New Flash Fiction: Eleventh Hour Brother
Two months ago, I discovered that some fellow indie writers were creating a “flash fiction” anthology that would span genres. I was very interested. The main stipulation: all stories had to be under 1,000 words. One thousand words really isn’t a lot. (The Lead Cloak is more than 100 times as long) It’s hard to do much in that short space, but that’s what appealed to me. I made the decision to do something I’ve never done before–I wrote the story on my phone. My thinking was that writing on my phone would help me conserve words (there’s a reason emails coming Read more…
Should you self-publish?
I know a lot of authors who have self-published and a lot of authors who have traditionally published (and several who have found an in-between route). Brent Hartinger, my co-host on Media Carnivores, has done both, so together we were able to have a really interesting podcast discussion about this topic. We are definitely coming at it from two different sides–Brent thinks you should start by attempting to traditionally publish and I think you should start by self-publishing first. But we also both see real benefits to all options. The conversation went so well that we extended it into a Read more…
Our robotic future
With the rise of drones, we’re becoming a lot more conscious of how little robots are interacting with us in everyday life. Recently Mary and I watched an interesting and funny film about that very topic set in the near future called Robot and Frank. Frank is dealing with some kind of Alzheimer’s or dementia and his son, who lives five hours away, thinks a robot will be make his own life a little easier by taking care of Frank for him. It’s touching, and funny, and also has some jewel heist scenes, which you know always make a movie better. Read more…
Best Tacoman 2014
I was truly honored to discover last Thursday that I was named “Best Tacoma 2014” by the Weekly Volcano. It was a surprise, even though there was a big smiling picture of me on the cover. Mary and my friend Marguerite convinced me to do the photoshoot without knowing what it was for, and I’m glad I trusted them. Jason Ganwich took a wonderful photo, too! We were on the rooftop deck of one of the Triangle Townhomes (across from the Grand Cinema) to get this shot. Sometimes I worry I’m too scattered–parks, small business, writing, nonprofits and on and on. Read more…
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