Monthly Archives: March 2020

The Strategic Reserve

Last Thursday Krissy, who has been appointed the Person Who Leaves The House to Shop, reported that once again she had been unable to find toilet paper, or paper towels, while she was out shopping. We had been back from vacation for nearly two weeks at that point, and the Great Toilet Paper Panic of […]

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The Two Week Quarantine Report

We got back from the JoCo Cruise on March 14, and March 15 was our first full day back in the world, so today marks two full weeks since I’ve basically holed myself up in my house. In the first week back I had two trips out to the grocery store, both observing full social […]

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The Last Best Time

Three fridays ago I was lying in bed on the Nieuw Amsterdam, the cruise ship that the JoCo Cruise was sailing on this year, trying to decide whether or not I wanted to bother to get my ass up, head down to the tender boats and go over to Half Moon Cay, our current stop […]

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Distance and Patience and This Moment of Time

The frustrating thing for me during this moment of time that we’re in is that I don’t think it’s quite sunk in to some folks that this virus doesn’t care about politics, or the economy, or in fact any human concern at all. It doesn’t care about anything. It just wants to spread, and will […]

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The Big Idea: Robert Mitchell Evans

Science fiction writers don’t only grow up on science fiction. Their influences can be all over the map in terms of genre and medium. Just ask Robert Mitchell Evans, who for his novel Vulcan’s Forge has tapped into another rich vein of storytelling entirely. ROBERT MITCHELL EVANS: “I killed him for money and for a […]

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RIP, WIlliam Dufris

We are heartbroken to announce that the co-founder of @pocketplot and the director of “EC Comics Presents… The Vault of Horror”, William Dufris, has died from cancer. There is a hole in a lot of people’s hearts right now. We will have more to say later. Bless you, Bill. pic.twitter.com/QHrZ69i6ti — Pocket Universe Productions is […]

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Nothing But Blue Sky

So, here’s a thing I never expected to see again in my lifetime: A sky entirely devoid of contrails, and the planes that make them. This is a 360-degree “photosphere” panorama from my yard, so the entire sky is here, and not altered from the photo that came out of my camera (I did photoshop […]

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The Big Idea: Ilana C. Myer

Where some people end their books is where Ilana C. Myer, in her new novel The Poet King, begins hers. Why does she do it that way? She’s here to explain. ILANA C. MYER: Power is something we talk about a lot in fantasy—from rings of power to the One Power to the sword that […]

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CoNZealand Goes Virtual

CoNZealand is making history, as it becomes the first ever ‘virtual Worldcon’, in response to the global pandemic. For more details, please see our website: https://t.co/7nwfoQFbnH #conzealand #worldcon2020 pic.twitter.com/MNqquHEaIe — CoNZealand (@CoNZealand) March 25, 2020 This year’s Worldcon is going virtual, because we’re currently living in a global pandemic, and despite what some clueless politicians […]

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The Big Idea: Christopher Swiedler

What kind of book is In The Red? As author Christopher Swiedler relates, this seemingly simple question turned out to have a more complex answer than one might assume. CHRISTOPHER SWIEDLER: Many years ago, an instructor in a writing workshop asked me whether my sci-fi novel In the Red was for middle grade or young […]

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Advice to Myself (and Others) About The Great Pause

Dear creative folks (and the people who love and/or buy their work): Like many of you, I am looking at our current situation — which it seems were are moving toward calling The Great Pause — and wondering what this means, both in the long and short terms, for our careers and livelihoods. This is […]

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After the Pandemic

The folks over at the Washington Post have put together a piece on how the world will change after this pandemic — not in the huge ways, but in the smaller, day-to-day ways — and they asked me to write something for it. I did a piece on personal greetings, because, as it happens, it […]

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The Big Idea: Eeleen Lee

Travel delays are rarely the raw material for novels, but as Eeleen Lee found out, sometimes a little time — and a new obsession — can lead to inspiration, and eventually a novel, in this case, Liquid Crystal Nightingale. EELEEN LEE: In late 2005 I was stuck in transit at Charles de Gaulle airport, and […]

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