Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

When we show up, we win.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

It’s a doggy dog world.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

“They not like us!” (that’s for sure!)

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

You are here: Home / Medium Cool / Medium Cool – BJ Peeps Who Are Writers, Tell Us About Your Books!

Medium Cool – BJ Peeps Who Are Writers, Tell Us About Your Books!

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Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in.  We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.

Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered.  We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.

BJ peeps who are writers, tell us about your books!  Whether you’re a lurker, a commenter, or a front-pager, we want to hear about them all.  Even if you have had your book featured in some way on Balloon Juice, please speak up.  Not everyone reads every thread, so folks may have missed it.  Don’t be shy!

Oh, and be sure and give us the elevator pitch for your book, and not just the title!

If you’re not a writer yourself, or even if you are, you may have read books written by other BJ peeps, so please tell us your thoughts about those books.  I think we can include books written by close family members, too!

I can’t be the only person who likes to read and to give books as gifts, can I?

 

Reader Interactions

103Comments

  3. 3.

    topclimber

    I can’t be the only person who likes to read and to give books as gifts, can I?

    We can only hope you are right.

  6. 6.

    Ladyraxterinok

    Somewhat OT

    Just found out that in book 8 (1961) of Louis L’Amour Sackett series, the 1st Sackett character inTX gets to Uvalde !!TX, kills a player cheating at poker, and heads out

  8. 8.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    That was you? All these years and you out yourself on a top ten thousand blog when you could have walked out on stage at Glastonbury and said “Hi, Dave. Wanna play some oldies?”

  10. 10.

    Tony Jay

    I’d love to be a writer, but that whole ‘actually writing a complete book’ thing? It’s even harder than G. R. R. Martin makes it look.

  13. 13.

    C Stars

    Today I met the memoirist, screenwriter, and playwright R. Eric Thompson and purchased his book of essays, Congratulations, the Best is Over! He also recently wrote a biography of Maxine Waters.

     

     

    ETA Thompson is one of the writers on Dickenson, a TV show that I hadn’t heard of until today but sounds interesting. Any reviews from the BJ gallery?

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    I almost wrote a book once.  I was going to title it To All the Dogs I’ve Loved Before.  A tribute to each of my dogs, with stories about them and stuff that was going on in my life when they were with me.

    Who else has thought about writing a book, and what would it have been about?

  16. 16.

    Miss Bianca

    I’ve read Frankensteinbeck’s books and I gifted “Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m a Supervillain” to my great-niece.

    There a lot more BJ authors out there whose books I do plan to get to…

  20. 20.

    mvr

    Was complaining today about books I like and how most mystery series books try to develop by going over the top – more violence, more surprises, higher stakes, or more expensive hardware. Even most of the ones I like and once loved do it. Wish I could write one myself. The mysteries would get smaller, the stakes lower except in a personal sense.

    What I love about Raymond Chandler is that the stories stayed small in a way. The largest stakes were personal stakes.

    I doubt I will ever write fiction, because I am too old to embark on that path. But I have opinions.​​

  22. 22.

    Miss Bianca

    @WaterGirl: I’ve been working on a number of historical/fantasy fiction stories for years, mostly for my own amusement. The latest one I’ve been thinking about revisiting is about a hard-boiled werewolf police inspector set during the French Revolution…kind of The Scarlet Pimpernel in reverse (if you remember that one!).

  23. 23.

    J.

    Any mystery lovers? If so, check out my latest, FRAMED IN NAPLES. It’s got a palette full of colorful characters, intrigue, and romance. And for those interested in a holiday mystery, check out THE CRISIS BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Both books are part of my Sanibel Island Mystery series and take place before the hurricane. Also, you don’t have to read my prior books to enjoy them. FYI They make great stocking stuffers! The paperback editions are available wherever books are sold online and in select bookstores. (You can also ask your local bookstore to order them.) They’re also available for the Kindle and on Kindle unlimited.

    On a personal note, for those who know my story, we had to sell our beloved, newly renovated home on Sanibel at the end of last year. There was too much damage and our insurance company denied our claim. Though FEMA gave us some money. Happy to say that despite losing nearly everything, including our sanity, we are doing okay, and with the help of therapy and time and the love and support of my readers, I was able to write again.

