A Muse, Writing Exercise Leader, Citizen Journalist, Media Analyst and Silly Guy (perhaps not in that order)

Part 2: An Interview With Frank Portman, Author of King Dork, About His New Book, Andromeda Klein

This is the second part of a two part interview. The first part is here. Portman, lead singer of the Mr. T Experience, has written another great book, Andromeda Klein.

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Good News: There's A New Collection of Pieces By My Favorite Mystery Writers; An Interview With Otto Penzler, Editor of "The Lineup"

Otto Penzler, owner of the famous Mysterious Bookshop in Manhatten, has done a brilliant project and, with this book, shared the results with us.

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Changing Voices - 2009/2010 - Round 1

I did a few Changing Voices exercises in 2007 and I'm going to revive it for 2009 - I'll do a new one each each / Here are the four from last time Round 1 Write in the voice of a 38-year-old man in a mystery

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Revived Writing Exercise - Celebrity Fiction - Round 1

Since there seems to be more interest lately in writing exercises I've decided to revive two ideas, one being this celebrity fiction one and the other being this changing voices one which I'll post tomorrow.

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An Interview With Frank Portman, Author of King Dork, About His New Book, Andromeda Klein (Part 1)

This is the first part of a two part interview with Frank Portman about his new book, Andromeda Klein. In a week or two I'll post part two of this interview

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"Wheels" Keep On Moving; Join This "Glee" Club Because This Series Continues To Rock (spoiler warning)

"A show about a glee club? You have to be kidding!" That was my initial reaction to this show.

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V Disappoints With Its Second Episode; Another Bad One And This Reviewer Is Giving Up On This New Series (Spoiler Warning)

So I seeded several stories about V - links below - but held out hope it was better than the reviewers said it was. Today I sat down and watched it while also reading Television Without Pity'ssnarky but spot on criticisms of it, listing here my favorite comments from it.

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House Returns With "Known Unknowns" (Warning: Spoilers)

(Made a few revisions since I first posted this) A few preliminaries: First, this will not be a full recap or summary of the show. If you want that, read the official recap-summary from the Fox site.

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An Interview With Michael Specter About "Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives"

This is a fascinating book and one I'd encourage all thinking people to read. Heck, even better try to get the non-thinking people you know to read this because it might snap some of them out of their denialism before they go to their next Obama birthers meeting.

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Your November Writing Challenge - Write From the Perspective Of A Turkey

Your mission - write about what it would be like to be a turkey. Perhaps you hear from the other turkeys about the terrible turkey travesty that occurs each Thanksgiving ("they stuff things into you and most uncomfortable ways" they wail).

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Writing Down the Bones Nov. 8 Topic: Praise

A reminder of the rules of this exercise The rules here are pretty basic: I, or someone else, picks the topic. You write about it for 10 minutes and then must stop. The time must be spent writing, not editing.

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My Interview With New Yorker Writer Ken Auletta About His New Book, Googled: The End of The World As We Know It

I have been reading Ken Auletta's pieces for many years, usually in the New Yorker, where he is its resident media critic, but also a few of his books.

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With "Earthling," Fringe Returns Kicking, Er, Ash, And This Viewer Celebrates

First my usual disclaimer, caveat and reminder For a complete recap of this episode, try here I seeded two pieces about this episode, a review by the L.A. Times and a preview by Entertainment Weekly here.

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Memoir: Why Elections And Colds Don't Mix (At Least For This Election Worker)

There are some things that don't mix like chocolate and bacon, cough drops and iced tea (learned that the hard way last night) and, colds and elections. I learned that all day Tuesday.

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With "The Gift," FastForward Irks This Viewer; A Few Thoughts

I am not going to try to do a full recap of this episode. Instead, I'll post links to official recaps - there should be an official recap here shortly and I'll post links to other reviews over the next.

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Good News: Check Out Our Great Newsvine Writers - Newsviner's Picks for Sept. 2009 Is Now Up

For each edition of this ongoing series my goal is to spotlight the best articles I've read in the last month or so. Seeds are great but I, for one, much prefer reading original writing. This is a way to give back to the newsvine community, the one I'm addicted to.

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Writing Down the Bones Topic: Cold and Flu

I have a nasty cold today so i'm going to make cold and flu my topic. Take it in a direction you want. The rules here are pretty basic: I, or someone else, picks the topic. You write about it for 10 minutes and then must stop. The time must be spent writing, not editing.

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Some Thoughts On FlashForward Episode "Scary Monsters and Super Creeps" (warning: spoilers)

I posted seeds of three reviews/interviews about this episode, here and here and here .

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Good News: I'm Interviewing AJ Jacobs About His Latest Crazy Adventure, Chronicled In The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment" (part 1 of 2)

A.J. Jacobs is one interesting guy and his books prove it. You know the expression "Write what you know?" Jacobs does that, well, sort of.. actually a better way of putting it is he gives himself a challenge and brings the reader along for the ride.

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Writing Down The Bones Topic: Scares

You can write about scary things you've seen or done or had done to you. This can be fictional or real. Go for it. Use fiction, memoir, poetry, etc to write this week about rain.

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Thoughts On FlashForward Episode "Black Swan" (Warning: Spoilers)

I am not going to try to do a full recap of this episode. Instead, I'll post links to official recaps - there should be an official recap here shortly and I'll post links to other reviews. What I will do is post a few thoughts and ideas and ask you to share some of your own.

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What Would You Like Me To Ask The Authors of The Books On Denialism and Googled?

Apologies to the long headline but I wanted the book titles in there

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Good News: An October Writing Challenge: Write a Story Connecting These Photos

I do this particular challenge every few months. Here is an example of a past one.

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About Scott (Scoop) Butki

Articles Posted: 1168
Links Seeded: 7524
Member Since: 2/2007Last Seen: 11/20/2009

A cynical idealist fighting lazy thinking If you want to know more about me check out some of my memoir pieces and my interviews.

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