Review: Travels in Elysium, by William Azuski

Travels in Elysium by William AzuskiMy rating: 1 of 5 stars Despite glowing Kirkus and reader reviews, I’d have to say Azuski’s Travels In Elysium is a poorly researched, inconsistently written novel. The story ostensibly revolves around a young man, Pedrosa, who takes up the position of a lifetime, to work with the legendary archaeologist Huxley, on a dig of epic proportions. And that’s where everything goes badly wrong, from a research point of view….

Story genesis and writing environmental detail

Recently a dear friend and colleague (Robert Runte) and I were discussing the craft of writing, which happened concurrently with a similar discussion I was having with my husband, Gary. In particular we discussed story genesis, and how to create meaningful environment detail and description in literature. For example, I mentioned to Robert a story on which I’m presently working, that all I had so far was mood (eeriness) and one element (an owl). He…

A short story sale

It was a pleasant way to start the day, I must say. Opened my email to find correspondence from Sean Moreland at Postscripts to Darkness 5, in which he stated “We unanimously love At Union.” So, the story is sold to the anthology. Not sure as yet about the publication date.  Very gratified about the sale because it seems the editorial team there are all about discovering the literary in genre fiction. Sounds like a…

Review: A Barcelona Heiress, by Sergio Vila-Sanjuan

A Barcelona Heiress by Sergio Vila-SanjuánMy rating: 2 of 5 stars Sergio Vila-Sanjuan’s A Barcelona Heiress has all the ingredients for a great novel, following in the tradition of early 20th century writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck. There is the hotbed of political unrest during the Crown-supported dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, anarchists bombing Barcelona, a growing discontent of the country’s poor and working classes. Into this the author…