I’ll be at the Tucson Festival of Books from 1-5 Saturday (tomorrow!) at the Pima County Public Library’s Bookmobile near the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium on the UA Mall. I’ll be talking about the Writer-in-Residence program and its upcoming workshops, and I’ll also be holding my office hours right there on the Mall–so come […]
Find me at the Tucson Festival of Books Read More »
Two reviews of Finding Your Sense of Place! Katherine Cowley: ” I highly recommend it for an exploration of setting and emotion.” (Check out her post on Emotional Beats in Fiction, as well.) Janet Lee Carey at Dreamwalks: ” These forty pages could change your writing life. I know they’ll change mine. I’ll be at
Reviews (of Finding Your Sense of Place) and Appearances (with the Pima Public Library) Read More »
Me. With a dinosaur. (Thanks, Greg Leitich Smith!)
Exactly what it says on the tin Read More »
You know the awful “it’s all just fine” ending to the movie of The Golden Compass? The one that anyone who’s read the book all the way to the end knows is a lie, because the real ending is one where nothing is at all fine? The real ending was actually filmed. And there’s a
Department of how did I not know about this? Read More »
So maybe there’s the one who walks away from Omelas. And maybe that doesn’t seem to matter much, at the time. Maybe it even seems an easy way out Only then there are also the three or five or three dozen people who watch that one walk away and think: okay, we’re not willing (can’t)
Thoughts while working on a story arc Read More »
Set out in the chilly late morning in my Runner 5 T-Shirt for a run. (Runner 7 says I’m now authorized to run 5K, hah!) The neighborhood was filled with people–walking, running, biking, leading kids on big wheels–and generally felt so much like, well, a neighborhood that it made me happy to be here, at
“If this were my last glimpse of winter / what would these eyes see?” Read More »
In this month of short days, I found myself turning to a reread of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore, which has become one of my comfort reads. (A couple decades ago, I would have turned to Tombs of Atuan instead. Perhaps in a couple more I’ll turn to Tehanu.) He knew now why
“… yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset …” Read More »
Dear Protagonist Whose Character Arc Is Shifting in Subtle and Not-So-Subtle Ways,You may have noticed the stakes have risen a bit since the last draft.(waits)(listens to crickets)(nice crickets)So, has it occurred to you this might mean you need a better plan for meeting them?Me=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=Dear Ordinary and Very Human Tertiary Characters,I’m sorry. But I’m going to
“This is your life / this is your world / beginning to end” Read More »
“Buy local” is a far more positive message than “Don’t buy from [insert country of choice].”I get uneasy when I see buying locally phrased in terms of who we’re not buying from instead of who we are, when I see it presented as taking a stand against rather than for, when I see it twisted
Today’s holiday (and non-holiday) shopping thought Read More »