tangentially related or other stuff I thought to share
Podcast: Play in new window
How did a war for natural resources in Korea lead to a ubiquitous American college food? Let’s talk about how in real life everything is connected, and how we can use that to make our fictional worlds more robust, cohesive, and fascinating.
Every year, I join Rhonda Parrish’s Giftmas blog tour, a circle of authors sharing Christmas and other seasonal cheer to raise money for the Edmonton Food Bank. This year our theme is Connections — which, I’m not gonna lie, struck me as a tough theme in 2020.
Continue reading
I promised to share them! These are the Japanese history videos I put together for Anime Central 2020 Online, now bundled into one convenient playlist.
There are 9 videos in all, ranging from 8th century history to modern cultural fun. Here’s the list:
Continue readingLike many staying safe at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, my parents are cleaning. Mom has been messaging daily with newly discovered archaeological treasures, from a Farah Fawcett shampoo bottle to commemorative items from Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation.
This week she sent me a newspaper clipping from September, 1995.
Continue readingOkay, I didn’t realize the full extent of how hilarious that title was until I came back to it. But it’s accurate.
In August of 2004, I checked into a tiny motel in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Each of the dozen rooms was decorated with a different theme, and mine was Coca-Cola.
I was in Hot Springs for three weeks of Bailey & Bailey chicken training workshops. (This is a sort of litmus test — if you work in modern animal training, you probably responded with, “Oh! Wow, cool, what an opportunity!” If you don’t, you probably responded with, “…Wut?” Because this is the author blog and not the training blog, I’ll keep it short and say that Bob Bailey and his late wife Marian were, with Keller Breland and B.F. Skinner, some of the most important researchers and practical administrators of modern behavior science. The chicken training workshops were legendary, and I owe a huge debt of training success to their teaching.)
Continue reading
If you’ve been with me for a while, you know that Giftmas is when we raise funds for the Edmonton Food Bank. (No, I don’t live in Edmonton. No, I don’t even live in Canada. But look, Canada would help me out, too.) Giftmas is organized each year by Rhonda Parrish, my editor of many anthologies, and each year it’s a fun way to tour some writers’ sites, do good by putting food on the table, and win cool stuff.
There are three parts to this post: What’s in it for charity, what’s in it for you, and a tease for a Christmas gift from me.
Continue reading
Spotted online:
If they don’t want a book, do they really deserve a gift at all?
Well, I’ll allow that other gifts can be nice, too, but this is a great time of year to introduce friends to your favorites and to find new favorites for yourself — particularly here in the northern hemisphere, where the days are short and cold and snuggling with a book and hot cocoa is the best adventure.
That’s why I’ve linked up with some colleagues to offer a dozen new fave-book opportunities, where you can browse for gifting (or yourself!) and maybe even win some goodies along the way.
I’m offering one winner a paperback of Shard & Shield, custom signed to the reader of your choice*, and to everyone I’m offering the ebook at a special discount of $0.99. Yes, you can give ebooks as gifts! But act quickly, because like all the deals on this tour, it will end soon.
Here’s the full blog-touring itinerary:
12/01/19
Yaasha Moriah – www.yaashamoriah.com
One paperback giveaway (US shipping only) + $.99 on all books
12/02/19
Verity A. Buchanan – www.verityabuchanan.com
One signed paperback giveaway + bookmark
12/03/19
Melissa Little – mllittleauthor.blogspot.com
One signed paperback giveaway + bookmark
12/04/19
J.D. Rempel – www.jdrempel.com
One personal signed hardback giveaway (US shipping only) + book swag
12/05/19
Claire Banschbach – www.clairembanschbach.com
Paperback giveaway (US only) The Wolf Prince x 1 – discounted ebooks for Adela’s Curse and The Rise of Aredor
12/06/19
Anne Wheeler – www.anne-wheeler.com
$0.99 on all books + 3 paperback giveaways of Asrian Skies
12/07/19
J.M. Hackman – https://jmhackman.com/
One signed paperback giveaway (Spark or Flare) (US shipping only) + related swag
12/08/19
Janeen Ippolito – https://www.janeenippolito.com/
Signed paperback giveaway (US only), super swag + sticker pack (anyone)
12/09/19
H. L. Burke – www.hlburkeauthor.com/blog
Paperback giveaway (US shipping only) Ultimate Nyssa Glass+Free ebook downloads for An Ordinary Knight and Thaddeus Whiskers and the Dragon
12/10/19
Laura VanArendonk Baugh – www.LauraVanArendonkBaugh.com
Paperback giveaway (single) plus discount on Shard & Shield
12/11/19
Hans Erdman – www.gewellynchronicles.com
6 giveaways of paperback Aerielands Christmas (US only) plus discount on all e-books
12/12/19
M. J. Padgett – www.mjpadgettbooks.com
Two free e-books (first in each series) plus one download code for a free holiday themed audio book
* I’m sorry, but this time it’s USA-only. I just shipped a prize pack overseas and the cost and shipping time was impressive, and the materials didn’t all arrive in pristine condition. I’d rather this potential gift be won by someone I’m reasonably sure can receive it sooner and intact for giving. International friends, you know I love you and usually include you, so I’m sorry for this exception.
Also, all custom inscriptions must be socially acceptable — but surely I don’t have anyone who would request otherwise. :)
Okay, internet, we need to talk. Was no one going to tell me we have Star Wars back?
I mean, you were all going on and on and on about The Mandalorian‘s Baby Yoda (or baby whatever-it-is-that-Yoda-is) and so I thought that was the primary attraction to the show. But no. I mean, no shade to Baby Yoda, but there are so many good things going on that someone might have mentioned.
Continue readingI blame my cousin.
While this is not strictly a Halloween story, it’s certainly in the spirits of the season, both macabre and prankster, so I’m going to share it.
In the early 2000s, we purchased an estate property and eventually built a house, where we now live. The property needed a lot of work, from the many piles of trash which needed to be cleared (so large that they photographed from the air as buildings in our property tax assessment and we were being charged for them) to the old farmhouse where I lived mostly alone for a year, which had ancient and damaged wiring so that I had very limited choices regarding electricity, which couldn’t be heated above 56 degrees in the winter with a furnace which could snuff a light at two feet, and which turned out to be a structural death trap the local fire department refused to enter. Also possibly haunted, but that’s another story.
Continue readingTonight some friends from church held a “decompression night” and invited a bunch of us over to blow off steam. We had stress balls to squeeze, bubbles to blow, putty, over-sized Jenga, punching bags, wrapping paper swords, cornhole, video games, and a Nerf shooting range (with paint for the darts to mark your shots).
They’d set up a villains gallery for target shooting, with four rogues to take fire. There was the demogorgon from Stranger Things, Harry Potter’s Delores Umbridge, and–
…Oh, wow.
Continue reading
