The things parents say when they're talking to their young kids sure would sound strange in any other context.

In their newest video, the funny ladies of The BreakWomb show what it would sound like if a group of moms carried out a conversation talking to each other the way they speak to their children.

It's a strange mix of grown-up discussion, scolding, uptalk and major praise for tiny accomplishments.

 
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Olivia Wilde has worked with Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard and Jon Favreau -- names that would appeal to anyone in Hollywood with an ounce of sense. You'll notice they have one thing in common beyond great films: penises. Where are the women in Wilde's moviemaking life? Few and far between, as it turns out. Her new film, "Meadowland," in which she and Luke Wilson play a couple reeling from the loss of their child, is one of the few times a woman has steered a project with which Wilde is involved. That includes one season on "The O.C." and five on "House." She's optimistic about the attention being paid to equality in Hollywood, however, partly thanks to her collaboration with Reed Morano, who shot and directed "Meadowland." Morano also shot five episodes of Wilde's forthcoming '70s-set rock 'n' roll series "Vinyl," which premieres on HBO in January and is written by "Sopranos" and "Wolf of Wall Street" scribe Terence Winter.

The Huffington Post sat down with Wilde for a deep dive on her experiences as a woman in the industry. Along the way, she's been fortunate enough to receive some key advice from Tilda Swinton, so things can't be all bad, right?

Tell me, just how wild is "Vinyl"? The trailers look wild.

Yeah, it’s got the Terry Winter brilliance all over it. It’s very unusual. I’ve never seen anything on television like it because it’s at once extremely intense and sexy and emotional and hilarious. I think that’s a Scorsese trademark. Think of “Goodfellas” -- you cried, you laughed, you wanted to throw up. There are all these intense emotions connected to it and I think that is the same as “Vinyl” in many ways. Bobby Cannavale is just brilliant and people will be so thrilled to see Ray Romano in this role because he’s wonderful. 

Did you happen to see the essay written in the New York Post about how women supposedly can't understand "Goodfellas"?

I did not see that. That would have made me so mad. That’s like saying you can’t understand "Goodfellas" if you’re not a gangster who has killed people and lived in New York during this time. That’s ridiculous. Women will love“Vinyl.” It’s got some great female characters and we’ve had our share of great female directors this season.

It's probably fair to assume you've worked with a disappointingly few number of female directors. What was helpful about having one around on "Meadowland" in particular?

Well, it’s interesting because every relationship with a director is influenced by the project itself and that character you’re playing. Specifically for this film, it really enhanced the experience to have another mother making the film with me. I think Luke, as well, would say that he’s not a parent, so having the perspective of a parent informed him. For me, it made it a much more intense relationship than I’ve had with any director because we put the film together, so it had been a project we’d worked on together for years by the time we shot it. It’s hard to make a generalization about female characters using “Meadowland” as an example because it was very specific to this intense story, but there was this confidence from her that felt to me like a very woman-to-woman, confident sisterhood, as opposed to what can be a more patronizing relationship from some male directors who are so conscious of their power over you that they can sometimes underestimate your intelligence, strength or bravery. But again, is that a female-to-female thing or is that a Reed Morano thing? It’s really tricky to tell.

Do you think the goal is to work toward an equal footing for female entertainers or to carve out a distinct space for them?

The important movement that’s happening now is an awareness of the lack of women working in the industry, not to mention the lack of roles for women in certain films. Just as Viola Davis said in her speech at the Emmys, it’s about creating opportunities. You can’t win an Emmy if you don’t have the role. She said it so well because it’s not about saying, “OK, let’s give more attention and more money and more emphasis to the underserved communities of filmmakers.” It’s about, “Let’s not let the gender of a director sway the decision of a potential financier or executive at a studio. Let’s make it so it’s an even playing field at the start so that then it’s up to the director -- male or female -- to take it to that next level.” It was extremely difficult to get financing for "Meadowland," and I think the fact that Reed knocked it out of the park and created something beautiful will perhaps encourage other financiers to give other first-time female directors a shot.

How much of that difficulty was about having two women at the center, and how much of it was because it's a tiny independent movie with a heavy subject?

I think it’s a combination, but I will say that Reed was not a spring chicken on the scene. She has shot Oscar-nominated films and worked with all of these incredible directors. There’s no reason not to invest in someone who’s had that much experience, so I was shocked at how hard it was to get financing based on her résumé. I can’t say for sure, but I think the fact that she is a young woman may have had something to do with it. As a female producer or a female director taking around a script for a female-centric drama, that is not the prize package people are looking for. They don’t see dollar signs and yet there’s a huge audience asking for that material. It’s interesting -- this has happened through the generations with different types of art. There was a reason George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] had to pretend to be a man. Eventually it will become an even playing field so that we won’t question who directed it, a man or a woman? It will just be, “How good is the director?” I’m optimistic about it. 

The narratives surrounding diverse achievements always amaze me. The "women are funny!" talk after "Bridesmaids" reached such a critical mass, like it was a foreign concept. And just this summer, the media narrative around "Straight Outta Compton" was, "Oh, look, a movie with black protagonists tops the box office!" How much of this stuff is the result of studios' decisions, and how much is the way the media discuss issues?

Everything in the film business is based on foreign sales. We tend to think domestically when we think about how the film industry is doing, based on what we can see in our own media. We can say, “Oh, these actors that we think of as the most successful actors in the world aren’t actually.” We don’t think, in this country, of Steven Seagal being a really valuable movie star, but a lot of the world does. You have to take into account that independent film is financed by foreign sales, so part of the moment that needs to happen is that foreign sales companies and international financiers need to understand this massive movement that’s saying, “We love films starring women, the world loves films starring women and directed by women and produced by women, so don’t be afraid to invest in those projects.” We can criticize studio heads, but if we continue to support films directed by all types of people and starring all types of people, that’s what makes the change. If you look at what’s happening in the world of television, no studio anywhere in the world could ever say that a television show starring a black woman isn’t going to do well.

When discrimination is overt, sometimes we can fix it using legislation. We can work toward equal pay and LGBT rights, for example, in concrete ways, as tough as those battles can be. But institutionalized sexism is different because there's sometimes no bill to pass to avoid it. Have you encountered overt sexism?

You know, because it is institutionalized, I think all women have encountered overt sexism routinely, and yet we aren’t shocked by it enough to draw attention to it because it’s something that is institutionalized. It’s something we’ve dealt with -- in any industry, by the way, certainly not just in the film industry -- but I applaud those who have started to say, "No, that’s bullshit, pay me just as much as my co-star got paid." The expectation for women to just let it slide and just understand "this is how it goes" is waning. I have encountered outright, overt sexism over and over and over again within this business, and yet it took me years to get to the point where I realized I didn’t have to put up with it. I think that’s what happens in any cultural revolution.

It's the frog-in-the-boiling-water analogy. You can pop out of the pot and say, "Nope, don’t need to do this." Now, it's raising this new generation of women who are told, "You don’t have to put up with this, you can play any sport you want, you can have any job you want, you don’t need to play with Barbies that look like that.” I believe there has been a shift in the way we raise women from the beginning, and early-childhood education for both men and women is what’s going to change that institutionalized sexism. Even movies like the animated film “Brave” -- I thought, “That’s fantastic. That’s going to start those young women off with a different definition.”

