Ruth Nestvold's Blog, page 3

Announcing my first Kindle Vella, Dragon Touched

You’ve probably heard about Amazon’s new serial fiction offering, Kindle Vella. “Vellas” are stories told in episodes between 600 and 5000 words long. The first three episodes of a Vella are always free to read, but if you want to read on, you have to purchase tokens. Amazon does give its customers 200 tokens to try out the service. The number of tokens needed to read an episode are based on the length — an author has no say in the price charged. Packages of tokens range in price from $1.99 for ...

A New Book (Finally!): Facets of Glass

I am pleased to announce that the second book in the Glassmakers trilogy, Facets of Glass, is now available on most ebook retailers.

When Chiara Dragoni learns that her beloved stepsister Minerva has been enchanted by a witch in the service of her enemies, she must leave the safety of Bohemia and return to Venice, where her life is in danger. Will she be able to break the spell without being caught by the Dowager Princess?

Amazon: http://www.Amazon.com/dp/B08YFJ1H9Y/?tag=ruthnest-20
B&N...

The Voice Germany Senior: My granddaughter’s art teacher

We just had a very exciting evening here in our living room in Bad Cannstatt. Since Mira’s mom wanted to watch “Tatort” (a German crime series) like she does every Sunday, the granddaughter came over to watch “The Voice Senior” with us — a new format for singers over 60. And one of the old folks who had made it into a team was her art teacher, also the guy who plays the guitar for her school band.

Here’s the link to his performance of “Smoke on the Water” (I can’t seem to embed it):

https:...

Genre Tropes and the Transmissibility of Story

By Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold

Story is not automatically story, especially when dealing with genre and its tropes. Trope can be a rather difficult concept to grasp, seeing as it includes so many different elements in literature. For the purpose of this article, we are using the term “trope” in the sense of a familiar and repeated symbol, meme, theme, motif, style, character or thing that is common in a particular type of literature. Such tropes are closely related to genre. Examples of this k...

New Blog Feature: Reprinting IROSF Columns Written with Jay Lake

Almost 15 years ago now, Jay Lake and I started writing a (mostly) monthly column in IROSF (Internet Review of Science Fiction), which we kept up for over three years. Topics varied from writing advice to observations on genre to literary criticism in the broadest sense.

Even after IROSF folded, they maintained archives so that the articles they had published could still be accessed. Just recently, however, I received an email from someone who had followed a link to one of our pieces and cou...

Aphra Behn and Chameleon in a Mirror

Usually I try to post every year on the death date of Aphra Behn, the first professional woman writer in the English language. I missed it this year (April 16) for a number of reasons, the main one being that I was preparing for the Villa Diodati Workshop, reading stories and writing critiques.

But I have a consolation prize this week: for those who have not yet read it, my time travel based on the life of Aphra Behn, Chameleon in a Mirror, is on sale for only 99c on Amazon until April 28.

Testing Kindle Scout: Cutting Edges; Or, A Web of Women

My most recent indie experiment is actually based on something fairly old: my hyperfiction piece, Cutting Edges; Or, A Web of Women. I put the hyperfiction* version of Cutting Edges up on the web over 20 years ago, in a fit of literary experimentation when I still thought my future might lie in academia.

Well, it turns out that both hyperfiction and my future in academia didn’t have much of a future after all. Cutting Edges got a fair amount of attention at the time, but has now been languis...

NRA: Nonsensical Rifle Addiction

This is absolutely wonderful, a Dutch parody of the NRA. (Be patient, they soon change to English.)

Recent Changes to CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing Paperbacks

I was wondering when Amazon was finally going to make their print service less crippled.

Goodbye to a woman who revolutionized science fiction: RIP Ursula K. Le Guin

There are two books that that were integral to my decision to become a writer of science fiction and fantasy, and both are by Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. When I read those as a young adult, I was blown away at the way her thought experiments in those novels could leave me stunned and amazed — and considering the world in a very different way than I had before. One of the lines I absolutely loved (and I’m quoting from memory here, so it might not be accur...