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A Victorian Orphan makes good. How Smoke Got Out of the Chimneys (Smoke #1) Kindle | Nook | Kobo | iBooks | Goodreads (reviews) (still some links going up) London, England. 1840.Gangs of four- and five-year-old orphans are being used as “apprentice” chimney sweeps–they’re the only ones who can fit down the narrow chimneys, taking brushes and baskets down with them into upper-class Victorian

Can men write romances? OF COURSE THEY CAN, AND THEY DO. However, a lot of male romance writers feel they have to write under female pen names and/or initials to hide their gender–and that’s just wrong.  Here are some of the male writers (or partners including a male writer) of romance I’ve been able to

I have a mental checklist for emotional distress.  Because I am THAT kind of nerd.  But also because I often have a hard time staying in contact with my emotions and feelings (like, literally I can make physical pain go away if I’m focused on something).  In order to keep myself from having some kind

Over the last year (I fudged it – I finished A Dark Matter on October 24, 2015), I’ve read a number of excellent dark-minded books.  Here are the ones that stuck best with me–horror, noir, suspense, and one non-fiction.  No books in the middle or end of a series; some short stories; one novella.  One

I  have nothing deep and meaningful to talk about with writing at the moment but I want the feeling of having blogged, so I’m going to repost some of the links that I put up last week.  Or is that too honest? A-hem. Let me try again. I have run into a number of wonderful

Kobo has a 30% off sale on selected ebook titles – the promo code is 30OCT. A Murder of Crows:  Seventeen Tales of Monster and the Macabre is there to be had if you want it 🙂

Note:  this is not the tightest blog post ever.   In trying to write about handling information so I can clear up confusion, I keep stumbling over how to explain how to handle information about handling information…etc.  Things got confusing.  So my apologies in advance; this is tricky stuff to catch, and I’m fighting myself.

The over image for this bundle was so much fun I that I’m adding it full-size. The Witches’ Brew Bundle is up, and contains my short fantasy story, “The Ballad of Molly McGee.” Never trust a witch; she might not be telling you everything.  This is the story of how Molly McGee’s grandmother saved Molly’s newborn

I’m used to writing very analytical posts about how to accomplish what you set out to do as a writer. However, sometimes it’s important to do the opposite and write (mostly) non-analytical posts–anti-analytical posts, even.  Certainly anti-“one stripe of analysis is better than any other” posts. The more I learn, the less likely I am to

Bad House Spirit Kindle | Nook | Kobo | iBooks | Goodreads (reviews) Carrie used to clean houses for a living. Mostly it was hard work but it was all right. But there was one house that was bad. Not the cleaning, although it was. But the house itself, from the creepy pictures to the barred and tinfoil-covered windows to the KEEP OUT signs