Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 268 entries, all of them here in full.
July 10, 2010 · 97 words
Shades of Porn
So I’ve watched a few episodes of Season Two of True Blood, and I’m beginning to sort out the whole idea of porn for girls and how it works. Porn for boys, for instance, works as follows: Pizza deliveryman rings doorbell. Beautiful woman in negligee answers. They have hot sex. Whereas porn for girls runs […]
Read entry →July 10, 2010 · 64 words
Write-a-Thon!
The Clarion Workshop is holding this year’s Write-a-Thon even as I’m typing this. Writers will be beavering away for the next month, trying to write enough copy to trigger donations from their sponsors. You could be that sponsor! Support the Writers of the . . . well, I can’t say Future, can I? That’s another […
Read entry →July 7, 2010 · 229 words
Alien Cool
I think it was Joe Haldeman who said about creating aliens for science fiction: “If they’re not at least as weird as the Japanese, the author has failed.” Well, the Japanese have got even weirder. Cracked.com demonstrated this with a list of 6 Japanese Subcultures That are Insane (Even for Japan). Check out the Mountai
Read entry →July 7, 2010 · 253 words
Hurrah for the Ground Observer Corps!
We had a pleasing holiday weekend, including a small gathering on the Fourth of July for a few friends. We served only patriotic American foods: hamburgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, potato chips, macaroni salad . . . though it has to be admitted that we did have fruit salad in case anybody brought […]
Read entry →July 4, 2010 · 63 words
A Bare Bodkin
I had a recent email from the Romanian translators of The Praxis. It seems that “Sula” is a very rude word in Romanian— the literal meaning is “bodkin,” but the slang meaning is something else again. So my heroine’s Romanian name is now Caroline Sylla. This is fine with me. When I offend foreigners, I […]
Read entry →July 4, 2010 · 217 words
The Folklore of Pasta
It occurs to me that pasta seems to be the foodstuff with more folklore and superstition attached to it than any other. My mom, for example, always poured oil into the pasta water in order to keep the pasta from sticking together. It also kept the water from boiling over. When the pasta was cooked, […]
Read entry →July 4, 2010 · 66 words
Mystery Plane (2)
The last time I was at an air museum, I posted a picture of a mysterious aircraft and challenged you all to solve the puzzle. Diana Rowland came up with the solution in, like, twelve seconds, but now that I’ve been to the Museum of Flight I hope to do better. What is this aircraft? […]
Read entry →July 4, 2010 · 117 words
Back From Seattle
So I’m back from Seattle, having had a wonderful time with any number of old friends. And having finally met Ursula K. Leguin, and actually been on a panel with her, as opposed to just looking at her from across the room as she’s mobbed by admirers, which I gather happens to her more or […]
Read entry →July 2, 2010 · 63 words
A Bare Bodkin
I had a recent email from the Romanian translators of The Praxis. It seems that “Sula” is a very rude word in Romanian— the literal meaning is “bodkin,” but the slang meaning is something else again. So my heroine’s Romanian name is now Caroline Sylla. This is fine with me. When I offend foreigners, I […]
Read entry →July 1, 2010 · 217 words
The Folklore of Pasta
It occurs to me that pasta seems to be the foodstuff with more folklore and superstition attached to it than any other. My mom, for example, always poured oil into the pasta water in order to keep the pasta from sticking together. It also kept the water from boiling over. When the pasta was cooked, […]
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