Beasts of the Southern Wild – Now on DVD

beasts of the southern wildBeasts of the Southern Wild is now on DVD!

One of the most unusual movies of 2012, this film is magical realism in the swamps of Louisiana. I had a chance to see a preview when it came out and interview director Benh Zeitlin – check out my article in On Tap. The movie was a labor of love for Zeitlin and the local folks who helped create this unique film.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is unlike any other film that came out last year. While it has an environmental theme, it does not hit you over the head with it like some graceless Al Gore production. It’s a story of family survival and holding onto your home – even if it’s a shack in the bayou.

Don't Mess Up My Block – Free on Kindle!

Don't Mess Up My Block book coverGet my funny satire Don’t Mess Up My Block for free today and tomorrow on Kindle! This novel takes aim at self-help experts, social media gurus, business consultants and other American charlatans.

I wrote the book as a parody of self-help titles like Who Moved My Cheese and The Secret. However, Don’t Mess Up My Block is filled with bad advice. Follow the picaresque adventures of Laurent Christ, a self-appointed business expert, as he goes from disaster to disaster. Can you fake it until you make it? Find out in my funny new novel.

Alephs, Pumpkins and What It Was: My Year in Reading

So, what did I read in 2012 that was any good?

I started the year with What It Was by George Pelecanos. It was the first book by this DC writer that I’ve ever read. And it was also the first book I ever read on an iPad, an experience I found to be surprisingly pleasant. What it Was is a muscular, brutal novel with a strong plot that captures Washington after the 1968 riots. In my review of this crime novel, I said that:

Pelecanos has a great eye for the details of the time, from the tricked-out cars to the soul music of the 1970s.

I then devoured the first three books of A Game of Thrones. Starting off a skeptic, I was soon enraptured by the violent, amoral world of Westeros. But by the end of the third massive tome, I had fallen out of love – when is this thing going to end? Arrgh, why does George R. R. Martin keep killing off main characters? For those familiar with the endless tale, it was the traumatic events of the “Red Wedding” that made me stop reading.

The death of Harry Crews in March reminded me of what a good author he was – I reread Body, his crazy disturbing look at female bodybuilding. Crews loved Florida and freaks.

A more genteel book is The Getaway Car by Ann Patchett. This Kindle single is one of the most practical guides to writing I have ever read. And her novel State of Wonder was one of the best books I read all year. It’s a great examination of scientific ethics in the Amazonian rainforest.

Another great story about an author is Hemingway’s Boat. Filled with colorful tales of Papa in Cuba, it’s a damning portrait of a genius in decline.

In the category of “I can’t believe I’m reading this”: The Rock Star’s Daughter. It’s a young-adult page turner that was free on Kindle. This really was the year of the e-book for me.

I had plans to review each chapter of The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau. He’s an ideal author for people pursuing alternative career paths. But I got stuck on chapter three – follow your passion… maybe. In this chapter, Guillebeau said to look for things that you love to do that you can also get paid for. The stories are inspiring but he understates the difficulty of discovering this sweet spot of passion and money.

This idea of discovering what you’re best at is explored in The Pumpkin Plan, a very nuts-and-bolts book for small businesses. The message: only do what you’re best at. Nothing else.

In the category of philosophical, “what should I do with my life?” books I would also place The Winner Stands Alone and Aleph, a pair of somewhat cruel novels by Paulo Coelho. They fail to capture the magic of The Alchemist, lacking the hopeful spirit of his first book. Which is disappointing, because The Alchemist is required reading for anyone who wants to be an artist.

Another disappointment was Swamplandia – it started out so strongly but then got bogged down in a literal and metaphorical swamp. Parts of the book are brilliant and hilarious. The editor in me wanted to cut a hundred pages out of this book. There so much potential in this story of Florida swamp eccentrics.

Fortunately, I have friends who write books! Angry filmmaker Kelley Baker produced a gem of a book on no-budget filmmaking while Jon Gann contributed a great guide to film festivals. Get both books for filmmakers on your Xmas list.

And of course I published my second novel, Don’t Mess Up My Block. This parody of self-help books made it to the second round of Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

That’s my reading list for 2012! Hope you find something that you can enjoy!

DC Shorts – Early Deadline Jan 31

filmmakers at the DC Shorts City View party
Filmmakers at the DC Shorts City View party

Enter your short film or screenplay in DC Shorts! Early deadline is Jan 31, 2013.

The DC Shorts Film Festival and Screenplay Competition is the largest short film event on the East Coast. Now in its tenth year, DC Shorts will showcase 150 films from around the globe — including the largest collection of Russian short films to ever be screened in the U.S (new this year). Hundreds of filmmakers and thousands of audience members to mix, mingle and explore the art of short cinema. DC Shorts takes place over ten days in September.

