Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 85

Refreshment

How do you replenish, renew, recharge your batteries? A nap? A night out? Binge reading? Watching eight seasons of your favorites guilty pleasure TV show?

I do all of those things when the time seems right, some more than others (binge reading and comfort TV are higher on the list than I really should feel comfortable admitting). And there are other things that are more specific to me: I like to walk, but specifically I like to walk in cities. I have friends who crave hiking or trips to the be...

BVC Announces Siren’s Call by Leah Cutter

Siren’s Call

by Leah Cutter

Kai never met Mama. But based on her own abilities, and those who call her kin, she knows Mama wasn’t human.

Kai finds things. In post-Katrina New Orleans, everyone’s lost something, though most can’t afford to pay.

Kai’s latest client, a siren, hires Kai to find her sister. Sirens need both men and water, and can call them.



The kidnapped sister is being held on dry ground…

…while another storm brews off the coast of New Orleans.

Download a free sample:

EPUB MOBI

Buy Siren’...

Another Kind of Equine

Last week at Camp Lipizzan, which happens around these parts roughly once a month (openings in February and March, just send me a ping), we were having a horse-intensive, as opposed to a writer-intensive, which meant my mission was to maximize the horse experience. That meant riding every day, lessons, horse yoga, and by sheerest happy chance, a Groupon for a trail ride at the park down the road.

I had always wanted to do this, in the way of those who live in resort areas but never actually vi...

Author Interview Leah Cutter

Leah Cutter

Interviewed byKatharine Eliska Kimbriel

Leah R. Cutter has always known that she wanted to be a writer. She just wasn’t sure how she was going to get there. So she sensibly went forth to explore the world, digging at an archaeological dig in England, teaching English in Hungary and Taiwan, and then bar tending in Thailand. Finally the kernel of a story demanded that she bring it forth—and she put a great deal of effort and several years into fine-tuning both the idea and her skills...

Story Inspiration Sunday

It’s been a long night, but I thought I’d do a quick post on a strange type of inspiration, at least for an introvert like myself.

What, you’ve met me and you don’t believe that I’m an introvert?

You do realize that I spend 80% of my time completely alone, without interacting with another human being? And I like it that way?

The only reason I can be as outgoing as I am in public is because I do get to spend as much time alone as I do.

Plus, the fact that I’m not shy. (Being introverted =/= as...

&!$^!!, Cussing and Cursing

Not long ago,scientists demonstrated proof that cussing when hurt actually relieves pain. Anyone who has heard about the fact that recovered black boxes from crashed planes most frequently end with blue language–has been a coach at a birth, and heard an otherwise mild-mannered woman blistering the wallpaper–practiced at a dojo and heard someone who has just taken a hefty hit yell a word in the same tone that they usually yell their Chiai–wouldn’t be surprised. At least, my reaction was kind o...

A Matter of Life and Death

By Brenda W. Clough

Look around you — the room you are sitting in as you read this. Perhaps you live in a cave, mysteriously equipped with wifi. A meditation room in a Tibetan monastery in the remote Himalaya, perhaps? No? Well! Then you know about the white-hot debate about health insurance that is raging in this country today.

What you are probably not aware of is how many creatives — writers, musicians, actors, dancers, artists — are going bare. By and large the arts do not pay enough for pe...

What Kind of (fill in the blank) Are you?

Harpers Magazine has an article that may be the funniest thing I’ve read in decades. It was a transcript from a town meeting in Colorado. The citizens were discussing an ordinance that declared open season on any drones that flew over the town’s air space. As I understood it, it was a gimmick to attract hunters to the area and earn some tourist dollars.

The idea alone is pretty funny, but the discussion that ensued was priceless. There was the expected flak about mistakenly shot down remote-co...

In the Beginning: Doubling Down

By Gregory Frost

This is what I have come to believe over time, and what I tell students in writing classes:

Every story you write has two beginnings.

The first one is the one you write to get yourself into the story. It might be anything from paragraphs of telling yourself all about the character, or the conflict, or the situation; it might be all the backfill of information that you need to know in order to dive in; it might be a freewriting exercise, fast and furious and probably comprehensib...

Leah Cutter has a story in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

The latest issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine includes the short story “The Curious Case of Rabbit and the Temple Goddess” by BVC’s Leah Cutter.

This issue includes 9 stories by a diverse group of authors including Kristine Katherine Rusch, Robert S. Levingson and Robert Lopresti.

Cutter’s mystery is set in Tang dynasty China, around 800 A.D. She has already written additional adventures of Rabbit, as well.