It’s been just about one full month of having my 2026 Honda Civic Sport Touring Hybrid, and I wanted to quickly give some further thoughts and opinions on it. I just went out and checked how many miles I have on it so far before writing this, and I am quite literally at 1500 miles […]

Saja wants to know what’s up! Well, my young cat, let me tell you: OpenAI says its “AI” hacked another “AI” company, apparently just for funsies: No, really, that’s the gist of it. OpenAI put the “AI” into a sandbox in order to test its capabilities, it escaped from the sandbox and then hacked another […]

There is art all around us, and poetry can be found in places you’d never expect. Author Ali Trotta speaks on the true power of poetry in the Big Idea for her newest poetry collection, Offerings for Ordinary Gods. ALI TROTTA: I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of who gets to their story. (Before […]

Left North Carolina early in the morning, made it back home to Ohio a little after 2pm, and along the way drove through just about every summer weather pattern short of an actual hurricane or tornado. One does forget how immensely large this country is, and also how lovely it is to boot. But now […]

It’s the one at my hotel, and it doesn’t look like it’s been used the entire summer long. Which kinda makes sense, this is an airport hotel, after all, and thus, I expect, not a hotbed of competitive traveling beach sports. I still give the hotel points for trying. ConGregate 12 (the convention I was […]

We all hear voices in our brain, but what if they were coming from your other heads?!? Author John Wiswell’s main character is a multi-headed dragon with a lot of contradicting opinions. Though a dragon, you may find his inner turmoil more relatable than you’d expect. Take flight in his Big Idea for The Dragon Has […]

It’s very warm here today, but at least there is shade. I spent the day traveling here in order to be part of the ConGregate science fiction convention this weekend. I will have panels and do other stuff! If you’re in the neighborhood, come on down. — JS

Out here in the boonies, many of our neighbors have golf carts that they use for very short trips not on the official roads, like going to visit friends, or hauling their trash cans from their houses at the end of a long driveway to the curb, and then back again. Krissy has always wanted […]

I like to play pickleball with my mom in the mornings. It’s not an everyday thing, but when we do, I enjoy it. Every time we play, I always notice the ants on the court. It’s really only when I bend down to pick the ball up, but I always see them scurrying away from […]

Though the author of The Curve of the World has passed, her story lives on. Her editor, Nisi Shawl, is here to take us through what she believes Vonda N. McIntyre’s Big Idea was. Let’s have a look, and pay our respects in the process. NISI SHAWL (EDITOR): We may never truly know what the Big Idea […]

Yesterday, I wanted a canister of nuts as a snack from Kroger, and I bought this Blue Diamond Honey Roasted Almond, Cashew, & Pistachio Mix. I love honey roasted nuts, and cashews and pistachios are two of my favorite nuts, so it sounded like a great mix. It was ten dollars. When I opened it […]

The world makes up stories and stories make up the world. Author Arvind Ethan David aims to challenge the narrative of some of these stories in the Big Idea for his newest novel, The Great Game. Follow along as he tells you about some of the greats, and questions if they’re really all they’re cracked up […]

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you might remember one of my posts from just over five years ago showcasing a brand called Waxing Kara that sold honey, candles, tea, and skincare products. Well, I’m happy to say their brand is doing better than ever, and has actually changed to Bee Inspired. […]

If you read this site regularly, then you’ll know in the past year there’s been a marked increase in “AI” spam and scams designed to try to con writers (generally, and in the emails that come here, me specifically) into sending money off to strangers for various marketing services. At this point these emails are […]

What now? South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham Dead: And it must be said, not especially missed by most people on Bluesky and Threads, although I have to admit not going to X to see how the bots there are reacting to his passing. I remember him mostly for not having a spine with regard to […]

These days, Sam Bisbee is an Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated producer of film and television, but at the turn of the century, he was trying his hand at being a musician, releasing a few alt-rock albums that I thought were pretty good, even if rock and roll stardom eventually eluded him. One of my favorite songs of […]

How many weeds do you have to whack before the weeds tell you to knock it off? In author Jo Miles new sci-fi novel, there might be more than meets the eye to a stubborn, vegetation filled planet. Grab a machete and hack your way through the Big Idea for The Final Chronicle of Yeneh. […]

Oh God, here we go again: Trump’s New Air Force One is a Sitting Duck: More specifically, it “lacks the defensive measures of the previous model,” which might be an issue when one has foolishly started an unnecessary war with an enemy that feasibly has the capability to at least take a fair shot at […]

“Innocent until proven guilty” isn’t always as black and white as it may seem in some cases. Author Bryan Gruley takes a look at what happens when other factors are at play in a seemingly open and shut case of murder. Plunge into the icy depths of the Big Idea for his newest novel, River Deep. […]

At the time one didn’t think of it, because of course one never does at the time, but looking back from the vantage point of 40+ years, “this “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was one of the most 80s songs with one of the most 80s videos that ever 80ed the 80s. Bonnie Tyler! Jim […]

Death is a rather big part of life, so it makes sense that author Haralambi Markov kept writing about it, whether that was intentional on his part or not. In the Big Idea for his newest collection of short stories, Markov talks about his own experience with mental illness and death that contributed to this […]

UPDATE: They’re claimed! Thank you! (The Short Version: Athena rescued two adorable kittens near her home here in Ohio but cannot keep them and is offering them free to a home who will take them as a package deal. They have been to the vet, are healthy, have been vaccinated and gotten rid of fleas […]

The action of writing does not require artistry, but the artistry of writing requires action. That action being sitting down and actually doing it, even if it is hard. Writing coach April Dávila is here today to introduce some new methods that are sure to get you focused and motivated so that you can, as […]

Well, this has been a day, hasn’t it? I’m going to be brief about all of it: Graham Platner Accused of Rape: I think Chris Kluwe got the right of this one on Bluesky: I personally kinda tapped out with the Nazi tat, because I was pretty sure at that point that nothing good was […]

Happy Day After Independence Day! It’s on a Sunday, which means you have time to recuperate! Well, it’s over now: Happy to say this weekend’s event was one that brought an entire nation together, and, for a moment, healed its wounds as we celebrated the potential and promise of the future, and all the good […]

Starting today and going for the next three weeks or so, 22 of my books are up on Humble Bundle, and this time my selected charity is World Central Kitchen, which, true to the name, goes around the world, feeding people in disaster areas and war zones. They deserve the money! You deserve the books! […]

Earlier this year we had a rather unfortunate incident involving our 25-year-old stand-up freezer, in which the condenser failed while the thing was full of frozen things, which quickly became rather disgustingly unfrozen. The clean-up was stinky and terrible and no fun at all. Also, we needed to get a new freezer. Krissy got that […]

It’s currently 93 degrees here (Fahrenheit), but thanks to the humidity the heat index means it feels like 106 (41 Celsius), or so the weather report in my phone tells me, the one that also tells me we have an extreme heat warning through eight PM. I went out in this stuff because I checked […]

In no particular order: 1. No, I’m not feeling particularly engaged with the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, but that’s mostly because a malignant narcissist decided to make a national celebration mostly about himself, and that malignant narcissist is also an actual fascist, so that kind of sucked all the fun out of it […]

“What belongs to the sea will always return to the sea.” Author Clara Ward has always been drawn to the ocean, spent time teaching others about the ocean, and now has featured the ocean in their newest novel, Dream the Deep. Dive into their Big Idea to see how deep the water goes. CLARA WARD: Science […]