This week is the 9th Annual Hampton Roads Writers Conference, an event I always attend. Between the guest speakers, publishing agents, breakout sessions, contests, critiques, and networking opportunities, it’s worth every penny. While I’ve been attending these for a few years, it’s only been in the past year that I’ve begun to seriously query agents and…
Author: DremaDeoraich
Learning by Doing
Most targets for our submissions, whether they be online zines, print magazines or book/novel publishers, do not offer any sort of feedback when they send rejections. I understand why. With so many queries and submissions, and slush piles that may sometimes seem to rival Mt. Everest, there isn’t enough time for staffers to send personal…
The Obelisk Gate
By N. K. Jemisin Orbit, ©2016 ISBN: 978-0316229265 Paperback, 448 pages Essun never thought she’d want to settle anywhere for long. But Castrima sits like a jewel, deep underground, replete with air, lights, water, food, and a comm full of survivors in a land where the comless don’t survive a Season. Essun begins to think…
Seeding the Work
The day of the eclipse, a rabbi friend of mine posted on an interfaith newsletter how a Jewish person might get the most out of the eclipse. As I read his words I marveled at how closely his own ideas paralleled my own tendencies. Later that day, on Facebook, Pagan and Christian friends posted about…
The Fifth Season
By N. K. Jemisin Orbit, ©2015 ISBN: 987-0316229296 Paperback, 512 pages In the Stillness, a land riddled with shakes and blows and hotspots, Father Earth never forgets his hatred for humans. Here, the world ends over and over in periodic Fifth Seasons, winters triggered by seismic events whose effects linger for months, years, even decades….
What’s In a Number?
Last night I finished the book I was reading (The Moon and the Other, see Reviews page), and started N.K. Jemisin’s Fifth Season for the second time, so I can review it here. I loved it the first time, got so lost in it that I forgot to watch for style and plot points and…
The Moon and the Other
By John Kessel Saga Press, ©2017 ISBN:9781481481441 Hardback, 608 pages In the mid-22nd century, humans have colonized the Moon in multiple domed cities. One, the Society of Cousins, is notorious for its matriarchal social structure and free attitudes toward sexuality. Another, Persepolis, is the SoC’s opposite in every way that counts—government, use of space, attitudes…
Words vs. Swords
A few weeks ago, I awoke in the middle of the night with a killer opening line for a short story about a man facing a firing squad. The idea so fascinated me that I got out of my nice comfy bed and fumbled in the dark bedroom to find a pen and paper, then…
Waking Gods: Book Two of the Themis Files
By Sylvain Neuvel Del Ray/Random House. ©2016 ISBN: 9781101886717 Trade Paperback, 336 pages Nine years have passed since the formation of the Earth Defense Corps. Themis, Kara and Vincent have become parade attractions, t-shirt slogans and action figures while the science team continues to probe Themis for new technologies. Everyone has begun to believe the…
Some Assembly Required
Our new treadmill arrived Friday. Not Saturday, as we’d scheduled it, but a whole day early. I just happened to be home, fortunately, and had the delivery drivers bring it in and set the box in the living room. They expected to set it up, too, but I –Ms. Speaks-the-Truth-Even-When-I-Should-Shut-Up—told them that if they really…