Heidi Guilford rode shotgun in her boyfriend's white Dodge Charger. Her stepsister and a couple friends sat in the back, with the windows rolled down for the smokers. It was a cool night in June—sweatshirt weather—an unremarkable Sunday on an island off the coast of Maine. They could have been in any small town, just about anyplace. A loud engine, blaring music, laughing shouts from the front seat to the back. And all around them: quiet. Heidi knew every inch of these roads. They all did. They'd grown up on this island, Vinalhaven, fifteen miles out to sea by ferry, a rock in the ocean that the glaciers hadn't quite smoothed over. Seven miles by five, population 1,200, give or take, and triple that when the summer people showed up. They took a left off Heidi's road out by State Beach and swung through town, cruising slowly through the downtown stretch, past the bar and the grocery store and the bank, then out to Old Harbor Road and over to the Basin. Most years by mid-June, there are enough tourists in town that you wouldn't recognize everyone, but 2020 was different. This June felt more like the wintertime, when you can pretty much tell who's driving every car on the road, often just by the headlights. They were headed back toward Heidi's place when they saw a Chevy Equinox they knew belonged to Jennie Candage racing past them. But Jennie would never drive that fast, so they figured it had to be her boyfriend, Roger Feltis. Roger was a local lobsterman, fairly new to the island, twenty-eight years old and husky—big enough that he could seem intimidating, but with a sweet, goofy smile. |
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A Brief History of George R.R. Martin Definitely, Totally Finishing The Winds of Winter |
Procrastinators, boss-havers, degenerate undergraduates, lend me your ears. Have you ever added surplus spaces on an essay to meet a minimum page requirement? Sneakily increased the font size on periods to pad your page count? Claimed to be working toward a deadline when you most definitely, assuredly were not? If this sounds like you, then come sit by George R.R. Martin. Martin, you may remember, is suffering from the most public case of writer's block in human history. He's been writing The Winds of Winter, the highly-anticipated penultimate volume in his Game of Thrones series, since at least 2010—and now, as if to make up for over a decade of missed deadlines, he's speaking out on how the book is worth the wait (funny, I think I told my British Lit professor the same thing when I needed an extension). But just how did Martin dig himself into this hole? Allow me to take you back in time, dear reader, on a Scrooge-esque journey to the ghosts of deadlines past. |
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Spencer Pratt Has Always Understood the Assignment |
"I want a hit show so fucking bad," Spencer Pratt yells. He's sitting on a couch inside the corporate headquarters of cannabis startup Cannabiotix, a sprawling manufacturing plant and office space in Cudahy, California, 10 miles southeast of Downtown L.A., tucked against the 710 freeway. His comment isn't directed at anyone; it's Pratt thinking to himself. But the 38-year-old, never one to hold his tongue, vocalizes the sentiment to the small film crew he's contracted to help produce a sizzle reel for what, he hopes, will turn him into a multi-millionaire reality TV mogul. Hang around Pratt long enough and these naked admissions about coveting fame become routine. No one else in the crowded, cramped office lounge even registers the comment. The cameraman and sound tech continue preparing for the talking head interview Pratt is about to conduct, the photographer Pratt's hired to take still photos continues snapping away. |
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The 50 Best Horror Books of All Time Will Scare You Sh*tless |
Scholars trace the legacy of literary horror back to the British Gothic fictions of the eighteenth century, when castles were haunted, monks were evil, and anywhere beyond the edges of Protestant England was tinged sinister. Others locate the genre's origins in a slate of late-Victorian novels and their roster of horror icons. Dracula, Dorian Gray, Dr. Jekyll–these figures emerged from a culture in crisis, when twin anxieties about masculinity and modernity birthed urban nightmares. Contemporary readers may look no further than the horror 'boom' of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. It was an era dominated by brand-name authors, with epic sales and matching page-lengths. With such a weight of contention, any attempt at a list of 'best' horror novels is doomed to disagreement. That's fine. All lists are subjective. We have, however, tried to celebrate the breadth of horror—to highlight those books that establish something about the genre or push it forward into new realms. You will see some unexpected inclusions in this list, and some surprising absences. Certain big names are missing because their greatest contributions are in short form, or because their books tread ground better travelled by others. Equally, some of these choices may cause horror fans' eyes to wrinkle in confusion. But perhaps, in the end, that's the secret of horror: it's personal. It's about how it makes you feel. |
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The night Jeff Nussbaum got the idea for Undelivered was unlike any other in modern American history. It was the wee hours of Wednesday, November 8, 2000, and for the first time since at least the late 1800s, a presidential election had been declared too close to call. Then-Vice President Al Gore's campaign staffers, which included a young Nussbaum, had prepared remarks for three different election night outcomes—a victory, a loss, and a win without the popular vote—but not this one. There would be no speech that night. Instead, Gore's campaign chairman announced at 4 a.m. that the race would continue until the results in Florida were official. A conclusion was, in time, reached, as we all know. But Nussbaum never forgot about those speeches and the alternative realities they represented. What if Gore had won the election? Would 9/11 still have happened? Would we be further along in the climate change fight? |
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Miranda Lambert Goes Her Own Way |
It was 2010, and Miranda Lambert was nervous. It had been five years since her major label debut album, and though she had seen steady success, she had not yet had the breakthrough hit single that would establish her as a serious force in country music. Country radio (which, to this day, holds more power for its audience than in other genres) didn't seem quite sure what to do with this fiery young woman who, unlike many of her peers, wrote most of her own tracks. Early on, Lambert was defined by wild-eyed revenge songs like "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" and "Gunpowder and Lead"—"I was pigeonholed," she says, "like, 'Oh, she'll just burn your house down or shoot you.'" Then the sassy, simmering "White Liar" started making a run, pushing its way into the Top Ten. "The town was watching," she says over a screen from her house in Nashville. "Like, 'Is she ever gonna have a hit or she just gonna be one of those other kinds of artists?' I was frustrated—at some point, I wanted to move up. I wanted to get the middle slot on tours instead of the opening slot, and ultimately headline, and in country music, radio is that vehicle." |
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