Dennis Danvers' Web Site

Came across this and had to share:

I’ve just been rereading the reviews that sent me to see this film. If this is what passes for “cerebral” we’re in trouble. The ending, supposedly so elusive, I knew about the time the first blood flowed. It should be obvious to anyone who sat through seasons of Lost for that permutation on the same horrible ending. The performers give it their all. The writers prove themselves their own best fans, and I’m sure their fans love it/them. There are lots of good bits. The zombie arm was a fave. Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins were terrific. The metastory, however, is every bit as predictable as the story it gives the meta treatment to. Not that the ending isn’t impressive in its own way. You could stick it on the end of anything. That must be where I’ve seen it before.

The Exploration of Space

Each planet is unique like fingerprints,
Like palms crossed with life lines, heart lines, fault lines.
We are cradled in these hands, shaped to fit.
Squirming pups. Sniffing the winds for others.
They beckon from the woods across the road.
Here boy, fetch the bone, dissolve your own,
Seeking hands, having gnawed the ones you’ve known.
Deaf, half-blind, old, shambling across blacktop,
The vast reaches of space where worlds collide
With horns and screeches and scarcely a sound
But a bang, a whimper—a good dog gone.

Need something to read? As I’m preparing for my summer classes, I find this site invaluable. Almost any writer worth reading in the field has at least one story here.  It’s a great way to sample new authors you’re curious about.  Enjoy.
Free Speculative Fiction Online.

This summer I’ll be teaching two classes at Virginia Commonwealth University. The first one is an intense 3-week version of The 21st-Century Fantastic. We’ll read 4 short story collections by Kelly Link, Maureen McHugh, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jeffrey Ford, interwoven with the films Pan’s Labyrinth, Children of Men, Another Earth, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The class begins May 21st and meets Monday through Friday 9 am-noon, ending on June 8th. The class is listed as English 215-001 Textual Analysis.  There’s plenty of room.  Get a whole semester’s worth of fantastic in just 3 weeks.  Reality will never be the same.

The second class is a Beginning Fiction Writing class (English 305-903, Creative Writing: Fiction) which meets Tuesdays and Thursdays 6 pm-8:40 pm June 12-August 2.  We’ll explore both process and craft to figure out what a story is and how to make yours more wonderful.  Students read some professional stories and write their own for workshop.  I’m accepting ideas for favorite exercises.  I suppose it goes without saying, but unlike some workshops, it’s okay to write sf in my workshops, though it’s still okay to write like Chekhov too.  These classes fill up fast, but there are still a few seats available.  If you miss this one, I’ll be teaching another in the fall.  Stay tuned.

I received a mailer from a cleaning company the other day with the slogan, Life’s Too Short to Clean Your Own Home®  It sort of spoke to me.  At my age, a cancer and heart attack survivor, the brevity of life is a real attention getter.  I didn’t feel a great need to extend my life by foregoing housecleaning.  I rather enjoy it sometimes, sweeping up dog fur and so forth, but with this heart healthy high fiber diet I’m on, sometimes I feel like I could use someone to wipe my bum for me, but I suppose we all end up there if we stick around long enough, and there’s no sense rushing things.  After all, life’s too short.

But I did get to wondering if the women cleaning my home would suffer twice the life shortening effects of housecleaning by cleaning their own homes and mine too.  I guess I could refinish the basement, put a little apartment down there, so they’d only be cleaning one home.  This being a southern city, there’s already a toilet down there for the help.  Sort of like Downton Abbey.  It could be a real opportunity for someone.  I could post flyers on the trees as I hike through some of the more obscure reaches of the James—Life’s Too Short to Be Homeless.  Catchy, don’t you think?  First, I’d need to get that toilet fixed, but life’s too short for that.  Besides, plumbers cost a fortune.

I’m proud to be part of an innovative show at artspace, zero east 4th street, richmond, va 23224 / 804.232.6464:

Love Gone Wrong in the Smallspace gallery Heartbreak Illustrations
Ten artists illustrate ten authors, an art/text collaboration
curated by Santa Sergio De Haven
poems and stories by Dennis Danvers, Katy Resch, Amira Pierce,
Marie Potoczny, Susann Cokal, Alan Cheuse, Joel Kabot, Angela Apte,
April Sopkin and Katelyn Kiley illustrated by Eric Knight, Josh George,
William Waggoner, Eric S. Pfeiffer, Bob Scott, Rob Ullman, Julia Scott,
Kelly Alder, Robert Meganck and Eliza Childress

Love Gone Wrong – Heartbreak Stories Reading
Friday, February 10th, 7 to 9 pm
Free and Open to the Public

The triple goddess came up in something I’m working on, and mousing around led me once again to my friend Blake:

Just in time for Christmas. Join me and Richmond Noir editors Andrew Blossom, Brian Castleberry, and Tom De Haven at Barnes & Noble Libbie Place this Saturday 1-3 pm. We’re celebrating going into a second printing. Each story in the collection is a noir piece by a local writer set in a Richmond neighborhood. What better way to get to know our beloved city? There’s a handy map of corpses in the front. There must be someone a bit noir on your list? It makes the ideal solstice gift. What’s darker than the shortest day of the year?