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‘Interior Darkness,’ A Conversation with Peter Straub

February 16, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Peter Straub-photoPeter Straub needs no lengthy introduction. As a novelist and poet, he has received many literary honors including the Bram Stoker Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the International Horror Guild Award. In 1965, he earned a B.A with honors in English from the University of Wisconsin at Madison; and one year later, an MA from Columbia University. In 1969, he moved to Dublin, Ireland to work on a Ph.D and began writing professionally. Peter collaborated with Stephen King on two novels, The Talisman and Black House.

Interior Darkness, a collection of 16 short stories written over the course of years, demonstrates Peter Straub’s uncanny ability to blur literary genres and pen short stories ranging widely in length, style and tenor, providing a highly entertaining and unusual volume.

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Filed Under: About Books, creativity, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, On Writing Tagged With: horror, novels, personal trauma, short-stories, Stephen King

Psychology In Fiction

August 22, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

FreudOver the last few years, I’ve been writing fiction. For decades, I’ve been a psychiatrist. As a novelist, I now write with a reader’s sensibility, and read with a writer’s eye. I’m struck by the degree to which fiction and psychology share certain crucial elements.

Human functioning can be conceptualized as involving thinking, feeling, and behavior. These three elements are the very pillars of being.

Fiction taps into these foundations of existence by using the written word to evoke mental images, which in turn, beget thoughts and feelings. A novelist creates a world for the reader to enter, and to which the reader relates.  This is the essence of storytelling.

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Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column Tagged With: caring, Character, David Morrell, fiction, Linda Fairstein, Lon Land, psychology, Stephen King

“Black Scorpion” A Conversation with Jon Land

April 7, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

CJon Land c, Todd StephensJon Land is the prolific author of more than thirty-five books. His thriller novels include the Caitlin Strong series about a fifth-generation Texas Ranger, and the Ben Kamal and Danielle Barnea books about a Palestinian detective and an Israeli chief inspector of police. He has also penned the Blaine McCracken series, standalone novels, and non-fiction. Jon was a screenwriter for the 2005 film Dirty Deeds. He is very active in the International Thriller Writers Organization.

His latest thriller, Black Scorpion: The Tyrant Reborn is the second book featuring the character, Michael Tiranno, a myth-worthy hero created by Fabrizio Boccardi with whom Jon collaborates in this series. Michael (known as the Tyrant) must deal with a newly-surfaced enemy based in Eastern Europe—a powerful organization, Black Scorpion, involved in human trafficking and other crimes on a global scale. The leader, Vladimir Dracu, has set his sights on America as his next target. Black Scorpion has also taken hostage Michael’s lover, Scarlett Swan. Michael has limited time to save Scarlett, Las Vegas, and the entire United States.

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Filed Under: About Books, creativity, Huffington Post Column, Interviews Tagged With: David Morrell, Harlan Coben, Hercules, heroes, Lisa Gardner, myths, novels, Stephen King, storytelling

“Visions” A Talk with Kelley Armstrong

August 26, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Kelley ArmstrongKelley Armstrong has published twenty-one fantasy novels, thirteen of which have been part of her Women of the Otherworld series. Her novels blend suspense and the supernatural. Last year, she began The Cainsville series with its first novel, Omens. The second in this series is Visions,featuring Olivia Taylor-Jones, the daughter of alleged notorious serial killers.

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Filed Under: About Books, crime, On Writing, psychological thriller Tagged With: fantasy, paranormal novels, Stephen King, thrillers, vampires, werewolves

Tortured Souls Tell Great Stories

March 2, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Poisoned by his lustful quest for vengeance, his obsession carries his crew to their demise.
(Ahab, Moby Dick)

The king goes slowly insane because of his mistakes and his daughters’ perfidy.
(Lear, King Lear)

She was forced to make a choice between two unbearable, unthinkable options.
(Sophie, Sophie’s Choice)

Their marriage, finances and lives were bankrupt; and now he is suspected of her murder.
(Nick and Amy Dunne, Gone Girl)

She could not stop remembering the sound of the spring lambs being slaughtered.
(Clarice Starling, The Silence of the Lambs)

Take the character to hell (either physically or mentally), and if well-drawn, the reader will really care about this person. All of us can relate to the torture of being alive in an indifferent world.

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Filed Under: About Books Tagged With: Character, Conflict, Gone Girl, King Lear, Moby Dick, Shakespeare, Sophie's Choice, Stephen King, storytelling, The Iliad, The Silence of the Lambs, turmoil

A Good Story is Disturbing

February 4, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

2014-02-03-disturbing2-thumbAs David Mamet told me, “If Hamlet comes home from school, and his dad’s not dead, and asks him how school was, it’s boring.”

As a psychiatrist and novelist, I’m aware that all good stories are disturbing. No matter how beautifully written or “literary,” a novel resonates deeply because the storyline tugs powerfully at us. It upsets, confounds and presents chaos, conflict, imbalance and upheaval — either within its character’s mind or circumstances.

As readers, we crave instability, disturbance, and uncertainty. They make us care about the characters and the outcome. We live vicariously through the anguish, turmoil and trouble the characters endure in a quest to reorder chaos — the disequilibrium — propelling the story.

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Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column Tagged With: books, Books news, Cinderella, Conflict, David Mamet, David Morrell, Disturbance, fear, Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl, Hamlet, Harlan Coben, Ian McEwan, Jane Hamilton, Janet Evonovic, John Irving, John Updike, Lisa Gardner, Philip Roth, Snow White, Stephen King, The Illiad, The Odyssey

Writer-to-Writer: A Talk with Simon Toyne

August 7, 2013 by Mark Rubinstein

Simon Toyne is the author of the highly acclaimed Sanctus trilogy. Simon graduated from Goldsmith’s College in London with a degree in English and Drama. He worked in British television for nearly 20 years as a producer. In 2007, he left television and moved with his family to France where they lived for six months. He returned to the U.K. and continued writing, while free-lancing in television to help pay the bills. That is, until Sanctus, the first novel of the trilogy was completed and became an international best-seller. It was followed by The Key and the recently released, The Tower. All three novels have been translated into dozens of languages and are read all over the world.

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Filed Under: About Books, Interviews, Psychology Today Columns Tagged With: apocalypse, belief, best-selling books, books, Books news, British authors, change, Charles Dickins, learning to write, publishers, Richard Matheson, Sanctus, second acts, Simon Toyne, spiritual development, Stephen King, television, theology, Thriller, writing, writing a novel

Writing. Inborn or learned? Part 1

August 1, 2012 by Mark Rubinstein

It’s the old nature versus nurture question: are some things (talents of many kinds) inborn or can they be learned.

No one has a quick or easy answer to this. For sure, a writer must have certain verbal abilities and love words, whether spoken or written. Such ability comes naturally to some people and there’s little doubt that “nature” is involved.

That being said, I’m reminded of Stephen King’s excellent book, “On Writing,” where he says, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

Aside from mastering the fundamentals of language and the basics of writing fiction, reading fiction (if you want to write it) is crucial.

I’ll have much more to say about this in my next blog.

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Filed Under: On Writing Tagged With: fiction, inborn, language, learned, On Writing, Stephen King, talent

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