For all my Dayton and Cincinnati readers, I have an excellent small business recommendation for you today if you find yourself in need of a makeup artist or esthetician! A few weeks ago, I was a bridesmaid in my friend’s wedding, and she had a makeup artist from West Chester come … | Continue reading
Folks, I think we may have hit the parking lot motherlode here: Three parking lots and a parking garage! Another city is going to have work very hard to ever beat Jacksonville’s bounty here. I’m in town for an event at the Jacksonville Public Library, starting at 1pm: I’ll be int … | Continue reading
The band The Academy Is… has been a favorite of the Scalzi family for a while now, and we also have a separate history with the lead singer William Beckett, who did a house concert for Athena’s birthday a while back and also wrote theme songs for a couple of my books (here’s one … | Continue reading
Reality is both objective and subjective, but what if reality could be fundamentally changed just by enough people thinking about it really hard? Author Theodora Goss is here today not only to present her newest collection of short stories, but to make you question our very reali … | Continue reading
It’s both in the Top 20 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2025, and in the general Top 100 Books of the Year as well. Well, cool! I will take that, thank you. — JS | Continue reading
Information is the name of the game, and today’s Big Idea has a lot of it! From quantum mechanics to Diet Coke, author Stewart Hotston takes you on a ride through how the galaxy works, and how his new novel, Project Hanuman, came to be. STEWART HOTSTON: My fate was sealed in Leic … | Continue reading
It’s that time of year again where I always manage to get COVID. I have gotten COVID literally every single year since 2020, and pretty much exclusively around the holidays. I also happen to be flying to San Francisco this week and hanging out with a bunch of people while there, … | Continue reading
We’ve come to that time of the year again, where folks begin to think about their holiday gift giving, and at least some of you think about books as the perfect gift. Well, they are! But would make them even more perfect is getting those books signed and personalized. Every year … | Continue reading
Yesterday, I had planned to spend today diligently working and typing up a fresh movie review for y’all. However, once it hit about eleven at night, I realized my shoulders were totally killing me! I was hurtin’ something fierce, and decided to look online and see if a local mass … | Continue reading
Today’s the day: Constituent Service, my humorous novella about the excitement of providing municipal services in a city district full of aliens, is now available in print and ebook! The print version is a signed limited edition, and there are at this moment fewer than 100 copies … | Continue reading
Like a lot of people my age, I have two pair of eyeglasses: A pair with progressive lenses which are my general purpose glasses, suitable for looking at things at varying distances and generally being out in the world, and then a pair of fixed-focused lenses, which I use when I’m … | Continue reading
No parking lot, but look! Men at work! Good for them. Dudes in high-viz is part of what makes America great. I’m in town for the Texas Book Festival, and I have two events, one tomorrow and one on Sunday, plus I am participating in the LitCrawl on Saturday night. Here’s the Book … | Continue reading
If you’re anything like me, you probably have a huge stack of video games that you’ve bought and never played. In my case, I have 400+ games in my Steam library, and I’ve played maybe about twenty of them. My dad has also played about twenty of them, and I’m not sure how much our … | Continue reading
Full Moon on Guy Fawkes. Pretty cool-looking moon, too. — JS | Continue reading
This handsome little man got fixed today! It’s super important to get your animals fixed, especially if they’re indoor/outdoor like our kitties are. Spaying and neutering is essential for being a good pet parent, and I’m so glad we were able to get Saja taken care of. He is very … | Continue reading
Well, that was an evening, wasn’t it. Zohran Mamdani won decisively in NYC, of course, and that was the headline event in terms of optics, but then there was everything else, that went the Democrats’ way this election night: Governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, along with th … | Continue reading
Some stories go beyond the page, presenting themselves as “living stories,” as author Charles H. Melcher calls them. Read all about these living stories in the Big Idea for his newest book, The Future of Storytelling, and see how a story can be capable of invoking all the senses, … | Continue reading
