It’s been a while since we’ve done a roundup of book banning news, because it’s so freaking depressing. Buckle in, folks, and grab the mood-altering beverage of your choice. (Mine: coffee.) The title comes from a nastygram I got on social media this week for pointing out yet another round of book banning. I got…
Category: books/publishing
BookNotes: Adults only, and only what we say
Guess what, kids? Don’t bother reading! Ever! That’s the message in Idaho, as new laws requiring a certain amount of insulation between the children’s section and adult books cannot be achieved in the Donnelly Public Library because the building is literally too small. So now the library will be adults-only. Children not allowed. Oh,…
BookNotes: It’s a hell of a week in Book Land
South Carolina and Arkansas have eliminated AP African American history classes, in case you were thinking the ongoing tide of book banning was solely about getting naughty books away from minors. The governors of Florida and Illinois are loudly arguing about Florida’s “revisions” to history. Pritzker is fighting DeSantis before the College Board, advocating for…
Dreadmire rises from the dead!
It’s aliiiiiive! The anniversary re-release of Dreadmire is now available online and wherever fine books are sold. Excerpt: None of them were really muka anymore. Once Alesia had thought only the craziest of hermits would voluntarily remain in Dreadmire. Why would anyone choose such a filthy, wild, barbaric place inhabited by such strange and dangerous creatures? Why…
A haunted swamp, a dancer and the Angel of Death…
It sounds like the opening of a joke, but there are three new items up for order (or preorder) this month! First: We are now accepting preorders for Dreadmire, the 15th anniversary edition of my first quest fantasy. It’s a dark one – not for the kiddos – and I’ve always had a great fondness for…
BookNotes: Nevermore
Today’s top read: The Estrogen Zone, or how women pioneered creative nonfiction before it was even a thing. All the way back to Nellie Bly, women like Joan Didion, Rachel Carson, Gail Sheehy, and others had to deal with the most rank sexism to fight their way out of the “flamingo pink” women’s pages…
BookNotes: AI and book banning, once again.
This week’s roundup in book news is pretty much all AI and book banning, but we do have some fun stuff first: • A postdoc teaching associate at Northwestern University believes he has found about 20 stories and poems he believes were authored by Louisa May Alcott, previously unknown. They were ghost stories and even…
New items in the store!
First: We are about to stock copies of parABnormal Magazine, December 2023 edition, which includes an original short story by moi. We only have a small quantity coming in and likely won’t be available for long, so if you want one, you might want to snag it soon! Click here to order. Also, the site…
Jolabokaflod – wait, what?
I’ve seen that meme about Christmas Eve in Sweden – or is it Finland? – where traditionally everyone gets a book on Christmas Eve and they all snuggle up under blankets, drink cocoa and read. It’s called Jolabokaflod, meaning “Christmas Flood of Books” which doesn’t sound nearly as cool in English. This is a holiday…
New story pending…
I’m happy to announce that my short story “Azrael” has been picked up by parABnormal Magazine (Hiraeth Publishing). “Azrael” is a funky little story with a weird genesis. I was sitting in one of my favorite coffeehouses, happily typing away with a cup of caffeine beside me. A young man walked up to my table…