The biggest challenge in a sci-fi mystery is figuring out exactly what to focus on and how long to focus on it. Because the entire world is speculative, the reader usually doesn’t have a good reference point for anything you create, which means you have to describe a lot more. Descriptions of fully realized, speculative worlds is of course one of the joys of reading science fiction in the first place, so you don’t want to skimp too much on this.
Tim Chawaga – 13 August 2025 Continue reading
People are not one-dimensional but shaped by the collective experiences that have a profound impact on their lives. I love memoir, because I’m interested in other people’s experiences…which seem to be so different but, in the end, we all return to our shared humanity and our need to belong, to be loved and to understand who we are.
Sonia Daccarett – 12 August 2025 Continue reading
Both books wrestle with a fundamental question that has been very much on my mind over the last few years: “As a species, are we really so unevolved, that when facing existential challenges such as climate change we can only fall back on primitive and counterproductive responses such as tribalism, distrust of the Other, and a demand for simple answers to increasingly complex questions?” I find that truly troubling, and because it’s too depressing to believe we are indeed that limited, in my books I am suggesting there is more at work here …
Don Sawyer – 9 August 2025 Continue reading
Balancing education and entertainment is a delicate dance, but it’s incredibly rewarding.
Stacey Marshall – 8 August 2025 Continue reading
It actually stemmed from an experience I had in middle school. We were assigned by our English teacher to write a story associated with a picture we had drawn. I drew a monster that was hidden beneath the bleachers.
Jessica Marie – 6 August 2025 Continue reading
In the end I concluded that we are a society in trouble. We are stuck in our screens, commoditizing ourselves and our children, engaged in lying, manipulating, and losing our own sense of who we are. We live in social media apps pretending to be celebrities and behaving as if life is a reality TV show.
Kathleen P. Allen PhD – 3 August 2025 Continue reading
It was my way of communicating what I’m seeing as a teacher, namely, how social media has influenced the lives of teens. It is truly a project from the heart. It came to me all at once and literally poured out.
Tara Hodgson – 31 July 2025 Continue reading
Knowing that the sharing of our story was going to help others and their journey with grief made it worth while and at times come a little easier. I don’t think that I could say that any of this came easily.
Doug Lawrence – 28 July 2025 Continue reading
I love writers who made a point of showing just how much power the “underdog” characters can hold. Nothing beats a classic diamond-in-the-rough character!
Stacey Lannigan – 26 July 2025 Continue reading
A few years ago the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (where I live) held a retrospective of Louise-Élisabeth Vigée le Brun’s oeuvre. Reviewers praised the exhibit to such an extent that, despite never having heard of this artist, I went to see the show.
Judith Lissauer Cromwell – 23 July 2025 Continue reading