I find visual inspirations very helpful when working on a book (see my earlier posts about the “mood boards” for the novels).  I’m just starting on what might be the new novel, but I already have a couple of touchstones. This girl with the wary eyes is part of the painting The Coronation of the […]

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I’ll be in Kingston at the Limestone Genre Expo the weekend of July 23, 2016.  This is the second year of this event and there’s a great line-up of writers and some fascinating panels.  It’s a small, friendly convention in a beautiful town. I’ll be taking part in three panels (Where is Fantasy taking the […]

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I’ve been working full-time since I was twenty-two (that’s 35 years, for anyone who’s counting).  I started doing data entry at a sleazy mail order company whose principals eventually were arrested in the U.S. for mail fraud, moved to the magazine business in the circulation department, worked in magazine consulting,  and then ended up in […]

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The key question from The Witch, the movie most of my friends were seeing in February and March. I go along with the unanimous praise. Even the parts I didn’t think quite worked (I understood what they were getting at but the execution didn’t quite hit the mark) were thought-provoking. One of my coworkers and I came […]

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Spurred by reading Mary Beard’s book about Rome, SPQR, and by memories of our tour of the Colosseum, we decided to rewatch Gladiator the other night.  Not withstanding my affection for men in period armor (with wolfskins),  the film still works.  Oh, parts of the plot don’t make any sense, Rome was apparently to be […]

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It’s been a year since Cold Hillside was released, which seems unbelievable.  (What, you haven’t read it? Go read it. f you have, thanks!) I would like to thank everyone who took the time to post a review on Goodreads or Amazon or reviewed it on their site. It’s been really gratifying that most of the people who enjoyed […]

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  There have been one or two comments about the fact that Cold Hillside appears to be set in a matriarchy.  One person objected to this, on the grounds that reverse oppression is not an improvement over the original brand (a fair opinion). I didn’t set out to create a matriarchical culture for Lushan.  The […]

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    I just finished the rather long process of recording an audio version of Cold Hillside as a gift to a friend. I’m not a bad reader, but it was definitely a challenge.  First of all, I had to actually listen to a few audio books.  I found that interesting but time-consuming – I could have […]

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And now comes the time in a book’s life when the reviews start. I wish I was one of those writers who could grandly proclaim that I never read reviews but that would be a complete lie. I shamelessly admit to googling myself. A good review will make me happy and a bad review will […]

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Cold Hillside turned out to be like neither A Terrible Beauty nor Blood & Chrysanthemums when it comes to the music I associated with writing it. While it didn’t have either artists or songs that connected directly to the content, I had an ITunes playlist called “Cold Hillside”, which is certainly more than I would […]

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