Out of Tales (yes, novel is a dubious word for it, but close enough, perhaps) has been liberated. It was exciting and exhausting to produce. I’m taking stock now, as I’ve sold some copies and gotten my first feedback post-publication (I’ve talked to six readers now). Responses are mixed. I’ve had a reader who preferred […]
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The second time through Charles Williams’ masterpiece Taliessin Through Logres, I find that I experience the poems as more difficult than I did the first time, in 2013. This is reassuring, because everyone says they are difficult, and I know that I can sometimes read too lightly to notice even when I’m failing to understand something […]
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George MacDonald Fairy Tales
I started reading George MacDonald in high school, at C.S. Lewis’s recommendation. My first George MacDonald was, if I remember correctly, “The Golden Key,” a lovely story about a boy and girl who enter fairy land to go on a quest and find as they near the end that they have lived their entire lives […]
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Boring Happy Post
Hello! I wanted to announce that I just got a poem accepted into the November issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly! I have a chapbook reading coming up at a local bookstore on the 20th. Wish me luck! The chapbook has sold at least thirteen copies (it’s only being sold locally). These things are pretty exciting to […]
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Evernost
In high school I joked that I related to writing projects the way other people related to romantic love: “Oh! Oh! This is the one!” I would say. And then, a week or a month later, “Eh, I am bored and disillusioned, and I can’t go on this way. Bye.” I started many projects then […]
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Diana Wynne Jones
People love children’s and young adult fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones because her novels are funny, action-packed, full of twists and turns, clever, and skillful in their manipulation of and commentary on fantastic and mythological tropes. Some that I only care about only a little (I don’t require lots of action, and clever or “clever” reworkings […]
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Uncertainty
Here is not the country of truth. She wanders unknown amongst men. God has covered her with a veil, which leaves her unrecognised by those who do not hear her voice. ~Blaise Pascal, mathematician, philosopher, and physicist Saying there’s no truth in the first place makes no sense to me, but this means that I’m […]
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Writing Agenda, 2017
Exciting stuff this year. I didn’t set the following two goals formally as New Year’s resolutions, but they might well be. They are: 1. Query agents about Pet, my YA LGBTQ PNR in verse ( I couldn’t resist the alphabet soup; more comprehensibly, my young adult lesbianish paranormal romance in verse). 2. Revise and submit a novella to […]
This is the third installment of Duessa, a 12,000-word allegory (of sorts). I’m posting a new installment on each of the twelve days of Christmas, wrapping up on January 5th. The previous two are here and here. The air was much colder, and the flame of the candle shrank. She kept her hand on the cold, damp […]
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Stuff I Make: The Overview
Having introduced myself and pontificated on the successes and failures of the human imagination, I thought I’d give you a whirlwind tour of some projects I’ve been working on and plan to talk about. What’s Happening Now Pet The first in a set of romances (sort of) between teens and bodiless aliens. Being wants teen artist Elinor […]
Of Elsewhere 