September 25, 2011 – 6:59 am
Some years back, a good friend of mine told me a story about her nine-year-old son, who came to her wanting to read a particular series of adult books that he’d heard his late-teenaged siblings talking about. The books in question were great adventure books, but they did contain several explicit mentions of sex - [...]
OK, I had a whole long blog post ready to go about non-traditional publishing, and then I looked at it and realized that I was just saying the same thing again: there are scams, it is a ton of work, you have to educate yourself, check Writer Beware and Editors and Preditors before you commit [...]
Fanfiction is a fascinating phenomenon. Yes, yes, I know that there’s still a huge argument going on between the people who think it’s all right to do and the people who consider it illegal, unethical, and unprofessional, but I think it’s a rather silly argument, on the whole, and I certainly don’t want to get [...]
Diana Wynne Jones died on Saturday. I heard the news on Monday morning, so I’ve had a day and a bit to absorb it before trying to write this. Which is probably a good thing; I’m not sure I’d have been able to do anything but wail if I’d tried to say anything right away.
I [...]
September 29, 2010 – 7:32 am
“Intellectual freedom can exist only where two essential conditions are met: first, that all individuals have the right to hold any belief on any subject and to convey their ideas in any form they deem appropriate, and second, that society makes an equal commitment to the right of unrestricted access to information and ideas regardless [...]
A few days ago, Beth my exercise buddy mentioned that she’d been rereading some of Connie Willis’ time-travel stories, and it inspired her to ask me a question: If you could go back in time to do historical research, what time and place would you pick?
I mulled it over for a few days before I [...]
October 2, 2009 – 6:30 am
Several years ago, I was asked to give a speech on the topic of book-banning, from the viewpoint of a fantasy writer. It’s quite long, so I have carved it up into four parts to post as part of Banned Books Week. This is the last of four parts, and the end of the story that I [...]
October 1, 2009 – 6:30 am
Several years ago, I was asked to give a speech on the topic of book-banning, from the viewpoint of a fantasy writer. It’s quite long, so I have carved it up into four parts to post as part of Banned Books Week. This is the third of four parts.
__________
Fantasy is about possibilities; that’s one of the reasons [...]
September 30, 2009 – 6:30 am
Several years ago, I was asked to give a speech on the topic of book-banning, from the viewpoint of a fantasy writer. It’s quite long, so I have carved into four parts to post as part of Banned Books Week. This is the second part of four.
__________
I wrote that story for this speech, because I [...]
September 29, 2009 – 6:37 am
Several years ago, I was asked to give a speech on the topic of book-banning, from the viewpoint of a fantasy writer. It’s quite long, so I have carved it up into four parts to post as part of Banned Books Week.
It begins with a story, because I am a writer and most things lead me to [...]