Three books lie open on a desk surrounded by stacks of closed books on either side

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I usually have at least one book I’m reading (or listening to) — often more than one. As I walk around the city or work out in the gym, audiobooks keep me company. And curling up in bed […]
Three wedges of focaccia sprinkled with rosemary on top

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I cook a lot. And I like cooking. The pandemic hasn’t made me yearn for restaurants or do a lot of takeout (though I do worry about my friends who work in restaurants). I just keep on cooking. […]
A skyline of New York City

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Where do gods come from? Cities have had gods for millennia, but how do the gods of cities come into being? It’s a messy process and, like a turtle egg hatching on the beach, there are always predators […]
Tiles laid out on a Scrabble board

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And now for vampire lingo… Vampires are obsessed with eternal life and their elitism, in that they have attained immortal life, and they believe that this is because they somehow deserve it. After all, not everyone who’s bitten […]
Text from a dictionary with the definition of the word "lingo"

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Werewolves love and hate the moon. She gives them freedom on their Night, but rules their lives, even when it’s not the Night. She can be a cruel mistress. She gives them amazing strength and magical abilities (like […]
Egyptian hieroglyphics with English translations

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I was challenged by my sharp-eyed editor to reconsider how vampires and werewolves describe themselves and their world. It would be more intriguing, she said, if the werewolves and vampires have their own lingo such that it takes […]

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I remember going to a lecture by Neil Gaiman in 2017 in which he said (I’m paraphrasing) that the way to write is to start writing, and don’t stop, don’t fix, just keep going until it’s done.  The […]
A woman looks at a wall on which masks of faces hang. She holds a mask in one hand as if she is trying to choose.

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I have been turning this question over in my mind since I read part of a manuscript submitted to BDP that had an interesting technical plot, but flawed characters. I don’t mean “flawed” in the dramatic sense of […]
A wooden bench next to a pond

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What do dogs (or wolves, for that matter) see?   Dogs don’t see the world in black-and-white. Rather, their vision is most similar to people with red-green color blindness. But there are other ways dogs differ from humans. […]
Vampire clutches his chest, reacting to the rising sun

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Killing a vampire might seem like a contradiction, since vampires are already dead, but in this case, we’ll be talking about taking the vampire off the board for good.   Legends abound regarding how to kill a vampire. […]