Let’s step into the wayback machine, and set it for the turn of the century… In that long-ago time, ebooks were in their infancy. There were dedicated ebook-reading devices, but practically nobody had them. (Although I did: a Hiebook. Read a lot of David Weber on it through Baen’s free ebook library.) There were ebook …
Tag: fantasy
Things my editor told me
I think I’ve mentioned—though no more than a gazillion times or so, so you might have missed it—that my next book to be published by DAW will be Masks, first book in a trilogy (and hopefully series) that will continue with Shadows and Faces. Earlier today I spent a couple of hours on the phone …
The birth of The Hobbit
I posted this back in July, but it seems apropos to post it again today, with the release of the first movie in the new trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s book The Hobbit. It’s the first chapter of the biography of Tolkien I wrote for Enslow Publishers, entitled J.R.R. Tolkien, Master of Imaginary Worlds..and it’s …
The next big thing
I don’t very often follow up on things I’ve been “tagged” with in the online world, but I was tagged twice for “The Next Big Thing,” both times by writers from Australia, and that seems somehow karmically important. So… The way this is supposed to work is that if you get tagged you answer10 questions, …
Kingdom in Shadows, by Alice Willett, age 11
My daughter likes to write, too. Here’s a recent piece, illustrated by the author. Kingdom in Shadows By Alice Willett The Kingdom of Averendel was dying. One girl looked out of her window, the rain drizzling outside. The girl was crying. Her little sister came in with a letter. The girl turned, wiping tears from …
TSR, Gygax, D&D & me
TSR. Gygax. The names may mean nothing to you, but to me, they were once words of power, for TSR (Tactical Studies Rules Inc.) published Dungeon & Dragons…and Gary Gygax, who cofounded the company in 1973 with childhood friend Don Kaye, created that seminal fantasy role-playing game, along with Dave Arneson. Now comes news that …
On suffering the affliction of Editor Brain
It’s always a mistake to make a grand pronouncement that one is going to make a valiant attempt to post regularly to one’s blog again, especially after having made similar grand pronouncements in the past and then not following through, but… Consider this my grand pronouncement. It’s not as if I can’t come up with …
Saturday (er, Sunday) Special: J.R.R. Tolkien, Master of Imaginary Worlds
I think I’ve now posted the introductions to all of the biographies I wrote for Enslow Publishers except this one: J.R.R. Tolkien, Master of Imaginary Worlds. Like my book on Orson Scott Card, it was part of their Authors Teens Love series. Why, yes, I did really really enjoy writing this one. How did you …
Saturday Special: The First Two Chapters of The Haunted Horn
For this week’s Saturday Special, the first chapter of the YA/middle-grade ghost story The Haunted Horn, which I’ve just released to Kindle (other ebook formats and eventually print to follow). It’s set in Arkansas, where I went to university, although Searcy bears only a passing resemblance to the Oak Bluff of the story (although both …
Saturday Special from the Vaults: Orson Scott Card
I wrote two author biographies for Enslow Publishers’ Authors Teen Love series. One was on J.R.R. Tolkien, and the other on noted SF/fantasy writer Orson Scott Card. The former was easy because he was long dead and had been written about a great deal, the latter harder because he’s very much alive and hasn’t been …
The Fifth Princess by Alice Willett
This is the short story my 10-year-old daughter Alice (that’s her in the picture–she’s the one on the right) entered in the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Book Week 2012 Writing Contest for Kids & Teens. She didn’t win or get an honorable mention, but I still think it’s pretty good. (It’s also possible she was …
Saturday Special That’s Not Actually from the Vaults: The Seven-Sentence Story
I’m conducting a workshop this afternoon on writing science fiction and fantasy, in my role as writer-in-residence (for just one more month!) at the Regina Public Library. Now, it’s easy to just talk for an hour and a half about writing, but I want people to actually do some writing: and to that end, I’m …
My latest live walk and vlog
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