Right. Nothing will change until we can talk to our kids about it.

Yes! That’s what I mean. It has to start at that early, early level. My son yesterday picked out a little baby-doll toy, and my first reaction, that I didn’t voice, when I first saw that he was holding it and kissing it and loving it, was like, “Oh, it’s so funny he picked out a little baby.” Then I thought, “Don’t laugh. It’s not funny. Let him do it!” And he’s walking around, kissing it, loving it, taking care of it and I was like, “Wow, it starts this early. He’s 1!” Our reaction to him now is how he’s going to react to the world, so we have to change the way we talk to kids and then change the way we create art. If the demand is there, the good art will be distributed and seen.

Looking back after so many years of auditions and roles, did the double doozy of your age and your gender make you more vulnerable than a male co-star would have been on, say, “The O.C.”?

That’s interesting. I think young male actors have a hard time fitting into an expectation of what a man is, too. They have their own challenge. Like, what’s a hunk? So I never thought about it being harder than the young men I was working with at the time. I was a casting assistant, so I was painfully aware of how competitive this business is for young women from a very early stage. I started on the other side of the desk seeing 10,000 headshots of girls who looked remarkably similar going for the same role, and I think the important lesson I learned from that is you have to value your individuality and invest in what makes you unique because then you are not replaceable. I’m grateful I came into it with that perspective. For instance, every young actress, I guarantee, has 18 different types of push-up bras in their drawer because you might get an audition request from a casting director saying, “OK, this is the voluptuous, sexy character," and then you’re stuffing your bra, thinking, "Will they love me? Am I voluptuous enough?” With those auditions in the very beginning, I’ve questioned, "Has it gotten better or do I just not realize it now because I’m at a higher level, so perhaps I’m more protected from those conversations?"

I do remember, very early on, I was like 20 years old and I met Tilda Swinton at a Golden Globes party. I was beyond thrilled. I was on “House.” Or was I on “House” yet? I don’t even know. I don’t know why or how I got into this party. But she was sitting with Catherine Keener, who is one of my all-time idols, and I went up and just prostrated myself before them. Tilda was so gracious with me and said, “I do not envy you being a young actress forced to be the ingénue. You must feel so much pressure.” And I thought, “Wow. We’re accustomed to thinking that aging actresses are so envious of the young ingénues and that being an aging actress is so sad.” Bullshit. She made it very clear to me at that moment how liberating getting older is because you are no longer trying so hard to be everything to everyone. I just remember that moment and suddenly being very excited to evolve and grow old in this business, and she’s absolutely right: I am so much happier now being too old for those ingénue roles. I like playing people who have some fucking history and who’ve been through some shit. The complexity of life as you get older, I think, becomes a lot more interesting to watch, which isn’t to say there aren’t fascinating young characters and brilliant actresses playing them. I remember one of my first auditions, the casting director looked at me and said, "You’ll be all right, you’ve got a pie face." I was like, "Is that good?! You said it like it was a good thing, but if I were to guess that’s a bad thing."

Maybe she meant that pie is cute? Just trying to help you out here.

Pie’s not cute! I think of pie as crusty, round and flat. Anyway, that’s just a little snippet of the experience of being a young actress.

"Meadowland" opens in New York and Los Angeles on Oct. 16. It expands to additional cities and premieres via VOD on Oct. 23. This interview has been edited and condensed.

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This girl's show of support for her mother battling cancer will make tears roll down your face. 

Four-year-old McKenna's mom, Dianna Stanchak, was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma two years ago, according Inside Edition. During a cancer support party for her 23-year-old mother, McKenna passionately sang Martina McBride's "I'm Gonna Love You Through It" to Stanchak.

The emotional moment was caught on camera and uploaded to Ellen Degeneres' Facebook page on Monday where it quickly went viral with more than 25 million views on the social media site as of Thursday afternoon. Martina McBride herself tweeted about the video, complimenting McKenna on her pipes by saying that the 4-year-old "can SING!"

Watch as the adorable girl serenades her mother with all she's got. Stanchak gets emotional during the performance and wipes tears from her eyes several times.

McKenna's grandmother, Dee Silvernail, told Inside Edition that the song came out around Stanchak's diagnosis and that the 4-year-old sings the sweet tune to her mother every day. 

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Celia Cruz's famous smile was as emblematic of her character as her enthusiastic "¡Azucar!," which is why it's so easy to forget the hardships the "Queen of Salsa" faced during her lifetime. 

Telemundo's new series "Celia" hopes to shine a light on the obstacles the late Cuban singer faced. After all, the singer, who died in 2003, launched her career in the middle of the Cuban Revolution, was forced to start over in the U.S. shortly after and fought for recognition in a genre that was dominated by men. 

The Huffington Post sat down with Puerto Rican actress Jeimy Osorio (who portrays young Celia) and Cuban actress and singer Aymee Nuviola (who portrays older Celia) about the new series. The stars opened up about their initial concerns playing the salsa legend and what they hope audiences take away from the series. 

How does it feel to portray an icon like Celia Cruz on television? 

Jeimy Osorio: Well for me it's a profound joy, a blessing and also an honor to be able to pay tribute to this woman who is a legend, not only in music but also in fashion and on a cultural level. 

Aymee Nuviola: When I first found out, I didn’t believe it, then I cried and laughed. I really enjoyed it but I did worry because I live in Miami and I’m Cuban -- there’s a Cuban audience in Miami that remains from Celia’s era, people who might not go out to a club at midnight but will be watching the telenovela. I know my people, Cubans are critical about [these] things. But you also have to eventually distance yourself from those things because you won’t enjoy it otherwise.

Celia was bigger than life, those are definitely big shoes to fill. What specifically worried you about portraying her? 

JO: At the beginning I was scared to death and wondered every day whether I truly had what it takes to portray this character, because I feel like I still have a long way to go in acting. I’m just starting and growing. And having that responsibility did end up weighing on me but then I said "I’m not going to think about that and I’m what I’m going to do is enjoy it." I began to enjoy being this character who is full of joy and so many beautiful emotions that Celia was known for.

AN: I was worried about the responsibility [as a Cuban woman]. On set I always tried to contribute to the series -- like the language, there were things in the script that weren’t appropriate for Cubans or the time period. 

But it’s really a huge honor and privilege. Very few times in an artist's life do you have the opportunity to be a protagonist, much less portray a figure like Celia who has so many reference points to my life. I also left Cuba. I’m also an immigrant. I’m black. I’m a singer in the same genre... Fortunately there is fiction in the series. That’s also something that people need to understand, this isn’t a testimonial or a documentary on Celia’s life. It’s a series inspired by her life. 

Jeimy, did you learn anything about the singer as you prepared to become Celia on-screen ? 

JO: I learned so many things. Celia was so humble that she welcomed everything with so much love. She respected the work of others and valued even more what came her way. But she was also a woman with a strong character, she was sweet but when she had a strong opinion on something she defended it until the end. She was also a woman that used obstacles that were working against her to move forward -- she was a woman in the 50s, in the middle of a Revolution who was forced to leave her country and start from zero in another country. And not to mention she did it in salsa, a musical genre that was completely dominated by men. To me, that’s all worthy of admiration.

