Back from the Big Apple

My wife and I took our children to the east coast last week for a nice family getaway involving museums, a musical, subway rides, fine dining, and excellent company. I have a few anecdotes to share later this week that might be of interest, but tonight I simply wanted to log in and share a couple of interesting links.

First, while I was away last week writer friend (and fellow Pathfinder author) Elaine Cunningham posted an interesting essay about speculative fiction characters who aren’t white, and cultural appropriation. I was in New York when most of the conversation was going on, but I dropped by to add my own two cents earlier today. You can find her essay here.

My friend Nathan Long, writer of the Waar books, and some Gotrek and Felix novels, not to mention the fabulous Blackhearts books and other tasty stuff, put up a post on fantasy world building that’s likely to be of great interest to many writers of fantasy and science fiction. You can find it here, and the conversation is just getting under way if you want to join in.

On the long drive to New York I read the family The Graveyard Book, and on the long drive back, my wife read us Watership Down. I already knew both were excellent books, but I did not realize how fine both sound when read aloud. The best writing often has a rhythm and meter to it so that the prose has an ebb and flow.