I’m donating two items to an online auction for the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. #1. Be in my book! The winner of the auction will have his or her name used for a character in my next work of fiction. (I do not yet know what that work of fiction will be, it depends entirely on […]

My native language isn’t English. The problem is, I don’t know what language my native language actually is. I was raised in a household where Finnish was spoken, but I never learned more than a few words, so I’m reasonably certain my native language isn’t Finnish. I had French in school and Greek in college, […]

I’ve been preparing my taxes, which is the sort of thing that focuses the mind on finance. And I realize that I’ve adopted a financial unit called the Caribbean Vacation Standard, which I recommend to all of you. I used to visit the Caribbean a good deal— once or twice a year. But now I […]

I’ve just read Cordwainer Smith’s Norstrilia for the first time in several decades. Smith was one of the Great Peculiars of science fiction, producing strong, intricate, highly wrought, highly weird stories that will never be mistaken for the work of anyone else. No one else had a mind like Smith. Sometimes one has the impression […]