Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?

It's December 2008 and I'm in the video section of Target, Christmas shopping for my daughter. As I'm browsing through the movie racks, I overhear an older and younger woman discussing which DVD to buy a child on their list.

"What about Eragon?" the younger woman asks. "I hear it's good."

"Does it have magic in it? I don't want a movie with magic," the older one – her mother? – responds sternly.

They move out of earshot and I'm too stunned to follow.

Are we truly living in some version of The MoonQuest's mythical setting? This land where vision is outlawed and visionaries put to death, where myth and magic are forbidden, where "once upon a time" is a forbidden phrase, and where fact is the only legal tender was a creation of my imagination... Or was it?

What kind of culture have we created where children are denied magic, where fantasy is suspect and where dragons are relegated to dustbins?

More than 30 years ago in an essay, author Ursula K. Le Guin asked, "Why are Americans afraid of dragons?" She concluded that most technological cultures dismiss works of the imagination because they lack measurable utility, an outlook only exacerbated in this country by our Puritan heritage.

If 30 years ago dragons were not fit for adults, are they now unfit for children, too?

While the Harry Potter books and movies broadened the reach of imaginative fiction for kids (and adults), it also expanded our hysterical suspicion and suppression of it.

The fact is, imaginative fiction opens our hearts, expands our spirit and broadens our minds in ways that nonfiction never can, and that magical/fantastical fiction can carry more truth in its castles, dragons and trolls than many pieces of so-called literature.

That's why I called the original, pre-Q'ntana Trilogy edition of The MoonQuest a "true fantasy." There is nothing factual about it. But as those two women in Target have proven, it's decidedly true.

Look for The MoonQuest and its StarQuest and SunQuest sequels in paperback or ebook from your favorite online bookseller or signed by me to you from my website. 

The Q'ntana Trilogy: Soon to be a Trio of Epic Motion Pictures!

June's Electric Muse Radio: Authors, Artists & Celebrities! Oh, My!

What is The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson? It's a brand-new radio show featuring an eclectic blend of authors, playwrights, screenwriters, directors, musicians, photographers and visual artists -- all talking about themselves, their work, their passions and their muse. And it launches this month with an exciting roster of guests!

Read on to see who will be joining me in the studio. (Click on the date/name link for each guest to be taken to the show page for that episode -- to listen live or to hear the archived version after the broadcast. And visit the Electric Muse pages on my website for more about these and other upcoming shows.)

June 4 ~ Luke Yankee grew up around a glittering galaxy of stars that most of us know only from our seats in a darkened movie theater. Marilyn Monroe played catch with his older brothers on the set of Bus Stop. Paul Newman showed him how to upstage fellow actors in a school play. And in a true Auntie Mame moment, Ethel Merman taught him how to make the perfect Merman martini.

How did Luke Yankee get to be so lucky? An accident of birth: His mother was Oscar-winner Eileen Heckart, remembered by many in more recent years for her portrayal of Mary's feisty Aunt Flo on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but a film and theater star long before that television success. Luke has written about growing up with his famous mother in his memoir, Just Outside the Spotlight: Growing Up with Eileen Heckart. And he'll share with us some of the funny and touching stories from the book, as well as some of his own accomplishments as a gifted writer/director/producer in his own right.

June 11 ~ Michael Scott is one of the most prolific authors you will ever encounter, with more than 100 books to his credit that span fantasy, science fiction, horror and Celtic folklore and that include his six-part New York Times bestselling fantasy series, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. Given that Michael has only been writing for some 30 of his 53 years, that's three books a year: a prodigious output for any writer, especially when you consider that he has also written for stage and screen and was, for a time, head of drama for the production company that created Riverdance. "Some stories wait their turn to be told," says Scott. "Others just tap you on the shoulder and insist you tell them."

But it was the quality not the quantity of his work that prompted the Irish Times to crown him "king of fantasy in these isles" and that caused Who's Who in Ireland to name him one of "the 1000 most significant Irish." During this episode of The Electric Muse, Michael will talk about the world of mythology and his writer's world and will, hopefully, tell us how we, too, can produce so many good books in so little time!

