Author Archives: John Walters

“Dark Mirrors” in Alien Invasion: Short Stories

I’m pleased to announce that one of my personal favorites among my short stories, “Dark Mirrors,” has just been reprinted in a hardcover anthology with a beautiful embossed cover called Alien Invasion: Short Stories. It’s part of the impressive Gothic … Continue reading

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Book Review: Everfair by Nisi Shawl

I’ve come across Nisi Shawl’s short stories from time to time, including one set in the Everfair universe. This is her first novel. In it, she posits an alternate history in which Europeans and Americans purchase a tract of land … Continue reading

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A Second Look: Dark Mirrors: Dystopian Tales

When it malfunctions, a teacher discovers a microchip implanted within her forehead which was designed to eradicate her free will.  She determines to rescue the orphaned children in her care from a similar fate. In the aftermath of a conflict … Continue reading

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Book Review: I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

This is a wonderful, exciting, amazing, and important book. It’s one of those world-changing special books that rarely comes along. It celebrates freedom, education for all, and women’s rights while at the same time telling a horrendous story of oppression, … Continue reading

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Book Review: No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula Le Guin was one of my instructors at Clarion West 1973. It’s a shame I don’t remember very much about my Clarion experience; but after all, that was about 45 years ago and I had just turned twenty. I … Continue reading

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A Second Look: After the Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Memoir of Greece

Greece has always been regarded as the birthplace of western civilization and a Mediterranean paradise.  In The Iliad and The Odyssey Homer uses the magical epithet rosy-fingered dawn to describe the sunrise over a land of myth, fascination, and mystery.  … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

It was a real one-two punch to read this novel right after reading the powerful collection of essays We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The novel brings to vivid life much of what Coates … Continue reading

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Book Review: We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I acquired this book, knowing nothing about it at the time, because I saw the title on a list of finalists for a major literary award. Now, having read it, I recognize it as an important work from an important … Continue reading

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A Second Look: Painsharing and Other Stories

After nuclear war, a survivor of the monster-populated ruins of Oakland California joins the crew of a clipper ship sailing the waters of the Pacific.  A typhoon shipwrecks him on a tropical island whose inhabitants share a bizarre secret.  Visitors … Continue reading

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Book Review: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

I can’t remember the recent thought processes that caused me to desire to read Doctor Zhivago now, after all this time. The David Lean film was very important to me as a young teen. I saw it multiple times in … Continue reading

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