  24. 24.

    wonkie

    I’m a writer! Thank you for this opportunity. I do think my books will appeal to BJ readers. My most recent is book is a conversation between a woman who travels to Basin and Range Natl Monument to die under the desert stars–but she doesn’t die all the way. Instead, she becomes a ghost and meets a coyote spirit.   The dead woman is very concerned about the big questions about God, afterlife, and the meaning of life. The coyote spirit is more interested in coffee, card games, and storytelling. Their conversation roams such topics as particle colliders, stealing dogs, spiders, petroglyphs, and how the woman lost her bra at a truck stop in Yukon Territory.  This is a quote from a review:   “Koerber’s writing pulled me right back in. It’s this amazing collection of simple words that are smoothly delivered and that create interesting moments that all work together to pull the mind to something grand. You’re on the verge of plunking down 99 cents for this book? Do it! This one’s a gem!
    After you finish, there are others to enjoy. Don’t miss them either!”

    Encounters with Old Coyote by Laura Koerber | Goodreads

    Thanks again, and happy holiday season to everyone.

  25. 25.

    NotMax

    New rules: talk about anything you want, culture-related. Or lack thereof!

    Now that’s more like Medium Cool.

  26. 26.

    Tom Levenson

    Y’all probably know this, given my grandstanding on the front page whenever I have something grand to stand around about…but I write nonfiction, mostly centered on history-and-science.  This very evening I’m working on revisions to my seventh, titled So Very Small, which is about how germ theory was figured out (and, as or more important, why it took so damn long).  It’s really about the pressures of society, belief, and culture that shape what science can do–which leads not only to an argument about why it took 2 centuries to get from the discovery of microbes to the realization they matter in disease, but also some insight on why we continue to f **k up around infectious disease. I swear I started on this project before the pandemic.

    That’s coming out in early 2025 (delayed by about six months to dodge the election). I’ve published six books prior to this one, many of them discussed here.  My Amazon author’s page is probably the best place to get a look at them, but when and as you can, libraries and local bookstores are the places to go. (And if your library doesn’t have a book, mine or anyone else’s, that you’d like to read, bug them to buy it. Authors love that.)

    It’s been an interesting ride, starting with climate change (in 1989!) and landing on financial follies and, in So Very Small,  the Great Chain of Being. Who knows what will come next. (I have an idea. Or two. But no settled decisions yet.)

  27. 27.

    Frankensteinbeck

    MY books?  AH HA HA HA HA HA HA.

    Okay, so, the most popular series by far is the eight books starting with Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m A Supervillain series, a romp about middle and high school kids with super powers in a lighthearted superhero-infested LA.  As the title suggests, a lot of it…

    …look, most of my books are about how complicated morality is, so kids trying to be good while being labeled a bad guy is a running theme in and out of that series.

    I have other books!  My first three were very serious, but my name and sales got made doing the light stuff.  Still, Wild Children is literary fantasy about cursed eternal children, so dark it’s been described to me by multiple people as a Holocaust book.  Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Teeth is an exotic dark fantasy coming of age story about a nightmare who lives in the world of dreams.  I guarantee you have never read anything like it.  Quite Contrary is a Red Riding Hood story, and that is a very dark story indeed, but not dark enough to stop Mary Stuart, the most contrary 12 year old girl ever.

    I am quite proud of all three.  Also, while parents like to buy their kids the fun-looking Supervillain books, when they get to choose for themselves I find tween girls beeline to Wild Children.  Kids are deeper than we give them credit for.

    And I have fun side books!  I absolutely love You Can Be A Cyborg When You’re Older, about a 14 year old girl having a lot of fun in a cyberpunk dystopia.  I wanted to share with a new generation just how goofy 80s cyberpunk was under the grimdark mask.

    A Spaceship Repair Girl Supposedly Named Rachel is about a girl who semi-accidentally runs away from home by climbing onto a spaceship, and discovers that everything we know about space is wrong, because Earth is infected with Math.  The ACTUAL solar system is more like a string of pulp serials strung together.

    A Rag Doll’s Guide To Here And There is the book I wrote because I read the Oz books and went “I can be more childlike magic than that” and set out to prove it.  It’s syrupy sweet with a very dark core, an adventure in an enchanted kingdom of dolls narrated by the human heroine’s doll sidekick.