June 18 ~ D.J. McIntosh. How do you get from Toronto city planner to internationally acclaimed author? D.J. McIntosh will share part of that journey with us on this week's show, as she talks about The Witch of Babylon, the page-turning initial installment in a projected trilogy and a first novel that has already propelled her to the top ranks of historical-thriller writers. CNN called The Witch of Babylon, set against a backdrop of the Iraq war, one of the "top six enduring historical thrillers" and McIntosh has also been dubbed "an erudite Dan Brown" for her expert blend of intrigue and historical depth and accuracy. Book II, The Book of Stolen Tales, is just out, and we'll be taking about that too...along with some of McIntosh's more "interesting" writing habits!

June 25 ~ Melissa Vincent discovered her obsession for iPhoneography in 2011 when she created an account on Instagram. She had always taken photos of her kids, she says, but "Instagram stirred up a creative part of me that was dormant for a long time." The result: more than 200,000 followers on Instagram and an increasingly high profile, not just in the mobile photography world but in the photography world in general. Her surreal, storybook images with a Southern sensibility have been exhibited in galleries from coast-to-coast and were recently featured on National Geographic online, on the cover of Time magazine’s first annual wireless issue and in The Huffington Post.

Melissa takes all her photos on her iPhone; she processes them all on her phone as well. On this episode of The Electric Muse, she will be sharing not only her art and her passion but, for all you mobile photographers out there, she'll also be sharing her favorite apps and photography tips.

• Tune in to The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson every Tuesday at 5pm PT / 8pm ET on the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Don't miss an episode! But if you must, you can always catch it after the fact. Just look for links to every episode on my website.

