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The Big Idea: Julia Rust & David Surface
Posted on November 2, 2022 2 Comments
Sometimes walking in the woods will take you to places you never expected. During the writing of Angel Falls, authors Julia Rust and David Surface went for several walks in the woods, and this Big Idea, they tag-team tell you what they discovered. JULIA RUST & DAVID SURFACE: “I found an old trail. Maybe it […]
The Big Idea: Clay Harmon
Posted on July 25, 2022 2 Comments
Power dynamics in relationships always have the capacity for drama… but what happens when some of that power is magical? Author Clay Harmon is thinking about this in his Big Idea for Flames of Mira. CLAY HARMON: Can members of a relationship exist on equal footing when power imbalances exist between both parties? This is […]
The Big Idea: Chris Gerrib
Posted on July 22, 2022 4 Comments
When robbing a bank becomes too mainstream, try hijacking a spaceship! Author Chris Gerrib tells us a little about how he came up with the idea for his newest thriller, One of Our Spaceships is Missing. CHRIS GERRIB: Stories sometimes have more than one Big Idea. For my latest novel, I had a lot of big […]
The Big Idea: Ryan Van Loan
Posted on July 15, 2022 1 Comment
In Ryan Van Loan’s third installment of The Fall of the Gods series, the author sheds light on an important fact: being smart doesn’t guarantee being wise. This makes a world of difference for the protagonist of The Memory in the Blood. RYAN VAN LOAN: My Big Idea for The Memory in the Blood began with a […]
Ranking My RPG Stats
Posted on January 30, 2023 40 Comments
Over on Twitter last night, Gail Simone asked: This is a fun little exercise to consider, and while I answered this briefly over on that service (because everything on Twitter still needs to be brief), I thought it would be fun to rank them out over here in more detail. I won’t be offering a […]
The Big Idea: Mia V. Moss
Posted on July 12, 2022 4 Comments
Futuristic stories often take their cues from the present, and this is certainly the case in Mia V. Moss’s new novel, Mai Tais For the Lost. Set in an alarmingly realistic future Earth, Moss’s story is part mystery, part sci-fi, and all underwater. MIA V. MOSS: What if the world’s wealthiest individuals, gazing from the decks […]
“The Summer EP” Now Out to Streaming and Download
Posted on October 5, 2022 7 Comments
As readers of the site well know, over the summer I wrote and recorded a number of musical tracks and posted them here and elsewhere; it was fun for me and hopefully enjoyable for other folks too, but it also meant that the individual pieces were scattered and somewhat disorganized. So I went ahead and […]
The Big Idea: Ciel Pierlot
Posted on February 9, 2022 4 Comments
What’s in a name? For Ciel Pierlot, quite a bit. In this Big Idea, find out how names matter, in worldbuilding and in Pierlot’s novel Bluebird. CIEL PIERLOT: One of the earliest concepts I had for Bluebird was ‘stories in space’. I knew from day one that I wanted to write Rig as someone who’s […]
New Music LP Out Today: “Eternal”
Posted on September 4, 2023 10 Comments
Wait, a whole LP? Yes, that’s right, while you weren’t looking, I’ve been fiddling about on a specific musical project that ended up being 40 minutes long, which is to say, the length of a traditional LP. It even breaks well into two sides, with Side One being a shade over 23 minutes and Side […]
Not Necessarily a Miracle on 34th Street
Posted on December 2, 2020 12 Comments
But still lovely to see: A big ‘ol advertisement for The Last Emperox in NYC, through the good graces of Amazon, which included the book in its annual Best Books of 2020 list, along with, of course, many other very worthy tomes. You can see the science fiction and fantasy selections here, if you have […]
The Big Idea: Howard Andrew Jones
Posted on August 3, 2023 4 Comments
History is often an inspiration for fantasy, but as Howard Andrew Jones explains in this Big Idea for Lord of a Shattered Land, how that inspiration hits can be a surprise, even for the author himself. HOWARD ANDREW JONES: It seemed like such an obvious what-if question I couldn’t believe no one had written about […]
The Big Idea: Jennifer Estep
Posted on September 20, 2022 2 Comments
Sometimes, combining your favorite things can result in something even better than the individual things you put together. Like pineapple on pizza, or peanut butter on pickles. Or in author Jennifer Estep’s case, genres. Come along in the Big Idea for her newest novel, Only Bad Options, to see which genres she chose to perfectly […]
The Big Idea: Gwynne Garfinkle
Posted on January 17, 2022
In life, we make choices, and we have to live with them. But as Gwynne Garfinkle details in this Big Idea for Can’t Find My Way Home, maybe sometimes the choices we make have consequences even beyond that. GWYNNE GARFINKLE: My novel Can’t Find My Way Home began as the story of a young actress […]
The Big Idea: Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold
Posted on April 13, 2023 8 Comments
The Victorian Era is a world we think we know… but as Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold tell us in this Big Idea for Death By Silver, beneath what we think we know is a world that must be inferred… and then explored. MELISSA SCOTT & AMY GRISWOLD: It’s not too much of an exaggeration […]
The Big Idea: David Quantick
Posted on August 25, 2022 2 Comments
You have to hand it to David Quantick: He took a wild idea, and then, as the kids used to say, let his fingers do the walking (on the keyboard. I’m sorry. I will stop with the puns now). In this Big Idea, learn how the author finally got the idea for Ricky’s Hand out […]
The Big Idea: Jennifer Estep
Posted on July 9, 2021 8 Comments
So you’ve created a world for a book series, and the series… ends. What becomes of the world and the characters in it? Can you go back? How do you go back? And why? Lots of questions, which author Jennifer Estep is tackling in this Big Idea for her new novel Capture the Crown. JENNIFER […]
The Big Idea: Alex Shvartsman
Posted on June 2, 2022 7 Comments
Magic, monsters, and New York Style pizza. Three things you can expect to find in author Alex Shvartsman’s newest book, The Middling Afflication. Come along in this Big Idea to see what else lies within the city that never sleeps. ALEX SHVARTSMAN: The big idea behind The Middling Affliction is actually three middling ideas stacked on […]
The Big Idea: Charlie N. Holmberg
Posted on November 3, 2021 1 Comment
Inspiration comes from anywhere, but for Star Mother, author Charlie N. Holmberg found inspiration from a most unusual place. But from unusual places can come stellar ideas, as you’ll discover here. CHARLIE N. HOLMBERG: The big idea behind Star Mother actually came from the cover of another book. A book I’d never read. I’d recently […]
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: Drew Brockington
Posted on October 29, 2021 1 Comment
Cartoon cats! And science! I mean, that sells me on Waffles and Pancake – Planetary-Yum right there. But author/illustrator Drew Brockington is here to tell us more about how a childhood love of space travel has led him to catstronauts, and the kittens who look up to them. DREW BROCKINGTON: When I was a kid, […]
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The Big Idea
What's the Big Idea? Authors explaining the the big ideas behind their latest works, in their own words. See the latest Big Ideas!
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