Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 178 entries, all of them here in full.
September 24, 2014 · 722 words
Globalquerque, Part II.
The second night opened with Oumar Konaté from Mali. He’s something of the spokesman for his generation, those who watched their republic overthrown by a military government that was so inept that it promptly handed half the country to a guerrilla army of Islamist fanatics. Within days. If a military government can’t e
Read entry →September 22, 2014 · 819 words
Globalquerque, Part I
This highlight of the weekend was Albuquerque’s world music festival, Globalquerque, held in the Mayan pyramid-shaped Hispanic Cultural Center. Three stages running simultaneously, along with a food area offering ethnic fast food, craft beer, and arts and crafts. Since three bands were playing simultaneously, I wasn’t
Read entry →September 19, 2014 · 224 words
Newly Available
A brief announcement before I get to the actual subject of this post. Angel Station and The Rift are now available on iBooks. There had been some kind of technical issue with Smashwords until I got my very own iBooks account, and now the technical issues don’t exist. Nothing like do-it-yourself. The Green Leopard Plagu
Read entry →September 18, 2014 · 94 words
Update/Flashback
I’ve been spending long hours updating my web page, which is the sort of task that makes me wish I had an assistant— at least to handle the foul language, because that’s the most repetitive part of the process. While I continue to wrestle WordPress into submission, please enjoy this composite picture of the solar
Read entry →September 17, 2014 · 52 words
The Redcoats Are Silly!
Some poor Grenadier Guardsman is in trouble for, well, this. And all he was trying to do was make his job less boring. And maybe do a wee little hommage to John Cleese. You’ve got to hope his officers are at least as tolerant as those fellows in Norway.
Read entry →September 17, 2014 · 122 words
Ticking, Ever Ticking
My 99-cent sale for Metropolitan ends midnight on Wednesday, so if you haven’t yet got a copy, check out Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Smashwords. (Actually I may delay a bit, because there’s a late run at Smashwords, with the book running off the shelves ever since Saturday night. I assume someone said som
Read entry →September 10, 2014 · 107 words
For the City that Girdles the World, a Mere 99 Cents!
The ebook of my novel Metropolitan is on sale for the next week for a mere 99 cents! 99 cents for a novel about the city that covers the world! How can you possibly resist this deal? I’ve previously made a whole series of posts about the book, which I won’t repeat now, but which you […]
Read entry →September 10, 2014 · 117 words
I am NPR’d
Last week NPR ran a piece on the Hachette-Amazon controversy, and I was one of the authors interviewed. The interview ran for about an hour, but the piece as aired cut my contribution down to three sentences. (This is two sentences longer than my usual quote on national media.) I was told that I’d be […]
Read entry →September 9, 2014 · 593 words
Scent
So right now I want to go all Andy Rooney on the subject of armpits. I recently went to a drugstore to get myself some stick deodorant. You know, the containers that allow you to stuff aluminum into your armpits, so that people around you won’t faint if you’re stuck in crowded elevator. I like […]
Read entry →