Monthly Archives: September 2015

What My Day Was Like

Look at contract. Email agent about contract. Look at another contract. Let electrician in to do work in the basement. Look at questionnaire accompanying second contract. Talk to agent on the phone about contract. Look at email about another thing that will require a contract. Email other agent about that thing. Let electrician out because […]

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The Big Idea: Ilana C. Myer

Poets: Can they change the world? And what kind of world would it be if they could? Ilana C. Myer poses this question in her Big Idea, for her novel Last Song Before Night. ILANA C. MYER: It began in a college class—long enough ago. The topic was poets in Celtic myth. The text was […]

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John Boehner’s Stepping Down

And honestly, can you blame him? He’s had to ride herd on an increasingly dysfunctional GOP Caucus in the House for four years now, a group that sees actually shutting down the government to get its way as just another political tactic. That’s got to have taken its toll on the man, who I believe at his […]

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The Big Idea: Tade Thompson

For today’s Big Idea, Tade Thompson takes the immigrant experience, plus the problems that crop up when you tell a little lie at the wrong time, and puts them together for his novel Making Wolf. What do we find out? It’s here, below. TADE THOMPSON: Here’s the thing: if you’ve ever moved from one country to […]

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The Big Idea: Douglas Sun

And now, just to shake things up, here’s a Big Idea about a video game — which is based on a book, so don’t panic, we’re not going too far afield. Today, Douglas Sun talks about some of the challenges of a adapting a literary work into a video game: Veiled Alliances. DOUGLAS SUN:  When […]

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eBook Sales and Author Incomes and All That Jazz

People are pointing me to this article in the New York Times about eBooks sales slipping and print sales stabilizing, and are wondering what I think of it. Well: To begin, I think it’s lovely that print sales and book stores are doing well; it was touch and go there for a while. I’m also […]

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The Big Idea: Christopher Barzak

For today’s Big Idea, Christopher Barzak takes you to the family farm and explains how a little bit of his own personal history informs his latest novel, Wonders of the Invisible World. CHRISTOPHER BARZAK: Wonders of the Invisible World was an attempt to save my family. Which is a little ironic, because the protagonist of […]

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Nobody Likes An Asshole (Except Maybe Other Assholes)

Adam-Troy Castro has a post up called “Writers: The Long-Term Benefits of Not Being An Ass,” which I encourage you to read, with the awareness that the advice has works equally as well when you substitute any other profession for “Writer” (or indeed, you can also substitute “human” and it works just as well). Also, […]

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Duran Duran, Neil Gaiman, and Beginnings

I’m both a friend and fan of Neil Gaiman, and a former music critic. So for years I’ve known about, but had never seen, Neil’s very first published book, the 1984 quickie biography of Duran Duran, arguably the biggest band to emerge from the first era of MTV (“You know! Back when they actually played music!” the 80s […]

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The Big Idea: Kent Davis

For his Big Idea piece today, Kent Davis explains how a mental image, and some experience writing role-playing games, ended up being the foundation for his novel A Riddle in Ruby. KENT DAVIS: I had this picture in my head. It clanked around, bumping into the furniture and leaving oil stains on all the brain-curtains. […]

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Sunset Clouds

The day got away from me, which is actually happening fairly frequently these days (today’s was for a good reason which I can’t tell you about yet but which will be squee-worthy if it comes to fruition, I assure you), so in lieu of actual words about things today, allow me to present you with […]

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Pictures From Homecoming, 2015

Athena’s school’s homecoming dance was last night, and of course she and her boyfriend Hunter got all dressed up for it. There was a bit of drama when the dress shop that Athena purchased her dress from hemmed it both poorly and ridiculously short, but through the kindness of friends, a last-minute substitute dress was […]

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Last Night’s Twitter Rant Involving 20somethings and Finance

A little late to this one, but the "advice" here is so appallingly fucking wrong it just blows my mind: http://t.co/155CMJcMcc — John Scalzi (@scalzi) September 18, 2015 Twentysomethings, pro tip: Look up the concept of "compound interest" and you'll understand why putting a little money away is a fine idea. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) […]

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