In episode 5 of this season of Off the Shelf, Simeon and Kghia had the great pleasure of speaking with Science Fiction Writer Robert J. Sawyer.
Robert has the distinct honor of having won all three of the world’s top science-fiction awards for Best Novel of the Year: the Nebula (1996, The Terminal Experiment), the Hugo (2003, Hominids), and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (2006, Mindscan). His novel Flashforward was developed into the ABC television series of the same name. K and Si were able to pick Robert’s brain for over an hour, so enjoy!
You can listen to Off the Shelf via any of the following methods:
Direct link to the show on Archive.org where you can listen to it as a stream or download the audio file directly
(Inter)National Novel Writing Month kicks of November 1, and Second LIfe is providing some terrific support for for participants. Things kick of October 31, from 6-9 pm PDT/SLT, at Milk Wood.
Graphic by June Faramore (SL: June Stormcrow)
Please join the NaNoWriMo SL group in-world to get all the latest updates.
Nov. 10, 6:30PM: Workshop with Arlene Radasky (SL: Imarad Breen) on reading their work aloud, recording it, and listening back for a more complete editing process
Nov 13, 8:00AM: Building a character slam book with Emerain Rich (SL: Emz Mazie).
Nov. 17, 10:00AM: Workshop by author Cassandra Curtis (SL: Cassandra Sharktooth)
Author of the Midnight Effect and Shifting Tides trilogy.
In this mini-workshop, Ms. Curtis shows how a writer can deepen the characterization of an existing protagonist, antagonist, or develop a secondary character by using a few simple diagrams, an interview sheet, character check list, traits, and even an exercise she invented called the Writer’s Duel, which creates multi-player participation in a game setting. Developing your character look in SL will be briefly discussed as well.
Nov. 20, 8:00PM: Workshop by author Cora Zane (SL: Cora Waverider)
Are you struggling with your NaNoWriMo story? Erotic romance author Cora Zane will be covering ways to kickstart a story that has stalled, and get you back on track to reaching your 50k NaNoWriMo project goal.
We were so pleased to welcome this episode’s guest, Barbara Hambly, a well-established writer who seems able to turn her hand to any genre with the same aplomb. Our only problem was how to fit in all the questions we wanted to ask. Everything she has written deserved comment, yet time constraints meant we had to pick and choose, Our apologies if we glossed over something you think should have been covered in more depth, but I am sure you will find the things we did have time for almost as fascinating
Listen to the podcast
Additional links to the interview
You can listen to Off the Shelf via any of the following methods:
Direct link to the show on Archive.org where you can listen to it as a stream or download the audio file directly
The interview begins with Barbara talking about her early days as a sword and sorcerer fantasy novelist for Del-Ray Books and about her writing process. Some of Barbara’s early writings were works-for-hire for series such as Star Trek and Star Wars and mentions some of her favorites from those series such as Crossroads,Ishmael and Children of the Jedi. As someone who sometimes draws on cultural icons in her writing, she discusses the challenges of doing so.
Simeon asks Barbara about her fantasy series The Windrose Chronicles and Sun Wolf and Starhawk. In particular, they talk about Barbara’s inspiration for characters and setting. We also discuss The Bride of the Rat God and how Barbara’s love of language lead to her character Jonathan Asher’s background as a philologist.
Many of the authors we interview choose to self-publish their backlist. Barbara chose a different direction and explains why choosing Open Road Media was a better option for her.
E-books lead into a discussion of cover art – some work, some don’t and some feature American beer. Visuals lead to Barbara’s work on graphic novels. She mentions her first experience working on a graphic story with Neil Gaiman on House of Dreams.
Moving onto Barbara’s current series, we talk about James Asher and her old school vampires. She doesn’t romanticize vampires; they are very dangerous. She makes some great points about the nature of people who are willing to become vampires and their tendency to be control freaks after they have been turned.
Barbara’s Benjamin January series features a free man of color as a detective in the pre-Civil War, American South. This set up provides Barbara with an opportunity to expose readers to a time and place many are not familiar with, as well as creating some unusual boundaries for a detective.
Barbara is writing a second detective series, this one featuring the historical figure Abigail Adams, under the pen name Barbara Hamilton.
Additionally, Barbara is revisiting her old Del-Ray series and writing new short stories and novellas. She is selling these pieces on here website under the section titled The Further Adventures of…
Graphic by June Faramore (SL: June Stormcrow)
Simeon asks Barbara about her fantasy series 
Barbara is writing a second detective series, this one featuring the historical figure 
