Reprise….

Because I just can’t watch this too often. Dance, kitties, dance!Have a great week, everyone!

How big is too big?

I’ve finished – at least I think I’ve finished – the first draft of Probable Claws. It’s a little over 85,000 words. Is that too big?Tomorrow I start reading it through to see if it makes sense.

The Gossip

The band, not the dirt, that is. But for any reader out there who wonders what Violet Hayes’s band sounds like, well, if this guitarist were a short woman with purple hair, this would be it:

Slightly overstuffed, but fun

“A Carrion Death,” Michael Stanley’s debut, resembles its protagonist, Detective Kubu. Sensory overload, but in a good way.Speaking of… I just had one of those marvelous moments that you writers will recognize. Partly, it’s that I was...

Amphibimania, part 2!

Another cool frog story! You know I love my frogs and toads!So, if this dude (Barbourula kalimantanensis) had a fight with the giant toad (Beelzebufo), who would win? What if the fight was in the water, so Beelzebufo couldn’t come up for air?

David Simon on the birth of “The Wire”

From the same Boston Phoenix blog, or “phlog,” this tidbit from Kafka’s letters, about housebreaking his cat:“How hard it is to arrive at an understanding with an animal on this question. There seem to be only misunderstandings, for the cat knows,...