Monthly Archives: October 2018

View From a Hotel Window, 10/18/18: Los Angeles

Dig that crazy sculpture down at the bottom left. I got in to my hotel SUPER early and they had exactly one room to give to me. Fortunately, one room was all I needed. Tonight: Los Angeles! Downtown! The Last Bookstore! 7pm! Be there and bring everyone you know. It’s easily reachable through public transportation! […]

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The Big Idea: K. Bird Lincoln

In today’s Big Idea, we learn of the tomb of a surprising person in a surprising location, and how K. Bird Lincoln used it to think about the world and characters she created in her new novel, Black Pearl Dreaming. K. BIRD LINCOLN: I grew up Lutheran in a mostly white church in Cleveland, Ohio. Imagine […]

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View From a Hotel Window, 10/17/18: Portland

It feels very Portland-y to me. Also, this is the first photo from the TempPhone™, the phone I’m using for a couple of days until I can get my grubby little hands on a Pixel 3. The TempPhone is basically the cheapest phone they had at the Verizon store, which two generations back would have […]

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Housekeeping Notes, 10/17/18

Just a couple of brief things: 1. My phone’s hotspot was acting odd last night so I reset my phone to see if it would fix it. Not only didn’t it fix it, but the phone completely refused to turn back on. Various emergency procedures were enacted (including cursing, begging and bargaining) but to no […]

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The Big Idea: Steven Erikson

Call Steven Erikson a radical, a rebel or just someone who watches too much TV, but the fact is: Right now, a particular trope of fiction has him fed up. And he’s doing something about it, as he explains in this Big Idea for his latest, Rejoice, A Knife the Heart. STEVEN ERIKSON: I have […]

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View From a Hotel Window, 10/16/18: Seattle

Running a little late because I got into room late! But very pretty. No parking lot, sorry. Tonight: I’m at the University Bookstore at 7pm! If you hurry you can still make it! Tomorrow: Portland, Oregon and I’m at the Clackamas Barnes & Noble! Come see me please! Bring everyone you know!

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The Consuming Fire is Out and I’m On Tour!

Today’s the day! The Consuming Fire, the second book in the Interdependency series and the sequel to the Locus Award-winning and Hugo Award-nominated The Collapsing Empire, is now out in the United States and Canada (and the US edition available in other places in the world). The UK edition will be out on Thursday. The […]

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The New Thing I’ll Be Doing This Tour: The Element of Chance

This upcoming book tour for The Consuming Fire (here’s the link to the schedule) will be the tenth(!) book tour I’ve done, and over the course of time I’ve developed a strategy for my events: I read from an upcoming work, I read something short and funny, and then I read a piece from Whatever, usually […]

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The Big Idea: Ryk E. Spoor

The thing about trilogies is that they always have that “middle chapter” — the one that has to do its own thing while serving the arc it’s in the middle of. Writing one is always a challenge, and Ryk E. Spoor is here today to tell you how he’s managed it with Demons of the […]

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It’s Woolly Bear Season

Woolly bear caterpillars, that is, which are apparently supposed to tell you by their pelt whether it’s supposed to be a warm or cold winter. This one suggests it will be a mildish winter, which I am perfectly fine with. However, there’s no actual scientific grounding, so, you know. Don’t blame the Woolly bear any […]

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Father-Daughter Voting

It pleases me immensely that today I took Athena to the local board of elections office so that she could vote in her very first election ever. She was a couple of months too young to vote in 2016, so this was the first time she could do it. We both voted early because on […]

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A Decade of WordPress Hosting (Or, This Year’s Annual Unsolicited Endorsement)

A decade ago this very week (on 10/10/08, in fact), Whatever moved from being self-hosted to being hosted on WordPress, and on its very fine VIP service. Lots of things have happened in the world and in my personal life since that switchover, but you know what hasn’t happened? Whatever being down or inaccessible for […]

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The Big Idea: Jennifer Estep

Football, cooking smells and names — how do they all come together to be inspirations for an epic fantasy novel? Jennifer Estep knows how, and today she’s here to tell you how they combined for Kill the Queen. JENNIFER ESTEP: I tried to write epic fantasy for years—years! In fact, the very first (unpublished) book […]

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The Consuming Fire Contest Winner + Notes One Week Out From Release

Hey! We’re one week out from The Consuming Fire officially being released and me starting my book tour! Let’s talk about these things! 1. First, congratulations to Shatle, who for the Consuming Fire contest yesterday correctly guessed (and was the only one to correctly guess) that the city I was thinking of was Kingman, Arizona. […]

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The Big Idea: Amy S. Foster

Why do writers write books? One reason is to figure out who our characters are, and who they need to become to be fully realized. Amy S. Foster explains the journey one of her characters makes, across a trilogy of books that ends with The Rift Coda. AMY S. FOSTER: Almost three years ago I […]

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