New Story Collections: Heroes, Apocalypse, Loyalty and Betrayal
Embarrassment is a poor motivation for writing, so I won’t be ashamed about how little readers have seen of me over the past few years. I haven’t been wasting my time – I’ve edited dozens of amazing novels, helped to plan two Waukesha County Sustainability Fairs, and found out this online dating thing might be all it’s cracked up to be (even if it means off-line interactions require an hour-long drive. I’m taking audiobook recommendations, by the way!). All...
Read MoreBefore Editing: A Recommended Reading List
Part of being an editor is noticing patterns—the motion of a character arc, the raveling of a resolution, or the fact that the past five paragraphs have all started with the same word. Here’s another pattern: I’ve been recommending certain articles and books to almost every client I work with, year after year. So why not share them here once and for all? These 12 short articles and 6 books delve into the writing techniques I comment on most frequently. Many of them formed the core of my own...
Read MoreWelcome 2018! (What I read in 2017 and where you can find me this year)
During the fresh, can-do spirit of the beginning of a new year, it seems like a good time to have another swing at writing for this blog! As I expected last year, blogging hasn’t been my biggest priority, though I’m glad I was able to get some book reviews and publication announcements in last year. So what HAVE I been doing? Fair question! Two big things, mostly: reading, and being paid for reading. (That is, copyediting. And also writing, of course!) 2017 was the first year I...
Read MoreCan you help find my dad’s lost paintings?
Hello, all, and happy Labor Day weekend! After the Sustainability Fair (which was awesome), I have some time to take on another project. And it’s this: I’m on a scavenger hunt for my late father’s paintings. They were accidentally donated before he passed away, probably to the St Vincent de Paul shop in West Bend (we think in 2015, but could be anytime between December 2013-August 2016). They’re oil on canvas in a range of sizes. It would be wonderful to have these...
Read MoreThe First Green Alliance Sustainability Fair is this Saturday!
If you’re in Southeastern Wisconsin this weekend and interested in learning more about environmental sustainability, I hope you’ll stop by this event to check out the exhibits, presentations, guided hikes, even the rock climbing wall and drum circles. The Sustainability Fair has been more than a year in the making–and as part of the planning team behind it, I sometimes wonder if we only got so far because we didn’t stop to think about the scale of what we were creating!...
Read MoreBook Review: The Unholy Consult by R. Scott Bakker
The final book in any great series has a certain weight. Often literally. When I unwrapped my review copy of The Unholy Consult (many thanks to Overlook Press), it was as substantial as I could wish. Yet a lot of that weight is appendices–including two short stories, maps, and a glossary more than 100 pages long. The story itself is just 450 pages. At first glance, this seems too short given everything that’s gone before. And it is. Alternatively, the “Second...
Read MoreHeroic Fantasy Author Q&A, Bonus
Flame Tree Publishing has posted the second part of its Q&A with the authors of the stories in Heroic Fantasy. This time, we talk about our writing and editing methods and recommend some of our favorite reads in the genre. Take a look and something might inspire you! Though each author answered both questions, method and favorite stories, only one of our answers could be shared because of space constraints. So here’s my favorite heroic fantasy: When I was writing my first...
Read MoreHeroic Fantasy Author Q&A
Flame Tree Publishing’s gorgeous hardcover Heroic Fantasy anthology will be released July 31st. As the date approaches, contributors are sharing the inspirations behind our stories at the Flame Tree blog. From writing challenges to a love of H.P. Lovecraft and Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog to pure stubbornness because someone said you should never do something, it’s a interesting peak under the hood. Previews of the book are available in Flame Tree’s store. Heroic...
Read MoreBook Review: The Great Ordeal by R. Scott Bakker
The Great Ordeal–penultimate volume of the Aspect Emperor No-Longer-A-Trilogy, the conclusion of which, The Unholy Consult, was released yesterday–is not only a compelling novel but also very useful as a physical object. A nine-inch by six-inch by three-inch rectangle with the words THE GREAT ORDEAL across the front in an emphatic font is basically the world’s best portable Demotivator. I read this book at the tail end of 2016. Which was not, by any possible standards, a...
Read MoreA Checklist to Start Publishing Short Fiction
This post originally went live on Fictionvale in 2014 and was reprinted in Short Story Writer Magazine. Unfortunately, Fictionvale has since closed and the article is no longer available online. I’m taking the opportunity to repost it while I’m moving to my new apartment and have less time available to blog. While it’s focused on writing short fiction, the advice may also be helpful to novelists, article writers, artists, and anyone curious about how publishing works on the...
Read MoreAbout Therese
Therese Arkenberg's first short story was accepted for publication on January 2, 2008, and her second acceptance came a few hours later. Since then they haven't always been in such a rush, yet her work appears in places like Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Analog, Daily Science Fiction, and the anthology Sword & Sorceress XXIV. Aqua Vitae, her science fiction novella, was released by WolfSinger Publications in December 2011.
She works as a freelance editor and writer in Wisconsin, where she returned after a brief but unforgettable time in Washington, D.C. When she isn't reading, writing, or editing (it's true!) she serves on the board of the Plowshare Center of Waukesha, which works for social, economic, and environmental justice.