All the Scalzis voted today, because that’s what you do. Here we have are electing township trustees and board of education members — not hugely sexy, but actually important for where we live. Every election counts, is what I’m saying. If today is a voting day for you, I hope you … | Continue reading
Hello, everyone! Recently I did a piece over the fact that I’ve been writing on the blog more or less officially for a year now, and I asked y’all what you thought of the content so far and what y’all want to see more of, and all that good stuff. I also said that it’s […] | Continue reading
Found via Facebook, a fake testimonial from “me” being excited that a scam site got “me” a dozen reviews on Amazon and Goodreads over the space of a few weeks. I obviously did not make this testimonial, and also, bluntly, I wouldn’t be excited by a dozen Amazon/Goodreads reviews. … | Continue reading
What is The Time Traveler’s Passport? It’s an Amazon-exclusive anthology of six short stories — one written by me! — that have time travel as an integral part of their plot. Not even counting me, it’s a pretty grand line-up of authors: R.F. Kuang, Peng Shepard, Kaliane Bradley, O … | Continue reading
Athena called me yesterday with a quest, which was to go to a house about a mile away and pick up a plate. I wasn’t entirely sure what the point of the quest was until I saw the plate: A commemorative plate with our church on it, from the 70s, celebrating a century of Methodist [ … | Continue reading
A decade ago today, Sugar and Spice came to live with us here at the Scalzi Compound. They were semi-feral kittens who lived on the porch of my mother-in-law’s neighbor; we were originally going to just get one but the two of them seemed particularly attached to each other, and b … | Continue reading
Krissy is off with friends for Halloween, so I did what I do when left to my own devices: I recorded a cover song. This one is from Coldplay, although my favorite version of it is from Aimee Mann. I tried covering her version but it turns out she sings higher than I do. Who […] | Continue reading
Originally posted on Threads, but I’m posting here because for some reason Threads doesn’t embed here: “Trick or treat candy is for everyone. Cute kid in an adorable costume? Candy. Teen not in a costume feeling self-conscious but hoping you’ll give ’em candy anyway? Candy. Adult … | Continue reading
For our third and final day in the bustling metropolis of Columbus, Bryant and I decided that instead of brunch, we just wanted coffee and pastries. We had to be out of the Airbnb by 10am, which was actually one of the main complaints I saw in the review of the place. It did seem … | Continue reading
What? You didn’t know that Grokipedia exists? Well, it does, and it’s Elon Musk’s attempt to run Wikipedia out of town on a rail: An “AI”-generated compendium of information about things and stuff, that also, not coincidentally, aligns with Musk’s weird techno-fascistic view of t … | Continue reading
I came across it this evening as I was going through some old files and was surprised to find it; I didn’t know any had survived between 1991 and now. Be that as it may, indeed, 34 years ago this was my business card. Being a movie critic was my first job out of college. […] | Continue reading
Great minds think alike. For authors Jes Honard and Marie Parks, their great minds had to do just that to co-author the second novel of their Grigori Cycle series. Come along in their Big Idea as they share their thoughts and process not only for Undeniable, but also their first … | Continue reading
I’m getting a couple dozen “let us promote your book” bits of spam mail daily, of various sorts, enough so that I regret to say that any legit offers for book-related appearances are probably being swept up in the spammy whirl, and it’s increasingly difficult to sort out which is … | Continue reading
For my and Bryant’s second day in Columbus, we had to start things out right by going to brunch. Much like Monday, Tuesday is a rough day to eat out because a lot of restaurants are closed. This is even more true for brunch places, as many of them are only open on the weekends. [ … | Continue reading
As if solving crimes wasn’t a hard enough job, you throw mystic and magical mayhem into the mix and you’ve got a whole new world of trouble. Enter the Supernatural Crimes Unit: NYPD, author Keith R. A. DeCandido’s newest novel, where he presents just the team for the job. Follow … | Continue reading
