Happy New Year! It's been some time since I posted; it was a busy year at Casa Abbott for non-writing reasons. We've welcomed baby Fish into our family, joining his sister Bug, Three-stripe, cats Jack and Tollers, and I as members of our household. But while I'm behind on many things, I've continued to read a lot! Since I posted last year and the ( Read more... )

The Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards were announced last weekend at Mythcon 45, at which I had a fantastic time. (I made my first food sculpture, below, at the Mythcon Banquet, an annual tradition that I find wonderful. I love that the con in Mythcon could equally represent conference and convention; both words accurately describe the atmosphere, which is ( Read more... )

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The big news of the day: I've started blogging about webcomics (and, soon, interactive fiction) for Black Gate, where I've previously been an occasional book reviewer. My first post is about Ursula Vernon's Hugo Award and Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner Digger, which I loved and had fun getting to write about. Why am I over at Black Gate instead of ( Read more... )

I've been saving up links to post here and just realized I'm getting overwhelmed, so I'd better post em here!

Big news: Tales of Rosuto Shima, the short story collection from the Steampunk Musha kickstarter, was just released in its first edition to the Kickstarter backers -- and it's also up on DriveThruRPG. My story, "The Gamelan Device," will ( Read more... )

I happened upon some fun history this week (though some was published awhile ago). According to the Guardian, a collection of fairy tales by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth was just discovered in Germany after being archived for some 150 years. The fairy tales are not the polished versions of the Brothers Grimm (as evidenced by this excerpt):

A young ( Read more... )

Last May, Alma Alexander visited us here at Myth, the Universe, and Everything to discuss myth and fairytales. Since then, I had the tremendous delight of reviewing her most recent novel, Midnight at Spanish Gardens, over at Flames Rising and for Mythprint. The premise of the book is that a group of friends, on the night of a reunion, individually ( Read more... )

This is my last day to post about my experience reading the MFA nominees this year before the winners are announced, so I figured I'd better do a write up quickly!

I have to say that this year's finalist lists were a real joy for me. Usually, there's at least one book in the finalists that I detest, or appreciate but slog through. Sometimes there' ( Read more... )

I am very, very lucky to have my mother, code-named Maesi for purposes of the blog, visiting this week, because keeping track of my freelance assignments, teaching the Mommy-Baby fitness class, and being the guest editor at Branford Patch means wearing a lot of hats. If I thought that being a freelance writer meant a lot of multitasking, I had no ( Read more... )

So, ages ago, Danielle Poiesz, whom I met over at Pocket After Dark, invited me into a sooper sekrit project. Never one to turn down something sooper sekrit, I was eager for more information -- and what I discovered was Book Country. The idea behind the site is creating a community of writers -- from aspiring to published to bestselling -- and ( Read more... )