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Hunting And Trapping In Art And Illustration
Stalking Horse: a person or thing that is used to conceal someone’s real intentions. I heard this phrase used to describe a tactic used by Woolworths Australia, who installed a digital mirror at some self-serve check outs. They said that they were not retaining any images, and if customers don’t like it, customers were free to use the staffed…
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Young Adult And Middle Grade Books With Trans Feminine Characters
Young adult readers can now find better queer diversity scattered across young adult literature. Many of these new stories feature trans masculine characters. Here are some young adult stories featuring trans feminine characters.
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Yours by Mary Robison Short Story Analysis
“Yours” is a 1982 short story by American writer Mary Robison.
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Magical Times of Day
Before we had clocks, humans paid more attention to the sky and environment. Read older classics such as the novels of Thomas Hardy and notice how characters make use of all their senses once the sun goes down. They couldn’t simply flick on a light. Even though candles have long been available, they were expensive.…
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Extra by Yiyun Li Short Story Analysis
“Extra” is a short story by Chinese-American author Yiyun Li. Deborah Treisman and Sarah Shun-lien Bynum discuss this story in 2021 at the New Yorker Fiction podcast. This was the second story Yiyun Li published anywhere. “Extra” was included in Li’s 2005 debut collection A Thousand Years Of Good Prayers. Brilliant and original, A Thousand Years…
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When The Sky Is Like Lace by Horwitz and Cooney Analysis
When The Sky Is Like Lace (1975) is a picture book written by Elinor Lander Horwitz and illustrated by Barbara Cooney (1917-2000). If you read Wind in the Willows and wanted more otters, this one’s for you. (I’m not familiar with otters but I think these may be river otters rather than sea otters?)
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Of Mice and Men: Classroom Alternatives
Of Mice and Men is a 1937 novella by John Steinbeck. Two migrant ranch workers move from place to place in California looking for work during America’s Great Depression. This social protest novel is widely studied with high school English literature students. But, where funding allows, English teachers are starting to replace class sets Of…
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Writing Thumbnail Character Sketches
We see people and things not as they are, but as we are. Anthony de Mello Park: “What did he look like?” Girl: “Well, kind of plain.” Park: “In what way?” Girl: “Just……..ordinary.” Memories of Murder, Bong Joon-Ho (2003) Readers differ in the amount of description they need when reading a fictional character. I remember…
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The Cosy Little World In Illustration
Artists have various ways of deliberately distorting naturalistic perspective to achieve a certain mood, for example, a cosy little world.
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Donnie Darko Film Study
Donnie Darko is a 2001 film set in 1988, in a fictional Virginia town called Middlesex. This genre blend of drama, mystery and science fiction is precisely ambiguous enough to generate much discussion about what is meant to have happened. This is ideal ‘cult-following’ material. Note that Donnie Darko didn’t make much of a splash when…
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Luggage and Suitcases In Art and Storytelling
Luggage, suitcases, boxes and other forms of containment are useful motifs for storytellers. Find a standout example in the lyrical short story “Prelude”, one of Katherine Mansfield’s finest.
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Nymphs and their Habitat
Nymphs are minor female nature deities from Ancient Greek folklore. Like Pan, they serve as personifications of nature but unlike Pan, who can turn up anywhere (e.g. in The Wind In The Willows or as a character in The Secret Garden), nymphs are typically tied to a specific place. They are usually depicted by horny…
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Snow Play In Art and Illustration
A whole town comes together in carnivalesque fashion for a snow fight in the wonderful scene below.
