Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 48

The Tajji Diaries: Welcome Home, Mommy Monkey!

I’ve been travelling for about two weeks and arrived home, hideously jet-lagged, to be greeted by various furred denizens of our household. (And also mine excellent spouse, but you can imagine for yourselves how that reunion went.) I’m struck by the differences in how the critters welcomed me home.

Tajji (German Shepherd Dog). Dave reported that she had been moping and looking for me when I left. She’s an affectionate, enthusiastic dog, so I expected great, ecstatic romping and kisses and gene...

Athena’s Daughters, vol. 1

Sherwood Smith has a novelette in the new, all-women produced, edited, and written anthologyAthena’s Daughters.

The anthology includes writers such as Nisi Shawl, Diana Peterfreund, Cleolinda Jones, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Book View Cafe member Alma Alexander.

The stories range from fantasy to science fiction, past, present, and future. Smith’s novelette features old women gaining powers, and Alexander’s an intense look at the cost of vision.

Borders

We used to go to Mexico a lot when I was a kid. It was an easy family vacation. You could get a tourist pass at the border – no passport required – and my parents spoke enough Spanish to deal with restaurants and hotel rooms.

I haven’t managed to make it across lately, even though I only live about 300 miles from the border. But I’ve been down to the Rio Grande Valley and out to the high desert country near Big Bend National Park on several occasions.

And every time I’ve done it, I’ve been stop...

WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday. This meme is from shouldbereading.

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

• What are you currently reading?

A Natural History of Dragons by our own Marie Brennan. At first I shied away from this fictional memoir by Lady Trent, a natural historian with a passion for dragons. So many authors get too good at the Victorian journal voice. The tangled sentences, convoluted asides, and passive omniscient narrator bore me. Not this one. The action begins early on an...

Don’t Crush That Writer! (Hand Me the Duct Tape) – One

At a recent science fiction convention, I was on a panel about critique groups. We started by sharing horror stories. I had the singular honor of having the most horrific in the room.

I once mentored a group of writers in Sacramento that called themselves the Space Cadets for reasons that should be obvious to readers of genre fiction. They had a critique group which I met with on occasion at their request. They were, generally speaking, a great group, though they had some issues that arose out...

Why Can’t You Just Watch the Movie?

There two kinds of people in the world: the people who divide the world into two kinds of people, and the people who don’t. (**Rimshot**)

Okay: Among the many binary categorizations of humans, one that I run into a lot is: people who want to figure out why a story works, and people who don’t. And these two kinds of people can really get up each other’s noses. Say I’ve gone to see Revenge of the Really Bad Monster Movie From Your Childhood with a passel of friends. As we leave the theatre I’m h...

BVC Announces All the Colors of Time by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

All the Colors of Time

A Collection of Short Fiction

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

Time travel is a dream long held by human beings. Who hasn’t had fond thoughts about showing Nicola Tesla their personal Tesla Coil or taking him for a drive in an electric car that bears his name? The devil is in the details of the technology, which is what ties together this collection of short fiction—the stories in this collection appeared in Analog science fiction magazine between 1990 and 2000.

Download an Ebook...

BVC Announces The Aunt Paradox by Chris Dolley

The Aunt Paradox

Book 3 of Reeves and Worcester Steampunk Mysteries

by Chris Dolley

HG Wells has a problem.

His Aunt Charlotte has borrowed his time machine and won’t give it back. Now she’s rewriting history!

Reggie Worcester, gentleman’s consulting detective, and his automaton valet, Reeves, are hired to retrieve the time machine and put the timeline back together. But things get complicated. Dead bodies start piling up behind Reggie’s sofa, as he finds himself embroiled in an ever-changing murd...

Ringing the Changes

Horses are some of the world’s fiercest physical conservatives. A place for everything and everything in its place–and Epona forbid anything move. Because, you know, if it moves, it might eat you.

Same goes for routine and the rhythms of life. It’s wise to be a little easygoing about mealtimes, as long as there’s a consistent general range and there’s always water available, so that you don’t end up with horses who colic and possibly die if they’re not fed at exactly the same times every day.

S...

Story Excerpt Sunday: From Walking Contradiction and Other Futures by Nancy Jane Moore

from the story

Or We Will All Hang Separately

in the collection Walking Contradiction and Other Futures

by Nancy Jane Moore

Marty Shendo knew both the truck and the roads best, so she drove. Ooljee Yzaguirre rode shotgun – literally: She kept a rifle in her lap. Tomas Perez sat in the back, his gun also in easy reach. Within most communities – or at least the ones Ooljee knew – no one went armed. Traveling between them, everyone did.

The dust blowing in the open windows made it difficult to talk....