Blog Posts

  • Save the Words

    Being a massive word-hound, I was incredibly tickled by this site when my brother sent it to me. (Many thanks, by the way!) http://www.savethewords.org/ I have so far decided that I need to find ways to use antipelargy (‘reciprocal or mutual kindness, the love of a child for a parent’), hirquitalliency (‘strength of voice’), and…

  • Happy Tolkien’s and Cicero’s Birthday

    Cicero was the bane of my years at Boston Latin–that man was better at hiding a main verb than any author I have ever met.  After surviving Latin 3H, I developed a grudging respect for him, and frankly highly recommend Imperium by Robert Harris as a fantastic novel which humanizes the great orator and even…

  • Progressing Swimmingly

    The second draft of “Fish Girl and the Kapok Spirits” is going well, thanks to some very thoughtful comments from my raft of first-draft readers.  Apparently I need to get rid of some ‘and’s, some exposition, and punch up some of the drama in the key moments.  This is all extremely doable, so I’m feeling…

  • A Penny to Bury the Wren

    I’ve always been fascinated and impressed by the way authors such as Susan Cooper or Lloyd Alexander borrow copiously from mythology and folklore, especially from the British Isles, and weave such fantastic stories from those bits and half-explained pieces, which become an entirely new set of myths. One scene that I’ve returned to a number…

  • Happy Jane Austen’s Birthday!

    Whether you’re an Elizabeth, an Elinor, an Edward, or an Emma, (not to mention a Wickham, a Willoughby, or a Weston!), I wish you a happy Austen-day, where the clever have room to spar, the silly are given their due, and deserving gents (often with large estates) end up with lovely, sensible wives.