    I’ve written exactly one book with an adult main character, a side book in the Supervillain world entitled I Did Not Give That Spider Superhuman Intelligence, set in 1980 because 1980 was weird.

    And right now I’m taking a break from writing the last chapter of Skip School, Make Dragons, science fantasy about a girl who is so good at magical bioengineering that she causes and fixes some truly epic disasters.

    If you’ve figured out that I lean very strongly to early-mid teen female protagonists facing moral ambiguity while they kick ass, you have figured out correctly.

  28. 28.

    Hungry Joe

    Well, I’m more of a former writer — newspaper guy (book review editor and columnist, arts & feature writer. After I left the paper I wrote “Anyway*”, a middle-grade (ages 10-12) novel published by Simon & Schuster in hardcover in 2012, paperback in 2013. Not as Hungry Joe, of course, but under the name Arthur Salm, which coincidentally happens to be my real name. I got a pretty good advance, and the book did okay, but I think I’m done. Writing is … HARD.

  29. 29.

    JCNZ

    I wrote a book. “Red Herring,” published by HarperCollins in 2016 (ISBN #1775540897). It’s set during the 1951 Waterfront Strike, which was a showdown between left-wing unions and a right wing government. John Foster Dulles poked his nose in. New Zealand had its Red Scare, too. A private detective, Johnny Molloy, is asked by insurance company California Life & Mutual to find an Irish seaman who disappeared from a freighter en route to Korea and may have turned up in New Zealand. Molly – a former member of the Communist Party, veteran of the Spanish Civil War and campaigns in Greece, North Africa and Italy with the New Zealand Division during WW2, takes the case, his first in months. There’s not much demand for ex-Commo gumshoes.

    The book was well-reviewed and sold 2000 copies, which is not bad for here. HarperCollins commissioned a sequel, which is… continuing.

  30. 30.

    Josie

    Back in the summer, WaterGirl was kind enough to post my description of my novel about the Mexican Revolution.https://balloon-juice.com/2023/07/09/josie-a-dangerous-woman/

    I have since made it available on other sites in addition to Amazon–Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Baker & Taylor, etc.

    Now I’m working on a sequel and learning so much Mexican history. The next one will take place during the 30’s and 40’s. It still amazes me that we are taught so little of the history of a country that is right on our doorstep.As a former librarian I find that the research is actually more fun than the writing.​​​​​

  31. 31.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I write YA fantasy, though a big chunk of my readers seem to be adults. My most recent book, GLASS GIRL, came out in May. Windy City Reviews said it’s a “page-turning crime novel set in a fantasy world with a dynamic teen protagonist.” That’s a better elevator pitch than I could have come up with.

    An Amazon reviewer said another book, THE TRICKSTER, was “a less-intense Game of Thrones meets Pirates of the Caribbean.” I liked that one too.

    BJ has been very good about letting me talk about my books, so I think I’ll let that be enough babbling from me.

    ETA: I’ve read Josie’s book and a couple of Frankensteinbeck’s, plus the novel someone wrote about the train porters. I’d have to look that up (It’s Blood Terminal by CC Edge). I enjoyed them all. I want to read the one about the lost subways too. BJ has some very talented writers.

  32. 32.

    Miss Bianca

    @Tom Levenson: That sounds so great, I can’t wait to read it! Germ theory – and how it evolved – fascinates me. I can’t help but break out into mild hives when I read Patrick O’Brian and realize that Maturin, brilliant surgeon/physician/naturalist that he is, is treating patients with his germy hands and in his germ-infested coat!

  33. 33.

    CliosFanBoy

    I’ve had three books published so far, all histories dealing with the 1910s, published by scholarly presses. University library budgets have been decimated, and students don’t read hard-copy books anymore, so sales are a fraction of what they would have been 20 years ago. Oh well. The 1st one got me a job, and the 2d got me tenure. Now that I’m retired, I may write one more, this time on vaudeville, the early movies, and the growth of the mass entertainment industry in the US.

     

    Josie: my 1st book was on the US and the Mexican Revolution. I bet 95% of my students from the US know nothing about it.

  34. 34.

