Feb 25, 2018

He has become successful and beloved by terrifying children. His Goosebumps series alone has sold an estimated 5 billion copies, many of those to my daughter. (And by “estimated,” I mean entirely made up.) Stine began as a humor writing and sees intriguing connections between inducing laughter and inducing fear....

Feb 18, 2018

Mentor and mentee in a Writers Guild program that pairs veteran and novice TV writers, they agree that Annie Hall is not a “manic pixie dreamgirl” (although Michael is not sure what that is) and that it would be a horrible idea to remake the movie that bears her name. Unless the new Annie were black, suggests Ian...

Feb 11, 2018

Food should not be comforting. “That’s the goal of an easy chair,” says food writer Gail Simmons, a judge on Top Chef, quoting her mentor, Jeffrey Steingarten. The culinary arts, like any other, should be challenging. Which breaks the heart of my mashed potatoes even as it raises another question: is cooking...

Feb 4, 2018

Most of us live without fame; the world simply ignores us. Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld of Fiasco Theater assert that obscurity offers real rewards; a meaningful artistic life depends on it. When artists say that sort of thing, they’re generally rationalizing, but this time I believe them. How to have friends, family,...