Big Idea Category
The Big Idea: Leopoldo Gout
Posted on March 23, 2023 2 Comments
A beloved part of childhood celebrations has a darker past than most people realize — and for author Leopoldo Gout, this is only one secret that the past holds, which came to be part and parcel of how his novel Piñata came to be. LEOPOLDO GOUT: Piñatas can be seen as a symbol of hiding […]
The Big Idea: Blair Austin
Posted on March 21, 2023 3 Comments
Philip K. Dick once asked if androids dreamed of electric sheep; author Blair Austin wonders about the dreaming habits of another entity entirely in the Big Idea for his first novel, Dioramas. BLAIR AUSTIN: What if the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition (1906-11) fell asleep and began to dream? Since I was young, I’ve struggled with […]
The Big Idea: Jane Hennigan
Posted on March 16, 2023 5 Comments
In her novel Moths, author Jane Hennigan does a table flip on the world we know to reveal some things that are truths in any world we might happen to live in. JANE HENNIGAN: Why did you make the men suffer so much? Do you just hate men? Is that it? This is the sort […]
The Big Idea: Mia Tsai
Posted on March 14, 2023 4 Comments
Victories are dramatic, but victories don’t have to be the end of the story. In today’s Big Idea for her novel Bitter Medicine, author Mia Tsai looks beyond the usual climax of a tale to find another part of the story. MIA TSAI: There are a lot of hooks floating around in Bitter Medicine: xianxia-inspired […]
The Big Idea: Elle Marr
Posted on March 7, 2023 3 Comments
You think you know family, but maybe your family isn’t quite like the family in Elle Marr’s novel The Family Bones. And maybe that’s a good thing, but as Marr explains, this family here makes for interesting reading. ELLE MARR: Who among us has never returned from a family event, and wondered at their good […]
The Big Idea: J. Dianne Dotson
Posted on March 3, 2023 1 Comment
In The Shadow Galaxy: A Collection of Short Stories and Poetry, author J. Dianne Dotson explores spanning multiple genres and styles within a small package. J. DIANNE DOTSON: Back in the 1980s, I moved to a place called Gray. Its name essentially summed up my initial ambivalence for it, until I fell in love with […]
The Big Idea: Karen Katchur
Posted on March 2, 2023
Most people say that humor is subjective, but for author Karen Katchur, it was a craft that needed to be studied. Come along in her Big Idea to see how she studied comedy to write her newest novel, The Greedy Three. KAREN KATCHUR: When I was a kid in the late 70s, we played a lot […]
The Big Idea: Michael Berry
Posted on March 1, 2023 3 Comments
What is described by translator Michael Berry as a sci-fi dystopian novel may actually be somewhat of a familiar tale to you. Come along in his Big Idea to see how Hospital, by Han Song, ended up being a perfect representation of his own life. MICHAEL BERRY: During a recent podcast interview about Hospital, the host […]
The Big Idea: J.A. Tyler
Posted on February 28, 2023 2 Comments
Sometimes, when you start writing a novel, the book is about one thing. As the writing and editing process goes on, however, the book will reveal itself as being about, if not something else entirely, at least, something more. What was that “more” for J.A. Tyler in his novel Only and Ever This? Come find […]
The Big Idea: Susan McDonough-Wachtman
Posted on February 23, 2023 7 Comments
They say good things come to those who wait. They also, however, say that the waiting is the hardest part. In both cases, Susan McDonough-Wachtman has reason to understand each aphorism, and in this Big Idea for the aptly-named Snail’s Pace, she explains why. SUSAN McDONOUGH-WACHTMAN: I started writing Snail’s Pace in 1984. 1984! I […]
The Big Idea: Matt Ruff
Posted on February 21, 2023 12 Comments
New York Times bestselling author Matt Ruff is back with his first ever sequel, The Destroyer of Worlds. Follow along in his Big Idea as he tells what led him to write a continuation of Lovecraft Country. MATT RUFF: This novel is a departure for me. Over the course of my career, I’ve written in […]
The Big Idea: Jane Yolen
Posted on February 15, 2023 5 Comments
This Big Idea, for Jane Yolen’s new book The Scarlet Circus, tangentially involves me! In, I must admit, pretty flattering way. JANE YOLEN: I have loved John Scalzi, his work, and his Big Idea column for many years. I even wrote a bunch of stuff for him along the way. But in the manner of fantasy […]
The Big Idea: Paz Pardo
Posted on February 14, 2023 2 Comments
Writer Robert Benchley once noted that you can do anything, as long as it’s not the thing you’re supposed to be doing. Paz Pardo knows a little bit about that – in fact, it’s one reason why her colorful new novel The Shamshine Blind is now out in the world. PAZ PARDO: What if emotions […]
The Big Idea: Bruce Schneier
Posted on February 7, 2023 6 Comments
The world has systems. Systems have rules. Or are they more like guidelines? In today’s Big Idea for A Hacker’s Mind, security expert Bruce Schneier takes a look at systems, how they are vulnerable, and what that fact means for all of us. BRUCE SCHNEIER: Hacking isn’t limited to computer systems, or even technology. Any […]
The Big Idea: S.B. Divya
Posted on February 2, 2023 3 Comments
Today — finally! — we tackle the actual meaning of life! No one has ever done this before in the history of the world! Or, perhaps, no one has done it quite like S.B. Divya is doing here, in this Big Idea for her novel Meru. S.B. DIVYA: What if consciousness is a fundamental property […]
The Big Idea: Dan Rice
Posted on February 1, 2023
It’s been said that fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Author Dan Rice is exploring the topic of unwanted notoriety in his newest novel, and the second installment in his Allison Lee Chronicles, The Blood of Faeries. DAN RICE: Allison Lee, the eponymous protagonist of The Allison Lee Chronicles, has her first brush with […]
The Big Idea: James L. Cambias
Posted on January 17, 2023 4 Comments
One advantage writers get when they work in different fields of writing is more tools for their professional toolbox — but as James L. Cambias points out in this Big Idea for The Scarab Mission, not every skill is directly transferable from one medium to the next, and learning which tools this is true about […]
The Big Idea: Mary Baader Kaley
Posted on January 13, 2023 5 Comments
Real life experiences from authors’ lives often inform their fiction. In the case of Mary Baader Kaley, her life experience, and the life experience of someone she loves, lives at the heart of her novel Burrowed. What is that experience? Read on to discover. MARY BAADER KALEY: My husband and I belong to an exclusive […]
The Big Idea: Jen Comfort
Posted on January 11, 2023 11 Comments
While it’s true that Phantom of the Opera is leaving Broadway, author Jen Comfort is here to bring a modern, gender-reversed version of it to your reading list with her newest rom-com novel, Midnight Duet. JEN COMFORT: “You know how the 2019 theatrical release of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats was a visual, conceptual, and financial […]
The Big Idea: Nancy Kress
Posted on January 10, 2023 10 Comments
Science fiction is just that, a blend of the science we know, and the stories we wish to tell. The mixture of these two aspects was especially important to authors Nancy Kress and Robert Lanza, who co-authored their new novel, Observer. Read on to see how they wove science into story. NANCY KRESS: WHY I WROTE […]
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