Me Am Do Talk Good

I found this fun little link on Twitter the other day: a quiz that proclaims to be able to guess which English dialect you speak, along with your native language. I like to think I have a pretty solid grasp on the English language, in all its bizarre permutations (except for verb tenses of "lay"; I will never get those right), but the results, as they say on the internet, shocked me.

Most of the questions are either "Which picture best portrays this sentence" or "Which of these sentences is correct?", and as I went through it the first time, I was pretty liberal and considerate with my answers. A few of the questions allowed for more than one answer, so I selected more than one — considering some of the sentence structures that were not immediately instinctual for me to use, or were not my personal preference for grammatical comfort, but where nonetheless "right," or at least, not explicitly incorrect. Also a lot of it was in passive voice, which was mostly just frustrating, because whatever dialect I do speak, it certainly isn't passive voice.

The results? Apparently I speak with a "US Black Vernacular / Ebonics" dialect, and my native language is Portugese.

Hrm. Okay. Well that was not what I was expecting, especially having grownup in the famously "accent-less"* (according to us, and no one else) state of Connecticut. I know that I sometimes slip into Hiberno-English (especially when I've been drinking), and that my love of hard-boiled fiction narratives sometimes seeps into my otherwise cheery demeanor (I could be talking about how much I love ice cream on a sunny day, but I occasionally imagine myself doing it while standing in a dark alley wearing a trenchcoat to hide my face and smoking a cigarette, with a flask of whiskey hidden in my breast pocket).

So I took the quiz again, this time being less forgiving in my answers, and as predicted, I speak in a "US Standard English" dialect, with "American" as my native language. OKAY SO FINE I'M PREDICTABLE AND I WAS JUST BEING DIFFICULT BEFORE. Either way, it's a fun little quiz to take (if you can ignore the poor writing), so check it out when you have a chance.

*And yes, I know that this should be "dialect," not "accent" — right? Or should it? Okay, so maybe I don't know, but I think it's supposed to be dialect but most of us say accent anyway. THE POINT IS, I've been told that the indicator of a Connecticut dialect is a softening of "t"s in the middle of words, so that they sound like "d"s instead. You know, like the way we say "Conedikit."

Oh, Marvel Cinematic Universe, WHY WON'T YOU LET ME LOVE YOU?!

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show has had a rocky first season, but this past week's tie-in episode to Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier was totally also. And also emblematic of everything that's wrong with the show in the first place. Because I'm incapable of turning off my critical writer mind and simply enjoying a lighthearted situation secret agent series, I have articulated my frustrations with Agents Of Stupid Hydra Infiltration, Everything Lame and Dumb (see what I did there?) in a new article for Tor.com. So check out, and share your thoughts in the comments, 'natch.

(but seriously this show would be so much better if it had more Hasslehoff)

A Retrospective Look at Jane Austen's Brain-eating Habits

Can you believe it's been 5 years since the release of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies?  And just over 200 from the release of the original novel? Well, to celebrate, the folks at Quirk Books (who published ...and Zombies and its followups, as well as many other fine collections of pulped trees) asked me to do some digging and explore the past, present, and future of their massive mashup mega-hit -- where it started, how it worked, and what it did for the company over the last 5 years. The short answer is that it basically launched their entire fiction line, which is now tremendously successful -- and also served as an accidental omen to our current pop-culture status of zombie overload (seriously! They beat the trend! But barely). For the long answer? Check out my 3-piece retrospective on Pride & Prejudice & Zombies on the Quirk website.

Plastic Paddy's Wake (and Bake)

  To celebrate the occasion of St. Padraig's Day (specifically the 73 people arrest at UMass Amherst's "Blarney Blowout" this past weekend), I've taken an old traditional Irish song and updated for the dudebro crowd. You're welcome. 

"Plastic Paddy's Wake (and Bake)" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

Upcoming Stuff & Events & Things (Nov. '13)

Hello, website! Long time, no update! I swear that one of these days I am going to actually train myself to just make brief updates here as they happen, instead of these info dumps. ANYWAY. I've got some stuff going on, because of course I do. It goes like this:

• Saturday, December 7, I'll be returning to MORTIFIED and performing some hilariously terrible songs that I wrote when I was 16. The performance will take place at Space 538 in Portland, ME; tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door. Do I know anyone in Maine that I can even embarrass myself in front of? I don't know, but I can tell you that it is definitely worth it to go to Maine to laugh at my terrible, terrible songs.
• I've also got 2 new short plays in the 4th Annual Boston One Minute Play Festival, January 4-6 at Boston Playwrights Theatre. They'll be directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian and Meghan Mueller, which I'm sure makes my sister proud in some way.