Aymee, you're also a salsa singer so I'm assuming Celia had an impact on your career?  

AN: I met Celia after I left Cuba because in Cuba you didn’t hear her music. But I wasn’t conscious at that moment who she was... I didn’t have a complete understanding of who Celia was until I saw her sing at Mexico’s National Auditorium.

When I saw how she came out and said"¡Azucar! and the enormous crowd began to fall over -- kids and older folk alike -- that’s when I looked around me and said “Ohhh, wait a minute.”

There are many things Celia fans remember about the singer, but what's the main message you hope the series delivers? 

JO: I think Celia didn’t want to be remembered as a star but as a good human being. I think all of those qualities are what we’re trying to highlight in this project.

AN: One message is perseverance. She was a persevering woman but a woman with pure intentions. She didn’t harbor in her heart any jealousy or -- how we say in Cuba, “quitate tu pa’ ponerme yo”-- that idea that in order for me to shine I have to step on someone else.

Even after she was a big figure she allowed others to guide her. She was modest, she listened and loved her family and husband. She had values, as in she wasn’t just an artist that traveled the world. She also worried about maintaining her marriage and having a beautiful family even though she never had children. And that’s all something I think we can remind people of.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

"Celia" premiered on Telemundo Oct. 13 at 8 p.m. EDT. 

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Food. It's pretty good to eat and it can teach you a lot about a place.

Inspired by their passion for travel, artists Caitlin Levin and Henry Hargreaves set out to translate that spirit into delicious culinary cartography.

"These maps are a playful representation of our interpretation of food from around the world, painstakingly created with real unadulterated food," according to Hargreaves. "This project speaks to the universality of how food unites people, brings us together and starts conversation -- just as we hope these beautiful maps will do, too."

For better or worse, America appears to be made of snack food, while France is mostly baguette and cheese. And you can practically smell the fresh tomatoes emanating from Italy. (Yes, tomatoes are not native to Italy, but Italians taught the world how to enjoy them.)

Delicious!

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A photographer is on a mission to take pictures of women embracing their natural beauty, sans makeup.

For his "No Makeup Series," photographer Steve Osemwenkhae has captured the natural beauty of more than 100 women. He told The Huffington Post that the idea came to him on his way to work when he noticed a fellow Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) passenger applying her makeup.

"As she layered her face with lotion and foundation, I started to think about a makeup-less photo session and how to showcase natural beauty," he said. "At that moment is when I decided to take on the project with a few friends."

Though Osemwenkhae initially planned on showcasing five to 10 of his friends in his series and sharing their thoughts toward makeup, the project has become much bigger. The photos are featured online, and Osemwenkhae is currently working on grants to create a book and a traveling gallery. 

Osemwenkhae also hopes to hit the road in the future to photograph as many people as possible. His goal for the project is to help others understand the various ways women relate to makeup, social pressures and concepts of beauty. 

"I want everyone to have their own voice when it comes to the narrative of beauty, and hopefully I can continue to do that within the next few years with these photos and videos," he said.

See more women embracing their natural beauty along with excerpts from their thoughts about makeup below.

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Sophia is a project to collect life lessons from fascinating people. Subscribe to get our updates directly via Facebook or email, or share your own wisdom. 

The launch of Sabaa Tahir's debut novel, "An Ember in the Ashes," is the stuff of literary legend.

The book "was greeted with such breathless accolades before its April release that it seemed unlikely it could live up to the hype," the New York Timesreported, before concluding: "The hype appears justified."

Ahead of the book's debut, Paramount Pictures bought the film rights in a seven-figure deal and foreign publishing rights were sold in 24 countries; "Ember" hit #2 on the young adult best seller's list in its first week, and Tahir subsequently signed on to write a sequel (whose title was announced last month).

"An Ember in the Ashes" is frequently described as an amalgam of three other wildly popular fantasy series. "It has the addictive quality of 'The Hunger Games' combined with the fantasy of 'Harry Potter' and the brutality of 'Game of Thrones,'" said one review for Public Radio International.

The author's life sometimes reads like fiction. Tahir grew up in her parents' far-flung 18-room motel in California's Mojave Desert, "hundreds of miles from anything worthwhile." The daughter of Pakistani immigrants, she was "the only brown kid in a not-brown town," an outsider who found solace in books and "thunderous indie rock".

A college summer internship at the Washington Post turned into a editing job on the foreign desk, where she was immersed in reporting about war zones and crimes against humanity. "Specific stories stuck with me," she said, "and had me asking myself about the oppressed and the oppressors, as well as about what I would do if I were stuck in some of the situations I read about. 'Ember' was born from those questions."

Tahir wrote the novel over six years, through a pregnancy and the infancy of her first son. In an interview with HuffPost earlier this year, Tahir explored her early influences, how she works and how she parents, the realities of sudden success, and how to go "booking" with someone you love.

Let's talk about your early influences. Was there anything your parents did for you that many parents don't do that left a lasting impact?

My parents worked harder than anyone I have ever met. They had so many businesses. There was the motel, but throughout my childhood, they also had a drive-through Dairy Queen, a gas station, a clothing store, a computer reselling business. 

Anytime you own a small business, it's all you. There is nobody to fall back on. For my parents, it was everything. They live and breathe it. And they have to because that's how you survive, that's how you pay the bills. My mom also worked a retail job so that we'd have health insurance. I have just never seen two people work harder in my life in this country.

They never gave up, but it wasn't a sort of rah-rah, "Never give up!" thing. It was just that they got up, they did their work, they didn't complain. They made sure we were provided for. And they really, really encouraged hard work. 

My dad was very strict. He was absolutely the Tiger Dad. You know, "You got a 98% on this test? Why didn't you get 100?" That was normal life for my brothers and I. It was not considered weird; we didn't really start thinking that it sucked until we got older. We were like, "Hey! All our friends are getting B's or A-minuses and it's okay." But not in our family.

When I went to college, it was so easy. And I worked two jobs while I was in school all the way through, I put myself through school. But working and studying was easy for me because I had worked so hard in high school, studying all the time. Taking only three classes and then working was an easy life in comparison. A lot of my friends really struggled, even though they're super smart people, because they hadn't had that background.

My parents always kept us busy. The motel was right across from the school district offices and they had a big room of spare textbooks. Every summer, we would go in there and get the books for next year's classes. My brothers and I dreaded it. "Crap. We have to get our school books and we're going to have to study all summer." My parents weren't totally crazy about it; we'd study them, say, once a week. 

And it actually helped. Honestly, I'm totally going to do that with my kids. We don't have a school district office to go to where they can dread it, but I'm going to go to the bookstore and say, "Okay, we're getting first grade stuff for you now because you're going into first grade."

You immersed yourself in books, partly as an escape from the reality around you, but I assume you're grateful for it now. How are you approaching reading with your own kids?

Books were my savior. It was like having a constant friend, especially as a kid when I didn't always feel like I connected to my friends. I had friends but I didn't, I still felt alone. So books were my friends. I understood them and they understood me and that's how I felt. 

