Having spent the last couple of days feeling horribly guilty for not writing 1000 words a day on my latest WiP and even more guilty for spending time reading books, doing housework and hanging around on the Internet instead, I think Cory Doctorow's latest column for Locus may just have saved my sanity ( Read more... )

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Shannon Hale has just written the most insightful and accurate description of what high school and college reading lists do to many passionate young readers that I've ever read. Her experience mirrors my own in many ways, on the high school side at least:

How Reader Girl Got Her Groove BackBut how about you lot on my f-list? Do you find that the ( Read more... )

I love that people are still weighing in with comments on my Problem of Susan essay over three years after it was written. Warms the cockles of my heart, it does ( Read more... )

jenlynb, who knows whereof she speaks, has written an absolutely splendid post about why YA books are awesome, and why having a YA category in the bookstore is useful and worthwhile regardless of what age you are as a reader. I heartily agree.

Though I'd extend that to MG too, of course (says the woman who is currently in the middle of reading Starcross, ( Read more... )

msagara writes a spot-on comparison of how being a mother is like being a writer.

Happy Mother's Day to all my friends who mother, or write, or both.

Got this link from wittingshire a couple of weeks ago, and thought it an essay worth recommending:

When Others Pray For Your Conversion

To take the ideas in that article a little further -- my brother recently remarked that evangelical Christianity, if it is truly evangelical, is not a fearsome enemy of non-believers but rather the best friend that (say) a ( Read more... )

If a godless totalitarian government ever takes over and forces us all to celebrate Take an Atheist to Lunch Day, I want dibs on Theodore Dalrymple. Mind you, that's assuming he's still available at that point, and not locked up as a traitor to the State.

Here's a sample from his recent essay on the books of Dawkins, Harris et al, "What the New ( Read more... )

Thanks to thegameiam for linking to a splendid essay by Dave Wolverton that explains the difference between literary and genre fiction, and reveals the little-known origins of the modern literary novel. It also does a very good job of explaining why I read very little so-called literary fiction, and don't feel a bit embarrassed about not writing it either ( Read more... )

lydaclunas has written a truly excellent, well-reasoned and thought-provoking essay about adult virginity which I think deserves much more attention than it's received so far. Here's a brief excerpt:
Why do adult virgins get such a raw deal? Judging a person based on their status as a virgin is reducing them to but one experience (not even a character trait ( Read more... )