Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 105

BVC Announces Arrows of the Sun by Judith Tarr

Arrows of the Sun

Avaryan Resplendent Volume I

by Judith Tarr

The war between the Golden Empire and the Empire of the Sun is over, the empires merged into one, and one emperor over them all: Estarion, heir to both royal houses. But Estarion will not accept half of his heritage, nor will the Golden Empire willingly accept him. The same forces that assassinated his father are arrayed against him, led by the last scion of an ancient imperial line‚ and he must stand against them and truly unite the...

BVC Announces Whispered Magics by Sherwood Smith

WHISPERED MAGICS

Tales by

by Sherwood Smith

As a child, Sherwood Smith was always on the watch for magic: no fog bank went unexplored, no wooden closet unchecked for a false back, no possible magical token left on the ground or in the gutter. In these stories, the impossible becomes possible, magic is real, aliens come visiting. How would our lives change?

Table of Contents

Mom and Dad at the Home Front

The Glass Slipper

The Princess, the Page, and the Master Cook’s Son|Curing the Bozos

Illumination

F...

Author Interview: Pat Rice

Patricia Rice

Interviewed by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

“With several million books in print and New York Times and USA Today’s bestseller lists under her belt, former CPA Patricia Rice is one of romance’s hottest authors.” So starts Patricia Rice’s biography. But it tells nothing of why Pat Rice’s fifty-sixth book just hit the bookshelves—or why readers keep coming back to her for more.

Be it historical or contemporary, magical or mundane, Pat Rice’s emotionally-charged novels vibrate with excit...

Maturity II: The Yin-Side Story

I’m a mare person. My favorite riding horse is a stallion, and I love geldings, but whenever I’ve gone out to buy a horse, I’ve come home with a mare. It’s not just that a mare of good quality and good breeding gives you the option of increasing the barn population, though that’s a nice, practical consideration. It’s that I like the ladies.

The old horsemen used to say, “You tell a gelding, ask a stallion, and negotiate with a mare.” Geldings will take orders pretty well. Stallions will accede...

Story Inspiration Sunday

This post will be a bit different than the other ones.

My computer is unavailable, so I’m writing this up on my iPad. Which means no pictures. Just words.

So what a good time to go into one of my favorite inspirations–poetry.

My first three novels are all historic fantasy. I did a lot of research before I wrote them.

One of my primary sources for these novels was poetry from that time.

For Paper Mage I read a lot of Tang Dynasty poetry. One of my best resources was a book called, “Sunflower Sp...

Consideration of Works Past: Battlefield Earth

(Picture fromhere.)

Here’s where I lose any possible literary creds.

Okay, in the interest of transparency, I like bad movies.

There are several ways a work can fail. It can aim too low and miss. It can aim too high and miss. It can thread the myriad ways of mediocrity and nail the target– which is a fail in and of itself.

“B” movies aim at a specific lowbrow target and much more often than not nail it.

This is a good thing.

Sometimes (noteSharktopus, which I saw last night.) the bar is so ludicrou...

The Darcy Chronicles 5: The Puppy as Will and Idea

In which we talk about willfulness, intelligence, and covenant loyalty in dogs while Arthur Schopenhauer and Micah the Prophet glare at the impudent dog trainer who has stolen their ideas for his own purposes.

I’m firm, you’re stubborn, and he’s a puppy

An uneasy detente

Mr. Darcy is now in his 11th week of life. At about 35 pounds, he’s quite an armful to carry even when he’s willing to be picked up. Right now, since we want to minimize the amount of coercion we use, I often have to carry him o...

The Joy of Editing

When writing I usually have a moment in each novel when something snaps, and suddenly the addition of one complication or deletion of one beloved scene gives the entire story new coherence. Whatever had been fermenting in my hind brain takes over and all the disparate pieces of the book fall together into a unified whole.

I have learned to trust my hind brain. At least on first draft.

As an editor, it is my job to find those glitches and point them out to the author and then let them fix it. I...

My First Computer – Columbia VP Portable

My First Computer

by Linda Nagata

Gather round children, and let me tell you a frightening truth: I got through four years of college without a personal computer.

Everyone did in those days, but within a year of graduating, the personal computer revolution had taken off. This was 1983. I was getting married. The husband-to-be wondered if I wanted an engagement ring. I considered it for about a second-and-a-half and said, “Get me a computer instead.” Because by this time I’d decided I was going t...

Beyond Grimm Places in Cover Contest

Thanks to Amy Sterling’s design talent, the cover for our Beyond Grimm anthology of updated fair tales has taken third place in the July cover contest over at You Gotta Read Reviews.

Take a look.

Buy the book.