Herman Wilkins
Bio
It all starts with a good story, who's telling it, how, when and why, then all that's left is what it takes to get it heard. Any way you hear a story, in print, Blender or 65mm, it starts with words. Any writing you keep reading is art.
Achievements (1)
Stories (11/0)
The Bible Erata
Art by definition is subjective. The art of writing, and the appreciation of it, not only subjective but visceral in emotional resonance. The unique, extraordinary and sometime revelatory craft of penning words and turning phrases, to ethereal elucidation of the human condition, elevates the art and leisure to a higher purpose and pleasure. I think of those books I have revisited and the author's method's and purpose. Whether with raised fists against conventional form of the novel, such as Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridien with its dearth of punctuation and lack of convention or in epic scope and breadth for a modern tome such Steven King's The Stand, both call to me at regular intervals. Sometimes, I reread the simple, slow and slyly building boil to literal explosive climax of John Irving's "A Prayer For Owen Meany" or Richard Russo's Empire Falls, but every great novel is a chance to learn something of the craft of writing and the the human experience in a simple setting.
By Herman Wilkins8 months ago in BookClub
Barbie Is Not A Masterpiece
In a world where blockbusters based on toys or other shiny pre-existing IPs rule the Cinelux, Barbie never takes itself seriously and even laughs and winks when it does. No Oscar bait here, but chances are the gold could have a pink lining this year, Thanks to Ms. America (Ferrera).
By Herman Wilkins8 months ago in Critique
Oppenheimer Is A Masterpiece
Beautiful but long masterwork teaming with career best from those on screen and off. The story of scientific ambition at odds with realpolitik deserves praise in almost every major category. The masterpiece gets in its' own way, heightening personal dramas that pale in comparison to theo-philisophical implications of nuclear war.
By Herman Wilkins8 months ago in Critique
The Night of the Swan
Dear Reader, These are the meager words of a man of fewer words than those needed to vouchsafe for so great a champion of humanity as that of whom I speak. I have committed my own life to the arts of theater and words and am humbled thay my lowly encomium herewith should vouchsafe for a grreater figure than I. Here I shall recall how I, an African American man of arts and journalist of late, have happened upon the life of one greater than my own, in the ever noble Queen, William Dorsey Swann. Yours - The Author 1888
By Herman Wilkins10 months ago in History
The Broken Woman
The mirror showed a reflection that wasn't my own. There on my knees, on the ground, as I stared into the largest of the glass shards, and it was not me. I was not myself. When I looked back down at the girl in the largest of the mirror’s shards, it seems more of the idea of who I was, but surely not who I am.
By Herman Wilkinsabout a year ago in Horror
A Storm in the Time of the Hush
Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. The spectral aurora would reach its fleeting zenith of light and wonder at the witching hour with the mush-rumps of lesser marsh hoppers and whiptail racerunners, one like jumping dying stars in the last moments of their light and the other minuscule dragons in the Mississippi Delta, would begin their own nocturnal frolic in earnest. At the end of summer, when the tale is already twixt the time to begin or end, the mellifluous cacophony of the night, of the kiowa and birdswing, begins to attenuate and allow itself to introduce the sing-song of the cicadas dance. The evening primrose, gardenia and magnolia grandiflora perfume and entice the new days air just so, to call forth the last sacre de l’ete on the great bayou farm. Just before the enchanted golden rays of the light of daybreak, the great horned owlets line the path of the land at the banks of the water, fertile and rich in earth and memory, the ponds yet still, in adoration for, and of, the coming enchantress of the mound, as she is known in these parts as she approaches Ingraham Farm in steps so soft that they make sparse sound or quick return by the ending moonlight.
By Herman Wilkinsabout a year ago in Fiction
In Vino Nihil Nisi Veritas
Vino Nihil Nisi Veritas He knew it would only be a short while left in his quarantine cum self-imposed exile on the island. And when the most doleful parts of spring’s rebirth to him had passed it seemed it was already fall. The idea of summer seemed only to have been that. The winter of his discontent, chasing barn owls on the isolated island without her or them, had caught up to him in the form of ennui he’d never before known. He could not complain as the entire world it had been in its own quarantine, felled by pandemic that would at least see him in paradise at the end of the summer and into his first semester as an adjunct. But is there any greater sorrow than to be alone in the garden of Eden in the dog days of summer, with only barn owls and mezcal for company?
By Herman Wilkins3 years ago in Humans
Superman's Got Nothing On Him
I’m not supposed to talk about this. Privacy is important to my family. Always has been. But I am certain nobody reads anything anyway and the act of writing is not so heavily scrutinized that anyone would ever stumble over a story of my own personal hero. I am biased and partial. I am family. Though, if my sister reads this, my kinship might be rescinded. This is the story of my baby. Well... my nephew in truth. In life, my hero.
By Herman Wilkins3 years ago in Motivation
- First Place in Goodbye Donald Challenge
Dear Mr. TrumpFirst Place in Goodbye Donald Challenge
Dear Mr. Trump, On this evening, the last of your presidency, I was going to rant, rave and recall everything that has happened under your watch over the last four years. But I shan't do that. You see I write to you exhausted and embarrassed from an apartment in Mexico City. Far from my home town of Los Angeles, I have been able to get some semblance of peace in one of the busiest city in the Americas. The irony doesn't escape me that I came here to get a respite from my own country. You see in the days leading up to the last election I became exhausted. Exhausted is an understatement. The initial depression of your election to the office grew to despair and anger, ennui and contempt. It was a very long four years that I would not wish on another country. So after I was sure that the now President-Elect would be just so, I threw in the towel on the good old US of A, I got a Covid test and boarded the next plane I could find to Mexico City. In your loss of the election, I took some comfort in the fact that the last days of your position were at hand and that every tweet, post or news of your presidency were simply the last vestiges of a crippled water fowl. You would swiftly become irrelevant. Of course now I know I was mistaken. There was no swamp you couldn't foul more as was proven on January 6th and probably until the very moment you leave an office you have stained forever in a country you nearly brought to its knees, you will find a way to sully more, insult to injury, flies to shit. I do have one last question for you Mr. Trump.
By Herman Wilkins3 years ago in The Swamp
Tyto Alba
We were ill-suited and perhaps this is the reason she was my wife for a very short time. As if it were preordained that we wouldn’t be growing old together. I should have known from the start. She was too lovely and lively to be married to an academic. Now she’s gone.
By Herman Wilkins3 years ago in Humans
