THE BIG LIE AND WHY I WILL NEVER WRITE SCIENCE FICTION by Melodie Johnson Howe It all started when I was nine years old and I became a Bluebird. I’m talking about one of those girl organizations that sell cookies and camp out in the wilderness. The Bluebird’s uniforms were great looking: little red vest, […]

SPELLING DNA by James Lincoln Warren I graduated from high school a year early — not because I was exceptionally brilliant (which movingly modest confession I don’t doubt will bring a tear to the eye of the Gentle Reader) — but because I loathed high school with a deep abiding loathing and went to summer […]

Factoids? by Leigh Lundin Amongst the glut of eMail was another of those with purported facts. This turned out to be one of the weirder ones, and I found myself wondering who comes up with these things! Some of the claims include: Alfred Hitchcock didn’t have a bellybutton. Really? Exactly how did this come to […]

THE IDEA MACHINE by John M. Floyd If you’re a fiction writer, it’s a question you’ve heard a lot, whether it was from customers at book signings or cousins at family reunions or neighbors at the grocery store: Where do you get your ideas? It’s also a question that’s been discussed at this site several […]