I’ve been a film judge, screenplay contest judge, screenplay competition manager, post-film Q&A moderator and photo coordinator. You name the job, I’ve probably done it. And the term I would use to describe this festival is “Quality.” Attendees and filmmakers have all remarked on what a professionally produced event this. Festival director Jon Gann prides himself on treating filmmakers well – it’s really a festival for them.

If you’re a screenwriter, getting into the festival means seeing your work performed before a live audience. Plus, you could win $2000 to turn your short script into a film. (Here are my tips on how to win the screenplay competition.)

Filmmakers can count on premieres before sophisticated cinephiles, as well as making connections with fellow directors. And some great parties.

It’s no wonder that MovieMaker magazine called DC Shorts “one of 25 festivals worth the entry fee”.

I strongly encourage local screenwriters and filmmakers to enter the competition. We love to highlight talented people from the greater Washington area. American University students have done particularly well in the competition.

So save yourself some cash and take advantage of the DC Shorts early deadline of January 31. Enter your short film or screenplay and good luck!

Murder in Ocean Hall – The Reviews!

cover of Murder in Ocean HallI’ve received some very nice reviews of Murder in Ocean Hall. This murder-mystery set in DC seems to have struck a chord with appreciative readers. Here’s a selection of reviews from Amazon:

Joe Flood is a find! One can only hope that this is the beginning of a series. As others have noted, DC is a character in the book, and Flood has his detective consider the changes that the passing years have brought to the city. The inimitable Marion Barry is a character, as of course he should be. The other characters, both central and peripheral are quite rounded–and watching them evolve along with the unfolding of the mystery is a pleasure.

How could you write a book about DC and not include Marion Barry? And I’ve thought about making my book part of a series, but Murder in Ocean Hall literally contains everything I know about Washington.

Back to the reviews:

The time spent reading “Murder in Ocean Hall” is time well spent. I feel disinclined to share what the story is all about. Ostensibly it’s a murder mystery, but that doesn’t explain the half of it. Having hinted that there are numerous fish-to-fry in this story, suffice to say that the important characters are exceedingly well developed…

I tried to make my characters interesting, well-rounded people with their own stories to tell. I come from a background in literary fiction so I wanted to write a genre book that felt like a traditional novel. Which is perhaps why one Amazon reviewer called it “flowery and long-winded,” complaining that:

It was an OK read, but very descriptive in a lot of parts.

Guilty as charged! My version of Washington is the real city, not merely a flimsy backdrop for some far-fetched conspiracy tale.

More typical of the response to the book was this review:

Read this book if you think you’ve been to Washington, DC. The author will take you behind the scenes of places you’ve been and tell you how they function then give you insights into people in power and how they fail to function.

That’s a pretty good summary. Murder in Ocean Hall is about Washington beyond the monuments. In addition to an entertaining murder-mystery, the novel demonstrates how the city fails its residents – and the country at large.

Don't Mess Up My Block – Free for CyberMonday

Don't Mess Up My Block book coverGet my biz book satire Don’t Mess Up My Block for free this CyberMonday! My funny novel follows Laurent Christ, self-annointed business guru, as he travels the country dispensing bad advice to clients large and small. The book skewers social media consultants, big government, corporate-speak and other evils of contemporary America.

Finding True Intimacy in The Sessions

The SessionsI have a new movie review for On Tap – Finding True Intimacy in The Sessions.

Starring John Hawkes, Helen Hunt and William H. Macy, The Sessions is about Mark O’Brien, a paralyzed writer determined to lose his virginity at the age of 38. Hunt plays his sex surrogate.  It’s a different kind of Hollywood film, in that it explores intimacy in sex rather than titillation.

But after watching the movie, I was much more interested in Mark O’Brien. A polio victim, he was paralyzed from the neck down and spent most of his life in an iron lung. Despite this, he was determined to be as independent as possible and found success as a journalist and poet. The fascinating story of his life is told in the documentary Breathing Lessons, which is free online and inspired The Sessions.

Give Me Pizza, I Will Give You a Quote

No one can resist free pizza. That was the idea behind a novel recruitment effort by Vocus, a public relations software company out of Beltsville, MD. They sponsored a food truck on the streets of DC and gave out pizza in return for a resume or card.

Not only did I drop off a card, I got my name in a Washington Post article on the effort with a quote on how this tactic was good at reaching passive job seekers.

I’ve been quoted in articles before. My secret? Pithy ten-word statements of opinion that reporters can easily copy and paste into an article. Being a writer myself, I know what I like in a quote – something clear, direct and short – so I try to do the same when I’m asked for a comment. And bribing me with pizza doesn’t hurt 😉

Beasts of the Southern Wild: Born on the Bayou

On Tap Magazine
July 2012

Opening July 6th, Beasts of the Southern Wild is a mad fever dream of a movie, filled with evocative images that will remain in your consciousness long after the film has ended.

