Once again I’m honored to be included in one of ATB Publishing’s pop culture collections, this one focused on perhaps my favorite TV series to teach: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
OUTSIDE IN TAKES A STAB: 139 New Perspectives on 139 Buffy Stories by 139 Writers
Among the 139 essays covering all 139 episodes included in Outside In Takes a Stab you’ll find my essay on the Emmy-nominated episode “Hush”. It’s called “As Silent as ABC” as it offers a scene by scene breakdown, illustrating how this episode offers the perfect template to A, B, and C storylines for new writers of one-hour dramas. So it’s for Buffy geeks AND TV writing geeks. One cool fact is that Editor Robert Smith? donates 50% of the proceeds of all sales to Avert, a UK-based HIV/AIDS charity. Another cool fact is that my Stephens MFA student Mary Gwen Scott (who wrote her graduate thesis on the enduring influence of Buffy and Harry Potter on the generations that have followed them) will have an essay in their upcoming volume on the Buffy spinoff Angel.
Put ten Buffy fans in a room, and you’ll wind up with eleven opinions, fourteen heated debates about the nature of the soul and somebody cosplaying Mirror Willow as an Initiative-produced demon hybrid with a stake in her arm. That’s because Buffy fans are gloriously weird, uniquely different and sometimes entirely outlandish. And so is this book.
Celebrating over 25 years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, OUTSIDE IN TAKES A STAB is a collection of 139 reviews, one for every story of the television series, plus the movie and a couple extras. Well, we say “reviews”, but we mean that loosely: within these pages, you’ll find mix tapes, mazes, recipes, speeches, games, songs, crosswords, plays, policy documents, D&D manuals, documentaries, term papers and a Turing machine. Not to mention insightful and thoughtful articles, examining the world of Sunnydale from just about every aspect imaginable… and then some!
Provocative, engrossing, hilarious and utterly gonzo. These aren’t your mother’s reviews.
Featuring contributions from Susanne Lambdin, Jill Sherwin, Rosanne Welch, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Robert Greenberger, Rich Handley, David A. McIntee, and over a hundred more!
As with all previous OUTSIDE IN volumes, 5% of the full retail price of all sales of this book will be donated to Avert, a UK-based HIV/AIDS charity.
More Outside In collections featuring my work:
