Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 3,174 entries, all of them here in full.
July 19, 2016 · 231 words
Released
The Turkish government is now using last week’s coup as a bridgehead toward complete control of the country’s education system. 1500 university deans have been ordered to resign, and the licenses of 21,000 teachers have been revoked. These teachers mostly worked at private institutions, many of which had been founded b
Read entry →July 18, 2016 · 1,154 words
Worst. Possible. Result.
So a couple days ago there was a military coup in Turkey. And that coup has failed. Which is the worst possible result. Much worse than if the coup hadn’t happened, worse than if the coup had succeeded. Prior to the election of Erdogan and his AK Party in 2003, Turkey was under the thumb […]
Read entry →July 15, 2016 · 150 words
Straight Face
I’m up on a mountain along with Nancy Kress, helping fourteen very talented new writers hone their craft, and so I’ve been very busy. But I’m not totally out of touch, and I was as surprised and baffled as anyone when Britain’s new PM appointed Boris Johnson* as foreign minister. If you want to start […]
Read entry →July 12, 2016 · 87 words
Lord Nelson in Spaaaaaace!
Today is the release day for my friend David D. Levine’s first novel, Arabella of Mars. The story features the Napoleonic Wars fought between planets by a sailing navy, and showcases a young heroine described as “a Patrick O’Brian girl fighting a Jane Austen world.” David talks more about the book and its concepts over
Read entry →July 8, 2016 · 59 words
Crescent Moon Kingdom
I’ve finished the novel. (Yay!) But all that means is that I have to finish reading and critiquing 140,000 words of fiction for the Taos Toolbox workshop, which starts on Sunday. (Yay?) So I am still buried in work, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy this photo of the crescent moon at sunset, taken […]
Read entry →July 5, 2016 · 494 words
Billionaires in Spaaaaace!
I’m still on a mad rush to finish the novel, so I thought I’d pose a question for you all, and let you do the work of filling up this blog space. A number of American billionaires (Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen, and Robert Bigelow, for starters) plus one highly-leveraged Brit (Sir Richard Branson) […]
Read entry →July 3, 2016 · 53 words
The Final Hours
We’re down to the last hours of the 99-cent sale on Voice of the Whirlwind, so if you want an inexpensive ebook with a preposterous number of five-star reviews, now’s your chance. Check out the links at Amazon, Google, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Kobo.
Read entry →July 1, 2016 · 194 words
Super. Liminal.
I’m still slogging through the final pieces of the book, trying to mop up the subplots in something resembling an organized manner. But you don’t have to wait for my new work to be published, you can read something by me right now in Lightspeed Magazine! Admittedly “Surfacing” is a novella that’s decades old, and that
Read entry →June 29, 2016 · 66 words
Struggle
I’m fully engaged in trying to finish a novel, while also preparing for this year’s Taos Toolbox, so I’ve not been posting much here. I recently came across a quote from Vladimir Nabokov: “In a first-rate work of fiction the real clash is not between the characters but between the author and the world.” I’m […]
Read entry →June 27, 2016 · 60 words
That Seems to Have Worked Out Well
My new sale has put Voice of the Whirlwind at #1 for SF at Kobo, and landed me on Amazon’s best-seller list. Which is not bad for a thirty-year-old book. Should you desire a copy for your ownself, feel free to click the link to Amazon, Google, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Kobo.
Read entry →June 24, 2016 · 454 words
WRX– First Impressions
Britain didn’t merely shoot itself in the foot, but managed somehow to slice off both legs below the knee. At least it will be cheap to visit there in the future, if I can avoid being eaten by the starving cave dwellers lurking in the cellars of the once-great metropoleis. But anyway I want to […]
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