List: What’s surprised me most about Ghana
When I was younger, and I wasn’t sure what to write but I knew I wanted to write something, I would make lists–to keep my thoughts in order, to generate some brainstorming, to summarize or highlight my ideas. I have a jumble of ideas and memories from Ghana, so one way to sort them out–and give a preliminary taste of my trip–is to give you a list. A list of the things that most surprised me on my first trip abroad: *The Handshake. One of my classmates had spent the...
Read MoreWolfSongs 2 is EPIC’s 2013 Best Anthology!
Another exciting piece of news I missed sharing while I was away. WolfSongs 2, a collection of science fiction and fantasy incorporating wolves of all sorts–from the mythological to shapeshifters to metaphorical–has won EPIC 2013’s award for best anthology. This second volume in a popular series (and the origin of the name of my publisher, WolfSinger) contains my fantasy not-exactly-romance “The Loving and Keeping of Wolves,” which...
Read MoreDaughters of Icarus released!
One of the exciting things I was away from (doing even more exciting things, so I can’t be too sorry) was the release of Pink Narcissus Press’s feminist science fiction anthology, Daughters of Icarus. This collection of stories exploring future possibilities of sex and gender includes my piece, “Two Rivers”. As ForeWord Reviews has it: In “Two Rivers,” by Therese Arkenberg, researchers travel to a planet to study people whose unusual characteristics include a third...
Read MoreI’m Home!
And extremely jetlagged! I arrived back in the states at 5 am yesterday, landing at JFK in New York, and was in D.C. by noon. I spent most of yesterday clearing through the 300+ emails that had built up over the trip, some of them bearing good news I’ll have to share later! Most of my energy went towards replying to notes from family and friends, before I logged off, ate an early dinner, and managed to stumble to bed before falling asleep in my dessert. I’ve drafted some blog posts...
Read MoreMaking Promotional Bookmarks–from Postcards!– on VistaPrint
Before visiting WisCon last year, I printed a set of 400 bookmarks to distribute promoting my work (including my ebook Aqua Vitae). The bookmarks were designed by a friend, the multitalented Matthew Luckow, and printed using VistaPrint. Side A shows a crop of Aqua Vitae’s cover, with a narrow cream-colored border that isn’t revealed in this image. The back side has a logline/description, reviewer quote, and link to the book’s page on WolfSinger’s site. In the end...
Read MoreFarewell, I’m off to Ghana!
Tomorrow morning I meet with the rest of my class for a last-minute orientation and packing of certain supplies, and then in the afternoon we head to Baltimore Washington International Airport, from there to JFK in New York, and from thence to Accra, where we’ll arrive early Thursday. Making this my last blog post for some time. I hasten to point out that they do have internet access in Ghana. The country as a whole is completely into the 21st century, and they have more cell phones than...
Read MoreHeads-up to my email contacts
This morning I logged into my Yahoo! account to see 45 autoreplies and failure notices…for emails I hadn’t sent. Yes, I’ve been hacked. I think I recognize the particular method of hacking, as I’ve been receiving those spam email messages (titled, as it happens “message” in the subject bar) for a week or so now from another friend’s account. I thought I’d taken care to avoid clicking anything inside them, but, well. I’ve changed my password...
Read MoreSpring Break
I’ve returned home to Wisconsin for one last visit with my family and to get ready for the trip to Ghana! My mother and I spent yesterday running errands and picking up supplies. The above isn’t everything we’ve got, but it’s a good start. I’m especially pleased with the knee-length, flowing & cool, olive-colored skirt. It’s modest for any events and speakers we’ll be visiting in more conservative communities, but also rather pretty and it feels...
Read MoreProgress Update and How To Write A Lot
One of the sweetest perks of my internship is waivers for classes at the Writers Center of Bethesda. Today I attended the evocatively titled “How to Write A Lot”. The gist of the advice was simple–set deadlines, outline first, do not revise or reread on your first draft, write every day, keep your fingers moving (no staring blankly at an equally blank page or screen)–and there were some nifty tips I hadn’t heard before, like using Pavlovian conditioning to make...
Read MoreChallenge Accepted: The RPG-style To-Do List
A few weeks ago, a friend pointed me to GetYeDone.com, an interactive, fantasy game style online to-do list. You start by signing up and preparing a character sheet, complete with race, class, and skills/attributes. Then you launch your quest: whether it’s schoolwork, housekeeping, finding a job or managing the workload you already have, now you can get your daily dose of accomplishment! In each quest you can list a gathering of tasks (quests themselves can be grouped in meta...
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.