I went to see the latest Jim Jarmusch film, “The Dead Don’t Die” recently. To be honest, zombies aren’t really my thing. However, I was highly impressed with Jarmusch’s moody, dream-like vampire film, “Only Lovers Left Alive,” and wanted to see what he could do with the mindless undead. I had been thoroughly captivated by…
Last autumn, I tried to sow a tiny patch of ground outside our condo with a few milkweed seeds. I was rewarded this spring by finding a bunch of milkweed plants growing in that patch of ground. They started sprouting before we left on our trip to Venice, and by the time we got back…
After we left Venice, we spent some time getting used to the ship. We found previously that the food in the buffet on this cruise line is adequate: highly edible, but nothing special. That conclusion was borne out again at the beginning of this trip, so we tried to eat most of our meals in…
T and I took another of our patented, fabulous vacations, and we only got back last week. Where did we go? Venice, Italy. Then we got on a cruise ship and visited Kotor, Montenegro, and four ports in Greece: Corfu, Athens, Mykonos, and Argostoli. It was fabulous. Then back to Venice for an overnight before…
Twenty years ago, I used to write articles about toys for a living. I was recruited by a friend of mine, who in turn had been recruited by a friend of his. There were a bunch of us sci-fi fans who worked at this site, Collecting Channel, once it was up and running. I spent…
Recently, a blog post from a self-proclaimed steampunk fan posed that very question to his readers. He listed several reasons why Steampunk was dead: unsurprisingly, those reasons focused on a highly self-absorbed premise; that, because Steampunk wasn’t exactly the same as when he started, it must be dead. At the very least, it no longer…
I attended my first StokerCon over the weekend. StokerCon is the annual convention sponsored by the Horror Writers Association, and this year it was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Several fellow writers encouraged me to attend this year, so I decided to take the plunge. One thing that’s consistently made me crazy over these last…
Nothing lasts forever. I just received word very recently that the publisher of an anthology I’m in will cease publication entirely, closing up shop for good. I hate to say it, but this news isn’t particularly surprising. The publisher has had a number of major personal issues crop up in his life over the last…
Warning: might contain spoilers. Like many people, I thoroughly enjoyed Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. It was a fantastic journey through mythology and how the ideas humans worshipped grew and changed over centuries and millennia. When the television series of the book was announced, I was thrilled. I looked forward to meeting what the filmmakers and…
I recently came across a post somewhere — sadly, I’ve forgotten where it was and who wrote it — about valuing one’s own work. The context was self-published books, and while I don’t have a vast amount of experience with this, I do have some, and I’d like to share my experiences with you. The…