Away For the Day; Suggest a Writer’s Blog

Posted on March 23, 2011    Posted by      141 Comments

I’m traveling later in the day to see a friend, which means I have some non-blog related tasks to attend to first, which means I AM LEAVING YOU. For the rest of the day, not forever. UNLESS I DIE. Which I’m not planning to. JUST SAYING.

But as they say, when a door closes a window opens, the better to leap out of, and in that spirit I say to you: Hey, in the comment thread, why don’t you recommend to folks here another writer’s blog that you read on a regular basis? Because writers are interesting! And we smell of lilacs. It’s true.

Just tell us why you like the blog, and leave a link to it (just typing in the URL is fine, you don’t have to fiddle with html) so people can check it out. Try one link a comment, since three or more links per comment will likely just you send to the moderation queue, and I won’t be around to free comments on a regular basis. You may post more than comment in the thread.

You can also suggest interesting author Twitter feeds if you like, because that’s just like blogging, only shorter.

If you’re a writer you may suggest your own, but if you do, your blog better be AWESOME. Because that’s what readers here deserve.

All right, then. You kids have fun. See you tomorrow.

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141 Comments on “Away For the Day; Suggest a Writer’s Blog”

  5. I also have to point to the fabulous Lara Zielin, a YA author and all round wonderful person. She’s on twitter @larazielin and blogs at larawrites.com/blog, but she also has a specific site for writers http://www.help4writers.com/blog/ where she answers questions, gives tips and also offers editing services. She’s a great resource!

  12. Jason Sanford has a great blog. His posts on aspects of genre and nongenre are informative and entertaining, and he defined the subgenre of SF Strange. Always intersesting.

  15. Dru Pagliassotti’s blog: http://drupagliassotti.com/

    Which I recommend because: a) she’s clever; b) she covers a variety of topics; c) she’s got a new book out; and d)…well, in the interest of full disclosure, she’s a good friend of mine.

    Still — you should read her!

  17. Somebody will eventually get around to *linking* Mary Robinette Kowal, but I’m going to use my two links’ worth for a couple less known but still excellent folk: Cheryl Morgan, one of the editors for Clarkesworld and owner of Wizard’s Tower Press, and something just a little different for this crowd: Jack Lewis, veteran, motorcyclist, and general storyteller. I think, though, if you liked Old Man’s War, you’ll like Jack.

  18. You can read the musings of numerous authors including Sarah A. Hoyt, Dave Freer, Kate Paulk, Amanda Green, and Rowena Cory-Daniels here: madgeniusclub.blogspot.com

  22. I can highly suggest Jim C. Hines’ blog. He is amazingly good at well reasoned posts to difficult questions (with just enough lighter content to keep it from being too heavy)

    http://www.jimchines.com/blog/

    The recent posts about Convention Comp Policies are especially interesting.

  24. My suggestion is a multi-author site called The Inkpunks: http://www.inkpunks.com/. A fun group of writers who talk about the business and the craft and give you many different angles on writing.

    For twitter, I enjoy following @SamSykesSwears and @PaulJessup. Both funny and weird.

    I also humbly suggest my own blog (linked in my name above) and my prowlings on Twitter as @eruditeogre.

  26. Nnedi Okorafor is a novelist of Nigerian descent known for weaving African culture into creative evocative settings and memorable characters. In a profile of Nnedi’s work titled “Weapons of Mass Creation”, The New York Times called Nnedi’s imagination “stunning”. She is also a professor of creative writing at Chicago State University.

    http://nnedi.blogspot.com/

  30. http://davidhewson.com/blog/

    He blogs almost entirely about writing, tech related to writing and the interesting stuff he comes across researching for his writing (he’s a Brit; almost all of his story takes place in Italy; he’s a bit into photography; that can be very cool).

