The premise of Sarah Gailey’s insanely fun new novella, River of Teeth, is that there are killer feral hippos in the Mississippi, and someone has to deal with them. Since I just released a novel that featured killer feral hogs, I loved her idea, and once I read it, I loved it even more. So much so that I asked Sarah to do … Read More
Guest post: Robyn Bennis on the Uselessness of Writing Advice
I firmly believe that all good writing advice is generalized to the point of uselessness by its third retelling. You know the sort of advice I’m talking about. It takes the form of the tired maxims your critique group can’t stop themselves from repeating, the literary platitudes from a once-great author whose work began to flag about the time they … Read More
Guest post: the Strangest Guitar Modifications Out There
When I spoke with music writer, guitar teacher and session guitarist Natalie Wilson about doing a guest blog, I asked her to write about the strangest guitar modifications she’d run across. What she came up with was amazing; it always pays to ask an expert. So please, if you like it, leave Natalie a note in the comments. ### If you … Read More
Guest Post: The Story Spider’s First Festival
The new Tufa novel, Gather Her Round, begins on the stage of the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN where twenty years ago I felt the first stirrings of what would become the Tufa. My friend Christi, a.k.a. professional storyteller Magda the Story Spider (above, onstage at the festival), was with me that first time, and she was kind enough to write a bit … Read More
Writing Novels and Novellas in the Same Series
My friend Deborah Blake has just released her latest “Baba Yaga” novel, Wickedly Powerful. Last month, she also released a novella in the same series, Wickedly Ever After. Here she explains the challenge of writing different types of stories in the same series. And leave a comment for a chance to win a signed book! Someone asked me in an interview recently what … Read More
Guest blog: Mehitobel Wilson on the Blue Alice
Way back in the last century, when the Internet was still shiny, Mehitobel Wilson became one of my earliest online friends. She’s a great writer (the first story of hers that I read began, “Someone was fucking with the pigeons.”), and she’s just finished a new novella, Last Night at the Blue Alice. I asked her to write a little bit about her … Read More
Guest Post: Nicole Winters on Writing for Teens
My friend Nicole Winters has a new novel, The Jock and the Fat Chick, coming out on October 13. She’s been kind enough to talk about the challenge of writing for contemporary teens in their rapidly-updating world. *** Writing for teens in an ever-changing environment; It’s not as scary as you may think You know that saying, “The more things change, … Read More
Guest post: Logan Masterson on the Facets of Death
Logan Masterson (that’s not him above) is, like me, a Tennessee writer of speculative fiction. Below he talks about death in fiction, how it affects us, and why it’s important. Facets of Death No, not faces, facets. In fiction. Fictional facets of the very real human experience. Let’s get into that. The Tufa, they have an eye on death, and means … Read More
Guest blog: Curious Research and Sightings of the Modern Day Faery
At this year’s Pagan Unity Festival (a.k.a. PUF) I met Kiki Dombrowski, who conducted a workshop on the history and persistence of stories of faerie folk. She was also kind enough to write a guest post for me about this very topic. *** Faery sightings are not so out of the ordinary after all. Tales of real life encounters with … Read More
Guest Post: Touching from a 35-year Distance
April 30 marked the 35-year anniversary of Joy Division’s video for “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” in many ways their most defining, and certainly best-known, song. I discovered their music shortly after the death of singer and lyricist Ian Curtis in 1980, and they’ve been one of my touchstone bands ever since. But I wondered if they were simply a … Read More
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