    Geminid

    @Ladyraxterinok: I just finished Lando, by Louis L’Amour. It features Orlando Sackett, the last of the Sackett brothers to leave Tennessee. He travels to Texas with the mysterious Tinker and runs into trouble.

    Have you read Ride the River? That one features Echo Sacket, Orlando’s aunt. The story begins with her journey to Philadelphia to collect a bequest from a crooked lawyer. The young Miss Sacket wears her best city clothes for the trip. Since a Sackett must be prepared for trouble, she also carries a very large knife concealed under her dress and two pistols in her purse. She doesn’t have to use them too much.

  36. 36.

    cckids

    @WaterGirl: I had an idea for a children’s book, based on a news item I saw.  As scientists listened to and tried to ID various whale songs & noises, they kept finding one that seemed singular; they call it the “52 megahertz whale”; it apparently calls at a tone very different from any other known whale, and appears to be one of a kind. My son loved whales, and had some artistic talent, I thought his illustrations would be great with it.

    As many have mentioned, though, the actual writing is so much harder than just coming up with an idea. Plus, I could not come up with an ending that wasn’t depressing.

    Link to a more recent story about #52.

  39. 39.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @WaterGirl: since you ask, I have a title: Breaking Through Level One.

    It is a tale of technical support. It’s unlikely that I’ll write it, though. I haven’t collected the material, alas.

  40. 40.

    Miss Bianca

    @CliosFanBoy: I would definitely read that last one if you wrote it! Theater history was my area of doctoral research, so anything in that vaudeville/early movie transition period interests me.

  41. 41.

    dnfree

    @J.: I appreciate your post, because I’ve been wondering how you were doing.  So sorry you lost your house.  My brother and his wife spend about half the year living at Kelly Greens, not far from Sanibel, which was also seriously damaged.  They live on an upper floor so their condo was mostly okay, but many owners seem to be selling rather than repairing.

  42. 42.

    Sandman

    I wrote a trilogy of kids fantasy novels (published by Disney-Hyperion from 2014-2017). They didn’t sell well, in part because they are kinda more written for adults. They are about two kids who discover that all the cool gadgets and machines of their world are actually all creatures poached from a world of living metal. “The Books of Ore” is the series. 1)The Foundry’s Edge 2)Waybound 3)Blaze of Embers

    Been a lurker here forever. Hi all!

  45. 45.

    kalakal

    @J.: Glad to hear from you. I was so sorry to hear about what happened to you with Ian. Good to hear you’re doing better and are writing again. I have a couple of friends you’re books are perfect for

  46. 46.

    HumboldtBlue

    I don’t know which of you wrote the script for today’s Eagles v Bills game, but that was a helluva an ending, despite the repeated screaming at the screen as the Eagles played like amateurs for two hours before winning in the end.

  51. 51.

    BretH

    Close family members – cool. My late (extremely cool) uncle wrote and published this book about walking routes in Washington DC accessible by Metro stops (link to long Amazon url):

    https://tinyurl.com/2a9xwtad

    What’s really cool is he created the cover in Adobe Illustrator (ages ago) and I got ahold of his original file and there were hundreds and hundreds of layers making up the whole thing. I’m sure an Illustrator expert would blanch but for an amateur like him to have created that in 1995 was a work of incredible patience and detail.

  53. 53.

    eclare

    @J.:

    So good to see you here, I’ve been wondering how you are doing.  I’ll have to check out some of your books.  And I’m sorry about your house but glad you are reasonably ok.

  55. 55.

    Pappenheimer

    I have a couple of novelettes on Amazon Kindle, the first one is titled Echoes of Shadow. First attempt at a novel, though I have a short story in the old Dragon magazine. Fantasy, all 3 taken from my RPG world.

  56. 56.

    Kristine

    I write science fiction as Kristine Smith. Socio-political with aliens. After thinking I had nothing more to add to my old series, I realized there was more story to tell. Echoes of War comes out December 5th. E-book only for now. Print will some later. The first five books in the series are available everywhere but Apple, but I’ll tackle them soon. I’ve written some lighter SF short stories for the magazine Boundary Shock Quarterly. R&D test pilots and a stolen ship.

    I also had a couple of books come out a few years ago under a pseud (Alex Gordon). Supernatural suspense featuring witches in Illinois and Oregon. I am hoping to get those rights reverted and then close out the story with a third book. I’m afraid I have more to write than time in which to write it.

