When I decided to get an MFA, I knew that writing genre could be a challenge. As an undergrad I was discouraged from writing science fiction, enough so that I took more nonfiction workshops than fiction and didn’t write for a year following graduation. (My realistic contemporary fiction was uninspired, but I wasn’t “supposed” to […]
Punk sub-genres still seem like something the cool kids are doing, but I feel like a lot of people I talk to don’t understand what makes a genre “punk” as opposed to all the other ways that you can describe a genre—alternate history, science fiction, speculative fiction, urban fantasy, gaslamp fantasy, etc. So why do […]
Last week on Twitter a Works in Progress Meme circulated, and I couldn’t resist playing along. Here’s what I shared according to the likes I received: Novel: Gay Airship Pirates, which now includes a feminist book binding sharpshooter and her paraplegic husband who is more awesome than you. Short Story: Space Mermaids, which are not […]
The internet is a vast and wonderful place that provides a lot of information, which means it’s a great place to find ideas for stories or story elements. Here’s a list of topics that have caught my attention in the last month. (Initial links are provided along with any additional research I may have done.) […]
May has been a pretty exciting month for me. I launched this website, started querying my novel and working on other writing projects, and the Cinescopers podcast returned after a three year hiatus. While some of these experiences are brand new, others are old hat—or they were when I was in practice. Reconnecting with old […]
I previously mentioned that before the MFA program I wasn’t reading very much. There was one year when I read no more than 10 books, and another in which I think I only reread Harry Potter. By contrast, the MFA program at UCF requires a lot of reading. In addition to literature classes and assigned […]
You might be asking, “why did a genre writer who doesn’t want to teach decide to get an MFA?” That is a question I asked myself a few times (especially when I was struggling to find a thesis director), but the truth is that for me, an MFA wasn’t about starting an academic career, and […]
Starting a “pro blog” is weird. I kept a personal blog on Livejournal when that was what all the kids were doing, and I moved to Tumblr, even though I never really figured out what to do with Tumblr other than find all of the writing blogs and then reblog pictures and gifs of Captain […]