Lani Cox's Blog, page 5

What do you like most about your writing?

In the 6th grade, we took a statewide test that assessed our writing abilities, and I scored high under having a strong opinion. But in college, I received papers back that said “too idiosyncratic”.  Looking back, I feel those two moments define the evolution of my writer’s voice. And I like that. I like my voice.…

What is something you wish you knew how to do?

I wish I knew how to climb into storybooks and try on different life. Could I be like Nora in The Midnight Library and see what would have happened if I had made different choices. What if I had stayed in archaeology? What if I stayed in Durango, Colorado? What if I had had children?…

What is a road trip you would love to take?

Australia was never on my radar. After all, I left Hawaii to get away from island life (sounds absurd now, doesn’t it?). My first brush with Australia was through the 1986 hit movie Crocodile Dundee, and while it was entertaining, it didn’t exactly make me want to hop on a plane. No, throughout my childhood…

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

None. She wouldn’t have listened anyway. Because:a) teenagers always know bestand have all the answersb) words can change lives, but would it have made a difference?and would I have wanted it to?c) the older we get, the more regrets we harbor, so it’s best to let those ships sail out to sead) nowadays, I remind…

📚 Reading Roundup: December 2021

Did the pandemic change the way we read? You bet it did. Physical, electronic, and audio books sales all increased. And just like everyone else, I read widely, deeply, to escape, and find comfort, too. This became particularly noticeable after I started working full-time. Dark and depressing could no longer hold my interest. [Too close…

Non-Reading Roundup: November 2021

It has been known to happen, although, like this month’s solar eclipse, it’s rare. Nothing will hold my attention, but what’s super annoying is I’ve read several books halfway before giving up on them. Even my gal, Agatha Christie, couldn’t satisfy me, and in the past, she was ‘ol reliable. Like people, I want to…

📚 Reading Roundup: October 2021

How fast is this year flying by? The witch’s broomstick is already in the distance, past Halloween’s moon. This month I read another long book and a children’s story that I read to my third grade class. That counts too, doesn’t it? First up, The Widow Queen by Elzbieta Cherezinska, translated from Polish to English…

📚 Reading Roundup: September 2021

Another one-book month, but it was over 400 pages! That counts for something, right? After a string of serious books, I needed something different. But like a lot of things, we don’t know what we need until we go looking for it. Somehow I found this list The Best Science Fiction of 2021: The Arthur…

📚 Reading Roundup: August 2021

A busy month = just one book and a trail of abandoned books. Do you give up on novels? As a child of the 80s, I grew up during the Cold War, which sounds dramatic, but this simply meant that the enemy in films and television were almost always the Russians. I’m not sure if…

📚 Reading Roundup: July 2021

This month I read Australian, American, and British. Breath by Tim Winton was recommended by my husband who remembers reading it many years ago. Since my 14-year old student, Mark likes surfing he thought it would be a good read. But what he forgot was that the story has some very inappropriate sex descriptions (and…