Matthew Alan Thyer's Blog, page 23

IOTD

Underachievement: A Gut Punch

Clawtank by Wan Amirul Adlan

Recently I caught a social media share from Samuel Peralta. He cross-posted a blog post from Monica Byrne, which details her plans to make a living wage from her writing via Patreon. An idea I have been pursuing with no small amount of enthusiasm. Who wouldn’t want to transform the bulk of their labor into a self-sustaining relationship with the people they service?

Other names in ourgenre are pioneering this new economy which, amongst many other things, makes the...

IOTD

Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber

It Never Sold Very Well

I just encountered this super review of one of my older short stories. Needless to say, it brought a smile to my lips. The story never sold very well, and I suspect that the collection suffered in part from a lack of promotion as well as somepotential distraction on the part of the editor who was creating and selling a table top game in parallel. All told, to get a review like this from a guy living and working in Korea makes me a very happy author.

Currently, Mob Dance is free if you’re a K...

IOTD

ALLOWABLES

I killed a spider
Not a murderous brown recluse
Nor even a black widow
And if the truth were told this
Was only a small
Sort of papery spider
Who should have run
When I picked up the book
But she didn’t
And she scared me
And I smashed her

I don’t think
I’m allowed

To kill something

Because I am

Frightened

-Nikki Giovanni

IOTD

Stop Killing People

Right now I can’t say much more than this — stop killing people. There is nothing glorious, nothing virtuous, nothing even noteworthy in a willful act of violence that robs someone of the rest of their days. It makes you a thief, it should make you apariah. Murder is murder, regardless if it’s justified by some notion of self-defence, a government, or any of the very many excuses we reserve to mitigate this easy and all too common behaviour. Taking a life is a sin against your own humanity.

I...

Silent Celebration

Good grief! Twenty-five years ago I was sitting atop a pile of lumpyscree in the Flat Tops Wilderness. I had, in fact, previously dumped the greater portion of the contents of my backpack — a huge Lowe Special Expedition approach ruck which must have weighed six or seven pounds all on its own — at a trail head along the South Fork of the White River. Beyond some very basic things, I wasn’t carrying too much. I was easily trekking 35 miles a day, sometimes a lot more.

I can recall sitting on t...

Beverly Crossing

“The trestle across the Columbia River connecting the western and eastern trail sections at Beverly is currently CLOSED, gated, and unsafe to cross.Trail supporters hope for renovation of this trestle in the future. The nearest bridge across the Columbia River, the I-90 bridge at Vantage, does not provide for pedestrian or nonmotorized traffic. There is no shoulder nor sidewalk, and the crossing often involves heavy traffic and high winds.
“Please contact your legislature and the State Parks...

IOTD

Origin stories, world-building the individual. Thank you, Henry.