Photo illustration by Juliana Jiménez Jaramillo Is an All-Female Mission to Mars the best way to go? Medical studies at the start of the space race showed that women have…Continue readingWomen on Mars?
It started last night. He turned up in my dream, Chalky, the protagonist of my current WIP. He’s nineteen years old, pushing twenty. He’s a kid who has had a…Continue readingA character tells me off
“I’m here to tell you that working with the power who is out to destroy you will never, ever end well,” Aaron John Curtis says. Mohawk by birth, he offers…Continue readingAmazon Manifest Destiny?
Our world is always full of unexpected lacunae, gaps and hollows that we don’t know are there until we step into one. We twist our ankle, and sit down and…Continue readingStory Friday: What The Bee Knows
— in theory and in practice An animated video features an 81-second TED-Ed lesson called “Lessons from Auschwitz: The Power of Our Words.” Watch it (link below), but the gist…Continue readingThe power of words …
Elmore Leonard had ten rules for writing. 1) Never open a book with the weather. 2) Avoid prologues. 3) Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. 4)…Continue readingThe rules, the rules!
Some thoughts on common conceptions and misconceptions about writing. 1) I’ll write that book as soon as I have some time. Buzzzz, no. You MAKE the time. If the book…Continue readingWhy is writing so damned hard?
At a meeting of the Tolkien Society at the University of Cape Town where I got all three of my degrees, a woman said plaintively, “I just couldn’t get into…Continue reading50 Incredibly Tough Books