NAVIGATE ARTICLES: Reading & Writing | Pop Culture | Storytelling

If you were a fanboy or fangirl in the 1970s and 80s, the movie and TV show novelization may have had particular significance for you.

My upcoming novel My Summer (and the Song of Cicadas) features a video arcade in one chapter. Writing about it made me reconsider the role arcades played in my life, starting in the early 1980s. 

One of the most pivotal moments in Lake Stehle's life was when he first played Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda. For many years since, he's been a devoted cosplayer who specializes in impersonating Link, the game's elfish main character. 

The 1990s wasn't an outstanding decade for pop culture, but that doesn't mean it didn't have some memorable contributions to literature, television and movies. 

Encino Man was not particularly noteworthy movie — but it was part of a noteworthy tradition of depicting teenagers as monsters, aliens and weird outsiders

In celebration of Pride Month, I'm offering up these recommendations for LGBTQAI+ movies that feature and uplift young people. ​

During its twelve years on the air, the characters on The Big Bang Theory went through many changes. But one character seemed to have a single purpose — Stuart Bloom as the perpetual loser. 

​I had pretty much given up on sports novels — until I found sports graphic novels. Here's how the combination of art and a good story let me find a whole new genre to read. 

Comic book conventions are big business in this day and age (when COVID-19 isn't forcing their cancellation). But once upon a time, they were just a bunch of nerds in a room.

For thousands, Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a masterpiece of absurdist humor. So why do some people fail to see the humor or even hate it for the attempt?

It's 1979 and my mom won't let me see the new horror/sci fi movie called ALIEN. Fortunately, Waldenbooks had a solution.

Regardless of how you felt about the series conclusion, it wasn't your call and it's time to move on with life.

Decades after I last played, I ventured back into the world of Dungeons & Dragons. Here's why I fell in love with RPGs.

 

In part five of this ongoing series, I look at a teen TV show that never happened — the rumored spin-off to The New Adventures of Wonder Woman featuring a male teen lead.

Surface was a short-lived science fiction show that dared to chart new territory by showing the deep sea as a place of mystery rather than terror.

The Outsiders. by S.E. Hinton is a classic teen novel which inspired a movie in 1983. But do you remember the short-lived TV series from 1990?

Its star catching on fire during production may have been a bad omen for The Powers of Matthew Star. Things didn't get better.

Whiz Kids was about a group of computer-loving teen nerds. Here's why I found new appreciation for this mostly forgotten TV show 30+ years after its cancellation. ​

Cold and starkly beautiful, New Zealand's Tongariro National Park is as close as you can get — or would want to get — to Mordor.

Here's why touring the WETA Workshop in Wellington, New Zealand, should be must-see for any Lord of the Rings fan.

Visit the  Hobbiton movie set on the north island of  New Zealand and you'll probably never want to go home again...

It's been a decade since Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy began to hit theaters. Looking back with fresh eyes, were the movies better than originally thought?

 

​Before Star Wars was a cultural icon, a 10-year-old fanboy named Marsh Myers had to cling to some photographic crumbs and hope that there would be more to come from a galaxy far, far away...

The Mandalorian just finished Season Two in a most satisfying way. Here's my short list of what makes this TV show such great Star Wars.

With The Clone Wars wrapping up some loose ends, here's  my 2010 review of the series and thoughts on why it's some of the best Star Wars  going.

In the 1990s, Star Wars fans rediscovered in Tunisia the long forgotten sets and props from the original film. Star Wars tourism was born — until certain realities set in.

George Lucas and Star Wars virtually created movie merchandising... but how much is too much?