Writing History, With Swordplay
I’m looking at Dorothy Dunnett’s brilliant, swashbuckling Race of Scorpions, a novel that turns about the 15th Century dynastic war in Cyprus. She is wise […]
George McWhirter to judge the Magpie Poetry Award
Who better to judge our inaugural Magpie Award for Poetry, than Vancouver’s inaugural Poet Laureate, George McWhirter? The much-lauded poet, novelist, translator and editor has […]
Trust Your Reader
To celebrate the start of our first Magpie Award poetry contest, let me honour Max Plater, a poet from my very first writer’s group who […]
Writing tips from Rumpole of the Bailey: Part 2
I’m examining the first three paragraphs of Rumpole A La Carte to see how John Mortimer gets the story going in the first three paragraphs. Right […]
A Leader in Mystery: John Mortimer’s Horace Rumpole
Part 1 I’m always boggled at how much has to be accomplished up front when writing short mysteries. Those first paragraphs are vital…(although, really, what […]
The Pleasure of Paying
Last month’s Pulp Literature bank statement came this week. It was a long one, and contained all the cleared cheques written to our Issue 1 […]
The Joy of Editing
Yes, I spent Valentine’s Day at my computer editing. No, I don’t feel guilty about this. My husband likes to see me on an editor’s […]
Point of View and the Promise of Genre
“High Commander Brennen Caldwell rushed upship from his sleeping cabin.” –Kathy Tyers, First sentence of her novel, Daystar. Marcher Lord Press, 2012. […]
Groundhog Day
As a teen, I lived in my journal. My words were the real me, my true existence, and if I ventured out into other lands, […]
Outlining with Brooks and Da Vinci
“He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.” […]