Jen Thomas's Page

Dean Koontz Interview Online

This month you're in for a rare treat as Dean Koontz sat down for an interview with TV host Tavis Smiley.

Under The Dome – Book Review

What happens when Stephen King, the 800-pound gorilla of horror, writes an over one thousand page novel? It works: He validates his weight; and even throws it around, a little.

Afterburn SF November 2009 Issue

The November 2009 issue of Afterburn SF is complete and posted online.

“This soap box is not big enough for the both of us.”

“This soap box is not big enough for the both of us.”

I asked readers for topics they would like to see me address in this blog, and I got a slew of great responses, something that will keep me in columns for a few months to come.

Here’s the question that got top billing for [...]

Providence, 1986

Providence, 1986 Wayne Allen Sallee 28 November 2009

I have a road trip, of sorts, ahead of me in a few hours. A zig-zag across the transit system of Chicago. I’m heading up north, but first I have to take the 55th Street bus to an artist friend’s place and drop off a few autographed books. There is [...]

The Ritual of Fine-Tuning My Writing

Most writers I know have rituals. These run the gamut from adjusting their desks a certain way to writing by candlelight to setting a glass of perfectly innocent booze on fire before each writing project as a sacrifice to the Writing Ancestors. They may sound silly, or wasteful (perfectly good booze, after all) or unintuitive, [...]

Thanksgiving

Friends and relatives around he world sing the same song: “We don’t have Thanksgiving here.” Here is New Zealand, South Africa, England, Israel…and on and on. This year, because we are down to three of us—my guardian angel/chef and one friend who lives alone—I stopped to think about what that means.

“We don’t have [...]

In love as it is in war

I promised some friends (and students) that I would talk about how one goes about writing a successful sex scene.  There are a lot of theories about this–one school, for example,  believes that a successful sex scene should titillate. (Do they believe a successful dinner scene should make you hungry? I write my dinner scenes [...]