I have been blogging at this location for the last fifteen years, and it is with pleasure that I continue to do so — but perhaps with a much-changed mission. When authors I know first started blogging, it was a way of communicating with people. I look back at the posts from five-six years […]
What Has Blogging Become in the Age of a “Like Button? Read More »
I found this lovely image—most likely of the great warrior Queen, Matilda of Tuscany—and thought how familiar she looked, banded together with her sisters-in-arms, swords and longbows, arrows, and beautiful dresses. Though Matilda was certainly far more powerful and effective as a warrior queen, this image seemed like a perfect illustration for a band of
Banished Brides and Longbows Read More »
I am happy to announce that I have finally taken the plunge and created my independent small press, Leaping Hart Press. It has been an exciting process, watching as each requirement for an LLC falls into place (though not without some anxiety and middle-of-the-night worry.) I am now busy re-reading the original manuscripts
A New Undertaking: Leaping Hart Press Read More »
My notes on re-reading Harold Scheub's work on oral narrative structures and performance. They have shaped the way I think of the fantastic in narrative and how it functions, and by extension, how those "electric moments" when the real and the fantastic are combined in narrative. Notes from Harold Scheub's Story: an evident
The Shaping of Story: Working Through Ideas Read More »
I love these wildly imaginative graphite portraits of "People Inconvenienced by Objects and Thought" by Stefan Zsaitits. They look almost exactly how my head feels right now. itchy, scratchy, and aggravated by an eye infection. It has been something of a rough road for these last four months as we traveled from Longmont, Colorado, to
People Inconvienced by Objects and Thoughts Read More »
St. Augustine of Hippo, a figure often remembered by young Catholics for his plea to God during his wild youth, "Give me chastity and continence, but not quite yet," Has left us with a wealth of wisdom. One such quote, which a friend recently shared with me, resonates particularly powerfully in our modern
Love and Do What You Will… Read More »
There are moments in writing that feel so spontaneous that it is hard to believe they have come from oneself but instead are descended in the form of a writerly-grace. When Jane Yolen and I wrote Except the Queen, we began by separately creating characters, each with their voice and chapters, intuitively stitching them together
One Does Not Say No to Baba Yaga Read More »
When it comes to writing novels, I am tortoise. At least with the first half, and there is something thrilling about the second half, like sliding down a long snowy hill, or as in below, leaping off the top step. I am still the tortoise right now. For assistance, I return to a 1968 Paris Review
When the Tortoise and Then the Hare Sit Down to Write Read More »
One of the greatest pleasures is reading Sicilian folktales midday while drunk on a dense-full-bodied beer (16.2 percent) produced locally in Boulder. Like the beer, the stories are rowdy, naughty, mythic, and full of gullible and wise fools who make donkeys appear to shit gold, drive menial men to do self-destructive things and conspire to
Plank’d and Research Read More »
In anxious moments while working on the current novel, I turn for assistance to a 1968 Paris Review interview with the great Canadian author Robertson Davies, where he describes his writing process, a laborious and methodical investigation long before the narrative is written. "I am at the moment winding up to write another novel, and
When Struck by Fear of Writing, Refer To The Masters For Help Read More »
