Category Archives: On Writing

On the Writing of World Without Pain: The Story of a Search

Writers are divided on the issue of writing with keyboards or by hand. Some swear that for the first draft they require the immediacy of pen and paper, while others consider that method too slow – or they like to … Continue reading →

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The Genesis of The Dragon Ticket and Other Stories

The Dragon Ticket and Other Stories is the first of my thirty-five books. Although most of the stories in it take place on the Indian Subcontinent, I was living in Greece when I wrote them. I had lived in South … Continue reading →

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Book Review:  Being Gardner Dozois: An Interview with Michael Swanwick

Not long ago I read and reviewed a recently published book called Being Michael Swanwick by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro. It consists of a series of interviews of author Swanwick that delve into the creative process of how he came to write … Continue reading →

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2023: A Personal Overview; Part Two: Some Stats

I recently finished compiling the statistics of how many original words I wrote in 2023. Every year I keep a small journal with important appointments and so on, and every day in that journal I write down my word count … Continue reading →

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The Septuagenarian as an Aspiring Artist

I suppose the first item on this essay’s agenda is to explain why I call myself an “aspiring artist” when I have numerous traditional publishing credits and have self-published thirty-five books. Perhaps at least part of the explanation lies in … Continue reading →

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Triumphs in the Creative Life

Recently I wrote an essay called “Setbacks in the Creative Life.” It was a reaction to a publisher deciding to cancel an upcoming anthology to which I’d sold a story. It focused on the necessity of putting aside the many … Continue reading →

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Setbacks in the Creative Life

For almost a year I have been looking forward to the December publication of an anthology with one of my stories in it. Some stories I write just for fun, but this one was particularly important to me. It fit … Continue reading →

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Book Review:  Being Michael Swanwick by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

Although Zinos-Amaro is listed as the author of this book, it is in fact a collaborative effort. It consists of a series of interviews between prolific science fiction and fantasy writer Michael Swanwick and Zinos-Amaro. These interviews cover Swanwick’s stand-alone … Continue reading →

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Book Review:  At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life by Fenton Johnson

A while back I became aware that there was no quick cure for my living alone and being alone much of the time. To mitigate the loneliness, I looked for some books that might give some insight on turning the … Continue reading →

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Why I Self-Publish

I shouldn’t really have to write a justification of self-publishing. If readers and writers were as open-minded and magnanimous as they should be, they would realize that there are as many artistic paths as there are artists. Unfortunately, however, there … Continue reading →

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