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I thought this might be a good time to do a little bit of LGBTQIA+ education. Even those of us within the community can sometimes be unaware of what affects people with identities other than our own.

It comes up periodically that someone (or usually multiple someones) take issue with the terms different parts of the community use. I’m not going to get into a spitting contest with people over it, so I’d suggest that folks do some reading on the history of different terminology. Many of the words we know now have...

This may come as a complete shock (or possibly not), but I dislike writing sex scenes. Surprising, maybe, because a fair number (okay, all) of my novels have at least a few.

My method of writing them looks like opening Scrivener, adding a blank scene, and squinting at it for an eternity before closing it and deciding to try again another day. Take two is usually a few vague sentences about who puts what parts where. By version three, I’ve added enough detail to qualify...

Everyone's heard "show, don't tell" at least once. It gets passed around in workshops, classes, and critique groups. It takes other forms, too. Sometimes it's labeled as "spoon-feeding" or "info-dumping," depending on the genre. It's probably the most common piece of writing advice ever given.

It's also the most meaningless.

"Show, don't tell" has a somewhat unfortunate history. It may be anti-communist propaganda, and it definitely has