Meanwhile, in addition to my normal duties at Five By Five Hundred, I have a review of Eric Smith's new book The Geek's Guide To Dating on Tor.com, and some coverage of SpeakEasy Stage Company's world premiere production of Make Up Your Mind, a brand new play by Kurt Vonnegut even though he's dead.

And then, ya know, the youge (like, the slang/shortened word for "usual," but spelled phonetically? Is that right?): Workin', writin', so on and so forth. Tonight at the Huntington we start performances for The Cocktail Hour by A.R. Gurney, which is directed by Maria Aitken, a favorite of ours at the theatre. Here's a little video I made for that:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa_ckErMzAY]

I also wrote some fun stuff about ghost stories at the theatre on the Huntington's blog which is still worth reading even though it's after Halloween, as well as two pieces of flash fiction in this "Quantum Shorts" competition that you can go read and vote for so I can win some monies: I Kill Dead People and Not Dead Yet (which was the basis for my story in Grayhaven Comics' Fifth Dimension anthology).

Wow that's a whole lot of dead stuff. In that case, I should end this on a happy note, which is that Maurissa Tancharoen both listened to and enjoyed my song "I'll Fight A Whedon For You"; unfortunately, her husband Jed was less than impressed.

So now I've pissed one Whedon and armwrestled another, which only leaves Zak for me still to cross. But overall I think that means that I've successfully become a Whedonverse villain?

Holy crap, I'll be 28 in 2 weeks.

Oh, and One More Thing...

Who's got two months and totally has picture (along with the rest of his talented Clarion 2013 cohort) in this month's issue of Locus Magazine, like some sort of real-life science fiction/fantasy author? THIS GUY.

That's me in the center, with the Red Sox shirt and sunglasses. No, not that guy with the sunglasses, that's Will Kaufman (though you should probably know him, too, because the dude writes the weirdest fucking stories that will absolutely break your heart and blow your mind and he's kind of brilliant and hilarious and also I love him dearly). I'm the handsome one next to him.

*This month's issue of Locus also includes features on two of my incredible Clarion mentors, Nalo Hopkinson & Cory Doctorow, as if my handsome mug weren't reason enough to check it out.

Alternative Oktoberfests

Over on the Quirk Books blog, I propose a few days for Alternative Oktoberfests, mostly inspired by books, in case you're one of those weirdos (not like me) who somehow doesn't enjoy a sixteen-day festival of beer and bratwurst (weird). Check it out:

"Three Alternative Oktoberfest Celebrations" at Quirk Books

In Which I Talk A Lot About Nerdy Things And Everybody Listens

I've had a busy few weeks of pontificating on geeky pop culture things -- I mean, professionally, as opposed to the normal all-of-my-free-time that I spend doing precisely that -- and so I've got a few new articles / essays / thinkpieces / posts / whatever-you-wanna-call-'ems up on Tor.com:

• "Ten Characters We'd Like To See On Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," in which I foolishly sacrifice all of my brilliant ideas for stories on the upcoming television show by organizing them into a list to show off my intense / obscure knowledge of the Marvel Comics canon;
• "'I Am The One Who' Thinks Breaking Bad Counts As A Genre Show," in which I discuss the Shakespearean fall of Walter White, and how it fits into the different loose definitions of "genre," and what the hell that even means, anyway;
• and "Batwoman's Lesbian Marriage Problem," in which I react to the latest controversy regarding diversity in comic books with (hopefully) a little more rationale and insider awareness that most major news outlets gave to the situation.

So check 'em out, leave your comments, and then eagerly await the next installment of "Thom Talks Nerdy."

Now On Sale - "In A Single Bound: Superheroes For Greater Boston...And Beyond!"

(wow I can't believe I totally forgot to post about this back in April) (yes I realize I've been neglecting this site) (I could have sworn I posted about this when it happened...)

I recently published another comic book story, this one with Boston Comics Roundtable / Ninth Art Press and featuring artwork by my friend Jim Gallagher. Our story is part of an anthology series about Boston-centric superheroes, and what's even cooler is that our superhero "Louie the Lone Dervish" (inspired by Louie With The Tricycle, a popular homeless guy around these parts) is featured right there on the cover on the anthology as well. Not bad for a story about a crazy superhobo on a refurbished three-wheeler!

The comic was originally set to have its debut at Boston Comic-Con back in April, but, well, that kind of got postponed because, you know, all kinds of craziness. So it's now available online following the re-scheduled Boston Comic-Con from last weekend. You can pick up a copy of "In A Single Bound" #2 over at the Ninth Art Press website, a scant $6 for 36 glorious black-and-white pages done entirely by Boston-based writers & artists.

UPDATE: this blog post managed to make the rounds today, thanks to the magical powers of the Internet, and I was interviewed by Boston Magazine about it. You know, 'cause I'm awesome n'shizz. Check out the interview over on their website!

