I was one born accursed in two ways.

So, this weekend, sitting around drinking coffee in the bookstore, talking about writing with Anna Schwind. By a fairly circuitous route, the topic of rules came up, and one of my least favorites, the “rule” (or sometimes merely “advice”) that one shouldn’t write in first person. So, why shouldn’t one write in first person? Give me one good reason. You know what that one good reason is? I’m sure you do, you’re opening your mouth to say it right now, just this very moment, “Ann, the reason is that you can’t...

Their Memory and Their Sense Is Gone

For reasons that are probably obvious to anyone who would read this, I have been pondering the idea of people holding beliefs that unfit them for (American) citizenship. What would those beliefs be? I mean, seriously. Since the Constitution is very specific about the free exercise of religion, and the illegality of the government establishing or promoting any particular religion, it can’t be that any particular religious belief is too Un-American to be borne. And let’s be honest–you could make a laundry list of aspects of Islam that were objectionable...

The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath...

you might enjoy Rachel's new novella--the longest piece she's written to date, unless I'm mistaken--The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window. Because, you know, it's awesome.

The Native Star by M.K. Hobson

Y’all know that M.K. Hobson is awesome, right? Because you’ve read “The Hotel Astarte” or “Hell Notes”, and you’ve heard her narrate stories and host episodes for Podcastle. Right? Well. Her first novel, The Native Star, comes out today. It’s 1876, and business is rotten for Emily Edwards, town witch of the tiny Sierra Nevada settlement of Lost Pine. With everyone buying patent magicks by mail-order, she’s faced with two equally desperate options. Starve—or use a love spell to bewitch the town’s richest lumberman into...

and close up these my weary weeping eyes

Every now and then, I run across the comment that too many books are written “for critics” and not “for readers.” Sometimes the comment explicitly states that books (or stories) ought to be entertaining, and fiction that is difficult to read, highly stylized or poetic or idiosyncratic in its prose, and/or requires some amount of previous reading or cultural knowledge, or has some complex structure, the apprehension of which enhances the piece but requires a fair amount of thought to puzzle out, or …books like this aren’t entertaining. ...