Don't forget! June 4 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET...and every Tuesday after that: The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson.

~~~~~

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• Acts of Surrender book

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books

• Writing Books/Recordings and Inspiration

• Mark David Gerson

Please follow me on Pinterest and Google+

Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?

It's December 2008 and I'm in the video section of Target, Christmas shopping for my daughter. As I'm browsing through the movie racks, I overhear an older and younger woman discussing which DVD to buy a child on their list.

"What about Eragon?" the younger woman asks. "I hear it's good."

"Does it have magic in it? I don't want a movie with magic," the older one -- her mother? -- responds sternly.

They move out of earshot and I'm too stunned to follow.

Are we truly living in some version of The MoonQuest's mythical setting? This land where vision is outlawed and visionaries put to death, where myth and magic are forbidden, where "once upon a time" is a forbidden phrase, and where fact is the only legal tender was a creation of my imagination... Or was it?

What kind of culture have we created where children are denied magic, where fantasy is suspect and where dragons are relegated to dustbins?

Thirty years ago in an essay, author Ursula K. Le Guin asked, "Why are Americans afraid of dragons?" She concluded that most technological cultures dismiss works of the imagination because they lack measurable utility, an outlook only exacerbated in this country by our Puritan heritage.

If 30 years ago dragons were not fit for adults, are they now unfit for children, too?

While the Harry Potter books and movies broadened the reach of imaginative fiction for kids (and adults), it also expanded our hysterical suspicion and suppression of it.

The fact is, imaginative fiction opens our hearts, expands our spirit and broadens our minds in ways that nonfiction never can, and that magical/fantastical fiction can carry more truth in its castles, dragons and trolls than many pieces of so-called literature.

That's why I call The MoonQuest a "true fantasy." There is nothing factual about it. But as those two women in Target have proven, it's decidedly true.

This piece originally appeared in December 2008 on my now-dormant New Earth Chronicles blog.

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• Acts of Surrender Book

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies

• The MoonQuest book

• The Voice of the Muse book

• Mark David Gerson

Please follow Mark David on Pinterest and Google+

Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?

This piece originally appeared in December 2008 on my now-dormant New Earth Chronicles blog.

Wednesday, December 19, 2008

I'm in the video section of Target, Christmas shopping for my daughter. As I'm browsing through the movie racks, I overhear an older and younger woman discussing which DVD to buy a child on their list.

"What about Eragon?" the younger woman asks. "I hear it's good."

"Does it have magic in it? I don't want a movie with magic," the older one -- her mother? -- responds sternly.

They move out of earshot and I'm too stunned to follow.

Are we truly living in some version of The MoonQuest's mythical setting? This land where vision is outlawed and visionaries put to death, where myth and magic are forbidden, where "once upon a time" is a forbidden phrase, and where fact is the only legal tender was a creation of my imagination... Or was it?

What kind of culture have we created where children are denied magic, where fantasy is suspect and where dragons are relegated to dustbins?

Thirty years ago in an essay, author Ursula K. Le Guin asked, "Why are Americans afraid of dragons?" She concluded that most technological cultures dismiss works of the imagination because they lack measurable utility, an outlook only exacerbated in this country by our Puritan heritage.

If 30 years ago dragons were not fit for adults, are they now unfit for children, too?

While the Harry Potter books and movies broadened the reach of imaginative fiction for kids (and adults), it also expanded our hysterical suspicion and suppression of it.

The fact is, imaginative fiction opens our hearts, expands our spirit and broadens our minds in ways that nonfiction never can, and that magical/fantastical fiction can carry more truth in its castles, dragons and trolls than many pieces of so-called literature.

That's why I call The MoonQuest a "true fantasy." There is nothing factual about it. But as those two women in Target have proven, it's decidedly true.

Please "like" these Facebook pages...
• The Voice of the Muse book
• The MoonQuest movie
• The MoonQuest book
• Mark David Gerson

Making The MoonQuest Movie a Reality

"In a land where fear rules and storytelling spells death, only one bard's imagination can end the tyranny."

If you've been following this blog, you know that I've long seen my visionary fantasy novel, The MoonQuest, as a movie. You probably also know that, through Anvil Springs Entertainment, that dream is on its way to becoming a reality.

To help accelerate that process, I'm now working with Anvil Springs to produce three short trailers -- one for The MoonQuest and one for each of its two sequels, The StarQuest and The SunQuest. Together the three stories (book and film) make up The Q'ntana Trilogy.

The trailers will be presented to investors in the coming months to inspire them to invest in a feature-film version of The MoonQuest, the first of the trilogy to be produced.

So far, for the trailers, we've assembled a stellar cast of actors, a dedicated crew and a committed production and postproduction staff. Most are local to New Mexico, but some are planning to travel to Albuquerque from Los Angeles next month for the film shoot. One of the many miracles surrounding this project is that everyone involved is not only a professional but a volunteer who believes passionately in the project. They're volunteering because our starting budget for these trailers was $0.

