Holding Chi’s hair out of the wind while she practices her Demerara rum spokesmodel skills.

Me and Guyana’s two greatest exports. Chi gives me a bottle of El Dorado rum for my birthday.

Hey Siri, transfer sole command of NORAD to my phone.

As of yesterday, I am 56 Earth years old. As a science fiction writer of some regard, if little fame, I am obliged to add that also as of yesterday, I am 29.78 Mars years old.

I'm trying to get up a gaming group here in Adair County and failing to enlist the aid of my nephew, William. I made up this poster for him to hang around the campus of the local college, which he attends. He is a sports nut and the opposite of a nerd. He does not seem amenable to this idea.

RIP, Mr. Stoppard.

I highly recommend a slow, beginning-to-end reading of this fascinating article. www.forbes.com/sites/duncan...

This was nice to wake up to. youtu.be/Y1RQKUw1xa8?...

This and that going on and I find myself reading a book I’ve probably read a half dozen times, the book it seems like I always read when I just can’t get into any book of any sort. The book is titled First-and-Only and it was written by Dan Abnett.

I was just pushed a post by an educational organization with "writing project" in its name that was in fact a repost from some other outfit. The writing project had offered this with their forward: "Long but worth the read."

I am now old, impoverished and ill. But my shadow can shoot lightning from its eyes.

I don’t know what your idea of fun is, but mine is NOT carrying a struggling 130 pund Wagyu calf 200 yards in the pouring rain.

attn: DC Comics. 120 page graphic novel. Kid Psycho in the 21st Century. It's obviously past time. Contact me via my agent.

I am taking my afternoon off indulging myself in a game of sorts, one of my own invention, which I am calling BrontëTech. Riffing off something I mentioned in an Amazon review of the special “Gothic” issue of Shrapnel, the magazine devoted to the vast BattleTech fiction and gaming shared universe...

When you pull your on hoodie backwards, don't fret. Just kind of shrug it around. But be careful of your glasses, which you forgot to take off first.

The bovine mind is a mysterious thing.

I’m introducing a new internet acronym. OAL;TY. Of appropriate length; thank you.

Some days your biggest accomplishment is going to be getting a chain wrapped too tautly around a gate unstuck. That’s not a metaphor. Related: It is always easier to chain a gate than to unchain a gate. You can use that one as a metaphor, I guess.

Make of this what you will. I hate to be pessimistic; perhaps it simply indicates that the new owners are going to handle their own electronic subscriptions. From Weightless Books:

A title, byline, and editorial blurb for a story in the November 1934 issue of Weird Tales Magazine. Sure, time and Freud’s cigar must be taken into account but it makes me wonder about editor Farnsworth Wright’s sense of humor. And of self-awareness.

A friend once told me that the closest parallel to NFTs —a previous “inevitable” thing foisted on a world that deserves better—was those certificates you can order that give you “ownership” of a star.

Bow to your partner. Bow to the lady across the hall.

I must admit that the practice illustrated in the attached images both irritates and concerns me. The pictures are the cover and first page of Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars as it first appeared in book form in 1917, and then the cover and first page of the same book as published in 2024.

A commonplace conversation once often heard around here that you don’t hear anymore: “Are you not gonna lock the door?” “Nah. Somebody might need to get in.”

Lean on me!

Robert E. Howard fans be advised.

God bless Jane Goodall, Ambassador to Our Cousins. Her work helped us better understand ourselves.

Who knows what this is? Don’t be tacky and no fun by looking this up with a search engine or whatever.

I need just 12 more followers to hit 1300. I will recruit whoever those 12 are as disciples and send them out into the world to preach peace, love, and resistance to Empire. Warning: some of you will probably be martyred.

I am really digging the outfits, wizards! Especially the hats! From "Death and 7 Wizards," written by Roy Thomas with pencils by John Buscema under Ernie Chua's inks in the Marvel comic, Conan the Barbarian #33, cover-dated December 1973.

Here’s the announcement of the next round of digital shorts based on the characters of Robert E. Howard. My story is about Bran Mak Morn, a Pict hero in the days of the Roman occupation. The title is “Wolf of the Heather.” www.superherohype.com/comics/62877...

This photograph of Reagan-era Marine veteran Curtis Evans exercising his constitutional right to protest in Broadview, Illinois, yesterday was taken for the Chicago Tribune by Stacey Wescott. I know Curtis Evans is a hero, and I'm betting Stacey Wescott is a future Pulitzer winner.

Here's a dark fantasy story I wrote called "Dolly Girl." I'm pretty proud of it. It's about 8,100 words long, which means it will take most native English readers about 40 minutes to read. If you take the time, let me know what you think! www.apexbookcompany.com/a/blog/apex-...

I posted this image last week,but am reposting as I can now prove this is my 5-times-great-grandfather. As a member of Gabriel Long's Company of Morgan's Rifles, he crossed the Delaware with George Washington. Shortly thereafter, he was wounded at Princeton, then fought at Brunswick and elsewhere.

A rare long-distance action shot of me at work. My brother snapped me checking to see if #13 had calved—you can see she had—and “sexing” the baby. Little girl.

I'm not sure if this is a William Rowe in my family. There are a LOT of William Rowes in my family. Heck, I see at least two every day, and on some days three! I should look into it more deeply at some point. It would be cool to have a Revolutionary War Veteran ancestor.

I acknowledge the smugness of this letter I've just typed up. I will also be smug when I walk down to the post box on the public square after breakfast in the morning to mail it. If you're gonna be performative, try to make someone else's day with it while you're making your own, that's what I say!

Happy Labor Day weekend from the ‘ville.

Double dipping this morning.

Hey genre publishing people. Do I know anyone who, or know anyone who knows anyone who, worked on the Tor Conan books in the 80s and 90s and might answer a few questions?

Perfection is unattainable by humans. But there are human things that, in my life’s experience thus far, have gone a long way towards it. Here are lucky thirteen of them. There are more. Now you go.

My latest story, a sword & sorcery piece called "Savannah and the Apprentice," is now live at Lightspeed. It features my possible-series character Savannah the Librarian and companions of the road. There's an author interview & audio version at the story page, which is linked in the first comment.

It's funny, the things that will throw you out of a story. I just read a description of a monster that the author says has "a broad gar-like mouth," and I just stopped. What? I'd give you "long," though that's inelegant. I'd give you "sharp" and be quite happy. But broad?

Taters turned one yesterday. As the first vet who saw him after I took him from the farm at around 13 weeks correctly predicted, he has turned out to be "irredeemably feral."

I continue to tweak the covers, but am taking what's left of the weekend off to work on a revision. Here's where they stand. (You can also see this stuff at falchionmag.blogspot.com)