Non-binary genders in the real world and elsewhere

Foz Meadows of Shattersnipe.com has compiled An A-Z Of Non-Binary Genders. Real-world only and non-insulting, so do not go over there and suggest epicon or scrat. When I was first planning Requite, it became obvious that there would be people there who didn’t do the gender binary thing. As I suppose most writers do, I’d […]

A few quick links

Tom Cox talks about his covers in The Long Road To Three Good Book Covers: A Timeline. About which all I can say is that cute as the ‘actor kittens’ are, putting them on the cover instead of The Bear is like putting a sixth-former who thinks he can act a bit into King Lear […]

It’s Business Time

I decided to order business cards to take to Asylum, so that when interesting steampunk people give me their cards I can offer them mine in return, and so that in everyday life when people ask me what I do I don’t have to scribble the name of the website on the back of a […]

Romance, SF, Hybrids And Newcomers

I’ve been following with interest the discussion that started with Stuart Sharp’s piece about SF romance, and continued in various places that are mostly explained and collated in this Dear Author roundup. To declare my allegiances up front: I love romance and I love SF, and people who diss either genre around me do not […]

Any old irony

There may be a deleted scene later: I want to be able to fit it into the book, but most of what it does has already been done elsewhere and it’s not really progressing the plot. Alternatively I might asset-strip it and use the bits elsewhere. Being a writer: not unlike being a rag-and-bone man, […]

How To Be A Writer

This is an amazing post by M. Molly Backes about how to be a writer. The condensed version is: you write. But read the full version anyway, because it’s worth it. I have to say how grateful I am that my own parents practiced benign neglect when confronted with a child who was interested in […]