Obviously I don't want my children to feel lonely, but I would love it if they could feel like they could open a book and disappear into it. There was this lovely gif that I posted on my Tumblr. Sorry, I have to mention this. It has this person running from reality, a reality monster is chasing her, and she jumps into a book and it slams shut. Reality's just like, "What?" You know, and can't do anything. That's the perfect gif from my childhood, that right there. 

It's such a paradox. If your parents weren't driving you to do more, would you have necessarily developed your work ethic?

I would never have. If my parents hadn't taught me what it is to work really, really hard, I never would have been able to write my first book, or the second. Doing all of this with two young kids and a family is just a ton of work. But it is not even a question as to how much effort I'm going to put into it.

As far as my kids go, I would love it if they loved to read. At the same time, I don't want to be the parent who's cracking the whip, making them constantly read. If my sons really enjoy comic books, for instance, I'm going to let them follow that and explore that.

I was a really late reader. I started reading when I was six and a half. And I hated reading at first, I thought it was the worst thing because I couldn't do it. As I got a little bit older I started realizing that this was a great escape and then developing a real love for fantasy in particular. And then, even though it was still sometimes a struggle for me to read, the story grabbed me so tightly—actually, that's how I started reading really fast.

It's totally the product of my childhood. When I was a kid, my parents hated it when I read novels. They felt it was a waste of time. "You should be studying!" So I read really fast because I didn't want them to catch me. It was totally a flashlight-under-a-blanket kid. I would read until my eyes were like sore and I knew I had to get up in the morning. I didn't want to get caught and I didn't want the book to get taken away.

You've mentioned that you and your husband would go "booking". What is that?

Ugh, I'm going to establish our nerd-hood forever in print. We would go on dates, we'd get dinner, and then instead of going to a movie or, I don't know, mini-golfing or whatever, we would go to a bookstore. We would wander around the bookstore for two hours, just browsing. Then we'd each get a book and we'd go home and read. It was just the greatest thing.

I still remember my mom asked me, when I'd first met my husband and we were seeing each other, she was like, "Why do you like him?" The first thing that popped into my head was, "Because he reads a ton." I'm like, "He reads as much as I do. I've never met anyone who reads as much as I do." And she just said, "You're right." So, yeah, books are big in the family.

Also, it's nice to read with my husband because he has a completely different perspective than me. Getting him to read "Harry Potter" was one of the biggest coups of my life. He does not read fantasy, he does not read Young Adult. He reads these giant, boring-ass books about World War II, and he loves them. They're delicious to him. 

So getting him to read "Harry Potter" was great, and what was interesting was that after we were finished, he saw it in a completely different light. He was seeing Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain. "Oh, this is totally like World War II Britain. It's so cool! And I can't believe she did X and --" And I'm reading it going, "Oh, I didn't see that at all."

You've had a crazy wave of success with your first novel. Are there any downsides to that?

The more success you have, the more you're aware of how far you have to fall. If I screw up, if I write a really bad second book, or if things don't go the way I was hoping, you know? Doubt and anxiety have become a bigger part of my life since I sold the book. You do sometimes wonder, "Are all these people crazy? Is this book terrible and they're all just delusional?" 

It's the Imposter Syndrome, where you tell yourself, "I shouldn't be here. I'm just that nerd who told stories. People are actually reading that story now? Why?" You find yourself sitting there thinking: your book is out there in the world, and people are reading, and judging it. And by extension, at times reading it and judging you.

And that can be scary, you know? Especially when you're kind of an introvert like I am.

So are you obsessive about reading reviews of your book on Amazon and Goodreads?

Oh, god, no. No! I actually blocked my book's Goodreads page. I can still go on Goodreads but I can't see the page for "Ember". And it was really just to keep my sanity.

Early on, in particular, I could not help myself. I had to go online and see what people were thinking. I think now I could actually unblock it and I wouldn't be tempted, because I started to see it from my point of view as a reader. There are books I like and there are books I don't like. It has nothing to do with the author, it's not personal. It's just like, "Eh, I didn't love it."

Learning to not take it personally was a big part of being able to let go and not read the reviews and not really care about the reviews. I do read trade reviews still, and they're so public that sometimes it can be hard. But I'm really lucky. There hasn't really yet been anything where I've wanted to go crawl under a rock and live there for two years. And I'm very thankful for that.

I know that that happens in every writer's life, so I'm just like waiting for it. Maybe it will be with the next book, I don't know. But I feel pretty thankful that at least for this first one, it wasn't too rough.

Do you have a routine for writing?

I do, I write every day. I try to start writing around 8 o'clock. I have to work myself into it. I have these playlists, these massive playlists, and they're how I sink into my world, with whoever I'm writing that day.

"Ember" has two points of view. So if I'm writing Elias' point of view, I'll find like Julian Casablancas+The Voidz and listen to a really loud, angry song about running away and that helps me sort of get into his mindset. If I was doing Laia, I'd find a song for her.

Then I'll write in bursts. I'll stop and then I'll write and then I'll stop. It requires so much discipline to not get distracted. I started using Anti-Social which is one of the Freedom apps and it shuts off all your social apps. So no Tumblr, no Twitter, no Facebook, none of that stuff. It's really helpful, and it's funny how much I'll still go. I don't even know I'm doing it. It's like a disease. I just click and I'll be like, "Oh, I just clicked on Twitter even though I'm not supposed to be doing that. I'm supposed to be writing."

I write a lot at night too. I feel like I do my best writing at night and I get my best ideas at 2 AM. Which is not good for my morning writing. My husband calls them "writing benders." I think you need that as a creative person. You need the freedom to write when you want and how you want, and to know that no one's going to be judging you the next day. No one's going to say, "Hey, why aren't you awake yet?"

This is why it's really great to have somebody in your life, whether it's your husband or your mom or your roommate, who is telling you that it's okay to do that, so that those creative voices can speak. If I'm having one of those days where things are going really, really well, my husband's not like, "Dude, you should really go to bed. You've got to get up tomorrow. The kids." He's just like, "Ride the wave." And he'll handle stuff in the morning.

That's one of the joys of a creative life is those moments where you are really inspired, where the muses take you. It's something that people joke about but it's real. It happens. It happens to me maybe once or twice a month. But sometimes I'm up late writing just because I haven't made word count that day because I was screwing around on Twitter. So I'm like, "Okay Sabaa, you need to write now. And now you'll suffer in the morning." On those days I will make myself get up the next day as punishment, basically. "Don't do that again."

On the other hand, you also need to let yourself sit with ideas. Sometimes it's not about word count. I was at my parents house one day—my parents have been really wonderful in helping me with the book. When I really need free space to write all day long without worrying about picking up children or anything, they have said, "Come and stay with us for a week. We'll take care of the kids and you can literally just leave and go and write and do what you want." I'm very fortunate to have that.

So I was doing one of those types of parental retreat-type things. I was sitting at the table and just staring into space. My dad walked by and he says, "It doesn't look like you're doing any writing." Then he just sort of keeps walking. Then I hear my mom say to him, "Half of writing is dreaming. So she is writing." I loved that she said that, because she got it, you know? She was 100% right.

I was staring off into space. I don't even know where I was—I was not here. I was in the Empire, probably in the middle of a battle scene, you know, about to get my head lopped off. And I thought it was great that she could feel that.

