My mom recently wrote a post on her English-language blog that was mostly about the state of Russian society and Russian opposition to Putin’s rule, and… Those are some of the issues I’ve been thinking about, and this post just compelled me to finally put it to digital paper.

First of all, a bit of context that I’m not sure comes through in the ( Read more... )

Today, Russian State Duma changed the penal code to increase penalties for conscripts dodging draft, put in penalties for willingly surrendering to the enemy and reviving Soviet-era penalties against “marauding” (while also adding what would count as extenuating circumstances, which includes participating in the armed conflicts). And there are also ( Read more... )

I ended up doing this article because, back in November, a week before Thanksgiving, I was taking the bus past the intersection of Chicago and Laramie avenues and noticed a large, bright mural on the building at the northeast corner intersection that definitely wasn’t there back in June. I noticed the name of the artist - the iconic Chicago ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago, my sister posted an Instagram story touching on atrocities against Native Americans/First Nations and saying something to the effect of "I used to think that this doesn't affect me because I'm an immigrant, but I don't anymore."

Which got me thinking why I don't feel that way, at all.

( I am still not sure - but here are some of my thoughts on the subject )

For the past couple of months, I've been taking part in a few Twitter writing games. Basically, the host asks questions, either about whatever you're working on or about you as a writer, or the writing process, or some combination of both.

When one of those games asked what the main characters' favorite winter activities were... I already had a ( Read more... )

This was originally supposed to be part of the previous post, but it didn't quite flow with the rest of what I wrote, so I decided to split it off into a separate post ( Read more... )

In this pandemic year, getting together for Christmas was never going to be in the cards. I've accepted that. And, thinking about, I suppose it's not that unusual for our side of the family. There have already been Christmases that we celebrated apart. Heck, I didn't celebrate last Christmas with anyone in my family. So meeting up over Zoom this ( Read more... )

Usually, when I come up with a character, I figure out their first names pretty quickly. if a character comes from the culture I don't know much about, I usually have to dig a little deeper, but it isn't insurmountable.

Usually.

For Chasing New Dawn, the novel I'm working on right now, I came up with the names for Maddie, Riley and Daisuke pretty ( Read more... )

When I get sensational headlines like this coming across social media, I always like to check the source and, unfortunately, it looks like it wasn't an exaggeration.

According to Wikipedia, Watkins College of Art is a private Nashville art school has been around since 1885. According to ArtNet article I linked to above, it has been struggling ( Read more... )

When this video showed up in my Youtube suggestions, I had the same reaction as a lot of other people. A remix of Ariana Grande with a bad that pretty much defined teen angst in the early 2000s sounded like a stupid idea. It had to suck.

But, to my surprise and the surprise of so many others, it actually turned out pretty damn cool.

Click to view

For one thing ( Read more... )