Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 15

Winter Reading, Part 2

As the end of the year approaches, my stack of to-be-reviewed books grows ever taller. I realized to my horror that I am rapidly approaching the point of not being able to remember what I liked or disliked about each story. So here are reviews of varying lengths for your amusement – and hopefully a few will pique your interest enough to check out the books themselves.

The Soul Mirror by Carol Berg (Roc, 2011). I’m an unabashed Carol Berg fan. I love her world-building, her characters, and the...

Elements of Modern Storytelling–Characters

Over on Comet Tales, Stephanie Osborn has a bunch of writers talking about elements of modern storytelling. She wanted to know how we created characters. This was my take on it.

Writers think a lot about characters.

We think about them in the abstract, and we think about those individuals who rent an apartment in our subconscious and start rummaging around, looking for utility hookups and how to arrange forwarding on their mail. Sometimes they are just visiting for a few months or years.

Other t...

The Moon and the Sun: Choreographer Jasna Harris

Choreographer Jasna Harris‘ 2014 showreel includes a bit of the dance sequence from the movie of BVC founding member Vonda N. McIntyre‘s Nebula-winning The Moon and the Sun.

McIntyre visited the production during filming at the chateau de Versailles. “It was a privilege to be there,” she says, “and to meet so many talented people. One of the (many!) high points was Jasna Harris’ dance sequence. I can’t wait to see it on the big screen.”

The movie premiers on April 10, 2015.

McIntyre blogged abou...

Story Excerpt Sunday: from Kindred Rites by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

Kindred Rites

A Tale of Wild Magic

by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

“…we are all Death’s pupils, we practitioners—students of the great healer.”

When magic broke free in my blood, I chose to follow our ancient family path and become a practitioner. I’m learning to heal, and to protect innocents. I dip into minds, stalk vampires, and set wards by the light of the moon. I can hear the children of the night calling.

But there are other families…and other paths. Families with twisted ambitions and frighte...

Young Poets

Hogarth’s Starving Poet

Lately I’ve been rereading T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.

This led to my taking down to peruse, after a hiatus of about twenty years, the slim volume he wrote called The Use of Poetry & The Use of Criticism.

That is not exactly a title for setting best-seller records. I had to check to see if it was even in print anymore, as I’d found my dog-eared copy on a dusty shelf in an old bookstore. The essays were part of lectures the poet gave in 1932 at Harvard.

Not what we’d call u...

The Tajji Diaries: Rainy Day Dogs

First, a confession: the title is misleading. Every German Shepherd Dog we’ve owned has not cared at all about rain, even Oka, who thought water on the ground was poisonous. Puddles, lakes, the ocean – not going there. But water from the sky seemed to be unworthy of notice. It is, however, noticed by the resident monkeys, who have devised utterly senseless rules regarding what must be done before entering the house.

First, the rubdown. There is no need for this from the dog’s perspective. Germ...

Making a Joyful Noise

For a holiday treat, my sweetheart and I went to a performance by the Oakland East Bay Symphony entitled “Let Us Break Bread Together: A Holiday Tribute to Pete Seeger.”

The program included music of the season along with a number of songs written by or associated with Pete Seeger, which is an agreeable combination for someone like me who associates peace and love with Seeger-type activism. It was held in the Paramount Theatre in downtown Oakland, one of those Art Deco-inspired theatres from t...

In Celebration of The Hobbit #3

by Brenda W. Clough

The third and final Hobbit movie is out today! Holiday pressures force me to postpone seeing the movie for a while — when I do I will post a review. But to celebrate, I give you my final Tolkien/musical mashup! The first one is here, and the second here – collect the entire set.

(a song taught by Bilbo Baggins to hapless young hobbits when they come to tea at Bag End)

Away out east they don’t got holes

Not like here in the Shire

The Elves have woods, the Dwarves have mines

And t...

Don’t Bite the Basketball

You’d think Serge Ibaka was trying to self-publish an ebook.
via Daily Thunder

Most authors these days are familiar with the challenges of self-publishing. The sheer number of tasks confronting your first indie ebook can boggle you. Once you’ve got those down, the do-list only gets longer. How’s your social media going? Can you afford a BookBub ad? Are you ready for box sets, producing your own audio editions, and managing a street team?

Yeah.

My critique buddy Mindy Klasky, who is surely more or...

Words and Pictures

There are someillustrations that are so integral to my memory of books I read as a kid that to say the name of a book calls them immediately to mind. Say“A Little Princess”and I think ofSara Crewe, pale little face framed by a cloud of dark hair, sitting disconsolate in her wretched attic, or a little more optimistically, of Sara, cracked bowl in hand, looking dreamily out over the London rooftops. Both illustrations are from an edition of A Little Princess I did not own–we had it in my class...