With the popularity of "Ember," you've also had financial success. Has the prospect of a different financial future changed your life in any unexpected ways?

I'm trying to think about how to answer this gracefully. When I had kids, I didn't want them to be as worried about putting themselves through school. It was something my brothers and I had to do. Our father was great in that he helped us apply for everything, he was always on top of it. But our parents could not pay for our education.

If there's one thing that I'm very grateful for, it's that all of this has created the possibility that I will be able to help my kids. I can set that aside for them and hopefully over the course of time I can help them through school. I'm still going to be like, "Go get a job." Because I think it's good for their character. But that would be nice.

I remember, we used to turn in the financial aid form every year, and then you would have to wait a few months to find out if you got aid for the next year or not. It was like so stressful to be wondering, "Is my GPA high enough for these grants? Did I get my scholarships? Did I get whatever work/study programs so that I can supplement?"

You lose sleep over it, and you lose opportunities. I really wanted to go abroad but I couldn't do it because it just wasn't something that was feasible. I would like it if my kids won't have to worry about that.

A lot of young people are reading your work. Looking back at your transition to adulthood, is there anything you wish you had done differently?

I wish that I had written much more as a younger person. I didn't do it because I thought it wasn't practical. I thought, "These stories are never going to go anywhere so I should not waste my time telling them." I wish I had not made that decision.

I should have written whenever I wanted and for as long as I wanted. I would've learned about storytelling and how to tell a story much earlier, and then it might not have taken me six years to write my book. A lot of that was the learning curve, just figuring out how to write.

I also wish that I'd known about the writing community earlier, before I became a published author. I really wrote in a vacuum. My friends and family were all very supportive but they didn't really get it. I would go three or four days where I hadn't written and it would be completely frustrating for me.

The biggest thing that the publishing deal has changed for me is that I'm a full-time writer. That is the biggest gift in the world. That was the first thing that popped into my head when I got the deal: "Oh, I can do this full-time now." That's very rare and major luck so I'm just riding that wave like my husband tells me to.

I wasn't writing full-time when I first started this. When I had the opportunity to write more, like when I was in school and I could've written three or four hours a day, I didn't do it. I don't know what I did with those three or four hours, probably screwed around. I wish that I had taken that time and worked on the craft. Because I think it would've really helped later.

Would you have approached your education any differently?

My parents wanted me to become a doctor. I worked at a hospital in my senior year and was like, "Ew!" They were disappointed, but said, "Do something where you can get a job." That was their main concern. Journalism was something where I felt like I could get a job.

It ended up teaching me so much. First, about the world, and what a dark place it is. Plus, the great thing about journalism and a good newspaper like the New York Times or the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal, the stories are wonderful examples of the building blocks of writing.

It's like classic like Strunk and White shit, basically. This is how you write a sentence. This is how you create a lede. This is how you generate interest. This is how you structure a story. I used to be a writing tutor at UCLA and when people would ask me, "What should I do to become a better writer?" I would always say, "Read the newspaper." It's one of the most engaging ways to really understand how to create good sentences.

That gave me a basic foundation that I needed to be able to write "Ember," to be able to write clearly. People often take that for granted. You need to know how to correctly form a sentence and to use punctuation and create a paragraph, because that then leads to: How do you build suspense? And how do you pace correctly? Then that leads to, how do you characterize? How do you make sure that characters are fully fleshed out? And that leads to plot. They're all related.

Any advice for new parents who are trying to work on a passion project while they've got a newborn or young kid?

I had to resign myself to piles of laundry, grilled cheese for dinner, a sometimes-grumpy husband, because writing had to matter more than everything else. When I was feeding him at night, I would hold the bottle with one hand and write with my other hand. I did that so many nights. Sometimes I'd turn on my iPhone and recorded what I was thinking about, then I would write it the next day.

Be inventive. Find any spare moment, because all of those moments will add up to a first draft or a first chapter or something. Staying connected to the writing every single day, even if that was like, "Okay, he's asleep. I really want to take a nap. I really should take a nap. But I'm not going to. I'm going to use this 45 minutes to write." You are sacrificing something, it's true. Like your own health. [laughter] And I know a lot of people don't agree with that.

And there's an extreme you probably shouldn't go to, but I think within reason it is really, really important to make sure that writing is number one. Even when, like I said, you have the pile of laundry that you really need to do. I also think asking for help if you can, whether it's from family, neighbors, people you trust. For me, in those early months, being able to have my mother-in-law come over and watch the baby for two hours while I wrote.

A lot of people don't realize how much it adds up. I wrote a draft, a bad draft but a draft nonetheless, by December 2009, almost entirely in those little spare pockets of time. It wasn't good, but it was something. It was a place to start from. So take what you can get, man. Especially in those early months. And if you have two kids, it's even harder and it's even more important that you sometimes prioritize your time to write.

Also, tell your partner or spouse, if you have one, "Sorry, no, you're not watching the game. You're watching the kids so that I can go write." You shouldn't have to be bossy, because hopefully that person will want to do that for you, but I was really lucky. There was a million times where my husband was like, "Go write, go write." He knew that it's something that needed to be done. 

Any advice more generally about raising young kids that learned the hard way?

It goes by really fast and you think that you will have the time and then you don't. So just enjoy it. My first got big really quick. He's six now and I'm like, "Where did you go? How did you become almost my height?" 

My second, I've enjoyed his babyhood much more because I know now. I get it. It's just going to fly by. So enjoy those quiet moments. You'll be waiting for your baby to walk, encouraging her, sometimes getting impatient. And then she'll start doing it and you'll be like, "Oh, I miss when she crawled." Then you'll be waiting for her to speak, and it's wonderful when they start to speak, but at the same time you miss the looks, where you're starting to interpret what they want by the little sounds or looks they use.

Every age is really precious, so yeah. Take lots of iPhone videos.

Anything that you want to pass on to your readers?

There's a piece of advice that I read in Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art." You really should read that book, it's wonderful. But it's really mean.

It's like, "Write your book!" The entire time the author is telling you, "Why are you reading this? Go write." Go do! Create! Whatever it is that you want to do, go and do it. I made a lot of excuses for myself in the six years that I was writing where I said, "I'm not writing because of blah. And because I don't have time. And because I have to do X. And because I suck at it." 

The most damaging thing you can do is to make those excuses. I always tell young writers, "If you find yourself making excuses for why you are not writing, reconsider your priorities. Those excuses are probably BS and you shouldn't make them if you want to be a writer."

I really wish somebody had told me that 10 years ago. I spent a long time making excuses for why I wasn't writing. Now I can't.

Is there some next chapter in your life that you envision? Some other passion of yours outside of writing that—

Oh, no man. This is it. This is my true love, right here. Writing is all I want to do. My friend Adam Sylvera, he wrote a book called, "More Happy Than Not." Wonderful book by the way. I sent him a congratulatory note when it came out, and he wrote back and said, "This job... god, we're so lucky."

That's the perfect encapsulation of how I feel about it. I would not want to do anything else. Writing is, it's my home. It's really all I want to do. I'm just glad I get to do it. As long as I can, I'm just going to hold on to that. Sink my claws in and never let go. 