    My website is the best place to find info.

  57. 57.

    Chris

    @mvr:

    Was complaining today about books I like and how most mystery series books try to develop by going over the top – more violence, more surprises, higher stakes, or more expensive hardware. Even most of the ones I like and once loved do it. Wish I could write one myself. The mysteries would get smaller, the stakes lower except in a personal sense.

    The Dresden Files has been doing this in the fantasy realm.

    Can’t say he didn’t warn us, he’s been very open that the thing was building up to an apocalypse-themed climax, but the stakes keep getting raised… and at the same time, like G. R. R. Martin with his stuff, there’s a distinct impression that he doesn’t know how to wrap it up (hence the drastic slowdown in Dresden book releases).

  58. 58.

    Scamp Dog

    @cckids: I was freaked out for a moment: 52 MHz is a radio frequency, and I have no idea how a biological creature could do something like that. It turns out the whale makes a 52 Hz sound, a very low audio frequency, but still outside what other kinds of whales make.

    Still a cool story, I’m glad you mentioned it.

  62. 62.

    Chris

    @Miss Bianca:

    kind of The Scarlet Pimpernel in reverse (if you remember that one!).

    I gotta say, the basic Scarlet Pimpernel premise of saving toffs from the guillotine (i.e. the exact people who were most likely to belong there) never really held much interest for me – his spiritual descendent Zorro scratches the swashbuckler/proto-superhero itch much better.  The reverse Scarlet Pimpernel premise, on the other hand, I could probably get much more interested in.

  63. 63.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @C Stars: If you mean Dickinson on AppleTV, it is AMAZING!!!   One of the best comedies of the last few years.  Takes a really interesting approach to doing a period series (incorporating modern/influencer language and current music), the cast is super-talented, the writing is smart and funny and the costumes are GORGEOUS!  And the whole series is Feminist AF.

  69. 69.

    Noah Brand

    The Things She Stole is about crime, Portland, and Portland crime. It follows Brandon Penny, who was a criminal genius when he was a kid, and is now an unhappy adult in an unhappy life. When his long-lost mother resurfaces, the Portland Police Bureau wants Brandon’s help pinning a 20-year-old murder on her. But he learned one thing before he could read: never trust the cops. If he can’t trust the cops, and he doesn’t dare trust his mother, the only one he can count on is that kid he used to be, the lawless prodigy he buried years ago for good reasons.

  74. 74.

    Lyrebird

    @J.: Thank you for the update, and glad for the good parts…  what an ongoing heartbreak.

    @Albatrossity: Thank you for sharing so many beautiful photos with us, and for the plug for E’s books.  The edited volume, letters to America, looks really interesting, and just what I need.  Homeschoolers in our state must receive instruction on patriotism and citizenship every year, and other than reading stories by and about immigrants, I am usually at a loss for what to do to check that box.

     

    @WaterGirl: I’ve started writing two books in the last three years.  One, the non-fiction one, I am even starting to put a proposal togeteher for.

  75. 75.

    stinger

    I have read, and given as gifts, all of Dorothy A. Winsor‘s YA fantasy books. So good!

    Currently in the middle of Tom Levenson‘s Einstein in Berlin–fascinating history and can’t-put-it-down storytelling. Also enjoyed his The Hunt for Vulcan and Newton and the Counterfeiter; a couple more are still in a to-read pile.

    I love Joyce Harmon‘s A Town and Country Season, and am following the Darcys and Bingleys via the Mary Bennett and… series that adds magic to an already magical fictiverse!

    Enjoyed Annie DeMoranville‘s Run Aground and Underway, and her Summer to Fall What’s For Dinner cookbook.

    Really liked J. Michael Neal‘s Becoming Phoebe; also C. C. Edge‘s Blood Terminal.

    Have purchased as a gift (but plan to read first) Jake Berman‘s The Lost Subways of North America.

    On my Kindle but still unread, Josie Wilson‘s A Dangerous Woman and the first Sanibel Island book, Jennifer Lonoff Schiff‘s A Shell of a Problem.

    Probably more that I can’t think of right now. Balloon Juice is better than Oprah for pointing out good reads!

  76. 76.

