Fran Wilde's Blog, page 33

Trains of Thought

So I’m setting out on another adventure this morning, mostly by train. By the time this trip is finished, if all works out as planned, I’ll have cover art to talk about, I’ll have attended some excellent con panels, seen many friends, and I will have flown in a wind tunnel.

You read that last one right.

It’s research. Really. And because I’ll have people with me for pointing-and-laughing purposes, there will be ridiculous photos.

Stay tuned!

Meantime, because I’m keeping better track of writi...

Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, et al. – do you need them all?

A question to the floor:

What social media tools do you use and for what purposes? We could talk all day about Facebook (or on Facebook) – where many writers have fan pages, or post most updates – but let’s go a bit further afield too.

Pinterest – Launched in 2010 as a ‘virtual pinboard,’ Pinterest can be used for research (putting photos in buckets), inspiration, and conversation. Check out some really well-curated pinboards for examples: Arin Dembo, Elizabeth Bear, Holly Black, Jenny Lawson...

SF Squeecast talks about food and fiction (and Cooking the Books!)

This week, the fantastic crew at sfsqueecast talked about food and fiction. They mention several blogs including the amazing Inn at the Crossroads, Food through the Pages, Fictional Food, author Lawrence Schoen’s Eating Authors and my mostly monthly Cooking the Books column.

(I’ve had to go through this post eleventy hundred times removing exclamation points. Dying of squee here. I’m a huge squeecast fan.)

If you’re coming from squeecast, there’s a list to the right – recent interviews include...

Librum Gatherum 2012

When I think back over what I read this year, these are the stories and collections that most come to mind. They’re by no means all of the best, but they’re a good cross-section.

I’ve skimped on reviews – but Nicole Feldand A.C. Wise haven’t. Go check out their reading lists too. (PS. I totally stole Nicole’s idea for a bookshelf image, though hers is better.)

Novels

Seraphina- Rachel Hartman (YA, Fantasy)
Bigger than a Breadbox- Laurel Snyder (MG)
Splendors and Glooms- Laura Amy Schlitz (MG)
Code...

211,508

In color coding, 211508 is a slightly reddish black. Closest web-safe color is #330000 – which will read as flat black on any PC, and a somewhat more nuanced black on a Mac.
In Washington, DC – Rule 21-1508 governs illegal dumping and wastewater treatment.
If you add all the digits of the integer 211508 together, you’ll get 17, which is a prime number. If you add those, you’ll get 8, which isn’t.
For me, 211,508 is the number of words I wrote (or will, by Monday, have written) in 2012. That incl...

Food that Takes You Home: Cooking the Books with Aliette de Bodard

Whether author Aliette de Bodard is writing about space stations or Aztec monsters, her attention to detail with regards to food (and everything else) is exquisite. Two cases in point: the short story “Immersion,” (Clarkesworld, June 20, 2012)* and her omnibus Obsidian and Blood (Angry Robot, 2012).

A resident of Paris, France, she regularly blogs her adventures in French and Vietnamese cooking on her website.

Aliette de Bodard visits Cooking the Books to discuss cooking and writing about food...

Gratitude: friends & monsters

Writing and freelancing can be lonely territory. It gets very quiet.

Quiet is the kind of monster that wants to keep me with it and feed me junk food.

Then a ‘ping’ on chat, a text, or a random postcard breaks the quiet. Sometimes there’s a box packed with lip balm and a new book about the origins of monsters. They come into the quiet and they remind me to look up, look out, connect. The quiet fades away.

I went out in the world earlier this week to help the friend who sent the monster book prep...

For your post-Thanksgiving* food coma

“I think this is going to be the food-related roundtable that destroys food for thousands of readers. This is what’s going to usher in the science fictional future of tasteless food pills as a self-defense mechanism.” – Scott Lynch

I’m very pleased to announce that the first-ever Cooking the Books Roundtable, with Elizabeth Bear, Nalo Hopkinson, Scott Lynch, and Gregory Frost, is up at Strange Horizons!

This interview was enormously fun to do, and working with the SH staff was wonderful.

Hope yo...

The Killer* in the Kitchen: Cooking the Books with Steven Brust

On the page and in the kitchen, author Steven Brust adds a dash of dramatic flair to his creations. To wit: his latest installment in the Vlad Taltos series, Tiassa; his upcoming collaboration with Skylar White, The Incrementalists; and the Hungarian fra diavolo recipe, below. (Heads up for adult language)

Cooking the Books has many questions for Brust: Is Vlad a pantser or a recipe-follower in the kitchen? What is this new unit of measurement in Brust’s recipe? How does cooking relate to the...

Next up: Philcon 2012

I’m headed back to Philcon next week! If you’re attending, let me know below.

A.C. Wise did a great thing when she posted her Philcon schedule here – asked for suggestions for her panels. It’s such a great Idea, I’m going to steal borrow it. I know where I sit re: Tesla vs. Edison – what about you? And how about Anne McCaffrey – what’s your favorite of her stories or novels?

There are quite a few panels I’m looking forward to attending – some of those are in gray already – let me know what else...