Books
Readercon 2017
Readercon, which bills itself as “the conference on imaginative literature,” is meeting for the 28th time in Massachusetts from July 13-16 and I will definitely be there! If you’re planning to attend, please say hello and come to find me at these readings and panels: Thursday, July 13 8:00 p.m. Salon A Broad Universe Rapid…
Read More6.29.17 Just where does ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ think it’s going?
The Handmaid’s Tale is over on Hulu, at least for this season, and I have questions. Allow me to preface by saying I thoroughly enjoyed this rendition, which makes up for the rushed and too-surfacy 1989 film take on Margaret Atwood’s seminal 1985 book about what happens when a nation collectively loses its mind after…
Read More03.10.17 I Hate Book Reviews: C.S.E. Cooney’s ‘The Bone Swans of Amandale’
I have spent many years being critical. Of movies, of TV shows, of music albums. It’s part of my job – it’s part of what I do on a daily basis as an entertainment writer. But I’ve never wanted to be a book reviewer. I discovered that by being critical of so much entertainment I…
Read More01.11.17 Where to find me: Boston in January! (Aka: Arisia)
For those of you who are intentionally or not-so-intentionally heading up to Boston for the long MLK weekend, I would like to invite you to check out Arisia, the biggest science-fiction and fantasy convention in the Northeast, and visit me at one of five, count ’em five, panels! While the whole convention is terrific and…
Read More10.24.16 A warning to others (or) how not to get published in an anthology
This is my favorite Demotivational Poster: As a writer, there are any number of ways to break into the business. The best ones involve sales of stories and books and notice and applause by the world. But all writers have at least one of the other kinds of stories. The kind where even as you’re living…
Read More9.4.16 ‘August was a heavy month and now the nights are drawing in’
August was a heavy month And now the nights are drawing in — Bob Geldof It’s not so weird to want some time off. It can be a little weird to take time off when you a) make your own schedule and b) are looking to take time off from things most folks might consider…
Read More6.8.16 Guest author L.J. Cohen: Integrating her past with a novel future
The expression of an injury shouldn’t function solely as a plot point, used and then discarded, but needs to serve a larger purpose in terms of overall story, characterization, and stakes. Having a background in rehabilitation, anatomy, and physiology helps me add a degree of realism to the story, essential even if I’m telling a tale of sentient space ships, plasma weapons, and worm hole travel.
Read More04.27.16 ‘Send me postcards from your journey, dear novel’
Getting your book published is a series of lottery wins: Assuming you’ve written something worthy, it is a lottery to earn an agent. It is another lottery for that book to end up on bookshelves and in the hands of eager readers. And it is a further lottery to actually please enough readers that you get to do it again, and again, and again. If you win all three lotteries, you have a successful novel!
Read More2.10.16 Writer’s Cut: ‘Narnia is still behind the wardrobe’
I’m a homebird. I’m the homebird who fantasizes about an RV in Patagonia, but really I just want to be in Dublin.
Read More12.30.15 ‘He moves like God’s immaculate machine’
We’ve gotten away from it all to end the year, and we’ve brought the dog. Birdie came to us in April from — as we were told — a foster rescue situation with an elderly couple in Tennessee. The couple, who reportedly live in a rural area, were ailing and could no longer take care…
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