Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 162 entries, all of them here in full.
December 30, 2017 · 55 words
Straight Up
I amazed myself by taking this photo on Christmas afternoon, while the moon was more or less directly overhead. I hadn’t imagined the 50-to-1 optical zoom on my Canon was going to be this good, or that the software would be able to stop the image jittering. I hadn’t even brought a tripod with […]
Read entry →December 26, 2017 · 402 words
Cranes
People have asked me my plans for the holiday, and I’m pleased to report that I don’t have any. Honestly, after all the travel and work and running around I’ve done all 2017, the idea of spending a couple days at home, staying warm, eating prime rib, and opening presents, was very, very attractive. But […]
Read entry →December 25, 2017 · 110 words
Tamale Time
Among the holiday traditions in New Mexico are the consumption of tamales, the setting of fires, and late-night visits to the graves of the ancestors (where, usually, fires get set). We haven’t set any fires ourselves, but we did pay an after-dinner visit to a local graveyard to enjoy the peaceful night and the luminar
Read entry →December 24, 2017 · 925 words
Yuletide Breakage
Normally we take a certain amount of damage around the holidays. The tradition of a plumbing emergency on Christmas Eve is well established here, and when it happens we have the joy of trying to get emergency plumbing service here some time before Santa’s scheduled arrival. Fortunately PHC of Peralta, NM, has always be
Read entry →December 17, 2017 · 63 words
This Is Quite a Sale
As a holiday gift to you all, I’ve reduced the price of the first of the Dagmar series, This Is Not a Game, to 99 cents till at least Boxing Day. You can find it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google, iBooks, and Smashwords. So buy yourself a little prezzie! What are the holidays for?
Read entry →December 17, 2017 · 120 words
Crown
So here’s a crown rack of lamb I produced the other day. I cooked it sous vide, then browned it in olive oil on the stovetop. The lamb came pre-sealed in a vacuum pouch, so all I had to do was toss it in the pot for two hours at 130 degrees for perfect medium […]
Read entry →December 15, 2017 · 2,659 words
Dagmar
Let’s go behind the fourth wall, via some thoughts about the Dagmar books, timely now that the series has been re-released as ebooks. Back in 2005, my friends Sean Stewart and Maureen McHugh, along with Elan Lee and Jordan Weisman, invited me and Jim Cambias to join them in creating an online game called Last Call [&he
Read entry →December 7, 2017 · 53 words
Open to Submissions
Just a reminder that Taos Toolbox, the master class for writers of science fiction and fantasy, is now open for submissions. The workshop runs June 17-30, 2018, and will be taught by Nancy Kress, Walter Jon Williams, George RR Martin, Carrie Vaughn, and EM Tippetts. Time is passing! Get your submissions ready!
Read entry →December 6, 2017 · 157 words
Back to the Mississippi
A new Wild Cards shared worlds book (the twenty-fourth) has just appeared, Mississippi Roll, edited by George R.R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass (who seems to be uncredited, at least on the cover). I don’t have a story in this one, but you might find one or two of my characters involved in the action. This may […
Read entry →December 3, 2017 · 196 words
Vladimir Does It Again
Once again, I am compelled to make a comparison between my calendar and that of Vladimir Putin, which various Russian sources insist is a huge seller in the UK, despite it being carried by few or none of Britain’s calendar distributors. With my calendar, you get lovely photography of the interesting places I’ve been in
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