  34. This is probably stretching the definition of blog to breaking point, but I’d like to recommend Sf-Debris’ Star Trek video reviews (now expanded to included Dr Who, Babylon 5, and assorted others). He takes a nice hard critical, and hilarious, look at Trek (all series and the movies) and the various plotholes and cockups, along with the themes that went right and outright successes, that it generated.

    The Trek stuff is here on Youtube:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/sfdebris

    The Non-Trek reviews (and some of the Trek stuff that had copyright issues) are here on Blip:
    http://sfdebris.blip.tv/posts?view=archive&nsfw=dc

  39. I try and check in on Karen Traviss’s blog often (I’ve got a whole folder of bookmarks), and she’s got a pretty good view on the world: http://karentraviss.typepad.com/blog/

    For twitter? William Gibson. I’ve found some awesome, kickass things through his randomness.

  41. I’ve been reading Ursula Vernon for the past five years now, and she continues to write the kind of quirky, witty, brilliant pieces that make laugh and then make me jealous.

  42. Click on my name to reach my blog. I’m not to the level of awesome of Whatever, but my level of awesome is rising daily. I hope to have it over 9000 soon!

    As for other writer’s blogs, I recommend Marie Bilodeau, an awesome author/storyteller and a hoot to boot. You can find her blog at http://mariebilodeau.blogspot.com/

  50. Juliette Wade is a linguist by training who writes anthropologically-centered SFF. She has an excellent blog about worldbuilding and the craft of writing, found at http://talktoyouniverse.blogspot.com

    She also tweets at @juliettewade.

    I’m also an SFF writer (link via my name). You can find my tweets at @Siri_Paulson.

  54. I would highly recommend Rhys Hughes’ blog, The Spoons That Are My Ears! http://rhysaurus.blogspot.com/. This mad Welsh writer is one of the most creatively deranged people I know. And a hell of writer. You will find links to some of his online stories, but be warned, they are habit forming.

  56. I regularly follow the Stross, Pohl and Nielsen Hayden blogs already mentioned–good stuff. Another of my very favorite writer’s weblogs is Mark Evanier’s “News from ME” (at http://www.newsfromme.com/ as one would expect). The easiest way to explain Evanier is that for most of his career he’s written TV for a living and comics for love, which is not to say he puts less care into his more lucrative gigs. In fact, Evanier’s career is a pretty good argument for the proposition that just because one writes in a form widely viewed as déclassé doesn’t mean one can’t do it well.

    Over the years Evanier seems to have encountered just about everybody who’s anybody in comics, animation and Hollywood show business, and he has a healthy interest in and knowledge of the pioneers in these fields as well, with good stories about many of these people. The current front page, for example, includes mini-essays on Daws Butler, Shari Lewis, Jack Paar and (in a very moving vignette) Dick Shawn. Two prominent recurring figures are Jack Kirby (with whom Evanier worked as an assistant in the early 1970’s) and Tex Avery (their paths crossed frequently during Avery’s final years at Hanna-Barbera).

    As one would expect of a seasoned sitcom writer (not to mention the dialogue writer for the barbarian fantasy parody Groo the Wanderer), Evanier also has an eye for absurdity, irony, and other oddball aspects of everyday life, and has been known to share some of the most delicious in his weblog. My favorite can be found with an onsite search for the phrase “idaho spud”. Trust me on this one.

  62. Here’s something a little different from most of the rest. Mark Evanier is primarily a comic book and animation writer, but he’s a lot more than that. His blog deals with subjects ranging from voice actors to Hollywood labor relations to Abbot & Costello to his favorite creamy tomato soup he only gets to eat five weeks out of the year. He also tells stories about many of the people he’s worked with, without coming off as a name dropping schmuck, but rather as a guy who wants to tell you wonderful things about his friends and co-workers. Read his Mel Torme story or the one he recently posted about his just passwed away plumber (both of them stand up guys in Evanier’s opinion): http://www.newsfromme.com/

  66. First, I nominate my friend’s blog, Jay Garmon [dot] Net as always having interesting material. Besides being an aspiring science fiction writer, Jay was the host of CNet Networks TechRepublic Geekend for many years. (As an open disclosure, I am a guest columnist for Geekend also).