Beasts of the Southern WildThis eco-drama was a sensation at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the top award for dramatic (fiction) film and for cinematography. Beasts of the Southern Wild has also been honored by the Cannes Film Festival.

“This is a simple movie about fighting for your home,” says director Benh Zeitlin.

The movie follows Hushpuppy, a six-year-old girl who lives with her father in a swamp community of rebels and misfits. Played by Quvenzhané Wallis, she is fierce heroine who struggles to keep her father alive and survive environmental catastrophe. Playing amid broken glass, rooting pigs and wandering drunkards, she is braver and stronger than any first-grader you have ever met.

Casting non-actors like Wallis is one of many risky decisions made by Zeitlin. For his first feature film, he violated the unwritten rule that directors should avoid working on water or with child actors.

Beasts of the Southern Wild embodies the can-do spirit of the Louisiana bayou, where it was filmed. Everyone involved in the film pitched in, providing boats and suggesting locations, in a community still struggling from the impact of Hurricane Katrina.

“We invited chaos in intentionally,” Zeitlin said, describing the makeshift filmmaking process.

Beasts of the Southern Wild was a labor of love for Zeitlin, a project that he spent two years editing. Over time, the story focused more and more on Wallis – she literally carries the film on her tiny shoulders. There is already Oscar talk around her striking performance.

A coming of age story and a tale of a community’s survival, Beasts of the Southern Wild is a crazed American jalopy of a movie. Packed with stunning imagery of the Louisiana bayous, Beasts of the Southern Wild is the harrowing saga of a little girl trying to survive in a world where the ground is literally disappearing beneath her feet.

 

How to Get People to Write Content for Your Site

The biggest challenge in being a Web Content Manager is not learning HTML or dealing with the complexities of social media. It is a more prosaic one – how do you get people to write content for your web site?

I’ve worked in web content for organizations large and small, in government and outside of it. The same problem comes up again and again. An organization wants a web site that contains timely, accurate, relevant and (hopefully) engaging content. But they are dependent on people with various levels of interest to actually write the content.

Web sites rely on these subject matter experts (SMEs). They produce program descriptions, product pages, explanations of government procedures, “about us” pages, executive bios, instructions on how to fill out forms and everything in between. This content is the vital core of the web site; without it, you have an empty shell.

Most of the time, these people don’t work for you. They’re in some distant department, charged with updating their section of the web site. They have differing levels of comfort with writing. They may, in fact, hate to write and look at producing content for the site as some onerous chore.

How do you get SMEs to write content for the web site?

Sell Them

How much traffic does your site get? Has it won any awards or received recognition? Do you have a file of nice comments from readers? Share this information with your SMEs. Let them know how much the web site matters and how important their content is to it. I suggest reporting web metrics to your SMEs. Give them numbers that they can share with their bosses and brag about.

Tip: Put all your web metrics, awards and nice comments into a fact sheet or web page that you can easily share.

Respect Their Time

Make the content submission process as painless as possible. Have an editorial guide to share with SMEs, as well as quick description of how the publishing process works. State what you need from them clearly and concisely, with word counts and deadlines. Don’t inundate SMEs with information that they don’t need to know, like esoteric web technologies that they’re not going to see. Give them deadlines that are doable but not so far in advance that they seem theoretical. I like deadlines in the 2-4 week range.

Tip: Create an online editorial kit for contributors, with everything writers for the site need to know.

Peer Pressure

You think such childish tactics don’t work on senior staff? You’re wrong. Telling a GS-15 that all of his peers have updated their sections of the web site but he hasn’t – that really works. Someone should write a research paper on the use of playground tactics in the office.

Tip: Hang a chart in your office listing sections of the site and if they’re up to date.

Write It Yourself (Not Really)

Early in my career, I wanted a designer to help me design a new section of the site. He said he was too busy. So I built a rough layout myself. After I showed it to him, he took one look and said, “This is terrible. I’ll do it.” Problem solved. Sometimes, people just need something to respond to. Put your ideas on paper and show them to your “too busy” SMEs. They may find it easier to work from something that you’ve started.

Walking Around

The content published to the web site is just a fraction of the content produced in your organization. As a Web Content Manager, your job is tell the story of your organization online. You need to know what’s going on in different departments, what they’re working on and what’s coming up. In a nonprofit I worked for, I did this by walking around. I’d talk to the press people and magazine editors and writers that I knew. Dropping in on them, I’d find out if they had anything good that I could put up on the web site.

Tip: Formalize the “walking around” process by having a SME group that meets regularly. Though this isn’t as fun as walking around.

Web technologies come and go. Policies, procedures and government requirements change. But the one constant in web site management is the problem of getting people to write content.