________________________Dear reader,I'm currently sitting in an almost-empty English classroom. School is in session, and I have a lesson prepared, but less than a third of the normal number of kids are here. The rooms are barren. The hallways silent...
________________________Dear reader,I need your help settling a bet.Here's the context: the other day I got into a fight with one of my students. No, not that kind of a fight. Calm down. It was one of those "kid, I respect you, and you're totally ent...
___________________Dear reader,When life gets you down, what do you do? When it's a million degrees outside, and politics resemble the fall of the Roman republic, and that bloody thistle keeps growing back in the crack in your driveway no matter how...
_______________________Dear reader,As a nerdy author guy, I definitely spend a lot of time thinking about story structure. The Three Act Play, Freytag's Pyramid, the Hero's Journey: all of them live rent-free in my head pretty much 24/7.Of late, that...
____________________________Dear reader,Like most of you out there, I recently saw Dune: Part 2. But unlike most of you, I walked away with one, distinct, burning question on my mind...Why the heck doesn't fantasy have more megafauna?I mean, just thi...
_________________________Dear reader,As you know, it was Valentine's Day last week, and (like any self-respecting high school teacher) I did my darnedest to spoil the whole hormonal affair for my kids.We discussed its pagan roots to Roman Lupercalia...
___________________________Dear reader,Back in 2017, we here in the Treasure Valley were hit by a ferocious series of winter storms which we all lovingly dubbed "Snowmageddon" (or the "Snowpocalypse" if you were in Canyon County).With this year shapi...
___________________________Dear reader, You know how I know I'm a fantasy nerd? I can't just sit back and enjoy the holiday season without relating it to world-building... Brace yourself. Whenever things start getting festive, my mind...
___________________________Dear reader,Happy Thanksgiving all!First off, I'd like to thank each of you that were able to attend my writing workshop a few weeks back. It was an absolute blast, and the session completely sold out with quite a few still...
_______________________________________________________Dear reader,I've got some pretty neat news for all of you in the Boise/Treasure Valley area. On November 16th, I'll be teaching a writing workshop through a local organization called The Cabin. M...
