I wore orange yesterday to raise awareness about violence against women. The UN’s idea was that we would go out in force and people would ask why everyone wore orange. One problem: in my Oklahoma city, nobody else knew about the campaign. Yet violence against women around the world is pandemic. It’s something I address in my books and I want to share a few … Continue reading The Day After Yesterday
(Wedding Candles by Marc Chagall, one of several works stolen in PARADOX.) Looking forward a couple months, I have an opportunity to focus all my writing energy on Paradox. Each of my recent anthology publications diverted a little energy from my current work in progress. When you work a day job, that means cutting writing time. I tell stories because I need to. Like many … Continue reading #amwriting
I walk a lonely road The only one that I have ever known Don’t know where it goes But it’s home to me and I walk alone. ~ Green Day It’s a killer song, but even the “American Idiot” isn’t walking alone in it. He has his shadow, his shallow heart and the Boulevard of Broken Dreams to interact with. Nobody is ever alone. Each … Continue reading The Chemistry of This Scene
(reblogged from 6/2013 while I revise Paradox) What makes a writer? Not English degrees. Not publishing deals. Only one thing defines us: Words on paper. That’s it, really. Yes, if you want someone to actually read the words, you have to do more. If you want to make any money at it, you have to do more. But all writers have to begin in the same … Continue reading What makes a writer?
It’s a high-pitched sound, somewhere between a ringing and a rushing of water. Constantly reverberating in my left ear, it seems to be the movement of fluid through the inner canal. I didn’t think much of the sound until one day last fall when, congested from a virus, I couldn’t tell which way was up. Turns out occasional vertigo along with the ringing is a … Continue reading A Silver Lining
Lucie Smoker 