The journal

March 14, 2023 · 42 words

Kicked Into Shape

Edward Willett not only delivers an regular podcast interviewing writers of SF&F, he’s also been editing big doorstopper collections of (mostly) original SF for three volumes now, and he’s opened a Kickstarter for Volume IV. Give the fella a hand, won’t you?

March 11, 2023 · 59 words

Speaking Polish

The multitalented Scott Edelman has been conducting interviews with writers at restaurants since before the pandemic. Here he interviews me over a Polish meal at South Boston’s Cafe Polonia. As well as more recent events, the interview focuses attention on my early career, which may be of interest to some of you. Again

March 4, 2023 · 244 words

Success, One Toolbox at a Time

Warlock at Law, by a husband and wife team writing as R.L. Baranowski, has just been released. The Baranowskis attended Taos Toolbox in 2019, just before the pandemic brought everyone to a screeching halt. Everyone but writers, see, because we work in isolation anyway. What impressed me about the Baranowskis was that t

March 4, 2023 · 72 words

Bones

This is a skeleton excavated from an Athenian graveyard under the Acropolis. You’ll notice what looks like a bone plate lying atop the skeleton’s spine. This is what a fused spine looks like. This gent led a hard working life, either as a slave or manual laborer. He must have spent his last years in […]

March 1, 2023 · 230 words

Sounion/Byron

Here’s the temple to Poseidon at Cape Sounion, perched on a cliff at the very tip of the Attic peninsula, viewed on our trip to Greece last year. You’re not allowed to walk on the monument nowadays, but it was very different when I first saw the temple forty-odd years ago. I not only walked […]

February 26, 2023 · 61 words

Double Sale for the Toolbox

M.V. Melcer (Taos Toolbox ’16), has sold a two-book deal to Storm Press. The first volume should appear in October. I would like to suggest that you don’t want to fall too far behind. If you have ambitions to write and sell science fiction or fantasy, by all means follow Ms. Melcer’s example and apply […]

February 26, 2023 · 103 words

Go East, Young Man

As I wrote in an earlier post: Breathes there a man with soul so dead that he doesn’t like cowboy songs? Even if they’re sung in Mongolian, with indigenous instruments and throat-singing? What you need for a proper cowboy-western song is the following. A sound that somehow invokes the big open spaces. Music that reflec

February 22, 2023 · 36 words

Fiyo Away

We’ve been listening to Mardi Gras music all day on Sirius Radio, so I thought I’d share some with you. Here’s Trombone Shorty and Cyril Neville with “Fiyo on the Bayou.” Dance if you want to.

February 16, 2023 · 181 words

Another Point for the Toolbox

I’m pleased to report that The Bone Orchard, by Taos Toolbox veteran Sara A. Mueller, has been nominated for the Compton Crook Award. The Bone Orchard was workshopped at Taos Toolbox, and has been generating buzz for its author ever since its publication earlier in the year. Not to be forever harping on the subject, [&

February 16, 2023 · 99 words

Back to Boston

I’m heading to Boston for Boskone 60 this weekend. I’ll hope to see you there. I’ll be participating in panels, a reading, a signing, and a kaffeeklatsch, and I’ll also be hanging out and talking to people. Here’s the schedule. Some of the convention will be virtual, so you might be able to participate without [&hellip

February 15, 2023 · 0 words

Sending

February 11, 2023 · 49 words

Talk Video

Brenda Cooper, Ken Scholes, Hank Schwaeble, Cliff Winnig, and I are interviewed by Sean Patrick Hazlett about our participation in the anthology High Noon on Proxima B. We had fun, I think. Odds are you will, too. P.S. The book is now available wherever fine books are sold.