the essential kit

EasterCon64!

We’re back from EasterCon, which was an excellent mix of meeting up with old friends and making new ones. My most excellent writer friends Kari Sperring and Juliet E. McKenna were instrumental in this year’s EasterCon, so I’m particularly happy that it was this year I finally got to *go*. All the other committee members I met were also wonderful people, and they did an absolutely fantastic job putting together a magnificently diverse and interesting program. The past few years EasterCon’s had a commitment to gender parity on the panels,…

Continue Reading

the essential kit

Recent Reads: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

I haven’t read this in decades. It still works. :) I was a little surprised at the fairy tale qualities that I didn’t remember from childhood, but even so, they were less Fairy-Tale-Weird than most, er, non-invented? fairy tales. I mean, fairy tales make no sense at all in terms of “Oh hey, a glass mountain, oh look, a magic flying saddle appears to help me climb it!” Right, but, er, why did the magic flying saddle appear at all? Where did it come from? This makes slightly more sense…

Continue Reading

the essential kit

Recent Reads: How To Grow More Vegetables

I ran across this title while poking around the web for self-sufficiency zombie apocalypse sorts of things, and found it highly recommended, so I thought what the hell, and bought it. I’m not even a gardener (though I have ambitions), and even so, this book was really just completely fascinating to read. I have no idea if everybody would find it so interesting, but wow, I’d think if you have any impulse toward (food) gardening at all, you want to read this one. I mean, they’re selling a product, to…

Continue Reading

the essential kit

ElectriCity

Author Kait Nolan wrote a blog about Kickstarters and platforms (featuring me!), which caused me to go have a look at the most successful fiction Kickstarters. NO DOMINION’s still in the top 15, which surprised and delighted me. DINOPOCALYPSE NOW, which I’ll be writing a book for next month, is still in the top 5. (And Tim Pratt’s latest Marla Mason novel is also in the top 20! Yay!) The whole thing made me kinda want to run another Kickstarter. Kinda. :) I’m not going to (despite somebody asking for…

Continue Reading

the essential kit

Let’s see.

I feel like I should be blogging on big important topics and having meaningful conversations, as many of my friends are doing. The reality, however (as I told someone yesterday when he asked my opinion on a recent tempest in a teacup), is that I lack the time and energy to devote to the big important topics and meaningful conversations that some of my other friends are pursuing. I’m going to just have to go with that, and trust that my half-assed book and movie reviews will be sufficient until…

Continue Reading