Norman Spinrad At Large

AN HOUR LONG INTERVIEW WITH NORMAN SPINRAD AT THE UTOPIALES FESTIVAL IN NANTES FRANCE the questions are in in French, the answers are in  English November 2012  I was in Nantes for the Utopiales festival, the most widely attended true mulitmedia sf  event in the world (circa 50,000 attendees this year), and the best mix (literature, cinema, art, video games, science, etc.) and for the launch of my lastest LE TEMPS DU REVE, doing half a dozen or so panels and about a dozen magazine, internet, and television interviews in Nantes, and more in Paris.    Yes the novel, WELCOME TO YOUR DREAMTIME, was written in English and translated, but no I haven't been able to find an American publisher as yet, so this nationally publicized French edition is the world first edition.    How such thing could happen, or rather not happen, despite my being Guest of Honor at the forthcoming World Science Fiction Convention in San Antonio next year and this being well-known, but on the othe

This is a kind of  love letter to France, my original English text of an article commissioned in 1998 by the French national newspaper LE MONDE and a rough French translation done with Google because I couldn’t find LE MONDE’S French translation anywhere on the Internet.   (Update: meilleur traduction francais --merci a Alain Gresh I’m putting it online on the occasion of my impending 6 weeks or so in France because it’s been causing me to reflect on what my 14 years living in France has meant to me and still does during my largely unwilling return to New York. What I wrote in LE MONDE in 1998 is personally even truer for me now that it was then.  Since then, I’ve done appearances for the French Foreign Service in New Caldonia and Mexico, received a Career Achievement Award at the Utopiales festival in Nantes from the hands of  Jean-Marc Ayrault, then the mayor of Nantes, now Prime Minister of France.  I’ve had a hand in getting the prison diary of Edward Daladier published

                                     The New York Post September 25, 2012                              THE POWER OF DIRTY WORDS--Illustrated!!!                                    by Norman Spinrad                         In memorium: Lenny Bruce        Fuck, shit, piss, cunt.       Have I gotten your attention?       Of course I have!       These words have that magic power. As we all know, fuck, shit, piss, and cunt are the rock bottom basic “dirty words.” Neither the New York Times nor any other establishment publication will print them.  They may not be uttered on broadcast television.     Copulate, defecate, urinate, vagina.    These four words mean precisely the same things, but are perfectly kosher for polite discourse, publication, and prime time.    We all know that too, but do we all know why copulate, defecate, urinate, and vagina are “clean,” whereas their exact synonyms, fuck, shit, piss, and cunt are “dirty?” Why these words even have the power to re

I'm still offering my original screenplay for BUG JACK BARRON, called “One of the 100 greatest films never made,”  on Amazon after 4 decades, but I'm now reducing the price to $3.00 because the important thing for me is to have this screenplay widely read. BUG JACK BARRON Original Screenplay for $3.00! This is the orginal screenplay adaptation of BUG JACK BARRON I wrote way back in the 1970s under an indie option which never got picked up.  Several options later, BUG JACK BARRON, the novel, was optioned by one Gary Weis, who sold the option to Universal. With the option running out, Universal exercised it, that is, bought the rights to make the film, for Costa Gavras, with a screenplay by Harlan Ellison.  For whatever reasons, they didn’t like the Ellison screenplay, or several others, including this one.  Costa Gavras fell out of the project, and the film has yet to be made, though many, many directors, and producers have tried to get the the rights from Universal. Desp