Wim Coleman's Blog
October 28, 2022
"The Mad Scene"
Writer's Digest has posted the first 15 pages of the play here: https://www.writersdigest.com/wd-comp...
I’ve been developing it during the last couple of years with amazingly brilliant members of the Yorick Theatre Company, the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, and Theatre at St. John’s, as part of the Theatre at St. John’s Cyber Salon, hosted weekly by Mark Erson. The parts were read by Everett Quinton, Jenne Vath, Sally Plass, Maude Burke, and Shane Baker; Daniel Neiden directed. "The Mad Scene" has yet to be produced.
The entire text of The Mad Scene is available on the New Play Exchange (https://newplayexchange.org/plays/165...) or by contacting me personally.
May 26, 2011
Two Books Honored Today by the Eric Hoffer Awards
Today it was announced that Pat Perrin's and my novel _Anna's World_ was 1st Runner-Up in the Young Adult category of the Eric Hoffer Awards. This is the fourth national award for _Anna's World._ Check the Eric Hoffer Awards at http://www.hofferaward.com/HAbookwinners.html#young. _Anna's World_ is available at ...
May 12, 2011
Four Books Honored in International Book Awards
The results of the International Book Awards have been announced (see http://www.internationalbookawards.com/2011awardannouncement.html). Pat Perrin's and my books (and our own independent publishing outfit, Plays on Ideas/Chiron Books) have made quite a sweep. The new edition of our cult experimental novel _The Jamais Vu Papers_ has been honored as the ...
March 8, 2011
_The Jamais Vu Papers_ Finalist for Eric Hoffer/Montaigne Medal
@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } This morning, my wife and collaborator, Pat Perrin, forwarded me this emai: "Congratulations. As part of the Eric Hoffer Award, your book was nominated for the ...
March 2, 2011
Outtake from "La Llorona"
For some years now, I've had the pleasure of writing plays for READ, a magazine for middle-school kids (and the even greater pleasure of working with the wonderful editor Debbie Nevins). I call these "classroom plays," because they're not really intended for the stage; they're meant for kids to read at their desks in the classroom. Although they really shouldn't be judged in ...
January 25, 2011
Remember the Harmonic Convergence?
In all the fuss over the upcoming date of December 21, 2012, the end of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mayan calendar, people seem to have forgotten similar excitement over the Harmonic Convergence of 1987. Back then, my wife, Pat Perrin, and I were publishing a newsletter that would eventually become our first novel, The Jamais Vu Papers. Our crack correspondent Upton Orndorf offered ...
November 28, 2010
Approaching the Star Road
Pat Perrin and I recently published the award-winning first novel in our Wand Bearer Trilogy, Juggler in the Wind (available at Amazon.com). You can learn more about it on my previous blog, Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin interview each other about "Juggler in the Wind". We're hard at work at the second book in the trilogy, Star Road. I'm sharing here a snippet from early in the book: ...
November 18, 2010
Did You Ever Get the Strangest Feeling You've Never Been Here Before?
My wife and collaborator, Pat Perrin, and I have pieces published in the first two issues of a terrific new online magazine, _SOL: English Writing in Mexico._ One is a poem about our adoptive daughter Monse (http://solliterarymagazine.com/july-2010/for-monserrat-april-1-2002/). The other two are chapters from our 1991 novel _The Jamais Vu Papers._ In one, philosopher Daniel C. Dennett plays ...
November 10, 2010
"Dear Your Excellency … Respectfully Yours"
I'll explain the title of this blog shortly.Everyone is angry these days—especially about politics. I see it every day among people (including friends) on both the right and left. The Internet is full of bile, and it surfaces in strident, ugly language, full of expletives, name-calling, to say nothing of dubious information. Well, it's a free country, right? Our U.S. Constitution has a ...
October 29, 2010
"Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'"
Now those are words to conjure with! They are, of course, from Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem, "The Raven." Poe casts an uniquely powerful spell among American writers. Even people who have never read him have probably heard bits of his poetry or know the titles of some stories, such as "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Fall of the House of Usher." Although he is most famous for ...
