Before you read today’s post, please note: This can be a sensitive topic. It’s one in which someone may find offense, so please, please know that everything herein is from my own personal search. I offer my words with the utmost regard for individuals and groups involved, and with genuine curiosity about how to portray…
Author: DremaDeoraich
Finding My Niche
Last week I attended the 9th Annual Hampton Roads Writers Conference. It was my fifth year at that event, where I always learn something new. This year, I finally realized I’m not the only one who feels awkward at those sorts of things. Oh I’ve done large events plenty of times, years ago when I…
The Stone Sky
By N. K. Jemisin Orbit, ©2017 ISBN: 987-0316229241 Paperback, 464 pages A change is coming. Whether for better or for worse, Essun cannot tell, but she has a plan to nudge astronomical events toward the side of humanity’s survival. She knows what it will mean for her, but no price is too great to pay….
Connecting With My Tribe
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…
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…