NEWS
Hurricane Moon gets good reviews on the websites of
The National Space Society
and
The Washington Post. I like the Post calling my book overall "a resonant achievement." In the January/February 2008 issue of Analog, Tom Easton writes a favorable review with the comment, "... an unusually character and relationship-focused novel for SF."
My fantasy story "Grass Lion "appears in the February-April 2008 issue of Sorcerous Signals.
My story "The Mortification of the Flesh" appears in the anthology Horrors Beyond 2 - Stories of Strange Creations just out from Elder Signs Press.
Signing, Book Touring, and All
I had a hometown book signing in COLUMBUS,GEORGIA on Saturday, January 5
at the Waldenbooks in Peachtree Mall.
Houston Writers Festival.
Writers were the main attraction on November 17 at the Galleria Barnes and Noble
in Houston. In the course of the day there were 20 writers and poets in the store.
It was a joy to meet some interesting readers - and the other writers!
To my great delight, I'm hearing from readers who like Hurricane Moon. They include science fiction readers and others who usually read mainstream,
fantasy, romance, or mystery. So on October 19 I appeared at Houston's mystery bookstore Murder by the Book, along with other writers in The Final Twist. That's the local chapter of Sisters in Crime - and a wonderful writers' group.
On Sunday August 19, I did a signing at the St. Steven's Episcopal Church Havens Community Center in Houston. This event happened thanks to the generous enthusiasm of several fellow parishioners. They even procured floral arrangements color-coordinated with the cover of the book.
I was a program participant at Conestoga July 20-22, the North American Science Fiction Convention in St. Louis August 2-5, and ArmadilloCon in Austin August 10-11, and enjoyed these fine conventions very much indeed.
Copies of Hurricane Moon have been shipped to bookstores. And to me. And it's wonderful to hold a copy of my novel in the form it was always meant to have.
After years of being notes, sketches, Word documents, printouts with comments scribbled in all colors of ink; notebooks and binders with the MSS formatted and printed out
for friends to read; the final draft boxed up to go to my agent in the mail; a digital MSS e-mailed to the editor and then sent to the publisher on CD's; the copy edited
manuscript, electronic galleys in PDF, and Xeroxed galleys, now finally, simply, it's a book.
The first three chapters are online at Pyr.
Don D'Ammassa reviews Hurricane Moon on his Critical Mass website, and has nice things to say. Including this: "Extremely well written, tightly plotted, full of that old fashioned sense of wonder about the universe." It's a very good feeling when a reviewer seems to have read the same book that the writer intended to write. There are a lot of reasons why it doesn't always pan out that way - but how wonderful when it does.
Hurricane Moon got an excellent review in Publisher's Weekly (scroll to the SF/Fantasy/Horror section).
Take a look at Hurricane Moon's wonderful, complete cover painting by Brian W. Dow. Go to http://pyrsf.blogspot.com/2006/10/for-your-viewing-pleasure-hurricane.html.
Hello and welcome to my web site.
I write speculative fiction and belong to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). I also work at the Rice University Library in Houston, Texas and teach creative writing through Rice University's School of Continuing Studies.
When not making flights of the mind - i.e., stories - my favorite activity is flying sailplanes. I have a private pilot glider rating and friends who own wonderful power planes. So the sky always beckons.
I also write nonfiction. My articles on academic and technical as well as aviation-related topics have appeared in international, national, and regional print and online magazines. I edit and do some business-related and public relations writing too.
I have an MA in Systematic Theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. At the GTU, I affiliated with the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. There I was able to explore the relationship between religion and science before I started writing science fiction. My science fiction and fantasy tends to have theological or spiritual angles.