1UP

Here's a little poem I wrote for my friends' wedding. I had the EMT-video game-heart metaphor early on (because it fits them), but it took me forever to actually nail the thing down. I tried so many different approaches, but I'm pretty happy with the final product (and more importantly, so were they!)

Big News! #Clarion2013

I just returned from the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska, which was an absolutely incredible time filled with lots of new friends (hi everyone!). While I was there, pondering how so many people could afford to be alcoholics in such a remote and expensive small town, I learned three important things: (1) how it feels to be Al Pacino in Insomnia; (2) what I think is the final missing piece of my play True Believers; and (3) that I just got accepted into the Clarion Writing Workshop Class of 2013! Clarion is pretty much the premiere training grounds for short fiction writers in the realms of science fiction / fantasy / horror. I'll be spending 6 weeks in San Diego along with 17 other writers, studying under such notable names as Cory Doctorow (woohoo!) and pumping out and workshopping a new short story every week. And somehow, my job is actually letting me get away with this (although the timing is fortunate in that we don't actually have any shows running in the summer). Clarion is a hugely respected program, and I couldn't be more excited or proud to have been accepted, and so far, everyone else in the program has been incredibly welcoming (at least through our minor e-introductions, anyway).

Granted, it's kind of crazy and stressful to deal with news like that when you're already 4 hours behind the people in Boston that you need to talk to about it and you're also supposed to be adhering to a somewhat-rigid schedule of play readings that conflict with everything on the East Coast, but I was able to make it work (seriously the Clarion phone call literally came in the middle of the workshop reading for True Believers) (don't worry, I silenced my cell phone ahead of time) (yes, there is cell reception in Valdez).

So basically if anyone wants to hang out in San Diego in July, I'm yours! I'm going to be sad leaving Boston at such a beautiful time (and especially leaving Bevin behind), but it's a pretty exciting reason to make such a sacrifice.

Oh, and yes, this does mean that I will be at #SDCC this year. Hollerrrr.

T3h Intarnetz! Jokez!

A quick, fun piece on Five By Five Hundred today, fleshing out a tweet I made the other day that I thought was particularly clever. That's all!

"The Book of Sega Genesis" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

Good News, True Believers!

I've got two new exciting bits to share with you about your favorite nerdy theatre experience. First, The Hive Theatre in New York will be presenting a staged reading of True Believers on Monday, March 18 at 7pm at the Lee Strasberg Film & Theatre Institute on East 15th Street near Union Square. The reading is being presented under an Equity showcase contract, which technically means that they're all professional actors who probably aren't being paid, but that's okay, because hey, cool, professional NY actors! I've met with the company once so far, and they're incredibly excited and supportive about the show. I by no means feel that the script is perfect, but when I asked them about a few of the concerns I had about it, they all pretty much answered, "Nope, it's great, don't worry about it," so, ya know, that's nice. If you're in New York, or have any friends in New York, please tell them to come (especially if they're important agents/editors/producers/superheroes/billionaire philanthropists/the real-life inspiration for Avenger because oh God I want to see his face). The other great news I received this same weekend (which also pertains to True Believers) is that I've been invited to participate in the Last Frontier Theatre Conference at Prince Williams Sound Community College in Valdez, Alaska, which is apparently a 6 hour drive from Anchorage. It's a week long conference full of panels and workshops all focusing on new works for American theatre, and another staged reading of True Believers will be presented under my adept direction. But mostly, it'll be cool to go to Alaska in May when it's not a frozen tundra and there's only like 3 hours of darkness and then suddenly I'm Al Pacino and I'm going crazy trying to catch a killer and hey that could be plot of my next play (he says, already working on 2 more simultaneously instead of focusing on finishing one UGH).

So in conclusion: The Cyborg Head of Stan Lee was right.

Domestic Terrorism In Brightly Packaged Haikus

I had bigger plans for this that I might revisit when not under deadline (I got back from NYC around 2am last night so UGH), but I was thinking about the idea of "selling fear" and, well, just kind of went with it for this week's Five By Five Hundred post. So here it is!

"Selling Fear" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

The Art of Rock N Roll

Many people overlook the nuanced art of rock n roll, both within the songs*, and within the performance itself. Consider then: the set list. A good set list (or track listing**, for that matter) is a thing of beauty, complete with its own narrative arc of musical peaks and valleys that carry the audience through a complete cathartic hour-long rock n roll experience. But I realize that it's an art form that not many have mastered. And so this week on Five by Five Hundred, I've offered my assistance in a very public format. So you're welcome, Aspiring Rock Stars. Go forth, and make rock!

"Set List For A Washed Up Rock N Roll Band" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

*Perhaps another day I shall blog at length about the importance of the narrative arc in song arrangements as well, in which case I'll be mostly using Weezer's Blue Album as a perfect example.

**Foo Fighters' "The Colours & the Shapes" has the best non-concept album track listing ever. I'll fight you on it.