*  *  *

Transcription services by Tigerfish; now offering transcripts in two-hours guaranteed. Interview text has been edited and condensed.

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How much of our identity is shaped by where we are? 

We asked EyeEm's community of photographers to capture their individuality through self portraits. Unsurprisingly, space and place played major roles in each image. Whether waking up in a tent perched somewhere in the mountains, or taking to the water by kayak, the photographers who took the images below are inspiring us to pack our back and hit the road.

Take a look at the stunning images below.

 
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Looking back at his life, Ulisse Bezzi can remember two constants: land and photography. The first had always been a harsh necessity, the second an unconditional passion that now, at 90, has attracted the attention of U.S.-based gallery owner Keith De Lellis. The tale of how one of the most famous gallery owners in Manhattan wound up purchasing the photographs of an unheard of farmer from Ravenna, Italy, resembles, in many ways, the fairytale story of American street photographer Vivian Maier. Also a babysitter, she lived in complete anonymity among baby bottles and carriages, until she was discovered and hailed as an undisputed genius of the captured image. 

One evening, Bezzi's phone rang. "Hello, this is the Keith De Lellis Gallery calling. We would like to invite you to New York so that we could view your photos." This brief introduction, which seemed almost like a prank call, prompted a cautious rejection from the elderly photographer. But his mysterious interlocutor didn't give up. The gallery proposed a face-to-face meeting, and De Lellis offered to fly to Italy and travel to Bezzi’s house if he preferred. Around two weeks ago, they met at Bezzi's countryside home in San Pietro, Vincoli, a tiny town between Ravenna and Forli.

Hundreds of photographs completely covered the living room table. Bezzi and his wife Giulia had carefully safeguarded the photos for decades. His guests -- the gallery owner and an interpreter -- combed through work dating back to the 1950s and '60s. Some of the photos were shot with a Retinette Kodak 24/36, which Bezzi bought when he was much younger, with the money he earned from working for his neighbor during pruning season. He also shot photographs with a used Rolleiflex 6/6, which he bought for 40,000 liras. Almost all the images were in black and white, personally printed by Bezzi. He would develop them late at night, and take over the kitchen and bathroom to hang the prints. Most of his works are portraits, figures and landscapes. He has been able to transform reality into intense images, with a farmer’s personal feelings as a filter.

"I felt a need to take photographs. I don't know how to explain it in words," Bezzi told HuffPost Italy as he gently stroked his camera. "I did it my way. I wanted to do something different.”

Bezzi would take photographs after he finished working in the fields, “even if it got dark,” he said.  “I never thought about exhibitions or competitions. I only did it for my own personal pleasure."

His friends practically forced him to participate in a series of national and international exhibitions, where Bezzi's extraordinary talent was recognized. He is a self-taught photographer whose work was often awarded prizes, such as during a show in San Paolo.

Though Bezzi was unable to travel to receive his award because the trip was too long and expensive, he said such exposure must be how he came to De Lellis' attention. "He said he'd seen a large photo, indicating its size with his hands," Bezzi said. After the gallery owner made his selection and they set a price, they said their goodbyes -- and their arrivedercis (see you again soon).

Several dozen photographs took flight for the Big Apple, headed for the Keith De Lellis Gallery on Madison Avenue, an art shrine that has previously hosted works by Man Ray, Nino Migliori and Robert Doisneau. It is currently hosting an exhibition of vintage images of New York.  

"Will I go see them? That's an adventure I don't feel up to taking," admitted Bezzi. "I'm done with photography. I wouldn't know what to shoot anymore." His silent gaze confirms his decision, as he looks out toward the horizon and his fields.

Scroll down to see a selection of Bezzi's photos:

This story originally appeared on HuffPost Italy and has been translated into English.

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What do you do with an old bank you bought for just a dollar? Turn it into Chicago's newest cultural center, of course.

When the dilapidated, century-old Stony Island Trust & Savings Bank in Greater Grand Crossing, a neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, went on the market in 2012, artist Theaster Gates Jr. snapped it up. 

Last week, the newly renamed Stony Island Arts Bank opened its doors. 

Envisioned as a cultural hub for black artists and local residents, the center will host installations, scholars and documents to educate the public about art, architecture and black culture. It will also be home to the Rebuild Foundation, a nonprofit Gates founded to help revitalize underdeveloped neighborhoods through cultural programs.

"More and more artists were moving into this neighborhood," Gates said in an interview with White Cube, a London-based gallery. "But there were no real amenities on the main street, no cafes or shops, no hang spaces." 

Gates began restoring the bank after he purchased it, raising some of the funds by selling blocks of marble from the building as "bank bonds" at Art Basel, Mental Floss reported.

The University of Chicago, where Gates is a professor, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago donated over 60,000 glass lantern slides for lectures on art and architectural history. The center will also offer visitors access to part of Ebony and Jet magazine founder and prominent African-American businessman John H. Johnson's magazine and book collection. 

Take a look at photos of the renovated building below.

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If you've ever made a Judy Chicago joke while attending a dinner party, or put on a gorilla mask and high heels to fight the patriarchy in style, or pondered a big decision by asking yourself, What Would Yoko Do? -- this is the coloring book for you. 

Artist Grace Miceli's Feminist Art Coloring Bookis exactly what it sounds like, a heavenly compendium of black-and-white drawings depicting real life goddesses including Carolee Schneemann, Mickalene Thomas, Hannah Wilke and much more. Their glowing faces are just waiting for your creative touch to truly bring them to life. It will probably be the closest you'll ever get to collaborating with Ana Mendieta et al. 

Miceli has been in the coloring book biz since 2011. Her other books include Hey Net Girl Hey and The Official Digital Valley Girl Coloring Book. She's also the brain behind Art Baby Gallery, a digital space for burgeoning, multimedia artists and the recent, buzzy "Girls at Night on the Internet" exhibition, featuring work by Petra Collins, Vivian Fu, Arvida Byström and Maja Malou Lyse. 

"I was definitely inspired by The Official Valley Girl Coloring Book by Moon Zappa and the Cunt Coloring Book by Tee Corinne to work in that medium," Miceli told The Huffington Post. "When I made these back in 2012 I was interested in the element of interactivity. I would sell a copy to someone overseas and then a few weeks later see them post their colored-in version of my drawings."

If you read The Huffington Post's Arts & Culture section -- like, ever, at all -- you know our writers love few things in this world more than feminist art and coloring. So, yeah, we're very into this.

"I guess the goal is a little bit of feminist art history," Miceli concluded. "It’s my small and playful attempt at adding to a discourse that I think [we] could use a few more textbooks and courses on. I get excited when someone tells me they’re purchasing the coloring book for a young person as a gift, it wouldn’t hurt for a few aspiring male artists to learn about these women as well." 

Truuuuue.

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Photographer Gabe Tomoiaga likes using his art to transport his three young sons into magical worlds.

The Seattle-based dad photographs 4-year-old Landon, 2-year-old Liam and 10-month-old Lucas as they go on outdoor adventures in local parks, beaches and even their own backyard. Then, he uses some editing magic to bring their imaginary worlds to life.

