Thursday will be my grandmother's 94th birthday. The women on that side of the family tend toward longevity, but my grandmother is exceptional. A few months back my aunt gave her an old cell phone with WhatsApp capabilities. She'd never had such a ...
I'm probably the last to the "Year in Review" party, but I have a good excuse! The mountain behind my house was on fire. Literally. See, where we live is very dry and fireworks are banned in the entire municipality. But, someone decided to celebrate ...
There's a lot of discussion these days about trigger warnings and how they should be handled. I don't have any triggers, but I know some wonderful people who do. (Just like racism and homophobia, being a jerk can be cured by getting to know people.) ...
I know I said I wanted to look for unusual fairy tales, not the typical fare. But I learned a new factoid about this one over on Tor.com, which has some really great examinations of fairy tales, in their piece Charmed, I’m Sure: A Closer Look at Ever ...
I was waiting until I could find my copy of Old Peter's Russian Tales--a collection of Russian fairy tales as retold by a British visitor (Arthur Ransome, of Swallows & Amazons fame) with British children in mind--only to discover that it's avail ...
Holy cow, I was not expecting to stumble across this. I came across the mere mention of a "hedgehog princess" and immediately had to look it up. I didn't find a hedgehog princess, but I did find a half-human hedgehog boy who marries a princess! Yes, ...
There's a princess and a tower and a wedding, and yet this isn't one of the more popular stories. Go figure. Source: SurLaLune Fairy Tales: Annotated Maid Maleen Synopsis Maid Maleen is the daughter of a king. She falls in love with a prince, but ...
My summary isn't going to do this justice. Anderson writes evocatively of the setting and the people, and I'm just going to focus on the main plot. Here we go. Source: HCA.Gilead.org.il Summary In the countryside of France, a massive tree is felle ...
Doesn't "donkey cabbages" sound like a kid's insult? I'm not quite sure how to even summarize this one, it is that strange. Here we go anyway. Source: The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Knickerbocker Edition) Summary One day, a huntsman is walki ...
Not Thumbelina, but the German answer to the English Tom Thumb. You may well know the gist of this one. Source: The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales (Knickerbocker Edition) Summary A lonely peasant couple wishes for a child. A boy is born to them, but ...
New project. In order to better familiarize myself with the fairy tale cannon, once a month I'm going to read and examine a fairy story. Preferably not super popular stories, I'm looking for unusual stuff. I want to do this for my own edification, a ...
I often get the question, "How is the writing going?" If I were to answer this strictly, meaning am I actually engaging in the act of writing down words, the answer would often be, "Ummmmm, I'll get back to you on that." I don't write daily and wh ...
Author Laura Brown has a new blog post titled "My Diverse Reads of 2016" where she takes a look at how many books she read in the past year that count as diverse. This seems like a worthy experiment to me, so let's dig into my data. In 2016 I read 6 ...
Major updates to the Monster Structure Worksheet! Scroll down to download full PDF What is the MSW? It's a combination of novel structure theories into one chart to help you visualize what-all is supposed to happen and when. I've been reading K.M ...
There's been a bunch of talk in my spheres lately about what folks are reading to learn about their craft. I found a bunch of new things to explore, and I figure I should share. This week I'll post about the blogs I follow, and later I'll go into the ...
Or rather, an ode to Bridget. BRIDGET JONES helped keep my sanity intact on a very long flight. (Johannesburg to JFK is about 17+ hours.) I had bought it and THE EDGE OF REASON at the airport and I'm so glad I did. Every minute accounting of fat c ...
Last month I heard that Octavia Butler's XENOGENESIS TRILOGY, aka LILITH'S BROOD, is in development as a TV series. At the time I had yet to read anything by her, and I figured this was a great opportunity to start. So I bought the first book and got ...
This post is inspired by the #PitchWars mentors, who have said time and again that this contest is about community. Finding friends, CPs, commiserators, etc. And it occurred to me, "Why am I not talking DIRECTLY to the other wannabe mentees? We're ho ...
When I made the transition from picture books to middle grade I devoured everything in my path. Amelia Bedelia. Mrs. Piggly-Wiggly. The Egypt Game. All of the American Girl series. Most of the Babysitters Club--we're talking twenty books at a time. I ...
V and I were having a discussion about what we call 'obsessive love'. It often starts as instalove, but not always. It's what happens when a character just can't stop thinking about--and, more importantly, behaving in relation to--their love interest ...
