For about a year now, I’ve been struggling to revise a novella of mine. It has an interested publisher, and that publisher sent me some fantastic notes for kinks to work out in the story, but as I began tugging on burls in the knots I’d tangled, I realized how much more story there was to tell. AndContinue reading “The confidence of knowing your fictional universe”
Tag Archives: writing
New publication
A handful of years ago, I was so taken with Hosho McCreesh’s poetry collection, For All These Wretched, Beautiful, & Insignificant Things So Uselessly & Carelessly Destroyed…, that I decided to write a story about one line from each of the poems. I eventually conceived a story cycle, each poem-inspired story set in the same ecological apocalypse, andContinue reading “New publication”
“Standing Together” with Connotation Press
A handful of days ago, author Meg Tuite put out a call on social media for writers and artists to participate in a video about how we should not just survive the coming year(s) but also fight back against political and artistic oppression under a new regime. The result is “Standing Together,” a video I am proudContinue reading ““Standing Together” with Connotation Press”
Some observations as I enter my final week of NaNoWriMo 2016
When I began the first version of this novel a few years ago, I thought it was about one man, a character I named Sergeant Tom Cleaver. My mother-in-law had sent me a book of obscure Texas histories and real-life wild characters, and I read about one crazed man so violent and so charismatic thatContinue reading “Some observations as I enter my final week of NaNoWriMo 2016”
New publication
Wow, it’s been a while since I last used “New publication” as the title of a post! But I am thrilled to tell you all that I have a new short story out today, this one in my local Tacoma literary publication Creative Colloquy. It’s called “An Understanding,” and you can find it here. One ofContinue reading “New publication”
NaNoWriMo 2016: getting back to work
I began my 2016 NaNoWriMo on fire: thanks to a midnight start, I cranked out more than 9,000 words on the first day. By Day 4, I’d launched up to 15,000 words. As of Monday, November 7, I had written 17,643 words — I was WAY ahead of schedule, so I decided to take November 8, ElectionContinue reading “NaNoWriMo 2016: getting back to work”
Kelly Luce and a literary communion
Last night I went to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma to see my friend Kelly Luce read from her new novel, Pull Me Under. Kelly was in my workshop group at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference in summer 2015; another fellow Sewanee alum, Jason Skipper, teaches at PLU and had organized Kelly’s visit to the campus. IContinue reading “Kelly Luce and a literary communion”
NaNoWriMo 2016: starting over
People have been asking me on social media if I’m participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Friends, former students, readers who liked my first NaNoWriMo attempt (Hagridden) — I even got a Facebook event invitation from NaNoWriMo executive director Grant Faulkner. I’ve told them all the same thing: of course I’m participating! Except, as I’ve done aContinue reading “NaNoWriMo 2016: starting over”
Tacoma’s Creative Colloquy doesn’t crawl, it PARTIES
Last Wednesday, I ventured into the heart of Tacoma’s Stadium District to experience as much of my new hometown’s creative and literary scenes as I could in a single night. The event was the second annual Creative Colloquy Crawl, a kind of literary and creative “pub crawl” through businesses in one of Tacoma’s coolest and most creative neighborhoods.Continue reading “Tacoma’s Creative Colloquy doesn’t crawl, it PARTIES”
What’s past is prologue
In my series of blog posts (and, this past spring, my series of writing workshops) on researching for historical fiction, I’ve discussed “going to the source,” by which I usually mean interviewing live people, getting expert opinions or local insights or eyewitness accounts. But as I explained in my workshop a few months back, sometimes theContinue reading “What’s past is prologue”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 