    Warren Ellis not only creates disturbed comic books, he also has a gonzo blog!

  68. Todd Klein’s blog is a fun read, and I check it out a few times a week. He’s primarily known as a letterer, but he has written a number of comic books. The best part of his blog is his dissection of logos for comic books, in which he goes through every version of a logo (Superman, for example) from the first use to current day. The logo studies are a great mix of history, design, marketing, and talent (hint – they’re collected under ‘Logo Studies’ in the Categories section on the left edge of the page). He often reviews current comics and is doing re-reads of older YA books from his childhood.

    http://kleinletters.com/Blog/

  72. Just wanted to pop back in here and say thanks both to John for prompting this list and for all of the excellent suggestions resultant. I commonly find myself with some downtime in front of the PC, have visited my 3-4 daily stops already, and honestly, ridiculously, at a loss for anything else interesting to surf to.

    An embarrasment of riches! I’ll never be bored again- or productive, for that matter. So thanks for that, too.

  76. Ken Levine has one of my favorite writing blogs. Although he’s just published a book of humorous travel essays, he’s much better known as a TV writer/producer/creator on a whole bunch of hit shows. He also does MLB play by play (Mariners). There is always something interesting on his blog and I’m particularly fascinated by his behind-the-scenes discussions of the mechanics of writing and pitching for television.

    Here’s the link: http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/

  77. One of my favorites (aside from Whatever) – Sharon Lee’s http://rolanni.livejournal.com/
    This is Sharon Lee of Sharon Lee & Steve Miller….think Liaden Universe and the dark fantasies
    DUAINFEY and LONGEYE.

    Why? Writing, Reading, Music and Coon Cats, with a side of humor. ‘nuf said.

  80. My blog isn’t mainly about writing (though I am a writer as well), it’s about stage combat and stunts. But there are posts about writing and literature pretty often, as well as stellar writing samples form me and my students. I’ve gotten some compliments on it so I hope it’s good enough to live up to Mr. Scalzi’s admonishment:

    http://bonzuko.com

  85. No one has mentioned James Lileks, whose writing as a columnist I first encountered in the Minneapolis alt-weekly City Pages in the mid-1980s. He’s been a novelist as well and apparently is working on another. Our host, I believe, hired Lileks during his time at AOL in Virginia. Lileks’ daily Bleat dates to the same period (late ’90s) and I enjoy it despite the occasional, unavoidable hint that “our political ideologies [are] totally at variance” (as Philip K. Dick regarded Robert Heinlein, while writing admiringly about him as a human being, in his preface to The Golden Man story collection, circa 1978). Lileks has enriched my life and that of my family in one small way – a number of years ago he posted an audio file of “Music to Drive By” by the Joe Loss Concertium, evidently a pickup orchestra comprising Hollywood’s greatest session musicians circa 1966; a gem of the era unknown to me before (now available at YouTube).

    I would have also mentioned By Ken Levine – I see someone has done so already.

  86. For those who like their SF writer blogs livened up with film-related musings, photos, and other miscellany amongst all the usual author talk, try Paul McAuley:

    http://unlikelyworlds.blogspot.com/

    Not unlike ‘Whatever’. But British. And without the readership, cats, or bacon.

  88. I’m a huge fan of SF author Mark L. Van Name who writes the Jon & Lobo series of military SF (starting with One Jump Ahead), and he’s got a great blog which he uses to discuss his writing, movies, food, technology … (hmmm, sounds a bit like some of the content over here). Check him out, please!

    http://markvanname.blogspot.com/

  89. My blog is literally awesome – today is the day I finish a full year of doing something awesome every day. (Yesterday I blogged about fireworks set to music, last Sunday I blogged about a hot air balloon ride, and on Saturday I put up photos of light sculptures shining on the Australian National Library, including one that made it look like a giant bookshelf.)
    I’m going to continue being awesome, but soon I’ll be switching out a few days a week for other things, like steampunk (on Sundays, starting this Sunday).

