Friends who are familiar with my writing know that some themes tend to come up again and again in my stories. Two such themes are family and memory. I decided to dig around on the topic of why I find human memory so fascinating in this blog post that appeared in Analog's blog, The Astounding Analog Companion. It was published as a companion piece to my…
It's always a good day when I get to share a piece of writing that's new and finished and ready for the world to see! I am honored to announce that my SF short story "Recollection" appears in the March/April edition of Analog! Memory tech, water shortages, and the ethical challenges of a civil servant in a post-apocalyptic desert world. https://www.analogsf.com/ How to buy: Support your…
All of meWhy not take all of meCan’t you seeI’m no good without you From the song All of Me by Billie Holiday and Lester Young My husband gave me a fancy goal planner for Christmas (Cultivate What Matters brand, if you’re curious or a goal-geek, like I am). And although I confess I’d actually told him I was really interested in this particular planner, I…
I'm pleased to present you with a new story for the new year! "Drowned Prison" appears in Galaxy's Edge #48 and is now available! I get to share this issue with talented and established SFF authors as well as with Kai Wolden and Mica Scotti Kole, two fellow Writers of the Future authors from WOTF 35. My story is a mystery set in a rather creepy…
I love magic tricks. Card tricks, sleight of hand, people disappearing into boxes and slipping out of chains. I don’t understand any of them, but I love them. Even though the astonishment I experience makes me feel a bit stupid and crazy, I usually I end up laughing because I’m so perplexed by what the illusionist just did right in front of my eyes. Last year,…
I’ve been thinking a lot about listening recently. There are plenty of examples in popular songs, Disney movies, and motivational speeches that tell us, “listen to your heart.” I’ve particularly struggled with this, in part because the verse Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things” seems to imply that the heart is something to be ignored because it tells lies. And I’m sure that…
There’s smoke in the sky. Wildfires on all sides, it seems. The air is filling with ash, tinting the sun sets a beautiful weird orange. In preparation for the Christmas calendar that I make every year for the family, I sorted through digital photos, effectively reliving a year’s worth of memories: my kids playing in the snow, a beach birthday for my dad at Jetty Island,…
Secrets, injustice, and magical paintings that carry the emotions of the painter. As some of you know, I have more than one novel brewing in the back of my head. One such novel idea, which I have yet to fully outline, has in the meantime trickled out into several fantasy short stories. One day, I hope to write the novel itself! But if you want a…
I can see it coming, and yet I can’t see it at the same time: that moment when Covid lockdown finally lifts, fully and completely. Maybe that upcoming lifestyle won’t resemble the “old normal,” but the clinging fear and timidity and obsession over clean surfaces and safe-to-breathe air will have settled into something that doesn’t raise my blood pressure…as life after lockdown begins again. Yesterday my…
As I scrolled through Facebook, the flower in the photo jostled my brain to recall another flower--this one from a fairy tale--but both with the shared purpose of marking time. To mark the passage of COVID lockdown/quarantine, a friend posted a picture of a drooping tulip with withered, pink petals of an almost magical translucence that sparkled in the light pouring through some French doors. The…