Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 119 entries, all of them here in full.
October 27, 2022 · 498 words
Crab Wise
Callisto has made a crabwise sideslip in order to avoid the 30+knot windstorm that’s about to crash into the Cyclades, and now we’re moored in Nauplion harbor in the Peloponnese. Any land excursions will occur safely on the mainland. So the only actual Cycladic island we visited was Santorini, as seen above. Spectacula
Read entry →October 24, 2022 · 65 words
Lively
Behold the mighty Callisto, on which we’ll be spending the next week or so, exploring the archaeological treasures of the Cyclades. Weather promises fair for the next few days, after which the sea may get a little, um, lively. We may not be hitting the beach of Despotiko in the rubber boats after all, but […]
Read entry →October 24, 2022 · 195 words
Dead Greeks
Today was a visit to the National Archaeological Museum, which I’ve visited on every trip to Greece. And here’s the golden death mask of a Mycenaean king, which Heinrich Schliemann decided belonged to Agamemnon. (Turns out Agamemnon lived four hundred years after this guy kicked the bucket) Contemporary critics of Schl
Read entry →October 23, 2022 · 215 words
Cycladic Enigma
From the Museum of Cycladic Art, one of the thousands of marble effigies found across the islands, all made pretty much in this style. Most were found in graves, though so many were looted nobody knows where most of them were dug up. Most were doll-sized, but some (including this one) were nearly life-sized. The [&hell
Read entry →October 21, 2022 · 330 words
Portraits
Now here’s a Roman for you, the product of the merger of Roman portrait traditions with Greek painting and Egyptian funerary customs. Nothing seems to be known about the subject, save that (from the narrow red stripe on his tunic) he would seem to be a member of the Equestrian Order. This might have been […]
Read entry →October 12, 2022 · 116 words
Shaping Up
Edward Willett and Shadowpaw Press, with help from Kickstarter, has released a perfectly enormous anthology that is well worth your time. The anthology features authors who have been interviewed on the Worldshapers podcast. Names include Griffin Barber, James Morrow, Jane Yolen, Cory Doctorow, F. Paul Wilson, and yours
Read entry →October 4, 2022 · 72 words
Reading Choices
The International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts is having a virtual convention this weekend. I’m scheduled to do a reading on Sunday at 2pm, but the format restricts me to 15 minutes, or about 10 printed pages. I tend to write long, and I have no 15-minute excerpts lying around. Some of you […]
Read entry →October 3, 2022 · 139 words
MBA in a Box
You can be the greatest writer in the world, but even if you are, you have to pay at least a little attention to the business side of publishing. A plan becomes necessary. Based on granular real-world experience, I have established a simple scheme for vertical intellectual property management. I have expedited distribu
Read entry →October 1, 2022 · 140 words
What’s On the Slab
It’s getting cold at night, so Kathy decided it was time to have a roast beast. Behold a boneless leg of lamb, slathered in olive oil, rosemary, and garlic, and cooked sous vide for eight hours, after which it was flung on the grill to catch fire. (It did catch fire too, with all that […]
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