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The Universal Field Operative (UFO) wants you! The creation of the universe explained. Partially. Forthcoming in April.

Get the message?

A brief stroll down memory lane. An introduction to the secret history of Transportation Demand Management. A paean to the many contributions of Mel Webber to planning sciences. Take your pick!

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a short fiction contest sponsored by Cast of Wonders. Although I did not win, it was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot, both about the publisher, and the market for YA speculative short fiction.

There are 206 bones in the human body. Keech Ballard rides again, this time as a flashy purveyor of incipient horror inspired by a moral sense of outraged sensibilities. There are 238 pages in Step into the Light, a new anthology of daylight horror from Bag of Bones Press, available in paperback or Kindle formatContinue reading “Bone Structure”

Where the drabble meets the haiku. A new anthology from independent publisher Hiraeth, composed of 60 entries, two of which were composed by yours truly. 58. Mermaid Central 59. Unicorn Station Check it out here:

Writer Violet Paget, raised by unconventional British parents in the south of France, was an engaged feminist who always dressed à la garçonne. She was also an extreme pacifist, held in suspense in England for the duration of the Great European Civil War to stifle her dangerous creativity and muzzle her outspoken voice. Her booksContinue reading “Vernon Lee”

Leroux was the author of such great classics of French literature as The Mystery of the Yellow Room and The Phantom of the Opera. He died tragically of an acute urinary infection before he could enjoy the full fruits of his enormous and lasting success as the creator (or rather popularizer) of the Opera Ghost.Continue reading “Gaston Leroux”

Novelist, historian, and politician John Buchan spent the last five years of his long and productive life as the fifteenth Governor General of the Dominion of Canada. He was also a colonialist, a racist, and an antisemite. His racism and antisemitism were quite casual in nature, the inevitable product of his class, his position, andContinue reading “John Buchan”

Or Margaret, as we are intending to call her these days. Oliphant was one of the most popular, long-lived, and successful lady novelists of the Victorian age, publishing almost one hundred novels across the timely wingspan of six decades. This was quite a (pocket) change from the (nominally) more tragic authors of Jane Eyre andContinue reading “Mrs. Oliphant”