Category Archives: Writing

Bibliolyte, destroyer of books

Posted on August 24, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

In The Book Hunter (1863), John Hill Burton identifies five types of “persons who meddle with books”: “A bibliognoste, from the Greek, is one knowing in title-pages and colophons, and in editions; the place and year when printed; the presses whence issued; … Continue reading →

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It was a dark and stormy night

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

“She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.” 2024 Grand Prize Winner Founded in 1982 at San Jose State University in California, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest challenges entrants … Continue reading →

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Tension for Tears

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

As I have previously mentioned, the novels and short stories of Ray Bradbury played an important role in my early love of reading. I recently ran across this marvelous brief video of Bradbury from fifty years ago discussing the importance … Continue reading →

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Through Thick and Thin

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I don’t think that I’ve read Chaucer since high school, but I was still fascinated when I ran across an article on the many commonly used English phrases that he  coined (or popularized) a lot of phrases that we still … Continue reading →

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Respect the law of consequences

Posted on August 18, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Those of you who stop by TBTP on a regular basis know that I am an evangelist for the work of Octavia E. Butler . The first widely read Black science fiction author and Afro-Futurist pioneer was also a perspicacious … Continue reading →

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The Mark on the Wall

Posted on August 17, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

  “The Mark On The Wall” is based on Virginia Woolf’s short story of the same name, which opens with the mysterious line—”Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present year that I first looked up and saw the mark … Continue reading →

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Literary London

Posted on August 12, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

As a great international capital, once at the hub of an enormous colonial Empire, London has long attracted visits by writers, artists and intellectuals from around the world. University College London is curating how London has been seen through the … Continue reading →

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We are all wingnuts to somebody and other trivia

Posted on August 11, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Berkeley, CA now has a Wingnut Museum. “The wingnut was invented in the first half of the 19th century and quickly became an indispensable piece of hardware. It lets users fasten bolts by hand, without tools, using little wings jutting out … Continue reading →

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In my writing I am acting as a mapmaker

Posted on August 10, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas… a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed. William S. Burroughs

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there really is nothing left to write about

Posted on August 9, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

LATE ECHO John Ashbery Alone with our madness and favorite flower We see that there really is nothing left to write about. Or rather, it is necessary to write about the same old things In the same way, repeating the … Continue reading →

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