I've on occasion been asked "what made you decide to have a woman as your main action character?", or something to that effect. Honestly, I don't really work that way. I don't sit down and say "Hey, I should write a story with a character that is X". I think of some neat story idea, and the characters I create are the ones that fit the story. That said, I suppose the fact is that it would never have occurred to me NOT to have at least some of my stories with truly kickass heroines. Looking over my books published thus [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Thirteenth Child
October 19, 2012 By 10 Comments
This was a really excellent book. On the Amazon scale, I'd give it four-and-a-half stars (unfortunate that Amazon doesn't permit half-star ratings to be given out) First-person protagonist "Eff" (her first initial; her actual name is hardly ever mentioned in the book) is the eponymous Thirteenth Child, one supposedly born with cursed magic and destined to go bad according to many in her society. Her plight is made worse by the fact that she is the elder twin sister to a fourteenth child, her few minutes younger brother [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Laura Ingalls Wilder
October 8, 2012 By 8 Comments
Most of the great influences on my life and writing have been science, science fiction, and fantasy. I've been the quintessential "geek" since I was very little. But there was one set of books which were tremendously important to me and my family, the story of a world that seemed both familiar and alien, told through the eyes of a child who was roughly my age when they were first read to me: the "Little House" books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. (ONLY the books; the less said of the TV show, the better) Laura grew [ Continue reading... ]
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