How I discovered these books
Bruchac’s book showed up in the Amazon suggestions and caught my eye with its painterly cover, which does everything right in terms of neither whitewashing nor sexualizing the teenaged badass who is the protagonist. Cole’s novel was recommended to me on Twitter; I saw multiple mentions of it and decided to follow up. Continue reading
The night before Angie’s New York gallery opening, she and her mentor Florence hung the show. Florence told her the story of the mass witch-burnings in front of the Federal Courthouse in downtown Minneapolis. She spoke in hushed tones, even though that wasn’t necessary here. Continue reading
Upcoming fiction release on February 2
On Monday 2 February 2015 The Lost Pissarro will be available for purchase. Yes, timeline got bumped, due to technical issues.
Nonfiction project will be released to beta readers on March 1
Those of you who know me on Twitter and/or Google Chat know that I’ve done a lot of coaching for fellow writers, and I have lots of friends in various fandoms. My first nonfiction project combines both of these interests in a career and life guide for fan fiction writers, with emphasis on the skill set and cultural strengths that fanwork creators have already developed.
From Fanfiction to Original Fiction is scheduled for July 1 release.
Cover design by Glass Knife Press.
Concept cover by Glass Knife Press.
Click on the covers to view at full size.
This is the first in a series of interviews with writers in SF/F and related genres. I’m still finding my way as an interviewer, but just as in my Love in the Time of Starships reviews, I bring my full experience as reader, writer, and fan. E. E. Ottoman and I met on Twitter through our mutual interest in diverse romance. Continue reading
Kelly Jennings & Shay Darrach, eds. Menial: Skilled Labor in Science Fiction
The premise sold the book to me: the grunts in the engine room (and elsewhere) are seriously neglected in traditional SF. Also, I love anthologies the same way that I love boxes of assorted chocolates. I have 50-some anthologies queued up on my ebook reader, and they’ve been my gateway to the work of many new-to-me writers. Continue reading
Next to him, Taryn sat on a temporary cot, her knees tucked up, wearing a shipboard coverall with no insignia. Her short hair had been combed and fluffed; she was holding a tablet in both hands, reading. Her feet, in soft shipboard boots that zipped seamlessly onto the coverall, flexed and stretched, as if, consciously or not, she were keeping every part of her body limber even as she absorbed the words or figures or pictures on that tablet.
“Ah, you’re awake,” she said.
“Where are we?”
“Sickbay. Doctor Genubi’s gone to talk to the Captains. They’re deciding what to do with us.”
***
From NaNo 2014, untitled romance with rayguns.
Weekend Writing Warriors offers a selection of eight-sentence excerpts from many different writers. For the full selection, see here.
As I’ve become more active on Twitter, I’ve made the digital acquaintance of some pretty amazing colleagues in the SF/F writing community.
Coming soon will be interviews with:
E. E. Ottoman, author of A Matter of Disagreement (reviewed on last week’s Love in the Time of Starships), a rising star in trans romance as well as a debonair geek-about-town. E. E. took time last week to chat with me via Google. We talked about new twists on the “enemies in love” theme, favorite SF/F writers, and paths to more diverse romance in M/M and F/F romance. In the meantime, check out E. E.’s work at Less Than Three Press.
Silvia Moreno Garcia, whose short stories I first encountered in the Canadian superhero anthology Masked Mosaic and the post-colonial SF collection We See a Different Frontier. I went on to enjoy her luminous short story collection Love and Other Poisons. She works the horror end of the fantasy spectrum as editor and writes the unstable boundary where the magical and the mundane mix in unpredictable ways. Her novel Signal to Noise (magic, mixtapes, and Mexico City) will be released in March 2015 and can be pre-ordered now. An excerpt is available here.
I’m taking this opportunity to thank both of these writers for their willingness to talk with me.
How I met these authors
I don’t remember by what chain of linky-linky I found Zen Cho’s work, but I’ve been reading her stories since 2012 or thereabouts. There is free fiction on her site, but really you should buy The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo and Spirits Abroad, because they are both awesome and full of treasures, and I will be reviewing Spirits Abroad later on, so if you read ahead you will get full benefit of my words of wisdom.
I’m still working my obsessive-completist way through E. E. Ottoman’s oeuvre, following my 2014 discovery of Queer Romance Month and E. E. Ottoman’s moving essay on Why We Need Trans Romance. (Warning: make sure you have hankies/tissues to hand when reading; it moved me to tears. Feelings we’ll all recognize, exponentiated.) Continue reading
“The Captain sent me,” the voice repeated. Hernan pushed himself up, in spite of the pain from his injuries; dimly, beyond Taryn’s silhouette, a girl in a Crew’s black coverall and blue leads stood in a pool of light that hadn’t been there before. She looked no more than sixteen or seventeen, curvy and solid, dark-skinned, with an elaborate coiffure of braids and snowflake-necklaces woven through them.
Hernan remembered Melisand at Midsummer, with similar stars in her hair. Unknowing, she had dedicated herself to the Queen of the Snows, and to her sister the Daughter of Storms, the principle of destruction and chaos, the guardian of those who left the ground.
“I’m Taryn. I’m following Martisset yr Astok; nothing to her harm, mind you, and I thank her for rescuing my cousin Arna, but it’s time she came back home.” She sounded authoritative, as if she were representing some Power, and wasn’t, like him, a grubby stowaway armed only with a crossbow.
***
From NaNo 2014, untitled romance with rayguns.
Weekend Writing Warriors offers a selection of eight-sentence excerpts from many different writers. For the full selection, see here.
Cool and scary view, with some excellent advice. “Deal with the wolves.” Dragon Age (TM): Inquisition Screenshot: Devin Harnois;
In this installment of Writer Tech, we interview Devin Harnois about his experience with playing games in the Dragon Age franchise. As anyone following the SF/F/R (science fiction/fantasy/romance) axis on Twitter knows, these games have taken a big bite out of productivity for a lot of pro writers, especially since the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Devin and I started out talking about how he got sucked into the vortex. Dragon Age: Inquisition was released during National Novel Writing Month (and somebody needs to talk to the developers about that, hmm). I beta-read the novel Devin wrote in NaNoWriMo 2014.
Together we discovered something really interesting. No spoiler: it’s in the title.
E. P. Beaumont 