The journal

October 14, 2023 · 41 words

Annularity

Thanks to Nan Silvernail for hosting an excellent eclipse party this morning, complete with a fine buffet and jujubes pie. Pleasant snacks and pleasant chat while a cosmic event took place above our heads, reminding us all to keep looking up.

October 12, 2023 · 448 words

Luck Storm

This week I’ve been the victim of a bad luck storm, demonstrating that I shouldn’t be around animals, electronics, or machinery. Sunday I got bit by a dog. A woman was walking her two dogs in the park, and I passed them at a respectful distance. Then the smaller dog came at me like a […]

October 10, 2023 · 701 words

I Bitch Nicely France

When I mentioned in the last post that The Green Leopard Plague was reviewed in Le Monde, loyal reader Guillaume Jay retrieved the (rather short) review from the Bibliotek National, along with another, more comprehensive review from Liberátion, a translation of which I append below. I used Google Translate, which broke

October 9, 2023 · 52 words

Still the Beste Peste

Jean-Daniel’s translation of “The Green Leopard Plague” was reviewed in Le Monde on the 7th. I am beginning to be impressed by myself. It was behind a paywall, so I don’t know what it said. If any of you have an online subscription, could you copy it and send it my way?

September 30, 2023 · 71 words

The In Crowd

Standing before one of the secret doors in the library, it’s this year’s Rio Hondo workshop: Walter Jon Williams, Kim Jollow Zimring, Rosemary Claire Smith, Diana Rowland, Michaela Roessner, Barbara Ferrer, Alan Smale, Alex Jablokow, Rick Wilber, David D. Levine, Oz Drummond, Rachel Swirsky. Together we survived high a

September 29, 2023 · 0 words

Truchas Sunset

September 28, 2023 · 77 words

Getting High

Rio Hondo I think may fairly claim to be the only writers’ workshop to offer high tea. Nor was this my idea. Oz, Alan, Barb, and Rosie put this together while I paying attention to other things. We had scones, cucumber sandwiches, crumpets, and trifle, accompanied by various teas, clotted cream, double cream, jams, and

September 26, 2023 · 37 words

Wilt Thou, Walter, Take This Library . . .

This week is the Rio Hondo workshop, and we are at Truchas Peaks Place in Truchas, NM. The top floor is composed of a library, complete with hidden doors and secret rooms. Perhaps I am in love.

September 22, 2023 · 42 words

Starr Time

The other night we went to see Sir Richard Starkey, MBE, and his charming little orchestra. He achieved worldwide headlines by tripping and falling during his final song, but I blinked and missed it. I hope I’m that spry when I’m 83.

September 22, 2023 · 0 words

Local Sunset

September 10, 2023 · 117 words

Maybe Not Russian

In the previous post, I identified my spammers as Russian, because much of theirs spam was in Cyrillic. But since I cleared my Pending file and erased everything in the spam file, and only enabled comments on maybe half a dozen topics, I’ve been getting a little trickle of spam that seems to be in […]

September 5, 2023 · 215 words

Six Thousand Russian Spam

I apologize if you tried to post a reply here in the last few weeks, because as your post was waiting for approval it was buried under nearly 6000 Russian spam. I was delating the spam as fast as I could, but I could only delete one spam from the Pending file at a time, […]