Mary Robinette Kowal

If you are wondering why this exists, a group of science fiction and fantasy authors have joined forces to raise funds for Jay Lake;s struggle against cancer by committing Acts of Whimsy on the internet. These range from Cherie Priest’s Steampunk fashion show for pets to Neil Gaiman’s cover of a Magnetic Fields song on the

As many of you know, I offered an Act of Whimsy for the fundraiser to help Jay Lake. My offering was to read beloved classics as though they were phone sex. You may make a suggestion in the comments below IF YOU DONATED. Only one suggestion per comment please. List title and authors only, please.

Jay Lake is an award-winning American author of ten science fiction novels and over 300 short stories. He is also one of more than a million Americans who have colon cancer. Diagnosed in April, 2008, Jay’s cancer has progressed from a single tumor to metastatic disease affecting the lung and liver, recurring after multiple surgeries

If you’re following along as I write the novel version of Kiss Me Twice, I just posted Chapter 31.

First a digression to build suspense. I used an analog random number generator, which is among my favorites. Then I scrolled through the comments to the 29th and that was— By the way, when you are writing fiction building suspense by having your character do unnecessary digressions before revealing a crucial piece of information is a really

An interviewer just asked me to describe myself in one word and I’m totally blanking on coming up with anything that doesn’t sound horrifically pretentious. Maybe I should just go with pretentious? So… how would you describe me in one word? And while we’re at it, how would describe yourself?

What’s this? It’s the trade paperback of Glamour in Glass with all my words in it. The trade paperback is due out on January 15th, but I’m going to give a signed copy away here. Simply post in the comments here on my website by noon Central on Tuesday January 8th, and I’ll pluck a name

The back porch of our apartment is enclosed and has nice large windows and we knew, when we moved, that it would be perfect for a workshop for me. For the past eight months, the windows have been hidden behind the boxes that we had yet to unpack. If you’ve been wondering why there have

We’re back for 2013 and Season 8, so let’s start it off by answering all your questions! That’s right, it’s time for a fast-paced, lightning round of microcasting! It’s like eight very, very short podcasts in one. Why do some authors only ever come out with one or two books? What’s your process for writing fast

I…I just cleared my email box. It’s zero for the first time in AGES. I had, like 267 emails that I needed to get to and kept putting off.  I didn’t even declare email bankruptcy and archive them all. I found this thing. The Email Game. It turns answering emails into a game and, apparently,

Sara Glassman at Medusa’s Library made Without a Summer her first read of 2013 and reviews it on her blog.  It’s a lovely review. Thank heavens. Mary Robinette Kowal does an excellent job weaving the history and politics of the time into her stories. You can read the whole thing, over at Happy New Year « Medusa’s

I only wrote 113 new words today but that also finished a chapter. The tricky thing, when I hit a scene that was in the original novella, is that I can’t just plunk it into the new text. I have to cut stuff and add stuff to make it fit the new flow. So though