I just finished reading Benedict Carey’s book, How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens. Here are the the three biggest lessons I learned about learning from the book: 1) Pre-testing is a form of learning. As a teacher and even now as someone who works with teachers, I looked…
The Learning Log
Should I use initials as an author pen name?
A number of authors use their initials instead of their full name on the covers of their books. It is especially common among authors of fiction. So, when considering whether to use my initials instead of my first name for works of fiction, I wanted to do some quick research. Here are a few reasons…
Author Ken Liu on Goal Setting
While I am reading a book, I like to listen to and read interviews with the authors to find their advice on writing and the lessons they have learned about being authors. So, after I read the short story, “Paper Menagerie,” I went looking for interviews with the author Ken Liu. I found his writing…
Leo Tolstoy’s “Two Brothers and the Gold”
I didn’t expect while reading a set of short stories as research for writing my own short stories, that the stories themselves would give me any epiphanal moments. My only intention was to read to learn how to structure the stories and develop the characters and settings. But, of course, God had different plans. I…
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories Feel Real
I am spending some time this month reading the award-winning and nominated science fiction and fantasy short stories (Hugo Awards, Nebula Awards, Locus Awards). I look at is as research for writing my own short stories in those genres. I realize as I read these stories that one of the things that makes them so…
