Tell Me a Story

To My Readers, Thank you for reading my blog this year.  I have more in store for you in 2024 and am excited to be sharing the publication of my novella, Mary's Wings , at the start of the year. Keep reading!  With stories, you travel.  With stories, you feel.  With stories, you change. Merry Christmas and all the best in 2024! Love, Dina                                                   Photo by Karolina Bobek on Unsplash

                                                                Photo by Vino Li on Unsplash Dear Readers, Okay!  I watched a lot of scary movies since writing you all last.  Here are my final 7 that I would recommend to watch per Halloween season.  A couple are not scary per se, but interesting and well suited for the Halloween season (Beetlejuice.)  Some did not make my list-- Psycho was well done (as written about in my previous post) but not a movie I will watch year after year.  Some were better than I thought they would be in terms of an analysis (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) but too gory for me.  I prefer classic haunted house movies or ones with a twist like Six Sense or ones that have historic settings like Sleepy Hollow. 1. Sixth Sense 2. The Conjuring (the first is the best one) 3. Hocus Pocus (I did not review the second one... I wanted to but they needed you to get a Disney subscription...)  4. Sleepy Hollow (I like the Johnny Depp version best) 5. The Exorcist  6. The Shinin

                                                     Photo by Maxime Roedel on Unsplash I have been wanting to watch the movie, Psycho , for a number of years.  To be honest, I tend to not be interested in black and white films.  One source said the reason the movie was shot in black and white was to save on production cost and to not make the shower scene so gory...  Moving on! I was completely enraptured by this movie which is based on Robert Bloch's 1959 novel of the same title.  The movie opens with a couple in bed... I appreciated the subtly of the physical aspect of their relationship versus all the explicitness that goes on in film and tv today.  We all know what people do when attracted to each other-- there is no reason to spend so much time on it and show it all! I loved the poise and intelligence demonstrated by Marion Crane, our heroine.  Her next choice is shocking... and the one part of the screenplay/story I thought should be fixed.  It didn't see plausible that

                                                      Photo by Łukasz Nieścioruk on Unsplash -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For those of you who know me, or are getting to know me through this blog, I LOVE scary stories!  I do believe in spirits and I do believe in an afterlife.  I do not think a person just dies... rather there is a separation.  I can write more about the topic on the after life in a future blog. So.... I know I said I would be writing about books... but many movies are based on books!  In celebration of Halloween, I decided to see what lists were out there in terms of top scary movies.  I am picky about my scary movies... I used to be an acquisitions editor for a company called Short Cinema Journal in Los Angeles and screened lots of amazing films. I think it is difficult to create a great scary film... sometimes the acting is weak, or the plot is weak, the setting or a

Dear Readers, How are you?  I hope you have been enjoying your weekend!  I hope you have been reading LOL!   I have kept my goal of sharing with you short story collections that I admire.  I am in love with short stories!  I came out with my own collection, Peter's Moonlight Photography and Other Stories , a few years ago.  I think why I love the short story format so much would make a good future post :) This collection is by the author, Annie Proulx, a major contemporary author.  She is an American author who published this collection in 1999.  One of the stories in the collection, Brokeback Mountain, was made into a movie years later which you may have seen.  As a side note-- I love to read the story behind a film when it comes out to see what changes were made. As a huge nature lover, I was drawn to the setting-- rural Wyoming.  Annie lived in Wyoming at one point in her life.   I consider the style of this collection realistic fiction.  I was debating whether it would be more

  Dear Readers, I am going to shift gears and use my writing blog, Tell Me a Story , as a way to help you guys find great books to read.  I hope they change and move you as they have changed and moved me. Every Sunday, I will create a new post and include a book I recommend you read.  Some will be old, some will be new.  This week I will be posting the novel I spoke about for our July read.  Moving forward, I will be shifting to Tell Me a Story focusing on short story collections.   I highly encourage you to check out one of my favorite author's novel, The House of the Spirits .  It is written in the style of magical realism and tells the story of several generations of a family in post-colonial Chile.   Let me know what you think of the book when you finish reading it or feel free to post questions in the comment section. Happy Reading! Dina