What’s So Special About Pets in Space? by Special Guest S.E. Smith PETS IN SPACE 4, the latest Pets in Space anthology, is here! I invited my buddy Susan, better known as NY Times and USA TODAY bestselling author S.E. Smith, over for virtual tea and crumpets (and a bit of Baileys Irish) to tell…
6 Multicultural Science Fiction Romances You Should Read This is a companion post to the 9 interracial paranormal romances you should read post I wrote earlier this year. Both my science fiction romances and paranormal romances are all multicultural and interracial because that’s what I see in my family and friends. And despite the current…
Groups for SciFi Romance and PNR Fans Love it or hate it, if you want to find other readers and authors of science fiction romance (SFR) and/or paranormal romance (PNR), Facebook groups are the place to go. Searching for them nets dozens of listings, but some are dead, Jim, and some seem to be nonstop…
May You Live in Interesting Times, or Reordering My Ducks Funny how life likes to make a shambles of human plans every now and then. Probably to keep us silly humans from becoming insufferably conceited about thinking we have everything in control. It’s like the famous Chinese curse*, “May you live in interesting times.” In…
About the Big Damn Story Arc in My Space Opera Series I recently appeared on a writer’s panel at the 2019 Denver Pop Culture Con. The panel’s goal was to give the audience tips and tricks on how to write a bingeable series. My esteemed co-panelists, Trai Cartwright and Marin Lepore, are both screenwriters and…
How Real Life Events Become Magical Secrets in My Paranormal Romance Series World-building is one of my pleasures as an author. Since I write science fiction and fantasy genres, I get to do a lot of it. For my Ice Age Shifters paranormal romance series, I delight in discovering fun facts in my research, so…
Ancient Horses, New Horses Humans (and some dogs) love digging around in the dirt. We never know what we’ll find—roots, rocks, earthworms, buried treasure, a 42,000-year-old foal from an ancient horse species… In Siberia, scientists found a foal preserved in the permafrost. Under the right conditions, cold can preserve a lot of things, including humans,…
Cats of War Excerpt #3 I love the idea of pets in space. Humans are hardwired for pets. I’ll bet you a small moon that when we humans finally make it to the stars, we’re taking our pets with us. And if we find other alien lifeforms that don’t eat us, we’ll try to make…
Cats of War Excerpt #2, in Honor of the New Release Cats of War released yesterday—hooray! My Central Galactic Concordance (CGC) space opera series has a grand, sprawling plot going on about evolutionary change and rebellion. I love all its twists and turns, but sometimes I like to take a break and visit the unexplored…
Geeky Fairy Light Addiction Hello. My name is Carol, and I am addicted to geeky fairy lights. This is my story. Perhaps it can save others from a geeky fairy light addiction. Or not. As addictions go, it’s cheap and harmless. It all started when LED lights began replacing the short-lived incandescent light bulbs and…
Cats of War Excerpt #1 CATS OF WAR is a standalone novella in my Central Galactic Concordance space opera series. In the grand timeline, it takes place after the events in Jumper’s Hope, but is not a part of the big damn story arc. It debuted in the limited-edition science fiction romance anthology Embrace the…
Places I Write (Author in Space) I enjoy seeing—and am sometimes envious of—the lovely spaces my author friends have created for their writing. I’ve always said that if I win the lottery, I’ll decorate my office to look like a starship bridge. Until that day, these are some of the places I write. Like all…
My Cat Cosplays Cats of War In case it hasn’t been blindingly obvious from my previous posts, authors are crazy. When I wrote Cats of War, a space opera romance novella, for last year’s limited-edition Embrace the Passion: Pets in Space 3 anthology, I commissioned a costume. For my cat. My muse is from outer…
The Evolution of Space Opera I still get questions from time to time about what space opera is, and whether it involves singing*. This is my take on it, and a brief discussion of the evolution of space opera. Science fiction, romance, and mystery all are big enough genres in terms of writers and readers…
2018 SFR Galaxy Awards The SFR Galaxy Awards are unique. They are awarded by seven judges who select outstanding science fiction romance books published in a given year. Nominations are secret (just like the Nobel Prizes!), and the winners are announced at the end of January. The 2018 SFR Galaxy Awards represent the best of…
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