on Reading and Writing and All the Speculation In Between
I read this book the first time shortly after it was first released in 1993. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is a trained anthropologist who applies her observational skills to her dog pack. Her book, The Hidden Life of Dogs, chronicles her experiences with her own and friends’ dogs over the course of decades in a very…
I read this book the first time in the late 80s, and have read it many times since then as well as loaned my copy to friends. This book is a compelling presentation of of ancient Egypt and fueled my fascination with that epoch to a great degree. From the Amazon description: Part of a…
Today marks the 14th year since a remarkable Husky was born. According to her pedigree (the least of her value), Kyra was born January 16, 1998 of sire G’s Saxman Red Devil and dam Nikolai of Classy G in Charlottesville, Virginia. Last year she had to have a few rotten teeth pulled, and we’ve always…
Full disclosure here: I got to both beta read and edit G L Drummond‘s latest offering, Arcane Solutions. So I’ve seen it in rough form and been paid to work out the final kinks, so I’m obviously not unbiased about whether this story is worth reading; I’ve already invested a lot of time to make…
I ran across a hard-cover version of this on the clearance table of a local book store, and decided that a speculative fiction novel about Shakespeare’s daughter by a woman who is an English professor who teaches about Shakespeare might be an illuminating view of the bard. Particularly since I’ve read quite a few of…
I learned about Wen Spencer through the random bookshelf promotion at a local book store via her Tinker and Wolf Who Rules books, so began reading further into her work. This one caught my eye for its very different take on male-female relations: In a world where males are rarely born, they’ve become a commodity–traded…
Once again this week, I stumbled across an author on Twitter who is releasing a new book. @jennnixon is a veteran indie, with four novels under her belt (including one self-published). To help her kick off her fifth book launch, I invited her to join me here for an author interview. Enjoy! 1. You have…
Once again, Twitter introduced me to an interesting, supportive fellow writer in @BPuttroff who helped me #wordmonger my way to a NaNo win this year. In our writing sprint breaks she was kind enough to share some of her work, and I got to beta read what promises to be an excellent follow-on to Seeds…
I rang in the new year with a quick trip to visit family in Virginia, where I have a niece in the third grade. My brother honored me by giving her my name as her middle name and making me her godmother, so I try to pay close attention to what she’s up to–despite the…
I found @rachelintheoc on Twitter, recently, as seems to be a developing pattern for my new author finds these days. She’s funny, engaging, and real—there, as on her blog. She was running a pre-Christmas promo to help boost her books’ visibility, and announced on Twitter that she was giving away her book in an effort…