Originally published at ipse illum dicto. You can comment here or there.

I got the e-mail today that the Kindle edition of Touching the Face of the Cosmos, featuring my story “Birth of a Pantheon,” is now available. The print edition is coming in 2016. ( Read the rest of this entry » )

Originally published at ipse illum dicto. You can comment here or there.

A friend of mine, Hal Bowman, passed away on Wednesday. I wasn’t going to say anything here, because I try to follow a “no politics” rule on my blog. How, you may ask, is the death of a friend a political post? Well, because, you see, he was killed in a mass shooting in San ( Read more... )

Originally published at ipse illum dicto. You can comment here or there.

I got back yesterday from five days in Disneyland. It’s changed a bit since I was there last. Star Tours has been completely re-done (the old pilots now sit like taxidermy trophies in crates in the queuing area). But what hasn’t changed is that after the ride, you get dumped ( Read more... )

Originally published at ipse illum dicto. You can comment here or there.

The internet writerly communities are currently talking about a piece in The Stranger by former MFA professor Ryan Boudinot in which he dishes out caustic observations about the general hopelessness of most MFA students. Normally, I’d ignore such a piece, but it seems to be ( Read more... )

Originally published at ipse illum dicto. You can comment here or there.

My first fantasy story, “Man of Water,” was released today in the charity anthology Fantasy for Good. This is the story that was “noticed” by Piers Anthony in his November newsletter, so I hope I’m not alone in thinking that it’s one of my best stories to date. All proceeds ( Read more... )

Originally published at ipse illum dicto. You can comment here or there.

The Convolution 2014 schedule has been set, and there are six panels where you’ll have a chance to see me! ( Read the rest of this entry » )

Originally published at ipse illum dicto. You can comment here or there.

I taught dialogue in my creative writing class yesterday. One thing I’ve noticed over the years that I’ve always found interesting about dialogue is this: poets tend to be very good at writing it. And I had come up with a hypothesis about why that is, and I decided to test it ( Read more... )

Originally published at ipse illum dicto. You can comment here or there.

One thing that comes up often in science fiction and fantasy stories is a situation where characters would, logically, probably speak different languages. The characters may come from different countries or planets, they may come from different times, or they may even come from ( Read more... )

Originally published at ipse illum dicto. You can comment here or there.

Genuinely unexpected, but very much appreciated, BayCon featured me as their guest spotlight in the December Newsletter.  I just hope I can live up to the hype.

#SFWAPro

Originally published at ipse illum dicto. You can comment here or there.

Author Caren Gussoff has a post on the SFWA Blog about the differences between spec fic and lit fic. She called out two major differences: that voice/style are predominant drivers of lit fic stories and that lit fic stories are necessarily character-oriented. I agree, and I ( Read more... )