Walter Jon WilliamsNovelist

Dispatches since 2005

The journal

Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 162 entries, all of them here in full.

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  1. July 18, 2017 · 39 words

    Lessons of History

    Let’s see now . . . Russia needed a revolution because . . . wait a minute . . . it slipped my mind. Let me think. I’m sure it will come to me any second . . .

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  2. July 17, 2017 · 22 words

    Mr. Jones

    What is practically the first thing I see in St. Petersburg? A monument to American naval hero John Paul Jones, that’s what.

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  3. July 16, 2017 · 19 words

    In St Petersburg

    100 years after Lenin’s arrival, l make my own appearance at the Finland Station. Let’s get this party started.

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  4. July 15, 2017 · 709 words

    Lost in Transition

    All sorts of things happened en route to Finland, though none of them actually happened to us. The problem was that very little actually happened once we got into the little commuter mini-jet to fly to Chicago, which was the first leg of a long-distance triad that was supposed to continue to JFK, and from […]

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  5. July 11, 2017 · 22 words

    Travel Time

    I’m off to Helsinki and several weeks of traveling around the Baltic before the Worldcon. I’ll be checking in when I can.

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  6. July 11, 2017 · 297 words

    Literalize That Metaphor!

    When I’m teaching at Toolbox, I talk about literalizing metaphors, but it’s always hard to come up with a concrete example of how that works. No longer. I’ve watched Hotel Beau Sejour on Netflix. This ten-episode Belgian-made mystery series, with dialog in Flemish, opens with teenage Kato waking up in a hotel room, to

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  7. July 10, 2017 · 114 words

    Migrant

    This morning the neighbor’s tree was covered in African cattle egrets, a breathtaking sight. Since first appearing in the Rio Grande Valley forty-odd years ago, these migrants have multiplied and made themselves very much at home. Their numbers seem to have increased greatly just in the last couple years. The neighbor

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  8. July 8, 2017 · 94 words

    Tower of Dreams

    So the other night I dreamed I was in the Tower of Definitive Editions, a giant structure literally built from the definitive editions of every book ever written. There was some kind of mechanism that would pluck the book that you wanted from the structure without either damaging the book or destabilizing the tower. (M

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  9. July 6, 2017 · 704 words

    Stuff What I Have Seen

    In the past weeks I’ve caught up with superhero stuff that you all no doubt saw ages ago. I’d like to be more timely with reviews, but frankly my life is very, very busy right now, so I catch movies when I can. Dr. Strange. I missed this during the burly-hurly of last year, which […]

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  10. July 4, 2017 · 35 words

    Birthday Twiddle

    And another happy birthday, this time to the U.S. of A! I’ll be enjoying the day with friends, eating all-American food, and enjoying patriotic music. Apropos which, here is John Adams with a timely tune.

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  11. July 2, 2017 · 47 words

    O Canada

    Happy Canada Day to our friends north of the border! In celebration of the 150th anniversary of Canada being itself, I’m pleased to present a rare video of a celebrated Canadian performer jamming with some of her friends. The message is still timely, I’d like to think.

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  12. July 1, 2017 · 718 words

    Deer in the Headlights

    Taos Toolbox is done. Over the course of two weeks Nancy and I delivered 18 lectures, read and critiqued 280,000 words of fiction, wrangled three superbly informative guest speakers, and drank lots and lots of coffee. I’m now at home, staring blankly at the walls while listening to a strange, high-pitched ringing in my

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