It's official: I'm a published author! I don't know if it really has sunk in yet. The day of the book launch, I had mentioned to my coworker how I had a big event that evening. When she asked what, I didn't cower and mutter some half-baked lie. No, I told her the truth. Of course, like most creatives who constantly compare their level of success to the heavily-publicized, multi-billionaire artists who seem to be famous overnight (never happens that way except in the movies)---I did tell ...
Musings
A Small Beginning
Tonight is the night! It's book launch day! I still can't believe something I wrote is actually going to be in a literal, physical book, and people are actually going to read it! I can't even believe I told people and they bought it! Sure, it's not a major book deal with one of the major five publishing houses, nor is it a full-length novel or series. It is after all only a short story within an anthology. Even though this may be a small beginning---one small step for Lynn---it's my step, ...
WOMS: A Tapestry of Spells
Continuing with Lynn Kurland's Nine Kingdoms series, this week we're reviewing book four in the series, the start of a new trilogy: A Tapestry of Spells. Unfortunately, I wasn't as absorbed by this book as its predecessors, but this is not at all a comment on Kurland's writing. Rather I just had too much on my plate, so I didn't get to sit down and just let myself fall back into the world of the Nine Kingdoms and forget about life for a while as I would have preferred. Instead, I had to read ...
WOMS: Princess of the Sword
Well I can finally sit down and write out my review of Lynn Kurland's final installment of the first trilogy in her Nine Kingdoms series, Princess of the Sword. (So much for batch-writing and consistency. Maybe in an upcoming post I'll share the utter insanity that has been my life the past eight weeks, but anyway...onwards!) This series has been a delight, and this finale was no exception. I tend to be a second book person. It's the middle installments where the juicy backstories and ...
BOOK LAUNCH
The time has finally arrived: something I wrote is being published! As some of you may recall, I mentioned how I graduated from a little program where I obtained my certificate in written storytelling through the Story Center in partnership with Metropolitan Community College. What I hinted at, though, and can finally share in full details, is that as a graduate, they will be publishing my short story, which I was required to write as a part of my coursework, through their imprint [Woodneath ...
Coexisting in Harmony
The sages teach us that beauty is found within the balance of mercy and judgement; when gevurah is balanced with chesed, there is tiferet. Beauty exists in their harmony. This is a Kabbalistic understanding of how three of the ten sefirot---or emanations of the Divine essence, of the Infinite [Ein Sof]---are manifested within the world. To define what this beauty, what tiferet, is would take me much longer than this blog post will allow. (Good thing I wrote a fantasy novel to explore it ...
WOMS: The Mage’s Daughter
I'm angry (livid really), but instead of kvetching about my day job I loathe and how today's experiences confirmed some of my worst fears about my precarious position, or worse, raging about COVID since I'm still recovering from a recent bout---I'm going to gush about a book whose heroine refuses to stop being herself, no matter what changes or challenges she faces, because I need to be reminded that though I might not be able to solve my problems with a sword (and oh, how that would be SO much ...
An Opportunity for Heroism
Read until the end for a special announcement! Life has a funny way of knocking you down as soon as you pick yourself back up. The trick, though, or rather the goal, is to never stop getting back up, no matter how many times you're knocked down. Staying down means giving in, and giving in means accepting failure as your only fate. I realise most of us know this. If anything, I'm ranting to a mirror because this is what my soul needs to be reminded of after what happened last ...
Dayenu: A Pesach Miracle
Remember how a few weeks ago, I shared about how an issue at work had turned sour, so sour it might have even been antisemitic? Well, last week, on Rosh Chodesh Nisan, a miracle occurred. It wasn't a huge miracle; nothing like the splitting of the Red Sea, but it was my miracle. My little miracle, or Hashem's way of telling me everything is going to be okay. I can't reveal everything now, all the wonderful details and how they interconnect, what I can say is, I finally at long last ...
WOMS: Star of the Morning
I’ve been reading murder mystery non-stop for a little over a year now. Fantasy just wasn’t cutting it for me. It was all the same tropes, all the same plot beats; chosen one gets chosen goes on quest and saves the world. Of course, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, but for some reason…I was sick of it. Like, I love Mexican food and could eat it everyday. Almost do. But sometimes I get sick of it and I need to cleanse my palate with either sushi (though, now it’s replacement is poké) or ...
