Over the weekend, I headed to traditional publishers’ websites and look at their paranormal romance covers only to discover…that the damn books are branded like urban fantasy or like an E.L. James knockoff or like a cookbook or travelogue. All of this points out a huge problem in the paranormal romance genre. There’s nothing that screams modern paranormal romance. Believe me when I tell you that readers look for such things.
Continue ReadingI’m having a fascinating spring. I’m watching two of our employees make themselves indispensable. Dean and I have owned businesses, together and separately, for decades. Not just our writing businesses, but publishing businesses, retail businesses, and a host of other businesses. When we ran Pulphouse Publishing, we had one employee who was indispensable—Debb De Noux, […]
Continue ReadingI knew the secret would catch you all. 🙂 Last year, Kevin J. Anderson invited me into his first holiday anthology (along with Dean and many of our good friends who happen to be writers). I strongly recommend one of my all-time favorite stories which Kevin reprinted in that anthology in the special holiday recommended […]
Continue ReadingWhen I was taking classes in the craft of fiction, everyone—from established professional writers to English professors—recommended that a writer never ever say that a character looked like a famous actor. No “he resembled a young Orson Welles” or “she dressed like Claudette Colbert.” Not only was it lazy writing—the Gurus said—but, more importantly, there […]
Continue ReadingI’ve had a great couple of weeks, with too much to announce all at once. I’m going to start with something absolutely thrilling: The Endeavour Award committee has chosen my Diving novel, City of Ruins, as a finalist for the award. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Endeavour Award, it’s for the best […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Readers Kristine Kathryn Rusch As we came into the new year, I evaluated—as I always do—the things I do as part of my business. My business, for those of you who don’t know, is writing. I have been a published writer since I was sixteen years old. I have made a living […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Why Not? Kristine Kathryn Rusch On TV’s most popular drama series, NCIS, the main character, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, walks through the office, and if he hears a stupid statement, he slaps the speaker on the back of the head. Now, this is fiction, mind you. In any real office, military or not, […]
Continue ReadingThe Business Rusch: Bookstore Observations Kristine Kathryn Rusch I live in a town that has no completely new bookstore. We have two marvelous bookstores that feature new and used. One specializes in mysteries, and the other gets as much of everything as it can. But it only has a tiny storefront, and so “everything” is […]
Continue ReadingI spent the weekend as one of the Guests of Honor at the Radcon Science Fiction convention. If you haven’t attended a con in a while, go to next year’s Radcon. You’ll have a blast. This is my third (?) Radcon, and I’ve had fun every time. It’s in Pasco, Washington. I forgot to take […]
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