Living With Imposter Syndrome–Guest Post Live on Fictionvale!
The first mercy of impostor syndrome, in my experience at least, is that it isn’t constant. Instead it attacks at intervals, at moments of either my deepest despair or highest success. Of course success attracts this psychological beastie’s attention: in the grips of impostor syndrome, my jerky brain is happy to dismiss any achievement as a fluke or a fraud. I’ve either tricked people into thinking I can write, or they’ve reviewed my manuscript favorably from pity for someone so pathetically...
Read MoreAll the Grammar Knowledge You Need for NaNo
National Novel Writing Month is not the time to become a grammar expert. The entire idea of this challenge is to stop worrying and write, that is, to churn out 1600+ words of prose each day, prose whose main glory is that it exists, not that it is perfect. Stopping to study capitalizing, punctuation, and sentence structure can only be a distraction, and probably a dispiriting one. That said, NaNoWriMo is also not a great time to be slowed down by worrying whether you’ve punctuated this...
Read MoreNew Release: Different Dragons II
“Of the Generation” has been reprinted in WolfSinger Publication’s Different Dragons II, a collection of cliche-busting dragon stories. To celebrate the new release, WolfSinger is offering a 25% discount through Createspace— follow the link and enter discount code TGERED9J at checkout. For those who prefer ebooks, the Smashwords coupon code ED26N will also give you a 25% discount at checkout. Both codes are valid only until October 15, so move...
Read MoreThe Ada Initiative and ‘Citizen Editors’
It might be good for the world, though temporarily stressful for one’s marriage, to edit an anthology together, as Leonard and I discovered when we created and published our speculative fiction anthology Thoughtcrime Experiments together in 2009. Despite the risks, maybe you should become an editor. “Reader” and “writer” and “editor” are tags, not categories. If you love a subject, and you have some money and some time, you can haul under-appreciated work into wider...
Read MoreFictionvale pub announcement!
My fantasy story “Eisiden’s Sister” has appeared in Fictionvale’s 4th episode. The third published piece featuring swordsman Rathin and wizard Anweth, it actually takes place towards the end of their timeline–and features a major twist in their circumstances. Also keep an eye out for my guest post on the Fictionvale blog early next week. It’ll be a quick checklist to getting started publishing short fiction. I’m glad of the opportunity to guest...
Read MoreEditing Gift Cards!
They’re here! I’ve printed off this lovely bunch because I’m offering 10,000 words of line-by-line editing as an auction item at the Plowshare Center of Waukesha’s Fashionably Fair Trade fundraiser this September. But gift certificates are also available for any wordcount and any occasion–and can be delivered electronically as well as in hard copy. I can even custom design the gift card for you to print out or email them. If you’re lost on gift...
Read MoreRummage and Toil
After almost a month back in Wisconsin, I’m relearning my way around my hometown’s streets. I was out for three hours today, visiting the post office and (of course) library, gathering blackberries at the park, and visiting a mere handful of the infinite rummage sales being advertised along the road. As I followed the bright orange and glo-in-the-dark green signs down obscure back roads in sunny but fairly empty subdivisions, I realized this would make an excellent setup for a...
Read MoreNews and forthcoming reviews
Well! This past June 8, I celebrated a birthday by touring Mt Vernon and leading my mom on a perhaps ill-advised adventure to the Bake Shop at Clarendon for macaroons (fittingly, they had Birthday Cake flavor). Ill-advised because our GPS satellites konked out on the return journey, leaving a woman from Wisconsin and a woman unfamiliar with driving in D.C. to navigate our way back to the hotel. I began to suspect some force didn’t want me to leave the Washington metro area. But, whatever...
Read More“The Witch Hunter’s Account” in Nameless Magazine
Nameless Digest Issue #3 contains, among many other fine stories, my “Witch Hunter’s Account.” Like “The Astrologer’s Telling,” published in Daily Science Fiction last month, “The Witch Hunter’s Account” was inspired by one of Lovecraft’s favorite authors, Arthur Machen, and is also a response to Lovecraftian cosmic horror, again with fewer tentacles and, I like to think, less xenophobia than Lovecraft. Hmm, actually, scratch that bit...
Read More“The Astrologer’s Telling” up at Daily Science Fiction
…charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low.Ever since I first encountered that nightmare image, from H.P. Lovecraft’s prose-poem “Nyarlathotep,” I have wanted to write a story about the stars going out. A morbid urge? Absolutely. But there’s a certain virtue in morbidity; it makes me thoughtful and perhaps compassionate, if that’s a thing a writer of apocalyptic fiction can be. And so “The Astrologer’s...
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.