Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 96

Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me, Part 2: Good Rejections

Back when I was in college, I sent a submission to the Texas Observer, then as now the leading progressive voice in Texas. In response, I received a personal rejection letter from either Kaye Northcott or Molly Ivins — probably Kaye, since she was the editor-in-chief, but I can’t remember for sure — that said the essay wasn’t quite right for them but encouraged me to keep writing.

All I saw was the rejection. I don’t think I ever tried the Observer again. A personal letter from the editor (or...

WWW Wednesday: Short Fiction Babay!

WWW Wednesday. This meme is fromshouldbereading.

The usual questions being:

What have you read, what are you reading, what will you read?

Well, since I’m working again, I’ve been reading short fiction. I have been reading the September, 2013 Analog, where to the hilarity of my Facebook friends and students, I stumbled across “Full Fathom Five” by Joe Pitkin. I often read while I’m working out, so I was actually in the gym when coming across this story, which is … hold your britches … about a you...

A house party farce

[image error]

The romantic comedies of P.G. Wodehouse informed my second Hinky Chicago novel, THE HINKY VELVET CHAIR.

The Hinky Velvet Chair is my attempt at a house-party comedy of manners. I’ve always wanted to write a Wodehousian silly story about people who visit a rich person’s posh home, posing as someone they’re not, run up against really good imposters, and make asses of themselves while struggling and failing to maintain the two most important things—their secrets and their dignity.

This is trickier...

BVC Announces The Hinky Bearskin Rug by Jennifer Stevenson

The Hinky Bearskin Rug

Hinky Chicago – Book Three

by Jennifer Stevenson

A live-in sex demon sure keeps a girl up at night. But for Jewel, a fraud cop leery of commitment, Randy could be too much of a good thing.

Then hinky cases and kinky cases dovetail as Jewel and her hot partner Clay investigate an office orgy, a lockerful of pin-up ghosts, and an erotic film studio…and Randy goes undercover.

Now she’s got two magical hotties and a hard decision: if Jewel is the luckiest girl in Chicago, how co...

BVC Announces Night Calls by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

Night Calls

Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

“When you have the Gift, your life is not your own.”

I was born to a family that harnessed the winds and could read futures in fire and water. Yet my mother kept her secrets.

Then the werewolf came, sharing his madness.

Now it’s my turn to keep secrets….

Descended from powerful magic-users, but ignorant of her heritage, young Alfreda Sorensson learns magic and wisdom from her extended family in an alternate early 1800s Michigan Territory.

Download an Ebook Sampl...

Xeno’s Ending

I am currently working on a short story that took over my brain, right when I ought to be working on the book that took over my brain when I was supposed to be working on the new Sarah Tolerance book. (For those following along at home: 1) Sarah Tolerance Book < 2) Urban Fantasy Thing < 3) Short Story.  This is why Madeleine cannot have nice things.)

So I want to finish this story. When its finished I can go back to #2, so I can return to #1. In aid of these goals, I’ve been writing on the train home from work. Because that means I’m writing by hand, it also means there are gaps. Th...

< 2) Urban Fantasy Thing < 3) Short Story.  This is why Madeleine cannot have nice things.)

Paying Attention

I’ve written about Mindfulness in the context of understanding when animals are communicating, and learning to understand at least some of what they’re trying to say. That’s hard for a verbally focused human, but can be essential for the human’s safety. Almost nothing an animal does comes out of the blue–they’re quite clear about their intentions. The problem is with the human’s ability to see and interpret those intentions.

This speaks (in a manner of speaking) to a wider issue with humans’ r...

Author Interview:Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

Katharine Eliska Kimbriel

Interviewed by Phyllis Irene Radford

Katharine Eliska Kimbriel reinvents herself every decade or so. It’s not on purpose, mind you — it seems her path involves overturning the apple cart, collecting new information & varieties of apple seed, and moving on. The one constant she has reached for in life is telling stories. Her latest book, available September 17th at the Book View Café Ebookstore, is Night Calls.

1) You have been a member of Book View Café since the beginn...

Moving Up, Moving Out

(Picture fromhere.)

RememberVoyager 1? Tiny probe barely the size of aGeoMetrowho gave us pictures of Jupiter and Saturn like we’d never seen them before? Brief acting career inStar Trek Ibut the less said about that the better.

Well, the little guy has all grown up and moved out.

That’s right Voyager I has exited the solar system. (NASA announcementhere.) I know he flirted with moving out before, hanging out in the heliopause for months. But this summer he finally cut the cord and went out to s...

Memento Mori

Tuesday night, as I drove home from work along Highway 9 in the Santa Cruz mountains, I passed a dying man lying at the side of the road. I couldn’t know at the time that he was dying, although I thought it likely, for his kind die weekly on our roads during the summer. He was surrounded by his friends, and there was nothing I could do, so I drove on.

But the next day, on my way to work, I knew his fate, for where he had lain were the spidery orange lines of spray paint left by the Highway Pat...