Trapdoor Books

Some of the Worst/Best Analogies of High School Students

Posted on 15. Jun, 2010 by Frank Fiore in Education and Literacy, Frank Fiore, Front Page Posts

Analogies are the coin of the realm for writers. Without the power they have to paint pictures and ideas in the minds of our readers, our novels would read like some boring corporate report.

But they must be used correctly. Unfortunately not all the time.

Here are some of the more humorous analogies that high school students have used when writing stories.

He was as tall as a 6′3″ tree.
Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m.

Burning the School Library

Posted on 28. Oct, 2009 by Chris Matney in Book Publishing, Education and Literacy, Front Page Posts

It is a snowy Wednesday afternoon in Colorado – just in time for Halloween! For those who called about our website being slightly askew, don’t panic. We rolled the Books page into production this afternoon. So, there was a momentary hiccup. The next phase is the introduction of the shopping cart – hopefully by week’s end. Lots of testing left on that front, but it will be great to be able to – gasp – sell books.

There are several old news clippings that I wanted to comment on today and tomorrow.

Missing the Point on Education

Posted on 16. Oct, 2009 by Tim in Education and Literacy, Front Page Posts

It’s great that you set up this new blog feature for the Trapdoor community, Chris. I’m looking forward to reading what book lovers are thinking about when they aren’t reading, discussing publishing, or raving about the latest Trapdoor title. I think that your community site will attract people with a wide range of ideas on subjects which touch in some way on the “life of the mind” that we all share. As a university professor, father of two teenagers, and a writer of fairly obscure texts, I find myself constantly drawn to thinking about the intersection of culture, knowledge production and its consumption.