Ever since I was young I’ve loved to read. But the books I feel the most comfortable with are mass-market paperbacks. In a form of escapism, I read exhaustively, reading the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes when I was 7, as well as an old English version of Le Morte de Artur (which, as I recall, … Read more
[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”2/3″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]By Ursula K. Leguin The Left Hand of Darkness is Leguin’s prescient look at the difficulties of gender identity. The fourth book in the Hainish cycle, a series of books that share a … Read more
Or any sort of Fiction In statistics, there’s a useful concept: the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is that we didn’t find anything, nothing statistically happened, we have no real result. I use this concept a lot in my writing, and my reading and I apply it like this: if you don’t tell me differently, … Read more
For most of my life, I’ve wavered between wanting to be a writer and thinking of myself as a writer as I stumbled down the many twisty paths and alleyways of life. When I say “to be a writer” I mean something far more specific than simply someone who writes because we all write: notes, … Read more
Magic should be Strange and Wondrous, not Mundane and Prosaic Ancient scientists lacked the scientific method, but they still attempted to explain the world around them. In this sense they weren’t scientists, rather they were seers and sages, and it is worth noting the distinction. People want explanations for things, and they often see purpose, … Read more
Having a specific or set lexicon for a work of fiction, especially speculative fiction, can be a highly useful tool. It can provide clues to setting, characterization, motivation, and emotion subtly. It can provide a sense of strangeness, distance or closeness, as well as time, simply through choosing words. You can also unearth old words, … Read more
I love fantastic and wondrous stories. Since I was very young, I was entranced by stories of chivalrous knights and fair ladies and slaying dragons. Stories about spaceships whizzing about and people shooting lasers and blasters. These stories enabled me to escape the dreary circumstances of my life into a world where anything seemed possible, … Read more