Medieval Monday: Cooking Methods (Part 2) — Allison D. Reid

Last week my Medieval Monday post talked about cooking methods without the benefits of a modern kitchen. Today is part two of that post. I previously mentioned a type of earth oven which was really just a pit in the ground, primarily used for things like meat, which could be wrapped up and placed directly […]

Medieval Monday: Cooking Methods (Part 1) — Allison D. Reid

We’re pretty used to our modern kitchen conveniences, including our stoves and ovens. But somehow people from the Anglo-Saxon and medieval period managed to make a wide array of dishes and baked goods without them. How did they do it? Managing your fuel supply was a key element.  Cutting and gathering wood was a summer […]

Folly — France & Vincent

You may have noticed that I seem to spend a lot of time wandering the highways and wild places with a camera. Occasionally I become aware that this is, quite possibly, folly for a woman alone. As I waded through nettles taller than I this morning, in search of a shot of a local ruin […]

Worldbuilding for Fantasy Writers and Gamemasters, Part Two

MAPPING YOUR WORLD If you’re going to have a complicated story you must work to a map; otherwise you’ll never make a map of it afterwards. ~J. R. R. Tolkien Your initial map can be as simple as you need it to be. It doesn’t have to be this daunting task that I foresaw it

Worldbuilding for Fantasy Writers and Gamemasters, Part One

INTRODUCTION Some years ago I started blogging a series on worldbuilding, but never got to finish it before abandoning the blog due to a lack of traffic. I called the series “Worldbuilding for Fantasy Writers” because at the time the renewed surge of interest in Tabletop Role-playing Games (TTRPG) hadn’t yet transpired, but I always

Reading J.R.R. Tolkien by Audiobook and Adaptation: Thoughts on a Portland Discovery (#tolkienreadingday) — A Pilgrim in Narnia

It was pouring rain in Portland as Nicolas and I wove our way through the artisan-filled streets of this renewed East Coast City. I love Portland, though we were not visiting on the best of circumstances. Just a couple of hours earlier, with too little sleep, Nicolas and I had left a sunny Boston behind. […]

Tolkien Reading Day 2021! — BookmarkedOne

All hail the Ring-bearer and the master of words who brought us all to Middle Earth. It’s Tolkien Reading Day, everyone! So grab your nearest Hobbit, eat second breakfast, take a hike, and of course, start reading. In case you are one of the many (like me) who has lamentably finished reading The Lord of […]

Camp NaNoWriMo/NaNoFinMo

My fellow writers, in case you weren’t aware, Camp NaNoWriMo begins next Thursday and the folks over at NaNoWriMo.org have declared April National Novel Finishing Month, or NaNoFinMo. Whether that means finishing a past NaNoWriMo project that didn’t reach the finish line of 50,000 words, or in my case, expanding the novel I won with

“The Song of Sighs” (2013) by Angela Slatter — Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein

I am hidden, but lovely, O ye daughters of darkness, as the dreams of Great Old Ones as the drowned houses of R’lyeth —Angela Slatter, “The Song of Sighs” in Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth 169 The pathos of “The Shadow over Innsmouth” is that the nameless narrator does not know who he is. What should be […]

Newgrange by Julie A. Dickson — POETRY and PLACES

Newgrange Newgrange, County Meath, Ireland, 2015 by Julie A. Dickson To stand before an ancient mound on the Irish countryside, stones hewn and balanced, silent structure stands sentinel, cavern in deep darkness— but for the winter solstice, waiting for early morning light to Illuminate the ritual altar. If I almost close my eyes I can […]