By the way, miracles have surrounded this project almost since the day the book came out.

It was at one of my very first book-signings, in an Albuquerque Borders Books & Music, that I met Kathleen Messmer, who had just created Anvil Springs and was on the lookout for new projects. She loved both the book (which hadn't yet won its multiple awards) and my screenplay adaptation, and the rest is history.

Well, almost...

Although we began trailer production on a zero budget, we've come to realize that there are some expenses we just can't avoid incurring, not least because New Mexico isn't the best resource for the medieval-style costumes, props and settings required for this type of fantasy.

That's where you come in.

Today, we launched a fundraising campaign on Indie GoGo, the web's premier platform for the grassroots financing of independent creative projects. With your help, we can raise not only our $3,000 Indie GoGo goal for The MoonQuest trailer, but an additional $2,000 to make sure that the StarQuest and SunQuest trailers are also filmed -- and that all three are of the superlative quality that will propel their respective features to the big screen.

To thank you for your contributions as low as five dollars, we're offering a series of gifts, ranging from a public thank you to a day on set during the filming of the trailer. In between, there are opportunities to get MoonQuest merchandise, a studio-photographed headshot, an hour's creativity or life coaching from me...and more. But you can give a gift of any amount -- even one dollar...or less.

A few hours ago, one of my Facebook friends posted this on my wall:

"I don't know anyone who is living their dream more than you."

I feel incredibly blessed to find myself in that place. With your help, I can take that dream to its next level -- not only for myself but for all those who will be touched by the life-affirming message of the Q'ntana stories.

Please share news about our Indie GoGo campaign and our project wherever you can -- on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, on blogs and to your friends. The more people who know about the campaign and the project it's supporting, the sooner you'll see The MoonQuest in a movie theatre near you!

Finally, if you would like to make other types donations (for example, bottled water, snacks, props, wardrobe, etc.) or have skills you can contribute, please write to us at info@anvilspringsentertainment.com.

• Once again, here's the link to our Indie GoGo campaign.

Art Credits: MoonQuest movie graphics by Richard Crookes. MoonQuest book cover by Angela Farley.

Facing the Void: Coping with a Blank Page

What do you do when you face a blank page? It's all about trusting the mystery and taking that leap of faith into the unknown...into the infinite realm where your stories reside.




• For more videos about writing and the creative process, visit my YouTube page. And watch for the debut of MuseTV, my new series of video interviews with writers and creators of all types and stripes.


• For more tips and inspiration, visit my web site, where you can read my "Rules for Writing," sign up for my mailing list and read/hear free excerpts from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.


• Need help with your projects or creative process? Consider one-on-one coaching/mentoring (over the phone of via Skype) or my upcoming online coaching group.


Art Credits: Creative Community Image from ehow.com

Free Your Stories, Free Your Life

I never intended for The MoonQuest to be such a powerful metaphor both for my creative journey and for creative blocks and the creative process. But that's what it turned out to be...through my act of surrender to the story that wanted to be told through me.

In the book excerpt I share on this video, the main character is visited by a Muse-like being who insists he tell his story.

Na’an says it is my story. Perhaps she is right. Is that why the words come so reluctantly? So many seasons of storytelling and still I hesitate. Of all the stories to stick in my throat, how ironic that it should be The MoonQuest, a tale of the freeing of story itself...

For more videos on life and the creative process, visit me on YouTube.



Writing/Creativity Coaching Groups with Mark David / in person and by phone via Teleconference

• Albuquerque, NM / Feb 9-Mar 30 / 7 pm MT (Discount fee through Jan 28)

• Via Teleconference / Feb 18-April 8 / 9pm ET (Discount fee through Feb 8)

An 8-week guided experience of creative commitment and acceleration. It doesn’t matter whether you have a project that’s ongoing, stuck or ready to kick off, or whether you just want help establishing and maintaining a regular writing rhythm; a Voice of the Muse Coaching Group will be your weekly compass alignment to keep you empowered, motivated, inspired and on track.


Mark David's January Events / Denver Area

• Free Talk, Author Q&A and book-signing
Topic: Birthing Your Book...Even If You Don't Know What It's About
Thursday, Jan 28~ 7pm~ Bemis Public Library, Littleton, CO

• Writing workshop -- From Memory to Memoir: Writing the Stories of Your Life
Friday, Jan 29 ~ 6-9pm ~ Colorado Free University, Denver, CO

• Writing workshop -- Write in the Flow: Answering Your Call to Write
Saturday, Jan 30 ~ 10am-4:30pm ~ Colorado Free University, Denver, CO

• The Call to Write: Answering the Voice of Your Muse
Sunday, Jan 31 ~ 1-5pm ~ Phoenix Healing Center, Longmont, CO

Mark David's February Events / Los Angeles

Conscious Life Expo, LAX Hilton

• Friday, Feb 12 ~ 7pm
Free Talk
• Fri, Feb 12 - Sun, Feb 14
At booth #505, offering discounted coaching sessions, signing books, answering writing questions


Private Writing/Creativity Coaching Sessions with Mark David

• Let Mark David help you unleash the power of your creative potential!


Coming to Las Vegas in April and to Portland/Seattle in June. Follow Mark David's events here.