By G. S. Norwood The heirloom pumpkins nearly defeated me. They looked so simple, ranked by color across the top of the box. Pretty. Old fashioned. Challenging, but not too challenging. Just the way I like it. And why do I like such challenges? It’s a puzzle. A literal puzzle, in this case, as well as an interesting question. The pumpkins are the subject of a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle I purchased not long ago to feed my puzzling fascination with…
By G. S. Norwood By now you all know that I am a self-indulgent woman. I’ve blogged about how I value little rewards to myself for a job well done, or just for a laugh. But birthdays? Birthdays are an indulgence class all their own. Because I live alone, I can be really extravagant when it comes to a birthday indulgence. In past years I have given myself pens and paintings. One year I famously gave myself a cat. Or…
By Brian Katcher Brian Katcher is a writer whom one of our usual bloggers, Jan S. Gephardt, met at the science fiction convention Archon 44 (He’s also spotlighted in Jan’s Authors of Archon 44 post). He told this story during a panel discussion in which they both participated. She asked him to share it with our audience, because it demonstrates an issue we also face. The Weird Blog and Artdog Adventures support diversity and representation. As a pair of older,…
By Jan S. Gephardt A whole cluster of holidays happen during what is for the Northern Hemisphere a season of harvest and winter’s onset. The common thread that weaves through them all is dealing with death. I’ve written about Halloween/Samhain, Día de los Muertos, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day on my “Artdog Adventures” blog in the past. Indeed, my “Virtual Ofrenda” is one of my most enduringly popular posts. Through them all, I’ve kept coming back around to…