Planet Bob

As far as reading goes, I figure the over-under at three Jeschoneks. I mean it this way: If you read one story from Robert Jeschonek you’ll probably say “What the hell was that?” Another Jeschonek will have you tied up in knots and saying, “Holy crap, this guy lives in a different world.” It’s the […]

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Vonda McIntyre, Criticism, and Maybe a Bit More

If you follow science fiction, there’s a good chance you know that Vonda McIntyre recently passed, recently meaning this past April. Among many other things, she wrote Dream Snake, a far-reaching piece that won a Hugo and a Nebula. She wrote in the Star Trek universe. She was instrumental in Clarion and mentoring new writers. […]

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Writers of the “Current”

I recently spent a week in Los Angeles at the Writers of the Future workshop, blogging daily for them and generally having much fun. Part way through it, Galaxy Press asked if I would do individual capsules on each writer. I loved the idea, so I said “sure!” Those went over well enough that they […]

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The Story of Your Life, 2nd Time Around

“Have you read ‘The Story of Your Life’?” Lisa asked me a few days ago. “I want to read it before we see the movie.” The work she’s talking about is a Seiun, Sturgeon, and Nebula Award-winning novella by Ted Chiang. It’s been made into a movie titled Arrival, which is due to be released […]

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Writing vs. Typing, Hallelujah!

It’s the season for conflict. No, not Trump vs. Clinton. I’m talking Nanowrimo fans and their opposition, a group that for the lack of a better term I’ll call the, anti-rimos. On one hand, you’ve got something like 29.394 billion writers of various skill levels pounding out words at a 50,000 word pace for the […]

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The Horror Genre & Toni Morrison

As result of a workshop we’ll be going to soon, Brigid and I were recently talking about the horror genre, and some of the difficulties it has. Specifically, we were talking story structure, and how the key to the genre is handling the root of the terror–the “monster” as it were. I posited in that […]

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Is this cool, or what?

So, this morning I have a lot of things to do. Yes, it’s busy being a self-employed writer, though it’s hard to explain how this is all the time. Among the things on my “To Do” list was to go through the galley proof copies of a future issue of Galaxy’s Edge, which will include […]

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The First Annual Rongo Awards

Over the past couple weeks I’ve been tempted at several moments to weigh in on the big brouhaha over this year’s Hugo Awards—an award which is of only vague import for the majority of the world, but is like life-blood to several people who are, perhaps, if such a thing is possible, the teensiest bit […]

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