Book Review: Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch - Let Verbs Power Your Writing

Great sentences pivot on great verbs. In Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch, Constance Hale, best-selling author of Sin and Syntax, zeroes in on verbs that make bad writing sour and good writing sing. Each chapter features four sections: “Vex” tackles tough syntax, “Hex” debunks myths about verbs, “Smash” warns of bad writing habits, and “Smooch” showcases exemplary writing.

A veteran journalist and writing teacher, Hale peppers her advice with pop-culture references and adapts her expertise for writers of every level. With examples ranging from the tangled clauses of Henry James and the piercing insight of Joan Didion to the punchy gerunds of the Coen brothers and the passive verbs of CEOs on trial, this book offers a reenergized take on the “little despot of the sentence.”

Book Review: The Story Grid

The Story Grid is a tool developed by editor Shawn Coyne to analyze stories and provide helpful editorial comments. It's like a CT Scan that takes a photo of the global story and tells the editor or writer what is working, what is not, and what must be done to make what works better and fix what's not.

The Story Grid breaks down the component parts of stories to identify the problems. And finding the problems in a story is almost as difficult as the writing of the story itself (maybe even more difficult.)

Book Review: The End League - Complete Collection

In a devastated world ruled by supervillains, the last surviving heroes embark on a desperate quest to find the mythic Hammer of Thor, believing it holds the key to restoring hope to humanity. The End League is a gripping saga of high-stakes survival, packed with character-driven storytelling and breathtaking visuals.

Superstar writer Rick Remender (The Sacrificers, Tokyo Ghost) unites with comics legends Mat Broome (X-Men, Batman), Eric Canete (Iron Man, Martian Manhunter), and Andy MacDonald (Justice League, Multiple Man) for a desperate, pedal-to-the-metal fight through the ashes of civilization for a future that’s already lost.

Book Review: Getting Naked

With her signature warmth and disarming humor, the beloved actress and New York Times bestselling author strips away the polished façade and shares what it’s really like to grow older, love harder, and start over. Now in her mid-sixties, Valerie reflects on the hard-won lessons of aging, self-worth, and letting go. From her experiences with menopause, relationships, and family trauma, she writes with clarity and compassion about the insecurities that have haunted her for decades: shame and anxiety about her body, and the false belief that her value depended on perfection. Through it all, Valerie reflects on the quiet, daily work of self-acceptance—the kind that doesn’t make headlines but changes lives. Getting Naked isn’t just a story of survival. It’s a reckoning—with her past, her family history, and the generational pain that shaped her. It’s about the myths we believe when we’re young—about beauty, love, success—and how we carry them until they break us open. It’s about unlearning the script that says women must please, endure, and stay silent.

Book Review: It's Never Too Late

Marla Gibbs has been a Hollywood icon for generations of fans. Now, at ninety-three, she chronicles her climb from a difficult youth in which she yearned for safety and love, to the high-stakes world of Hollywood where she became a confident powerbroker learning to work behind the scenes for fair pay, access, and more creative control for herself and her colleagues.

Told in her forthright voice, It's Never Too Late illuminates Gibbs' daring move to Los Angeles to rebuild her life after an abusive marriage, how she became an actor, and how she eventually learned to balance acting with show running. She was a “Boss Bae” decades before the term would become entertainment industry shorthand for a power flex. While developing 227 her lawyer won her “all rights, courtesies and privileges of an executive producer without the credit.” Though the authority she wielded behind the scenes created deep tensions on and off the set, her hard-luck young life had prepared her to succeed even as her tenacity was put to the test. Her experiences laid the groundwork for powerbrokers like Shonda Rhimes and Issa Rae.

Book Review: Still Into You

Sloane Donavan dreamed of being a rock journalist ever since she posted her first MySpace blog. Now, one journalism degree, a failed internship, and dozens of backstage passes later, she’s struggling to land a full-time staff position. So when punk rock’s most notorious and elusive frontman offers her his first interview in eight years, Sloane should be jumping at the opportunity—but taking it would mean reconnecting with the only guy she’s ever loved (and lost), Dax Nakamura.

Unable to pass up a shot at making her name—and helping Dax clear the reputation that’s plagued his—Sloane agrees. It’s only a conflict of interest if anyone finds out. But the article Dax wants and the salacious tell-all Sloane’s editor is expecting are two completely different stories. And as old feelings resurface, Sloane’s journalistic integrity hangs in the balance. This is the career-making piece she’s been waiting for, but it comes with a price: the chance to rewrite the ending with her first and only love.

Book Review: A Place Both Wonderful and Strange

From its start, when studio executives drafted a plan to recoup costs after what they predicted would be the series' inevitable failure, to the 1992 prequel movie that earned scathing reviews at Cannes, to its unexpected and acclaimed return some twenty-five years later, Twin Peaks garnered millions of devoted fans who refused to let it die.

In A Place Both Wonderful and Strange, entertainment reporter Scott Meslow takes readers behind the curtain of Lynch’s and Frost’s dedication to finishing what they started, with both the prequel film and Showtime’s Twin Peaks: The Return, offering dozens of original and revelatory interviews that cast a whole new light on the extraordinary show. For a series that left as many questions unanswered as answered, Meslow’s deep reporting will give readers a new perspective, detailing scenes left on the cutting–room floor and how Season Two’s finale stunned and infuriated studio execs in what Mark Frost calls “a defiant middle finger to what they [studio executives] thought the show should be.”