Creating Our Dream Life – What We Can Learn from 4-Year-Olds

Creating Your Dream Life, by Melanie Lamaga, The Metaphysical Circus

Creativity and Change… Because I Want To As anyone who has been around kids knows, at a certain point around four years old their favorite phrase becomes, “Because I want to.” It got me wondering, when do we stop believing that this is reason enough? For example, a friend or family member asks you to […] Read more »

Review of Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente

A Beautiful View of The Singularity Imagine if you could go anywhere, do anything, and never be alone. Would it bother you if your closest companion and co-creator was a machine? You might think so, but then again you might change your mind after reading this gorgeous, evocative novel, narrated by Elefsis, the machine in […] Read more »

Review of lost boy lost girl: a novel, by Peter Straub

A Metaphysical Circus review of lost boy lost girl: a novel, by Peter Straub

This novel, which won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel, is part murder mystery, part ghost story and part family drama, with an unexpected, transcendent ending. The story follows Tim Underhill, (a character from earlier novels by Straub), as he attempts to cope with a series of tragic, mysterious events afflicting the family of […] Read more »

Creative Thanks Giving, Reclaim Your Holiday

illustration of article by Melanie Lamaga Creative ThanksGiving, Reclaim Your Holiday

How is Creativity Like a Turkey? Thanksgiving, gratitude comes from feeling of abundance– that you have enough and some to spare. But American culture has always been about striving to improve ourselves, which too often devolves into a bottomless desire for more, more, more. It makes me wonder if Thanksgiving is really about gratitude, or […] Read more »

Traveling with Joy

 Boost Creativity and Productivity through Bliss Last week I wrote about the book Get High Now (without drugs) and, somewhat coincidentally, this week I find myself blissed out to an extent I haven’t felt in quite a while, and as a result, my creativity is humming. I know it’s probably foolish to analyze this. The […] Read more »

Classic Literary Fantastic Novels by Elizabeth Hand, Released Digitally

For those of you not familiar with Hand’s work, she is one of the titans of what (for simplicity’s sake) I call the literary fantastic, with an artistic stature large enough to gracefully straddle that silly, artificial divide between literary and genre fiction. Hand’s work, which she calls visionary and semi-autobiographical, explores themes of spiritual […] Read more »

Get High… Creatively

Stoke Your Creative Fire with Visual Cartwheels, Mood Altering Sounds, and More Brain Candy Get High Now (Without Drugs), by James Nestor is a reference book of techniques for shifting your consciousness. Some are more advisable than others (you won’t catch me staring at the vomit vectors), but I applaud the range of options offered. […] Read more »

A Review of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

Jane Austen Dreams of Harry Potter and Writes 1000+ pages. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was Time Magazine #1 Book of the Year, Winner of the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award, as well as making about a dozen top fiction lists in 2004, the year it came out. In short, it is one […] Read more »

The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier

The Illumination is a literary novel with only one fantastic element, but it’s a doozy: one day, inexplicably, the bodily pain of each and every human being on earth begins to manifest as a white light. Everything from a headache to leukemia shines out of the body like a beacon for all to see. The […] Read more »

Bitchy Boss, Rebellious Employee (or both)?

Learning to Love (and Leave) Deadlines Many creatives and entrepreneurs, especially in the early part of their careers, are working for themselves, in every sense. They are working without the benefit of anyone else’s expectations; they are working without the benefit of pay; they are working for their future or for love for the craft. […] Read more »