Blog Posts for Alma Alexander

Israeli edition

Alma Alexander — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:47:58 -0800

Israeli edition"...and Hebrews learn it backwards, which is absolutely frightening..."(Leave it to Henry Higgins...)But seriously folks. My head has just been SERIOUSLY messed with.I've just received copies of the Israeli edition of "Secrets of Jin Shei".It's absolutely "backwards", in that it's to be opened and read from left to right instead of vice versa. And ...

Award Nominations

Alma Alexander — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:19:23 -0800

The Nebula Award nominations are now open and much to my astonishment I have three short stories that people might want to consider if they feel in a nominating mood…The first is "End of the World", the story appearing in Professor Brotherton's online anthology Diamonds in the Sky, consisting of astronomically correct Science Fiction stories written by graduates of his awesome ...

Evil marshmallows at Orycon

Alma Alexander — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:37:17 -0800

Lightly enough scheduled this year – but this is where you can find me at Orycon:Fri Nov 27 3-4 pmAlternate History Fantasy? Fantasy is often written in a pseudo-medieval society. Some authors bring freshness to the setting by traveling the world, while others go backward, or forward, in time or just adopt technology or lack thereof on a secondary world. Lace and blade, prehistoric, and other ...

Chaining Your Muse

Alma Alexander — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:33:48 -0800

Somebody is advertising a product absolutely guaranteed to kill writer's block. You'll get chains that will keep your muse bound in your basement to do your bidding. Words, muse. I want words. Deliver. And it can be yours for just a Tiny! Small! Fee! For heaven's sake. Writers' block isn't a disease that needs a cure. It may come and linger temporarily in all of us, like a summer cold, but the ...

Little Miracles

Alma Alexander — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:36:53 -0700

A while ago I wrote a couple of pages of New Novel, and even before I printed them out to get a second opinion from my first editor (who is married to me, but who doesn't let that fact interfere with the sometimes brutal honesty) I knew that they were not good enough. They were dense -- four scenes of story stuffed into six paragraphs, a synopsis of what I needed to write. My instinct was ...

When writers review

Alma Alexander — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:09:35 -0700

If you are a writer who does a less-than-complimentary review of another writer's book, you run the risk of one of two things. 1) If the writer whom you are reviewing is more famous than you, your bad review might come off as sour grapes. 2) If the writer is a rung or two lower on the publishing ladder, you run the risk of of being seen as snotty and snobby I started writing book reviews ...

Shout it out!

Alma Alexander — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:49:01 -0700

It used to be, if you got picked up by a halfway-decent publishing house, your book got a publicist whose job it would be to make sure that the world knew about it. No more. Or, not so much if you aren't already a mega-star.A recent Washington Post article explores the world of the new and midlist author in the literary jungle these days. "Authors are expected to behave like ...

Twenty-one Questions

Alma Alexander — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:36:28 -0700

Sabrina Banes, a writer and former journalist in Brooklyn, has a website, YA New York ( www.yanewyork.com ), dedicated to young adult literature. She has an unusual interview technique in which the interviewee also gets to ask questions of the interviewer. Here are a couple of the questions.Alma Alexander's Worldweavers trilogy was completed earlier this year with the release of Cybermage…In ...

My first SFSignal Mind Meld

Alma Alexander — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:31:12 -0700

SF Signal asked several authors: What Book Introduced You to Fantasy? And, as usual, I couldn't limit myself to one book. Here is an abridged version of what I told them.Urban fantasy, by the likes of Charles de Lint), has always had its own fascination. Before that the two authors who drew my attention to historical fantasy were Judith Tarr and Guy Gavriel Kay.By historical fantasy, I mean an ...

On Interstitiality…

Alma Alexander — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:27:18 -0700

… and being shelved in the wrong place….It was a long time ago. A century ago. A millennium ago.Well, all right, it was in 1999.A man I met on a Usenet newsgroup concerned with writing – who became a friend, and subsequently my husband – and I collaborated on what must have one of the first few novels which could be described as "email epistolary". We each took on a character's ...