I know I’ve been writing about Columbus a lot lately, but unlike me, some people who live in Ohio have never really explored it before. Such was the case for Bryant, so obviously we had to fix that and go to tons of awesome restaurants and cafes and do fun stuff! I know, my sacri … | Continue reading
Athena has been looking for a place of her own for a while, and she wanted something here in Bradford, to be close to work and to us, both of which we were pleased about. We’d all been tracking properties here in town when they went up for sale, and even looked at one or […] | Continue reading
Spoiler: Not really, they’re just playing around. But they sure do look fierce, don’t they. I think Smudge is actually happy to have a kitten to tussle with, since Sugar and Spice hate it when he tries to do that. Saja, on the other hand, is up for a wrassle any time. — JS | Continue reading
I assert to you that my little town of Bradford, Ohio is in fact the literature capital of Darke County, the county in which I live, and also probably of Miami County, which I don’t live in, but which Bradford is also part (the county line runs right down the middle of Route 721, … | Continue reading
While some ideas get shelved entirely, some ideas are merely on the back burner for a while before becoming fully realized ideas and narratives. Such was the case for author J. R. Blanes, who kept returning to the idea that ended up becoming his newest novel, Portrait of Decay. F … | Continue reading
In my post last week where I mentioned I had been writing “full-time” for a year and shared my favorite ten pieces from this past year, one commenter asked me about my overall experience with my writing career so far. I was going to reply to all his questions in a comment, but th … | Continue reading
All work and no play makes author Juliet Brooks write a Big Idea about how the US should have better worker’s rights and conditions. In her newest novel, A Fae In Finance, her main character finds herself in a challenging work dilemma that we can all relate to. Or, if you can’t, … | Continue reading
I couldn’t sleep because a certain black kitten decided that he wanted to sleep on my face, precipitating a coughing fit that knocked slumber right out of me. So, here: a cover of “Bring On the Dancing Horses” from Echo & the Bunnymen, which I started recording the other night, a … | Continue reading
While I was staying in Boise last week, my grandma and I roomed at The Avery Hotel, which was also where the reception for the wedding I was in town for was held. I never thought I’d say this, but it turns out I love Boise. Part of what made my time there so great […] | Continue reading
My stop in Burlington constituted what I consider to be the end of my book tour for The Shattering Peace; I have two other events this year (the Texas Book Festival and a library appearance in Jacksonville, FL) but those aren’t specifically tied into the book, and they are two an … | Continue reading
A great idea often comes with the added bonus of a million questions, and it’s up to the writer to have answers for all these questions. In author Marie Lu’s case, this path of answers led to the creation of her adult debut novel, Red City. Come along in her Big Idea to see how [ … | Continue reading
The foliage looks impressive even from far away. Reminder that tomorrow I will be at the Green Mountain Book Festival, talking about, and then signing, books! Come see me and other very fabulous writers talk about books and writing and stuff. It’ll be fun, promise. — JS | Continue reading
Much like an oak tree from an acorn, author Jennifer Estep had one small scene that ended up turning into the fifth book in her Galactic Bonds series. Come along in the Big Idea for her newest novel, Only Rogue Actions, and let her set the scene that started the whole book. JENNI … | Continue reading
October 1st of 2024 was my official start date to my oh-so-exciting career as a writer, and I thought we could take this opportunity to revisit some of my favorite pieces over this past year. I have carefully curated a list of ten pieces for you to examine, if you so choose. In n … | Continue reading
Stick out your tongue and say “ahh!” for author Caitlin Starling’s newest gothic novel, The Graceview Patient. Follow along in her Big Idea as she recounts all of her real-life experiences in the wild world of hospitals that led to the inspiration and creation of this medically b … | Continue reading
It’s a simple one: if you queried about a Big Idea slot for November and haven’t heard back yet, don’t panic, those will be addressed next week. I’m traveling again and punting a number of things until I’m back home. As one does. — JS | Continue reading