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Showing posts from July, 2016

Mad Men-esque — A Dark Look at Hollywood Filmmaking

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In this  Hollywood , art is all "lies, connivance and darkness."   Kindle Edition (Biblioasis, 2016) Scrolling through the books on Biblioasis'  website ,  The Camera Always Lies , a novel by Hugh Hood, caught my eye. It's described as a story about " Hollywood politics and one woman’s struggle to survive them." I was intrigued, not only by the promise of an insider's view, but to boot, the main character is a woman. Sold. (Not to mention Hugh Hood's bio, which in itself is impressive.) I read the novel over two evenings and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Set in 1966-67, this is a very dark look at  Hollywood  filmmaking. Love and Art are all but extinguished in this Holly-land. The greed, lust and misogyny are palpable. Hugh Hood strikes the right balance by injecting humour into the mix. Even the truly "bad guys" are funny. And the overall statement Hood is making about art versus commercialism/careerism elevates the whole thing. 

In Conversation with Poet Sonia Di Placido

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“I found myself in an Akashic Wood.”  Sonia Di Placido's poems, essays, and other writings have appeared in blogs, literary print and online journals such as   The Toronto Quarterly ,   Carousel ,   The Puritan ,   The White Wall Review   38,   Jacket2 , The California Journal of Women Writers , and the  Canthius Journal . Two anthologies worthy of mention:   Walk Myself Home, An Anthology of Violence Against Women   (Caitlin Press), and   The Poet to Poet Anthology (Guernica Editions). Sonia’s first full-length collection of poetry,   Exaltation in Cadmium Red , launched in 2012 with Guernica Editions. Her second book of poems with Guernica Editions is forthcoming in 2018. Sonia's also currently working on an epistolary series about poetry and writing.  Sonia's latest chapbook, The Akashic Wood ,  was published this past spring by LyricalMyrical Press. The opening quote by Emily Dickinson (from the poem “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun”) sets the fiery a