Confessions of a Sesquipedalian

Mostly Musings on Writing

[raevanlandingham]

Llamas, Women, and Other Stereotypes

Llamas, Women, and Other Stereotypes

We’ve been taught to presume the woman-warriors of myth and legend like Brunhilde, Queen Maeve, and Boudicca were unique; anomalies not representative of “real” women from the myth-making eras. Whereas, the figures of Arthur, Sigurd, Beowulf, Roland, and so on, are usually believed to be at the very least based in some part on real men. But what if, like the stories of their male counterparts,…

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[raevanlandingham]

All the reviews I should have written this summer

All the reviews I should have written this summer

At last, a post-apocalyptic hero the other half of the world can relate to! Not that there aren’t a lot of great reads featuring the current go-to hero/heroine, but as a reader with more than a few decades under her belt I do occasionally tire of the teenager-saves-the-world trope—there, I said it! I found a few chapters in the first half of the book a little slow. Not enough to put me off…

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[raevanlandingham]

Bad Blogger! Bad!

Wow, I’m a lousy blogger! More than two months and three books since last we met. I do have a good excuse or two. One: I was on vacation (Ireland was lovely and loads of fun, thanks for asking), and two: I was working on final edits of some of of my own stuff. So it wasn’t like I was just sitting around, watching Orange is the New Black, eating pizza, and playing with my cats…well, not all of the…

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[raevanlandingham]

I Heart Flavia de Luce

I Heart Flavia de Luce

In the event the title of this review isn’t enough of a warning for you, beware: lavish gushing dead ahead!

For a quiet mid-century English village, Bishop’s Lacey has a remarkable number of murders. Happily, they also have Flavia de Luce to solve their mysteries. Young Flavia; eleven year-old scion of a genteel family fallen on post-war hard times, budding chemist, poison aficionado, and…

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[raevanlandingham]

The Museum of Extraordinary Things

The Museum of Extraordinary Things

The Museum of Extraordinary Things: A Novel

  If there really were a Museum of Extraordinary Things, this book would be in it.

I’ve been a fan of Alice Hoffman ever since the day I picked her novel Second Nature out of a teetering stack on the bargain table—for a mere $2.99! Best three bucks I ever spent. Like Second Nature, The Museum of Extraordinary Things is Alice Hoffman at her best;…

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[thetalltwig]

So as many of you may have heard, April is National Poetry Month! As a poet, this is like a holiday that lasts all month long. I would love to see this writing community grow, so the lovely Van + I are collaborating to host a National Poetry Month Challenge.

We are asking other writers to participate in tagging their poems with #30days30poems + creating something new every day in April. I can’t wait to get this started! Let’s start a collective of wonderful, innovative poetry.

Please share this message by liking + reblogging! Let’s encourage each other in our craft. I love you all!

[writersrelief-deactivated202404]

4 Ways To Get Your Poetry Noticed - Huffington Post Books/Writer's Relief's Writer Wednesday

Generally, literary journal editors encourage authors to submit three to five poems at once for consideration.

The question is, how should a writer choose which poems to include in any given submission group? Should the poems be wildly different, or should there be some continuity?

There are four practical strategies to guide you in creating a group of poems for submission. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

[raevanlandingham]

If you've been dying to read a book review dashed off in 10 minutes, after 10 pm & 5 millligrams of Ambien...

If you’ve been dying to read a book review dashed off in 10 minutes, after 10 pm & 5 millligrams of Ambien…

then this is your lucky day.

Does that old stand-by if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all apply when writing a book review? Hmm…well, I can’t fault Ms. Matthews’s scholarship. Dissidents, Irish Republican Women 1923-1941 is clearly well researched and logically presented. It just isn’t terribly interesting—and I’m not talking about the subject matter.

I like history. I have a…

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[raevanlandingham]

You know you're a writer when...

...you're writing dialogue in your head while carrying on a completely unrelated conversation with somebody, they ask you a question, you reply with a garbled mix of the real & imagined conversation, and you don't even realize it until you notice the puzzled expression on their face.

[raevanlandingham]

[a-fineskylark]

[figmentdotcom-blog]

Happy Tell a Fairy Tale Day!

[raevanlandingham]

One of the many things that seem to be conspiring to prevent me getting any work done. Sneaky little cheese thieves hiding behind my monitor! (It's also hard to keep their whiskers out of the cream pitcher)

[raevanlandingham]

Other Observations: You know what would be great?

Other Observations: You know what would be great?

…if Arizona could stop being a giant douche-bag. First it was some pretty appalling immigration policies. Now it’s legislated discrimination in the name of religious freedom…coughbullshit.

At least that’s what I thought until I came across the scripture that says this: 

            Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination. Likewise thou shalt not bake them any cakes,…

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[raevanlandingham]

Peculiar Children

Peculiar Children

Just in case you’re part of that minuscule one half of one tenth of a percent of the reading population who hasn’t read either of Ransom Riggs’s Peculiar Children books…or hasn’t seen someone else reading one, or hasn’t heard anyone talking about them…I’m going to go ahead and review them for you.

Generally speaking I’m not a YA fan—and I mean the genre, not the actual people. Most young adults…

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[raevanlandingham]

Tarneyknock

“No, I’m not—but I never married him,” said Rose, backing away.

“You did come to Tarneyknock willing?” he said.

“Yes, but I-” Rose protested.

“And presided as his Lady at the wedding feast?”

Rose stammered, “W-wedding? No one said it was a wedding feast!”

“Be that as it may, you sat in the bride’s chair, you drank the honeymoon mead, ate the golden apples, and went willing to his bed." The funny old man cocked his head curiously and all the white tangles springing from his wrinkled pate bounced and quivered. "Or am I mistaken?”

She had sat in the chair offered her, drank the mead given to her, filled her plate with food at the feast. Her heart sank thinking how easily John Shoney, with his golden hair and sun-bright smiles, had seduced her. “Yes, I did. I did all of that,” she said...

-Tarneyknock (Follys Landing, story #11)

http://www.follyslanding.com

[raevanlandingham]

Okay, I've felt for a long time that the whole "Keep Calm and ______" thing was really played out and should go away but this one: irresistible! 

[raevanlandingham]

John Shoney

"Rose Allan was a gangly girl with legs so long she often didn’t know what to do with them. Her coltish limbs confounded her, seldom carrying her from here to there without some mishap or another. Awkward and accident prone, she soon acquired a thorny and solitary nature, quite content to keep her own company: head in the clouds, nose in a book, and dreaming of a bold hero who might one day come, waken her with a kiss—or some such nonsense—and rescue her from a shrinking life trapped in a shrunken town. Although, as she crouched behind the arrowwood hedge bordering the driveway of the Allan house, she was dreaming of no such thing..." 

Excerpt: story #10, John Shoney, or, The Tale of Thorny Rose part I

http://www.follyslanding.com/