Deus ex machina literally means “God in the machine.” My first introduction to it was as a 15 year old reading the Greek tragedy Medea. Medea kills her children, but is saved, at the last moment, by the sun god sending down a chariot to take her away. The Greeks would actually use a crane […]
Just because you are writing speculative fiction, it doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. Your readers expect a cohesive, coherent world. That is why you need rule-based worldbuilding: you set up the rules of a world, and then you stick to them. This presentation was originally given at the ANWA 2016 Time Out […]
To really optimize your author website, you need to do more than just SEO: you need to make your website content stimulating, searchable, sharable, and savable. Additionally, ideas are given for unpublished authors on how to start a website and what to blog about. This presentation was given at the ANWA Time Out For Writer’s […]
I have a new short story that was recently published. It’s called “The Last Bathroom” and it’s a superhero comedy involving extraterrestrial bugs, the end of the world, and a search for the perfect restroom. You can read it online in the August 2016 issue of Defenestration. Dreamcasting “The Last Bathroom” If “The Last Bathroom” […]
I originally wrote this as a guest post for jancipatterson.com. It’s been over a year since it was published, and a year since the release of my novelette “The Clockwork Seer,” so I’m republishing the post here. Art: “Color Cave in the Sea of Synesthesia” by garlandcannon via flickr, Creative Commons license All of us […]