"My sons are my world! Everything they say and do inspires me to create magical photographs," Tomoiaga told The Huffington Post. "They don’t think about the past or the future, they only focus on the present moment taking pleasure in the small things."

The three little boys "absolutely love taking photos," the dad said, adding, "Their eyes light up every time we take off to our next adventure!" Not only do the kids enjoy posing for the shoots but they also want to get involved with the photography equipment and editing. Working with energetic little boys can be a challenge though, as they sometimes have a hard time remaining still, Tomoiaga said.

When it comes time to view the finished images, the photographer says his sons are "captivated" and like to describe each one as if they're telling a story. 

Tomoiaga hopes his photos will inspire people to use their imaginations and focus on the simple yet important things in life. 

"Live in the moment!" he urged. "Spend more time with your loved ones. Time is the most valuable thing, and lost time is never found again."

H/T BoredPanda

 
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This video is scary fun.

Mode recently released a video showing different styles of Halloween costumes throughout the course of a century. From simply scary getups to downright adorable outfits, costumes have gone through quite the evolution throughout the years.  

Watch as the video begins with a spooktacularly creepy costume from 1915 and ends with a silly play on an iconic ensemble from 2015 that, according to the video's description, is "guaranteed to break the Internet." 

We can only imagine what the next 100 years will bring. 

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A new documentary is telling the stories of burlesque dancers and revealing just how empowering getting naked can be.

Directed by James Lester, "Getting Naked: A Burlesque Story" follows five professional burlesque dancers over the course of four years living and working in New York City. The film features Gal Friday, Darlinda Just Darlinda, Perle Noire, Hazel Honeysuckle and Minnie Tonka. 

"Getting Naked" highlights the bright lights and distinct style of the 100-year-old performance art, while also showing the dancers' family life and struggles with relationships outside of work. 

Burlesque, like other types of performance art, has the potential to be a feminist act. “We’re all there doing exactly what we want, not just getting naked -- we’re there expressing ourselves completely," one woman says in the trailer for the film below. 

The film's Kickstarter launched on Oct. 15 to raise funds for post-production in order to finish the film.

According to the film's director James Lester, the five performers all come from different backgrounds. "Each performer I followed had a different background. But they all arrived to the same place: burlesque," he told The Huffington Post "There was a specific moment they realized they were living lives of constraint. Whether it was a dead-end job, or a life of loneliness, or a near-death experience, each woman decided for herself, enough is enough, it’s time I live a life of liberation and fulfillment. For them, that new life was burlesque."

Darlinda Just Darlinda explained to HuffPost how burlesque has empowered her over her 11-year career. "For me, the empowerment of burlesque comes from audience inspiration," she said. "They come to see a show and end up feeling empowered about their sexuality, their bodies and they have been entertained."  

"Whether it’s body type, skin color, or age, burlesque represents what is actually real, in existence, not what’s been photo-shopped in a magazine or edited on TV," Lester said. While Darlinda agreed that burlesque "can be tied to feminism," she said that it "needs to be better curated to include all shapes, sizes and colors." 

As Hazel Honeysuckle says in the film, “When I do burlesque I can be sexy, I can be stupid, I can be gorgeous, or ugly, or funny. I can do anything I want when I get out on stage, and that’s pretty magical.”

Damn straight that's magical. 

Head over to the film's Kickstarter or website to learn more about the documentary. 

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California scientists have created an absorbent nanosponge material that can be sewn into swimwear and wet suits to soak up water pollution.

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In a two-story house in suburban Ohio, something was lurking.

Was it a strange presence in the attic, whipping around corners and rattling the floorboards, that lent the house an air of eeriness? Or was it a shadowy figure sitting stone-still in a dark basement, patiently awaiting the next underground visitor?

More likely, neither of these mystical beings were present in the childhood home of horror writer R.L. Stine. It was the absence, rather than the presence, of such scary creatures that allowed him to dream them up over the course of his storied career.

And what a storied career. Stine has written hundreds and sold millions of books over the past few decades, most of them belonging to his beloved Goosebumps and Fear Street series, made popular by TV and movie adaptations. He's still writing Fear Street books and scary adult stories -- in his most recent, The Lost Girl, a yearbook from decades earlier clues a clan of kids into a classmate's spooky identity. 

Stine’s life as a writer of the weird and wicked will be celebrated in a kid’s movie starring Jack Black, highlighting the nostalgic monsters from Goosebumps books.

“He’s a good R.L. Stine. He’s a lot more sinister than I am, Jack. He’s a lot more evil,” Stine said in an interview with The Huffington Post.

He’s right: Stine might’ve shown up to meet me wearing all black, but nothing else about his appearance alluded a witchy interior life. The creator of stories that haunted so many '90s kids’ childhoods was mostly kind, if matter-of-fact. “Kids are always disappointed when I visit schools and come out,” he said. “They expect me to be evil or maybe wear a black cape or have fangs or something, and then this old guy walks out and they say, ‘Oh, no.’”

For our full interview with R.L. Stine, listen to the audio clip.

Though capeless, Stine offered me anecdotes from his childhood, and insights into the decidedly practical writing process that would lead to such whimsical tales of horror and intrigue as Night of the Living Dummies and Say Cheese and Die. In the latter book -- a philosophical story as far as Goosebumps goes -- a mythical camera has the power to cast its subjects forever into the afterlife, or at least give those who pose for it minor injuries. Like many of Stine’s books, there are cultural references embedded within it. In fact, Stine got the idea for the book from a similar episode of “The Twilight Zone” called “A Most Unusual Camera.”

“A lot of the Goosebumps titles are from these '50s horror movies my brother and I saw every week,” Stine said. “‘It Came from Beneath the Sea’ became a Goosebumps book called It Came from Beneath the Sink. That kind of thing.”

Aside from the horror movies he saw on Sundays with his brother -- which, it’s worth noting, Stine found more funny than scary -- his childhood was typical. Beyond being bullied as a kid, there wasn’t much for him to be afraid of, at least within the walls of his own home, where Stine would stake out for hours, typing feverishly on his aunt’s typewriter.

“I was like nine years old, and I’d be in my room, typing, typing up joke magazines and funny little comics,” Stine said. “I never planned to be scary, I always just wanted to be funny. And I’d be typing up these funny stories, but I don’t know why. And my mother would be outside my door, and she’d say, ‘What’s wrong with you? Go outside and play!’ And I’d say, ‘It’s boring out there!’ Someone asked me what’s the worst advice anyone ever gave you, and I had to say, it’s my mother saying, ‘Stop typing and go outside and play.’”

Stine had been writing humor magazines for decades, developing his voice while contributing to Ohio State University's satirical paper The Sundial in the mid-'60s, before he fell slantwise into writing scary books. Under the pen name of “Jovial Bob,” he wrote 101 School Cafeteria Jokes, The Cool Kid’s Guide to Summer Camp, and, yes, 101 Silly Monster Jokes, and many others until he wrote his first horror story in 1986. Even with his Goosebumps and Fear Street series, Stine insists that it’s never his aim to write straightforwardly scary books; his stories are, in his opinion, a combination of humor and fear.

