Point of View

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Point of View: But Is It Art?

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painter - deposit photos

I was just thinking about the difference between a writer and an artist. A writer, of course, is a kind of artist, crafting their works with a pen instead of a brush. And I’m going to make some generalizations in this column, so please bear with me. It seems to me that art – the kind you make on paper or with a physical medium like sculpture, is more of a focused craft. It requires lots of concentrated time working on a single piece to get it right. I enjoy drawing, and I’m pretty good at it, but I don’t … Read more

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Point of View: The AI War

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AI robbot arm wrestling a human man - deposit photos

We’re in the middle of an AI war, but it’s not the one you are thinking. Yes, every company of any size is trying to shove generative “AI” down our throats, scraping our content without commission, and filling their apps with AI “functionality” that in many cases makes those apps work worse than they did before. Notice how your voice to text is suddenly less accurate, and won’t type the right word sometimes no matter how many times and how clearly and slowly you say it? Microsoft has taken this to the next level, renaming its Office suite, a brand … Read more

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Point of View: What Do We Owe Our Readers?

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thoughtful writer - deposit photos

i’ve just received a wonderful review from a friend for Down the River, the second book in the River City Chronicles. In it, the reviewer talks about how the story provided such a great escape from all the awful things going on today. It made me think once again about the responsibility that we, as authors – and especially those of us who write speculative fiction – have to our readers and to the world at large. On the one hand, as a purveyor of science fiction, part of what I try to do is to reflect on what’s happening … Read more

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Point of View: Cocooning

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cocooning - deposit photos

We started off 2026 with great hopes. Maybe this year would be different. Maybe things would finally start to change again, for the better. And then… Venezuela. And then… Renee Good. With this current administration, it’s always a new outrage, a new spectacle, always a new something horrible shoved in your face, each one more awful than the last. And so I am cocooning. I am spending the time I used to spend doomscrolling the news reading books instead. I am taking that space that he has been occupying in my brain for the last year, and allocating it instead … Read more

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Point of View: SacAnime!

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Liminal Fiction at SacAnime Winter 2026

We just wrapped SacAnime 2-26 and we had a blast. New this year – bingo cards for common anime con sights – giant weapon, character carrying their own head, Deadpool, and much more. Sharing some photos from this fun event:

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Point of View: Kempt

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kempt

I’ve always liked collecting words, and one of those collections is words that don’t have an opposite equivalent, or have one that’s rarely used or with a different meaning: So today I’m offering you a little something different. Enjoy my little mm flash-fiction romance featuring the opposites of these words: Cameron had always dressed peccably – a shabby t-shirt, rumpled cargo shorts, and flip flops. But that day, when he strode into the room chalantly, every eve followed him. He looked so kempt, so put together, and he crossed the room in a reckfull manner, carefully navigating the crowd to … Read more

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Writer Fuel: You Can’t Go Back

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pearl - deposit photos

We got a good lesson this week in “you can’t go back.“ Twenty years ago, we first visited Portland and its shiny new district, the Pearl. It was built in an area that used to be an industrial wasteland, one of the blighted areas near downtown Portland. It started out with a conversion of a couple old single story brick warehouses into condos, with the cement loading docks serving as their front patios. Portland had some very smart urban zoning policies, including forcing developers to include storefronts / windows on the ground floors of all buildings, encouraging public art, and … Read more

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Point of View: Why We Do This

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sadness - deposit photos

Every now and then, I sit back and reflect on what it means to be a writer in this crazy world we live in. There are so many of us now, especially with the advent of self-publishing technology. And with the arrival of AI, many of us expect to eventually be snowed under entirely. Every day as an author is an exercise in shouting into the cold, uncaring void, and hoping, every once-and-a-while, to hear a friendly “Hello?” back from the other side. We writers wrap ourselves up in blankets in our chilly, lonely writer caves and painstakingly extract stories … Read more

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Point of View: Mortality

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calvin hobbes

I’m fifty-seven years old, verging on fifty-eight, and I just got some unwelcome news. My PSA level (prostate-specific antigen) is a bit high. Not four-alarm-fire high, but that together with the fact that I’m Caucasian (higher risk) and that my Dad and my Uncle Dave (his brother) both had prostate cancer at this age means that I’m headed to the Urologist for a biopsy. And yeah, even if I have it, this is one of the most survivable cancers. And it’s far from a certainty that I do. But nevertheless, it’s a sobering reality check. I am reaching the age … Read more

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Point of View: The Weight of Worlds

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man holding world - deposit photos

The weight of the world is on my shoulders. Well, technically, three worlds. I’m currently writing three different novels, complete with three different universes of people. And sometimes it weighs on me as a writer to have to be the only person who knows about this world. To be responsible for everything: The people, the society, the religion, the economy, even the fricking plumbing. And as writers, we have to keep it all straight in our head somehow. And yeah, I have a story Bible for each of these worlds, but even that is a daunting task – maintaining it, … Read more