“Turquoiseblood” features 2 Timelines & 2 Bad Ass Women

I have been waiting to read Turquoiseblood for a long time. In fact, it was through author Cecelia Isaac’s preliminary work on this title that I came to meet her. Our paths first crossed at the East St. Paul writer’s group where I was quickly impressed with her writing. After only a few conversations I invited her to help me… Read More

What would you do if Neil Gaiman read your short story?

Last year I had the good fortune to meet new author Kate Bitters at my local writer’s group. She has a truly awesome story to tell. Not only has she published her first book (and is about to publish two others!), but her own short story was hand picked by the NPR radio show “Wits”  and read on… Read More

Why You Need A Tanya Huff Shelf

There is a Tanya Huff book to fulfill any possible speculative fiction need. She can write in any genre she chooses and does them all well. Missing the first time you ventured into Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar or Katharine Kerr’s Deverry? The world of Huff’s Quarters series will give you plots, counterplots and magic rooted in… Read More

The 3rd, 4th and 5th Gender

Hugo-award winner* Kameron Hurley’s new book The Mirror Empire came out in September, so in the modern author fashion, she did a virtual author tour by guest blogging on many different sites. In one of her posts, “Beyond He-Man and She-Ra,” Hurley talks about the five genders in The Mirror Empire and how she developed them… Read More

We’ve all come a long way from Kansas! Feminism in The Wizard of Oz

We’ve all watched the MGM film The Wizard of Oz from 1939. But did you know that the original novel, written fully 39 years earlier, contained ideas about femininity that were quite progressive at that time and still are today? The feminist tendencies of his novels do not come as such a big surprise if… Read More