For the Fandom of Fantasy Maps

This is an essay about a lifelong love affair with maps. I could have written it; so could my husband have, and any of several of my friends for that matter. We who are fans of maps just generally can be inordinately fond of fantasy maps, for what can possibly be better to a cartophile than a map of a place […]

Thinky Thoughts

Michael had started a post for you last week, but computer troubles are delaying his ability to complete it. The working title I saw was “The Cost of Everything,” and I took away from our discussion that it involves how to determine what anything might cost in your fantasy fictional setting, whether it be for literary or gaming purposes. Like […]

A Little More About That Raven Wing

From the wiki: Raven Wing If you’ve read Dead Man’s Trigger, you already know how Raven got his name. If you were curious to know more about the device called the Raven Wing, including more about it’s war-time uses, please do click through to read up. It’s one of many wiki entries available to our readers, and we update them […]

For Your Weekend: Is Writer’s Block Real?

It seems most writers go through periods where the words just won’t come, no matter what we do. Some writers call this dull, dark time “writer’s block,” but others writers — more than you might suspect — think writer’s block is little more than a myth, something writers invent to excuse everything from laziness to depression. Yet others see the […]

Reason, and Magic

“The universe of magic is a large place. It contains phenomena ranging from simple good luck charms to complicated systems of belief and practice such as astrology and alchemy, and it comes to us from prehistory, and from every part of the world, and it still flourishes today.” — Philip Pullman I haven’t yet read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, but […]

Zen and the Art of the Arc

This is not another post on how writers craft stories. I’d apologize, but my best estimate is that there are sixty-three hojillion posts about that on the internet right now, and a half-assed search engine is capable of turning every one of them up for you, listed however you please.  What I wanted to write about this Monday morning is […]

In Uncertain Times

I don’t know how else to put this. If you didn’t know it, you may want or need to know it, so I’m just going to write it straight-up: Michael and I have spent most of 2018 dealing with the aftermath of his mother’s death and his father’s subsequent spasms of irrationality, followed by his abandonment of his family by […]

Raven’s Tears is now on KDP Select!

For a long time now, we’ve been in the stupid position of having Raven’s Tears out of AMZN’s KDP Select service, while Dead Man’s Trigger remained IN the service, despite multiple attempts instructing AMZN NOT to renew its membership. Today, we gave up screaming at the impervious wall. Raven’s Tears has gone back up on KDP Select and both books are […]

The Triple Partnership

Hey, all. Alesia here, again. You know, I never, ever expected to be on the board of a corporation, let alone sitting as its president. It was just never a thing that was on my radar, and no one would ever think of corporate stereotypes in conjunction with me, unless maybe it was “bossy bitch.” Michael and I already had […]

Making It Sew — and So

This week’s news is that Michael and I have finally begun the process of getting Dead Man’s Trigger (DMT) down from the digital clouds and into a real, physical paperback book. We’d like to apologize for the wait to those of you who have been faithfully awaiting the paperback version, and to let you know it won’t be much longer […]