    Louise Curtis

  92. I do really enjoy Elizabeth Bear’s blog (http://matociquala.livejournal.com), though she does make you feel like a giant sloth in comparison.

    And of course, Marureen Johnson’s twitter feed, @maureenjohnson, is hilarious because she is completely crazy. (And I mean that in the best way possible.)

  93. I like Murderati – http://www.murderati.com – a bunch of mystery writers and some supernatural stuff too – about a dozen of them, so a very nice mix of ideas, writing posts, film writing posts, crime posts and general life posts.

  94. Check out Robert Fulghum’s blog. He’s the author of ‘Everything I Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten’ and subsequent books. I like the way he thinks about life. I suspect he and Scalzi would get along well. http://www.robertfulghum.com/

  96. I enjoy Joe Mallozzi’s blog. He’s an SF tv writer and show runner who also likes to blog about food. He has book club discussions which are interesting, and his featuring of OMW was how I found Whatever and the John Scalzi ourvre.

    http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/

  97. Fun to see so many people identify with Wil Wheaton, and now I will have DROP EVERYTHING including the baby, to check out hyperbole and a half.

    Your criteria for naming one’s own Author Blog was “Awesome”, which I interpret as “Shameless”, and therefore, I will self promote here: http://www.la-juice.com. More sass than a barrel of fish, less pulp than a root canal.

    Hope you check it out, hope you like!

  98. I really like Elizabeth Bear’s blog and also Charles Stross but I’m surprised no one’s mentioned Frederik Pohl. He’s 90-or maybe 91 and he seems to have known everybody who wrote SF from the 30s on and has wonderful stories about them. Of course, back then maybe you could count all the major players on two hands.
    http://www.FrederikPohl.com

  104. For everything you ever wanted to know about the brain but were afraid to ask … (no, zombie hordes you are NOT invited) and some SF visit Teddy’s Rat Lab. Informative, fun, and BRAINS, what more could you ask for?

    http://teddysratlab.blogspot.com/

    WB

  108. Fantasy/dark fantasy/science fiction (she would be adamant: NOT horror): Caitlin Kiernan at http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/. She offers a very personal insight into her writing process.

    The other is John Langan. Although he seldom posts, this most recent invitation to write brief stories about Laird Barron was well responded-to and well worth reading: http://jplangan.livejournal.com/69961.html. For those of you who haven’t read any of his work, I can highly recommend it.

  111. I love “Cheeseburger Brown” – He write amazing sci-fi serials. He also has a novel, “Simon of Space” which is delightful and acts as a good introduction to his work. Almost all of his stories are loosely interconnected, so if you love finding treasure as you read, you’ll love his work.

    Site:
    http://cheeseburgerbrown.blogspot.com/

  112. Did nobody mention Joe Abercrombie? His is a blog where he talks about his books and interests, not updated every day but really good when it is:

    http://www.joeabercrombie.com/news/

    Also George R R Martin where he talks a lot about American Football, miniatures, ‘his’ King Kong (haha I’m sure you know which King Kong) and lately the upcoming HBO series based on Game of Thrones:

    http://grrm.livejournal.com/

  113. My friend Jeff in Colorado Springs, science-fiction and computer book author, has a good blog where he talks about writing, technology, ham radio, and a whole bunch of geeky stuff. He’s a contrarian, but a positive one, which is why his blog is called “Contrapositive.”

    http://www.contrapositivediary.com/

    Another friend of mine here in Denver, Jim, is also a SF author, and has a good blog of his own:

    http://jamesrstrickland.blogspot.com/

    Both of them will be at Anomaly Con in Denver this weekend, promoting a new double novel they’ve been writing.