“It’s the same kind of guttural reaction,” Stine said, adding, “I’m kind of odd because scary stuff doesn’t scare me. Horror always makes me laugh. I’m always the one in the movie theatre and the shark comes up, and it chews the girl up -- I’m always the one laughing. I don’t know why.”

Perhaps its his ability to view scary situations as an objective outsider rather than a participant. When Stine describes how he began writing Goosebumps books, or where he gets his ideas for his scariest scenes, he’s notably hard-nosed. He has no illusions about divine inspiration or the uniqueness of his ideas. Instead, it’s clear that Stine views writing as a job, and his celebrated series as his successful business.

“I was so pleased with myself,” Stine said about the day he conceived of his first horror series. “I had individual titles of teen horror, I was just starting out. The first one was called Blind Date. The next was called Twisted. And the publisher wanted one a year, and I thought, gee, one a year? There must be a way to do a series. And then we started thinking about location and that kind of thing, and I thought, if I can think of a good name for the series, I’ll be off to a good start.”

The name popped into his head, a punchy-sounding packaging: “Fear Street.” From those words, he came up with a concept: rather than a recurring cast of characters, which would be impractical for a genre that concerns itself with killing off protagonists, the events would all center on a cursed residential street -- one that could exist in any suburban town.

“Of course, I always wonder why they don’t move to Happy Street,” Stine joked, adding that it was essential to him that the setting be Midwestern. Although he promptly moved to New York City after college, and still lives there with his wife and son Matthew, Stine won’t set a horror book there on principle.

“It’s a superstition,” Stine said. “I’ve never done it. A lot of kids don’t know New York. They know a nice suburban backyard, but they don’t know New York City. It’s kind of elite in some ways, I think. I think it would make the stories more obscure for kids.”

So, guided by his principles about relatable storytelling, Stine was sure to set each Goosebumps and Fear Street book in a nondescript, middle-class kitchen or basement. This virtue-driven approach echoes throughout his entire approach to writing: Stine praises the merits of a detailed outline, and of writing the titles and the endings to his scary stories first, “so I know how to fool the reader and keep them from getting to the end [before me].”

“I work backwards from most authors,” Stine said. “Most authors have an idea for a book, they write, they’re writing, later on they think of a title. I have to start with a title. It leads me to the story. Kids always ask -- everyone asks -- ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ I wanna say, ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ Because we all get ideas. Mine actually come from thinking of the title first. The first of the new Fear Street books -- Party Games -- I had that title, and I thought, it lead me to the story. There’s a party. Maybe it’s a birthday party. Maybe they’re playing some kind of games and the games get out of hand.”

Next, Stine painstakingly drafts a 15-20 page outline that includes plot and dialogue before he sets out to fill in the holes. The biggest point of deliberation that he dwells on is making sure the scares in his works are suitable for the age group he’s writing for.

“I’m very careful in Goosebumps,” Stine said. “I have to make the kids know that what’s happening in the book couldn’t really happen. That it’s just a fantasy. And then when I write a Fear Street book or an adult book, I have to make people think it could happen. It’s kind of the opposite.”

Still, he insists that most fears are universal, existing from when we’re young and gullible, through the travails of adulthood.

“I think we all have the same kind of fears. And it’s the one thing that doesn’t change. Fear of the dark, fear there’s something in the closet, fear there’s someone under your bed waiting to grab your ankle when you sit up,” Stine said. “People always say, ‘How’ve kids changed? Over all the time you’ve been writing these books, how have they changed?’ And I always say, well, the technology has changed but the fears don’t change.”

Stine, the master of crafting scary scenarios, counts himself exempt from these universal fears. When I asked him what he was scared of, he said, “Not a thing.”

Laughing, he added, “Normal adult things. All these years and I don’t have a good answer for that question. That’s terrible, isn’t it?”

Audio produced by Katelyn Bogucki and edited by Brad Shannon. 

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Miley Cyrus made headlines over the summer when she came out as pansexual, thereby introducing many people to a term that they may have heard before but don't entirely understand.

But pansexual is just one of many sexual and romantic identities that exist beyond more commonly known and discussed orientations like heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual. In fact, some people may not even know that a person can be romantically, as well as sexually, oriented. According to Asexuality.org, romantic attraction "is an emotional response that most people often feel that results in a desire for a romantic relationship with the person that the attraction is felt towards." The site notes that "many asexual people experience romantic attraction even though they do not feel sexual attraction" and though romantic and sexual orientations often "match," "it is common to find mixed combinations of romantic and sexual orientations" in the asexual community.

To help shed some more light on this subject matter, here are 12 terms related to sexual and romantic identities that are beginning to receive more attention in the media but that are still regularly absent or erased from conversations currently taking place in popular culture.

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Friday Oct. 16 is World Food Day, a moment for people around the world to come together and reaffirm their commitment to eradicating global food insecurity.

2015 is also the year of the soil, an initiative launched by the United Nations to raise awareness about the importance of soil in maintaining food production and ecosystem interactions. Soil is an often-overlooked aspect of nature, especially in today's society where many of us don't get to see how food gets from the farm to our plates.

On its "The Power and Beauty of Dirt" Your Shot gallery, National Geographic gathered stunning photos from around the world that capture the many different ways in which we interact with soil in our daily lives, from retrieving clean water from soil in cyclone-ridden Bangladesh, to making tea vessels in India, to tilling the soil for rice production in Madagascar.

Take a look at the jaw-dropping photos below:

Your Shot is National Geographic's photography community, where members share images, take part in story assignments and get feedback from editors. 

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that Google's massive effort to scan millions of books for an online library does not violate copyright law, rejecting claims from a group of authors that the project illegally deprives them of revenue.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York rejected infringement claims from the Authors Guild and several individual writers, and found that the project provides a public service without violating intellectual property law.

The authors sued Google, whose parent company is now named Alphabet Inc, in 2005, a year after the project was launched. They claimed that the scanning illegally deprived them of revenue.

But Google argued that the effort would actually boost book sales by making it easier for readers to find works, while introducing them to books they might not otherwise have seen.

A Google spokesman and a lawyer for the authors both did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google had said it could face billions of dollars in potential damages if the authors prevailed.

Circuit Judge Denny Chin, who oversaw the case at the lower court level, dismissed the litigation in 2013, prompting the authors' appeal.

Chin found Google's scanning of tens of millions of books and posting "snippets" online constituted "fair use" under U.S. copyright law.

A unanimous three-judge appeals panel said the case "tests the boundaries of fair use," but found Google's practices were ultimately allowed under the law.

"Google’s division of the page into tiny snippets is designed to show the searcher just enough context surrounding the searched term to help her evaluate whether the book falls within the scope of her interest (without revealing so much as to threaten the author’s copyright interests)," Circuit Judge Pierre Leval wrote for the court.

The 2nd Circuit had previously rejected a similar lawsuit from the Authors Guild in June 2014 against a consortium of universities and research libraries that built a searchable online database of millions of scanned works.

Google Books began after the company agreed with several major research libraries to digitize current and out-of-print books from their collections.

The individual plaintiffs who filed the proposed class action against Google included former New York Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton, the author of the acclaimed memoir, "Ball Four."

The case is Authors Guild v. Google Inc, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 13-4829.

(Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bernadette Baum)

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