Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 108

Second Chance for “Second Chance”

I learned a lot at Clarion West, but I was miserable most of the time. But, eventually, I got a novella out of it. This is the story behind that novella.

Clarion West, in case you don’t know, is a six-week “boot camp for science fiction writers” held every summer in Seattle. Seventeen writers who’ve survived a rigorous selection process, but have never met before, live together in a dorm and do nothing but write and critique for six solid weeks. It’s a lot like a reality show, except that ther...

Charlotte is My Brontë

This piece originally appeared at madeleinerobins.com in June, 2011. Something reminded me of it the other day, and here it is.

In high school I had a teacher who lovedWuthering Heights. I was, I blush to say, a bit of a suck-up in English class because I loved the subject, I loved writing about books and writing, and I didn’t see any reason to be all cool about it. Except when we readWuthering Heights. Then I had to fake it: I read the book and took the test and did the essay, but all the tim...

BVC Announces Rotten Row by Chaz Brenchley

Rotten Row

by Chaz Brenchley

Rotten Row is the worst place we’ve made.

Humankind can travel to the stars — but only those content to be flung as a datastream through space, flitting from male to female, dark to fair, one random discard body to the next. Those who go are the Upshot, rare individuals subject to their own rigid laws.

And then there’s Rotten Row.

Outcasts in breach of all codes, in Rotten Row people design their own bodies and sell them on for re-use after. Outlandish bodies: furred a...

BVC Announces Second Chance by David D. Levine

Second Chance

by David D. Levine

Chaz Eades is on the mission of a lifetime—the first to an alien solar system far beyond our own—and it’s a one-way trip. When he learns that contact with Earth has been lost, he wants to help reestablish communication. But the commander insists on science first and contact later, the crew is inexplicably hostile, and Chaz finds himself painfully isolated. Soon he realizes that there’s a secret at the heart of the crew’s troubles that is much larger than any he...

Author Interview: Kit Kerr

KATHARINE “KIT” KERR

Interviewed by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

Writer Katharine “Kit” Kerr is a child of water who can’t imagine living landlocked. She grew up in the energy field of the Great Lakes, and then made her way to southern California, finally claiming the San Francisco Bay Area as her place of choice. Her other great love in the Place Department is London and the Thames River. She is a professional storyteller, an amateur skeptic, and an impassioned fan of baseball and rock & roll. Be...

The Cat Letters

The Cat Letters
(obediently transcribed by Elisabeth and Ursula Le Guin)

Although incomplete, these letters are of great interest in revealing much concerning the Five Deliberations.

Though practiced openly and constantly by most cats, the actual nature of the Deliberations has remained obscure to most humans. Frederika’s revelation of them by name and her description of the practice to her correspondent Zorro is an epoch in our understanding of feline thought, and should clarify many mysteries...

There are things writing and reading can’t teach you….

by Laura Anne Gilman

I was working on a scene last week where the two main characters nearly come to blows over a simple comment that escalates because one of them is tone-deaf to what they’re saying/how they say it. It’s a good, chunky scene, filled with drama, shoving the characters where they need to go, plot- and character development-wise. It requires a character to own his shit…eventually.

But what happens on page is choreographed, plotted, planned by a Higher Hand with the luxury of know...

Consideration of Works Past: A Canticle for Leibowitz

(Picture fromhere.)

We can’t effectively criticize Shakespeare or the Bible because they have so profoundly interpenetrated our culture and our language. People who have never read a word of the Bible know the meaning of the phrase “the patience of Job.” People who would barely know the Bard’s name know the meaning of the phrase “the green eyed monster.” Such works have become the water in which we as fish swim. We read the Bible. We watch the plays. But we’re seeing our own culture write larg...

Liveblogging Launch Pad

Writers live for local color. There is nothing like it; it is the entire point of travel and we pursue it with passion. And oh! there is a great bar in downtown Laramie, clearly the Wyoming version of the Mos Eiesley Cantina. It is the Buckhorn Bar, an institution that predates all the wine bars, organic restaurants and yarn stores downtown.

We went last night, and agreed that it was good we were in a group. A seedy trio was playing music in a corner, not space jazz but bluegrass and Creedence...

The Darcy Chronicles 3: Toddler with a Chainsaw

Our third week with Darcy was the week from hell. It started with a near-death experience; peaked with a brief pyroclastic flow from one of the writers in the household whose work schedule is being eaten by the dog; and ended with an upswing in worrisome discussions about talking back with one’s teeth. I’m writing this piecemeal, since Darcy’s demands also ate my blog post. But hang in there, check back this afternoon (PDT: UTC-7); it’ll be a wild ride.

Timor Mortis Conturbat Me

Sunday morning,...