Reviews
I have been a voracious reader since my pre-school days. A
friend whom I first met in that pre-school likes to tell the story
nowadays about our kindergarten teacher's strategy for picking up a
bit of extra break time: she would recruit me to read the storybook
to the rest of the class while she went off to spend a few minutes
recovering from our high-spirited antics. (If memory serves,
my favorite book had to do with a large and growly bear....)
Dragon® Magazine
I was still reading at that pace twenty years later, which is how
I fell into my first professional writing gig. Among my chosen
reading matter was Dragon® Magazine, the
D&D
gamer's equivalent of Golf Digest. As
my reading list also included large piles of fantasy and SF novels,
it seemed logical to inquire with Dragon's editors
about the prospects of writing reviews of the books. After
several exchanges of material, they said "yes", and from 1984 to
1996, I wrote "The Role of Books", running in Dragon
more or less in alternate months.
Amazing Stories
Amazing has been one of the SF genre's most
long-lived magazines -- although its recent history has been
something of a roller-coaster ride. I've reviewed for the
three most recent incarnations of the magazine -- in the early 1990s
for the TSR version, as part of a triumvirate with Chuq von Rospach
and John Betancourt, several years later as sole columnist for the
version published by Wizards of the Coast, and then in 2004-05 as
one of a sizeable stable of reviewers for Paizo Publications'
re-invented magazine. If the pattern holds, the next iteration
of the magazine should appear in a couple of years, and I hope to be
on board when it rises from the dead yet again.
Other Venues
I've also reviewed for several Oregon newspapers, and for the
print and online versions of the Hugo-nominated fanzine
Tangent.
And after a break, I've recently acquired a new review outlet,
although it's a little early yet to talk about that gig in any
detail.
Authors and publishers take note:
E-mail me for information on
where to send material to be considered for review.
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I might add that although I read a great deal of fantasy and SF,
my interests are by no means limited to that genre. I also
enjoy mysteries, history (particularly ancient history, various
medieval and Elizabethan topics, and that of the Pacific Northwest),
mythology (particularly Native American), and books about stage
magic.