Though her reputation preceded her, I had never read a book by Ursula K. Leguin before this one. I’ve always been a fan of the old-guard of science fiction and fantasy writers, of whom she is a much revered member, so when I spotted this book for a bargain and the synopsis seemed thoughtful and [...]

In writing you most often try to communicate a message or a feeling. You want your words to be absorbed by the reader, and hope that you’ve been clever enough with the words to create the exact reaction in the reader’s mind that you had hoped for. Of course, such reactions can never be predicted [...]

Aspiring writers have always been told to write what they know, and to read the classics. If everyone would have stuck to writing what they knew first hand, the written word would never have gone very far. The advice about the classics, however, hasn’t been brushed off as easily. Although you expect writers to be [...]

There is much said and written by writers on how to overcome writer’s block, but I’m considering a more basic question. Why should you overcome writer’s block? The answer seems obvious, so that you can write. Why do you want to write? Because you’re a writer. Why are you a writer? Because you must write.

I don’t remember the first time I heard the name Sherlock Holmes. There has to have been a first time. Maybe someone mentioned it, or perhaps I picked it up in a movie or a comic book. The details of our first encounter remain shrouded in the mists of my early childhood memory. But, however [...]

Nostalgia and grief seem to fuel the pensive poet’s pen, Without them the bards would not know where to begin, On their journeys through life and soul and deed, All springing from the one eternal human need, A yearning for meaning, the hope that it will come, The fear that it has slipped past in [...]

I didn’t read any baby books when I was growing up, by that I mean books specifically written for infants and pre-schoolers. I got thrown straight into the deep end with fairly serious comics, books of folk tales, and some other strange things that most wouldn’t consider appropriate childhood reading. It was only natural after [...]