Nineteen years ago, I’d almost pulled up to the parking lot at my factory job, when shocked co-workers flagged me down in the street. ‘There’s been an airplane accident in NYC. Big one. Management wants us to stay home today.” I drove the 20+ miles home listening to NPR coverage. Once home I turned on…
Read More 9-11 Memories and Fake DramaTL;dr…I drone on about embracing one’s weird stories. Several writer friends confessed they don’t read many other writing blogs: “Because below a certain level of skill/experience, they all have the same bravado, bewilderment, and desperation to promote their work.” Above that level, writers’ blogs are often about other things than writing, an informative and often…
Read More The Sun and the Moon DebacleHigh contrast: last week it was responsible adults in the room talking about hope, diversity, unity, and hard work. This week: rallying cries for a second Civil War delivered by coked-up nepotistic sycophants to a hateful demented old lech who can barely read from a teleprompter (yet mocks even family members with disabilities). Seriously, Don…
Read More DNC vs RNC conventionsThree years ago I bought a display form from a local boutique that was going out of business. I named it ‘Adelaide‘ after the boutique. Adelaide-the-mannequin had a cracked support post and base, and was permanently pitched backward (she frequently fell over). She also needed various bits of padding to mimic my ridiculously variable girth.…
Read More Say hi again to AdelaideIt’s literary pie fight time! Otherwise known as the Hugo Awards. And lo, in the midst of the Covid19 Plague Year, heat waves, hurricanes, murder hornets, and global political unrest, the speculative fiction community did come together virtually to award (some) of the best creators in the business. They did so in what could have…
Read More Those 2020 Hugo AwardsWarning: political snark. I’ve been admonished for being too political in my art & writing. I have also been accused of not being political enough. To be clear, I have been political since at least 1986. Sometimes it didn’t show as much. All that socially liberal SFF I’d read since 1977 ran up against my…
Read More Everything Is PoliticalTL;dr…Look up authors on social media before you decide to join their private writers’ groups or professional organizations. Yeah, there’s a pandemic happening, and it’s getting worse in the regions where Stupid Meets Hateful. I live in Arizona, one of the current US hotspots. Covid19 is around every corner. I’m in lockdown right now from…
Read More The RWA Meltdown: CodicilI’m publishing a new version of my sword-and-planet fantasy novel BLOODSHADOW on July 10, 2020, through Draft2Digital. At 40,482 words, this is a revised version of the first part of the monster 135K book that was on Wattpad some years ago. Amazon US buy link Amazon global buy link Universal buy link (for platforms other…
Read More Relaunching Bloodshadow!After the bloviated weirdness of Trump’s Nuremberg-Rally-style ‘celebration’ at Mount Rushmore on July 3, 2020, I’ve noticed a common thread on social media feeds. Ordinary non-Trumper Americans, especially people of color and LGBTQIA folks, are *flinching* at American flags. Because now there’s a deadly calculus going on in our heads: “Is that flag being flown…
Read More I Want My Symbols BackTwo good things have come out of our Plague Year nightmare: I’ve forcibly learned tips and tricks for a masked/veiled population in at least two of my books, so I have no excuse for any lack of verisimilitude later when working on NEEDLE AND SWORD or RED AMBER. As a rather standoffish person, I hate…
Read More Mask Selfie #1Is there any craft more ‘Karen‘ right now, than beadwork? Bear with me, I’ll circle back to that particular Molotov cocktail. My little existential crisis is *nothing* to the convulsions my beloved USA is going through right now. And yet, my tiny crisis has a direct link to what we’re seeing right now, in the…
Read More Beadwork, Karens, and Burning CitiesOf course, I mean the wonderful Weird Western Bruce Campbell show that ran for a single season on the Fox Broadcasting Co. back in 1993-1994: ‘The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.’ Go here for a fond, detailed retrospective. My quarantine binge-watching led me back to this show and happy memories of its direct ancestor, ‘The…
Read More Let’s Talk About BriscoWe’re moving into the white-hot, flat-blue-sky phase of Arizona summer. There may be storms later in June or July, but for now they are a memory, a daydream, or a nightmare (our storms can be all three at once.) Anyone who has ever been through a desert thunderstorm knows the electric feel of the air,…
Read More ‘Rain Season’ beaded panelsBecause I can’t stay away from fiber arts. These fabric masks have an outer shell of embroidered and beaded cloth, surgical cloth filters, and inner linings of copper-infused bamboo and cotton cloth. They can be washed and sterilized. They fit very well. Are they the equivalent of N95 masks? Hell, no. But they help with…
Read More Three Covid MasksI could have simply pasted this notification into my old Fanfic Recommendations post. But. To hell with that, this is quarantine and we *need* approximately half a million words of fabulous fan fiction. Some treasures deserve to be showcased. Go here for ‘The Republic of Heaven Community Radio’. It’s the ‘Welcome to Night Vale’ meets…
Read More A Night Vale fanfic rec(The author of this book provided a free uncorrected galley copy for an unbiased review.) Plagues permitting, the shiny gorgeous Tor Books* trade paperback of K.A. Doore’s THE UNCONQUERED CITY will be out this summer. Having read library and friends’ copies of the first two books, I plan on buying hard copies of all three.…
Read More Review: The Unconquered City, K.A. DooreHeading into a grim week. So far, I and my loved ones are safe. Arizona lagged behind others in setting a ‘Stay Home’ order. I only go to grocery stores, mail drop, a health clinic, and work. I’ve been masked in public for a week (my own sewn masks). Work…is problematic. My company is essential…
Read More Covid19 update: ArizonaThe novel coronavirus (‘novel’ simply means this is a new strain in humans) has reached Arizona. As of Saturday, March 14, Arizona has twelve confirmed cases of Covid-19. Scary enough, many of those cases came from one family, and a health worker whose original Covid-19 exposure remains a mystery. We have large numbers of senior…
Read More Covid19 in Arizona‘I should have died the day I learned my father’s name. I would have, but for the second of three gifts I inherited from him, and one I took from my mother. I think—I did die. I just didn’t stay dead. After 25 years, several titles, and several false starts, I’m rewriting and fine-tuning the…
Read More Light On Water, rebootedI was in countdown to the March 3, 2020 release of K.M. Szpara’s (M/M Dystopia? Romance? Slavefic? Cautionary screed?) DOCILE, from Tor Books. I’ve been hearing about this book for over a year. I’d planned on actually ordering it. Then I read the first eight chapters on a free Kindle Sample offer. Oh, dear. I…
Read More Review: DOCILE by K.M. Szpara