Category Archives: Commentary

The power of a name, that’s old magic. The Doctor in The Shakespeare Code So we’ve got on this warm summer’s day, a bevy on fictional books and films on witches and witchcraft. Some like The Witches of Eastwick film will likely … Continue reading →

Every good fiddler has a distinctive sound. No matter how many play the same tune, each can’t help but play it differently. Some might use an up stroke where another would a down. One might bow a series of quick … Continue reading →

All writers write about themselves, just as the old storytellers chose to tell stories that spoke to and about themselves. They call it the world, but it is themselves they portray. The world of which they write is like a … Continue reading →

She’s looking for the music. She can hear it but she can’t find it. There are candles everywhere. Some parts of the room are low-ceilinged and high-cushioned, just right for kissing and gossip and splitting a bottle. Some parts are … Continue reading →

When I was young and in my prime (in my prime) I left my home in Caroline Now all I do is sit and pine, for all those folks I left behind I got the Blue Ridge mountain blues, and … Continue reading →

I like living in the future. — Sub-Inspector Ferron in Elizabeth Bear’s In the House of Aryaman, A Lonely Signal Burns story Iain here. Just give me a second to set aside the copy of Elizabeth Bear’s In the House of Aryaman, A Lonely … Continue reading →

When I was young and in my prime (in my prime) I left my home in Caroline Now all I do is sit and pine, for all those folks I left behind I got the Blue Ridge mountain blues, and … Continue reading →

But that is the nature of grammar—it is always tense, like an instrument, aching for release, longing to transform present into past into future, is into was into will. — Amal El-Mohtar’s The River Has Roots Everything has a story to … Continue reading →

There were two things Janey Little loved best in the world: music and books, and not necessarily in that order. Her favorite musician was the late Billy Pigg, the Northumbrian piper from the northeast of England whose playing had inspired … Continue reading →