The prospect of a second year of the pandemic loomed over my first pandemic winter. There was some hope of vaccines making things semi-livable again, but we weren’t quite there yet. I was still working from home, enjoying having back 2 hours a day that I used to spend commuting. And I got the time… Read More »
I touched on this briefly before, but I corresponded back in the pre internet days with what would now be considered a high mid list middle grade and YA author. They were “big” enough to generally make a living at it, but “small” enough at the time to still handle their own mail. In between… Read More »
I’m one of those “dreamed of being a writer since I was a kid” types, writing down partial ideas, bad teenage poetry, and showing meagre promise at student competitions. I suspect most kids were competing to earn extra credit for class; I should have asked for that, I realised too late. With no good ideas… Read More »
With no access to good school libraries or expansive public libraries, my early reading was curated by my parents. I read whatever they had around, and from time to time asked for recommendations. Two books suggested to me in quick succession were The Hunt For Red October and Pillars of The Earth. They came out… Read More »
I’m a big fan of explainer books. My eclectic collection has included, over the years, books on fly-tying, hiding money in Swiss banks, creating forged identification papers, and legitimately counterfeit dictionaries. Well, I don’t own the dictionaries yet, but I’ve got dibs on them some day, a day I hope is far far away. When… Read More »
Rise of the Mages – Scott Drakeford
High fantasy is not my jam, but this is pretty solid.
Starving artist is no joke.
Gail Carriger suggested this podcast a few weeks ago – I’ve just finished binging up to the latest episode. Today, that’s episode 23, and if you’re not sure if writing is an art that is squeezed down to a business, episode 23 will clear that right up. Do you still want to be a writer… Read More »