Leave a comment on today’s post, over at Mutterings,and you have a chance at winning a copy of the Garment of Shadows ARC. Water is the reason for Fez. It is the source of a hundred springs, which means every large house has its courtyard fountain, every street corner its public fountain: And as if the suq’s guiding spirit…
Read MoreLeave a comment on today’s post, over at Mutterings,and you have a chance at winning a copy of the Garment of Shadows ARC. Russell wanders the Fez medina: And the wares on offer! One street held shops displaying tall cones of varicoloured powder, from the deep red of paprika to brilliant yellow turmeric, interspersed with vendors…
Read MoreLeave a comment on today’s post, and you have a chance at winning a copy of the Garment of Shadows ARC. Today’s photo is a bit of a cheat, since it’s not a place Russell actually enters in the story, although it is mentioned. She is following a trio of English women through the medina,…
Read MoreEight weeks until Garment of Shadows! That’s right, the countdown has begun, the newsletter is going out, the contests are continuing, and people are champing at bits. Are you one of them? Well, stop please, it’s hard on your teeth. Instead, why don’t you post a comment here? If you do that, you might be…
Read MoreIn 1997, which my fingers tell me was 15 years ago, I moved house. I was then part of a family with two adults and a pair of high-school aged kids, and part of the reason we came here was the room. There’s now me. And the family center has shifted to the northern end…
Read MoreRandom House did a fabulous giveaway over at Goodreads last month. (Sorry, everyone who won and is now writing me to say they stayed up until 3 in the morning. And sorry, too, everyone who didn’t win, and got a full night’s sleep instead.) Now they’ve set aside another dozen Advanced Reading Copies to give…
Read MoreA writer with a book on the brink of publication always holds her breath until the first shoe drops: will reviewers like the new book? Or will this be the one that exposes me for a fraud and a wastrel? Instead of the shoe dropping, will its owner come pounding down the stairs and stomp…
Read MoreThis is what the side of my house generally looks like when the sun is low in the sky, the light coming through the oak leaves: And here is what the wall looked like tonight, as the moon slipped in front of the sun, turning the circles of light to arcs:
Read MoreI said in the rules of the contest that mention of one of my books wouldn’t give a person any extra points, but… I loved the depiction of childhood glee in Susan M’s piece, since who wouldn’t love a secret passageway into a world of books? But honestly, I had to recognize Kathy Eliot, who…
Read MoreThe fourth winner in last month’s library contest is Beth Anne, whose piece offers insight into the richness and humanity of archival research. Archival research usually consists of long stretches of boredom punctuated by tedium, until bits of evidence start to tumble out of the documents. There is nothing like this sense of discovery, which…
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