A new faculty member faces his demons
Category Archives: writing
New Publication – A Royal Academy holiday story
Merry Christmas and Happy Kindling! Kindling, an 11,000-word Royal Academy novella, is now available on Smashwords for only $0.99. See what happens when you mix the Demonology Department’s self-appointed curmudgeon, a banshee, a dragon, and the world’s messiest, most dangerous … Continue reading
Posted in bestiary, From the museum, kindling, publication, real life, Royal Academy Archives, solstice, winter, writing
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The Magician King by Lev Grossman
I’m very happy to have read this book. When I read the first volume in the series, I ended up frustrated and gave the book to another fantasy fan with a warning that while the magic was great, the protagonist, … Continue reading
Posted in book review, Lev Grossman, reading
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Do you like your characters?
I once read a manuscript by someone who didn’t like their own protagonist, and I’m afraid I gave the author far too much grief about it. Looking back, I realize that I’m equally perturbed by authors who like their protagonists … Continue reading
Posted in characters, writing
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Feel the Meh
Lev Grossman wrote about fantasy on his blog last week, suggesting that fantasy addresses our longing for one thing in particular: A different kind of world. A world that makes more sense – not logical sense, but psychological sense… To … Continue reading
Posted in Lev Grossman, reading, writing
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Terry Windling Fundraiser
Sofia Samatar’s blog alerted me to the Magick 4 Terry auction, at which you can bid on all things fantastical while also helping out Terry Windling, who has contributed so much to modern fantasy and now faces unspecified medical expenses. … Continue reading
Posted in in the news, reading, real life, Terry Windling, writing
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Finding voices
Whenever I need to brush up on the academic ‘voice’, I go to comments on Chronicle of Higher Education online articles. Ideally, comments about something that interests me, like this article on turnitin (which also pointed me to this excellent … Continue reading
Posted in academic happenings, in the news, real life, writing
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Church Lady
There’s only one church in Osyth, and it’s an upstart, just getting going in the second novel. But the world of the Royal Academy is firmly polytheistic, with competition (sometimes cutthroat) between multiple religions worshipping different gods. In this, it’s … Continue reading
Where I Work
My day job starts tomorrow, and the long weekday afternoons of editing in the garden are over for another year. In spite of all the time I spent traveling, this has been a tremendously productive year by my standards. I … Continue reading
How not to write a dystopia
I’m an inefficient blog reader, so sometimes I take a few months to catch up with even the blogs I like best. Today was one of those days; I picked E.M. Bowman’s blog out of my bookmarks more or less … Continue reading
Posted in reading, Uncategorized, writing
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Mainstream Reading and fantasy rules
This summer, I’ve been reading more mainstream fiction than I have for a long time. A friend suggested “I Know This Much is True” and “The Tiger Claw,” and I’ve been reading them with the same kind of surprise with … Continue reading