  118. I enjoy author Dave Freer’s blog on living on tiny Flinder’s Island, Tasmania, Australia, after emigrating from South Africa. Diving, dogs, cats, fishing, writing, scottish dancing, growing vegetables, living off the land/sea, building a chook house, etc.

    http://flindersfreer.blogspot.com/

  122. I second the mentions of Ryk Spoor, Elizabeth Bear, and Robin McKinley, and raise y’all an Ursula LeGuin. Her recent post about cussing is priceless.

    http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Blog2011.html#New

    Also, of course, in an act of shameless self promotion, my own “home sphere” blog has a mix of book and movie/TV reviews, geeky stuff about SF related topics, and “girl stuff” like knitting and food and gardening, plus whatever my magpie-like mind happens to run across in a day. My personal favorite is the one about the Stazor, an invention for the 14 year old in all of us.

    amnottheonlyone.blogspot.com

  126. Though not much with actual writing, it’s fun to look at all the pretty pictures at Laini Taylor’s blog. She’s a writer of middle grade fantasy, but her books are still enjoyable for adults. (I’m a HUGE fan of her Dreamdark faerie books).
    http://lainitaylor.blogspot.com/

  128. I’d like to recommend Joe Posnanski’s blog (http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/). He’s primarily a sportswriter, and one of the best sportswriters I’ve ever read, but he occasionally veers off and writes about whatever strikes his fancy at the moment. No matter what he writes about, he’s always thoughtful and entertaining.

  129. There’s always a trenchant opinion or some bizarre stuff on the go at Peter Watts’s blog.

    http://www.rifters.com/crawl/

    As well as discussing truly fascinating Sciencey stuff and his own stunning fiction, Peter has enjoyed interesting times recently – he has experienced the full force of US border patrol bullying (and been prosecuted for his trouble), and latterly has narrowly withstood a truly horrible attack from Mother Nature (no, you don’t want to look at those pictures he has hidden below the fold).

  130. Not precisely a blog, but Kristine Katherine Rusch’s weekly, on-going series on the current changes in pyublishg/history of publishing is fascinating.
    http:// kriswrites.com

  135. There are so many authors I love, so I will specify the sites that are most informative and interesting for UF/PR readers:

    http://www.charlaineharris.com/
    http://www.chloeneill.com/
    http://www.staciakane.net/
    http://www.dakotacassidy.net
    http://www.seananmcguire.com/

    Why these authors?

    Charlaine answers her site daily and has a plethora of readers/authors who constantly recommend amazing books to read within her genre.
    Chloe Neill has a sense of humor and is so friendly, gracious to fans and her books are fun to read. Vegetarian and loves food.
    Stacia Kane is independent and thought provoking in her blog.
    Dakota Cassidy is witty and dirty minded. Love the naughty jokes and creativity of her blogs/FB posts. She’s very interactive with her readers.
    Seanan McGuire/MIra Grant. If you haven’t read her October Daye series or “Feed” (zombie series)….then I truly pity you. Her blogs are also full of intellect and wisdom. She’s very artistic and down to earth, loves cats.

  140. Just happened to find John’s book “Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded” and became an instant fan. I’m not into science fiction, but John’s take on the world is exactly like mine. If you’d like to read my meanderings, I am shamelessly promoting my blog on having bipolar disorder, spending and saving, having a child with autism, fibromyalgia, and various other inanaties at http://www.lifeonthedomesticfront.blogspot.com. I’d be thrilled if you had a look and welcome all comments.

  141. After I shamelessly promoted myself (see above), I realized that it might be nice and somewhat more humble of me to share with you two of my all time favorite bloggers: Wendie Tobin who writes http://www.mommytopia.com and Anna Newell Jones who writes http://www.andthenshesaved.com. Wendie has been writing most recently about losing her mother to pancreatic cancer, but in a way that will have you both laughing and crying. Anna is fairly well known as the Denver chick who went on a total spending fast for a year and paid off a ton of debt. I deeply admire this, being a big spender, so I’ve been reading her quite a bit. Check them both out if you want to be entertained.

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