Nearly finished with Chuck Wendig's apocalyptic tome, Wanderers, and I wanted to share a powerful exchange between two central characters (Benji, a CDC specialist, and Matthew, a broken and defeated pastor who's lost his faith). No spoilers here, just one of those heady truths we so often find in good fiction.
Category: Reading
Late to Dinner: Simon Stålenhag
Stålenhag is a Swedish visual artist, writer, musician, and tabletop RPG designer, and it seems as though he's been churning out his creative projects for a number of years. As with much of the cool art that's out there*, I'm only learning about it now, hence the whole "late to dinner" phrase in the title.
Learning Short Fiction World Building with N.K. Jemisin’s HOW LONG ‘TIL BLACK FUTURE MONTH
How Long 'Til Black Future Month? is a solid collection of Jemisin's short fiction spanning her career. And in each selection she delivers on her world building, much in the same way she did in The Fifth Season: inserting information as it becomes relevant to the narrative, avoiding huge info dumps.
Barstow & Grand
Currently the journal's taking submissions for its third issue (in fact, this weekend it'll be free to submit), and if you have a piece of fiction or nonfiction, a poem, or a hybrid text of some type, and a connection to Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley you should send it on in.
More Cheap Reads
The Cabin at the End of the World: Eerie, intense, heart-wrenching thriller. Tension so thick you could bludgeon it with a specially hand-crafted doomsday gardening tool.
Cheap Reads
Two good ebook deals today on Amazon: 1) Train Dreams by Denis Johnson Anthony Doerr's New York Times review. 2) The Color of Water by James McBride Interview with James McBride on Global Perspectives Just under two bucks each. Check 'em out. Huzzah!
From Alison Smith’s “Her Left Hand, The Darkness”
from New York Public Library "If no one is expecting much, it’s not hard to exceed their expectations." " ‘Don’t try to be an author,’ she said as we stood outside a lecture hall in the bitter cold. ‘You cannot control that. Instead, try to be a writer. And to do that, you must write. … Continue reading From Alison Smith’s “Her Left Hand, The Darkness”
An Exercise in Not Working on Your Newest Short Story: Book Recommendations and Current Reads
Evening, folks.
Here are a few book recommendations for you as we speed ever-onward to the cold-weather days which necessitate hunkering down with hot drinks, snacks, and stacks of reading material...
Flashlights in Dark Rooms: Conquering Fear Through Reading
When I was younger, I brought books with me everywhere I went. In the fourth grade, when all of my friends were playing baseball, and I thought it would be a wise decision to join up, I soon discovered that I was one of the worst players on the team. I played a lot of … Continue reading Flashlights in Dark Rooms: Conquering Fear Through Reading
Purdy Good 