Posted on March 19, 2023 61 Comments
During the pandemic, lots of people took on projects to keep themselves busy; mine was building out a music room with an eye toward eventually writing and recording music. Along the way Krissy expressed an interest in bass guitar, so I got her one and told her that she and I would form a band […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Posted on August 15, 2023
Enough is never enough. This statement rings true when it comes to the power hungry bad guys in Keith Rosson’s new novel, Fever House. But what about when that power they crave comes from a severed hand, and they’ll do anything to get it? Read on to see what all the hand, and novel, entails. […]
Posted on June 15, 2022
How do you write a book that reaches past its target audience, to readers that have never tried your genre before? According to author Stephen Cox, you have to lean into the things that make it genre defying in the first place. Follow along in his Big Idea to see how he does this in […]
Posted on November 29, 2022 2 Comments
It’s no surprise that today’s generation of authors might also be gamers… but the influence of gaming on their writing may be more substantial that you might suspect. Kayleigh Nicol, who co-wrote Crystal Awakening with Andrew Rowe, speaks to this integration of writing and gaming, and how the latter informed the former with this novel. […]
Posted on November 1, 2022 6 Comments
What’s in a word? For Joelle Presby, perhaps the whole world… for starters. In this Big Idea, Presby explains how a single word opens up a whole universe for her novel The Dabare Snake Launcher. JOELLE PRESBY: My big idea is a dabare. When you grow up in an area where everyone else speaks at […]
Posted on April 4, 2023 1 Comment
If you’ve ever wondered if aliens are out there, author Ness Brown is right there with you. In their new novel, The Scourge Between Stars, aliens might be a lot closer than the characters think. Follow along in Brown’s Big Idea to see if we’re really alone in the universe. NESS BROWN: Astronomy is sometimes called […]
Posted on May 19, 2022 2 Comments
Punching billionaires: Can it be done? Should it be done? In this Big Idea for Glitterati, author Oliver K. Langmead offers a mechanism for it that is (probably) unlikely to get one landed in jail for it. OLIVER K. LANGMEAD: Capitalism isn’t working too well right now, and one of the most grotesque symptoms of […]
Posted on March 29, 2022 1 Comment
William Faulkner once said “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” It’s a sentiment that Jess Montgomery can certainly appreciate, since her new novel, The Echoes, deals with something very close to that idea. Here she is to explain further. JESS MONTGOMERY: Can we ever outrun our pasts? I think the answer is… […]
Posted on July 25, 2023 3 Comments
What is the legend in The Legend of Charlie Fish? Is it about a man? Is it about a myth? Is it about something in-between? Author Josh Rountree is here to answer everything about this tale of the old west, with a twist in its tail. JOSH ROUNTREE: Here’s my dark secret about The Legend […]
Posted on July 13, 2023
You start with an old idea, and from this old idea, you can create something new. So Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle learned, as they looked to legends from their heritage for the new novel Ebony Gate. JULIA VEE and KEN BEBELLE: When we started writing what would become Ebony Gate, we took inspiration from […]
Posted on July 12, 2023 3 Comments
As a child, author Stephen Aryan wanted to see people like him in fantasy books, but rarely did. Now that he writes books himself, he made sure to represent his roots in his new novel, The Judas Blossom. Follow along in his Big Idea to see how this first installment of the trilogy came to […]
Posted on December 8, 2022 21 Comments
Well, the title really says it all! If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw me tweet about these cookies a couple days ago. A few people ended up asking me for the recipe (which I will always give because they’re never mine anyways), so I figured I’d do a post over them, give […]
Posted on June 7, 2023
Labels are a tough thing to navigate. It can be hard to know what fits, or if you even want to apply labels to yourself at all. This is something author James L. Sutter has struggled with, and something he explores in his new novel, Darkhearts. JAMES L. SUTTER: You’ve probably never heard of Stuart […]
Posted on June 1, 2023 5 Comments
Be warned: In A Thousand Recipes for Revenge, author Beth Cato can get… well, a little cheesy. But, perhaps, not exactly in the way you might expect. BETH CATO: I suppose other people might start work on a novel set in a musketeer-era fantasy world because they want the opportunity to write swashbuckling adventures, rapier […]
Posted on August 2, 2022 3 Comments
Even in fiction, pets are a big responsibility. Author Greg van Eekhout makes that extra clear in his new novel, Fenris & Mott, where we’re introduced to a new version of a particularly legendary dog. Follow along in this Big Idea as the author tells you a little about a dog ownership in a world […]
Posted on July 27, 2022 6 Comments
The way our world is going now, there might not be much of future to look forward to. For author Ruthanna Emrys, she tried to imagine what that future could possibly look like in her new novel, A Half-Built Garden. Follow along as she talks about how we all can get there. RUTHANNA EMRYS: “We […]
Posted on March 29, 2023 2 Comments
What is an urban legend without people to tell their tale, and spread fear into the hearts of others? Luckily, author J. L. Worrad is here with a new novel to keep the legend of his hometown monster alive. Read on to see how he utilizes this boogeyman in The Keep Within. J. L. WORRAD: Have […]
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying