Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 130

Writing in the Digital Age: Nook Press – A Boon, or Boondoggle?

Will Collaboration Tools in Nook Press make it the Next Best Thing?

I dithered about whether or not to make Nook Press my topic today. There are other exciting things happening in the world of writing in the digital age (speaking of which, my second audiobook, The Next Best Bride released today). And all I’ve done, besides read the teeth-gritting TOS, and the FAQ, is migrate my PubIt account to Nook Press (something that was very easy for me).

But then I decided that Barnes & Noble has done som...

Stage Adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness

Portland Playhouse andHand2Mouth Theatreteam up to stage a new adaptation of Ursula K. LeGuin’s 1969 gender-bending tale of love, jealousy, power and betrayal.

Sometimes, we have to leave our own time and place to understand ourselves. Hand2Mouth Theatre and Portland Playhouse team up to stage a new adaptation of The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1969 gender-bending tale of love, jealousy, power and betrayal. Join envoy Genly Ai on a trek across the cold, isolated planet of Gethen...

Stand Up to Street Harassment: Meet Us on the Street

If you’ve never experienced catcalls, groping, or similar abuse in a public place, chances are you’re straight and male. Most women and lots of LGBQT folks are all too familiar with the experience.

You don’t have to be young and beautiful to run into problems. Street harassment isn’t just unwanted sexual advances (verbal or physical); it also includes ugly insults and similar abuse.

Make no mistake: Telling a complete stranger how hot she is is no more of a compliment than telling a stranger sh...

WWW Wednesday 4-10-2013

WWW Wednesday. This meme is from shouldbereading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?

• What did you recently finish reading?

• What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently reading: Charles de Lint’s Muse and Reverie: A Newford Collection. I love de Lint’s work. A couple of paragraphs into each story, some undefined tension in me sighs happily and lets go. I suspect it’s the effortlessness of his craft, or maybe just that I read his pros...

A Padawan’s Journal #49: Reality Informs Fiction

Jax Pavan and I-5YQ

Every once in a while, even in the world of media tie-ins, I get to field questions that go beyond the expected “Do you like writing Star Wars novels?” “Which character is the most fun to write?”

I did several interviews lately in which the interviewers asked the unexpected in trying to dig down into the story within or behind the story. What this sort of question tells me is that I did something right. I got enough depth into the characters that the reader knew there was so...

One World, Many Stories

From time to time, I take my pile of newly-read books and post reviews. As I sat down recently to do this, I realized that not a single one of them was a true stand-alone. They were either the first book at led to others set in the same world (Kage Baker’s The Garden of Iden, her debut novel and also the first “Company” novel; Garth Nix’s Sabriel, the first book of the “Abhorsen” trilogy); or they were middle books in a series (Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe’s Prey and Sherwood Smith’s Blood Spiri...

BVC Announces “The Last Stand” by Pati Nagle

Felisan, Governor of Alpinon, recalls the battle in which he and Jharan were certain they would be slain.

On their way to Glenhallow, Eliani and her kindred must pass the battlefield at Skyruach, site of the greatest ælven conflict centuries before. As she and her kin listen to her father, Felisan, tell of the battle, she ponders the difficult decisions she must make when they reach the city where Turisan awaits her. Must she accept and use the mindspeech she shares with him.



Should she agree t...

Writing Nowadays–A Pleasant Nightmare

One of the perks of being an author is that you get free copies of your books from the publisher. It’s awesome! And with the release of my Corporation duology and my Silent Empire series at Audible.com, I was really looking forward to author copies so I could see–hear–my characters brought to life by a narrator. But there’s been a hangup somewhere with the codes that would get me the complimentary downloads, and I had this long drive to Chicago coming up, and . . .

The upshot is, I broke down...

Eighty years in style: Astaire and Rogers

There used to be a saying — I think it was even on a T-shirt — that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards, and on high heels.

I knew the intent. It was a feminist shout out, meant to reaffirm that women could do anything men can do. And some slyly wanted to imply that women could do it better. Whatever. It bugged me because it was wrong. Not completely wrong. Ginger dances in heels. Otherwise it’s wrong in specifics, and especially in intent.

First of all, Ginger does no...

Things Are Happening Here

(Picture from here.)

There are a lot of things we can be upset about these days. The sequester. Intransigence in Washington. Unemployment. However, one thing we should be happy about: the state of science.

A lot of things came across my desk that showed this.

NASA is looking into 3D printing– on the moon. (See here.) How to produce a structure on the moon where humans can live? Print it. On another NASA front, they’re looking into capturing an asteroid and bringing it back to the moon where we c...