Josh Strnad's Blog, page 2
September 28, 2018
And Baby Makes Three
I was at work when I got the phone call; I had just released my last class of the day and was settling in to my desk to complete some much-needed grading.
“Hey Rachel, what’s up?”
“Hey… I think my water just broke.”
How can I describe the rush of emotions? Excitement, of course, but also surprise, confusion, and a bit of fear. Our due date wasn’t meant to be for another month, after all. He still had some growing to do. We still had some work to get our house ready for a new baby. We hadn’t e...
August 5, 2018
Emptying Out the Junk Drawer
The problem with not blogging regularly (here we go with the metacommentary again) is that life continues to happen at the same rate as ever. As a result, events, experiences, challenges, and changes stack up alarmingly, growing fusty and gathering a thick layer of dust before actually making it online. At that point, a blog becomes little more than the equivalent of a “yearly summary of the Strnad family” Christmas newsletter—hardly the point of the thing. Thus, motivation to write for the b...
December 30, 2017
2017—My Year In Books
For me, New Years is always a time for reflection and thought—a time for me to remember the past year’s struggles and triumphs and to look ahead to dreams and goals for the future. I’m not big on New Years Resolutions (as one really has no idea what new challenges or opportunities tomorrow will bring), but for the past few years I’ve been able to meet a general goal of reading on average one book a week—sixty-five in total this year. They (whoever “they” are) say that great authors are first...
October 3, 2017
Impostor Syndrome
Here’s the good news: I am a guest author at not one, but two different science fiction conventions this October, SWFL Writer’s Showcase and NecronomiCon. Here’s the bad news: I don’t feel like an author.
There’s a tendency for artists and creators to get in a kind of funk when they haven’t been producing much. Legitimately or not, we often think of ourselves only as good as our most recent work output—I may have edited a pretty great book last year (check out Silent Screams if you haven’t ye...
June 30, 2017
Done, Done, On to the Next One
Today marks a milestone. I completed the final illustration for my children’s picture book. As I glued the last piece in place, sitting back to examine my work, I experienced a quiet glow of satisfaction. No fanfare blew, no confetti fell from the ceiling (although the floor around me was, as usual, already covered with tiny scraps of paper), and so far I have yet to receive any unsolicited calls from publishers desperate to make me a superstar. Still, it feels good just to be done with the t...
March 11, 2017
The Girl
Last time I had seen her, she was in middle school. Her sister and I were high school friends (same graduating class). As kids we had all gone to church and played together (I have especially fond memories of putting on puppet shows with a portable stage) but, as life has a way of sending people different directions, we hadn’t seen each other or spoken in about fifteen years.
In hindsight, it seems inevitable that when we met for the second time, it would be at the library. The library in my...
January 16, 2017
Enter to win a free signed copy of Silent Screams from Goodreads!
October 14, 2016
Silent Screams Press Release
Calling all reviewers, journalists, bloggers, and podcasters!
Silent Screams, a new anthology of dark speculative fiction, is coming out on Halloween of 6016. Here is a downloadable PDF of the official silent-screams-press-release. For more information or to request review copies, please write to silentscreamsanthology@gmail.com
Silent Screams Coming Soon… Finally!
I just saw that it has been nearly a year since my last blog post. Part of me is baffled by this revelation (where did the time go?), but it makes sense. The past year has been a whirlwind of activity, in which I met a girl, fell in love, got married, bought a house, moved, and edited an anthology, while still working full time and doing all those normal life things a functional adult is supposed to.
Perhaps I’ll do a more lengthy write up about my bride and the crazy unexpected beautiful way...
November 24, 2015
Setbacks and Excuses
“Editing an anthology will be a lot of work,” they said. “It’ll take a lot of time and dedication,” they said. Did I listen? Ha!
Ha, I say!
Ok, so this whole anthology undertaking has already been a huge learning experience. The good news is that the learning ain’t over yet, but the bad news is that it’s not going to be finished as quickly as I thought it would be. For some reason I thought I would be able to finish up all my selections and do all the editing necessary within a couple of week...