    Sandia Blanca

    Long ago, when I was a banker, I came up with my perfect title for a banking-themed mystery/romance: “Substantial Penalty for Early Withdrawal.” (That phrase appeared prominently in ads for certificates of deposit. ) I  now offer that title to anyone who would like it.

  78. 78.

    WaterGirl

    I’m sure we have 10x this many authors on Bj, so I hope that when I check back in the morning there are even more comments with you guys telling us about your books.

    All of you BJ peeps with books you have written… we can definitely feature try in an Authors in Our Midst post.  Maybe after the holidays?  Send me an email if you’re interested.

  84. 84.

    Lapassionara

    @Tom Levenson: So Very Small sounds so very interesting. I read a book recently about Paris in the 19th century, and cholera epidemics featured prominently. Such a horrible way to die, and it wasn’t until the discovery that the disease was caused by drinking infected water that the danger of dying of cholera was diminished (at least in the developed world). What a story.

  89. 89.

    RSA

    I wrote a popular science book a few years ago, Computing for Ordinary Mortals. I was trying to convey the general principles of computing, the big basic ideas, to a lay audience, in the same spirit as popular science books about physics, chemistry, and so forth. It wasn’t a success, maybe because of my approach, my limitations as a writer, or some other reason. Oh, well.

    Since then–meaning for almost a decade–I’ve been thinking about a young adult novel, a so-called portal fantasy, with a related goal. A lot of fantasy novels that have magic tend to be pretty hand-wavy about how it works. (“Why don’t people do X in the Potterverse?”) I thought it might be interesting to build a set of rules governing magic on top of what we know about artificial intelligence in computers, impose whatever boundaries seem reasonable and explainable, and trace out the implications as far as I could. So I have a rough plot with big gaps, character sketches, scenes that go nowhere… and AI is a target that moves faster than I can make time to write. Oh, well, again. Maybe I’ll finish it, some day.

  91. 91.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Thanks writers! I’ve purchased a couple, added others to my wish list and bookmarked this excellent thread so I can go back and peruse it more carefully.

    I thought I’d be a writer as a very young kid but I literally grew out of it (I sucked). Sometimes I think I would have been a good editor or librarian (or would at least have enjoyed the work).

  92. 92.

    cckids

    @WaterGirl: I do not think so; I discovered that, though I want to believe that I just need to find the time to access the creative part of my brain, that part does not include the gift of writing fiction.

  93. 93.

    billcinsd

    I am not a fiction writer, but my PhD Dissertation was 335 pages long and I have more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and two book chapters — one on the mineral processing of manganese and the other, which is yet to be published is about mineral beneficiation in space. Thus I probably have more than 1000 pages of published authoring

  94. 94.

    Tehanu

    My master’s thesis was published by a major publisher after I expanded it; it was a bibliography of fantasy. I then became a technical writer and have written probably 50 or 60 manuals, but I don’t count them. In the late ’80s and early ’90s I wrote two novels, neither of which got published; a rather derivative Regency romance and a time travel story, the latter of which I occasionally think of giving another try, maybe with a collaborator. They weren’t bad — I’ve read much worse things that did get published — but they weren’t what I wanted them to be. I don’t regret writing them; I would have regretted wanting to write them and not trying. Now I’m thinking of trying to get some poems published, but I’m still working as a tech writer and it’s not easy writing all day and then changing gears at night to write other things. Maybe it’ll happen, maybe it won’t … but a couple of people have told me they liked my stuff, and even if that’s as far as it ever gets, I did reach them, and that makes me contented.

  95. 95.

    Mustang Bobby

    You know me as Mustang Bobby, occasional commenter and blogger at Bark Bark Woof Woof.  In my other writing life, I’m Philip Middleton Williams, a playwright with scripts published by Next Stage Press.

    I’ve had a number of productions around the country and even in Australia, and one off-off-Broadway production of “Can’t Live Without You.”  In April 2022, The LAB Theater Project of Tampa premiered my play “The Sugar Ridge Rag,” the story of twin brothers in May 1970 who have to decide what to do when it’s their turn to be drafted to fight in Vietnam.

    Thank you, WaterGirl, for letting me brag on myself a little.

  96. 96.

    PaulWartenberg

    Currently NaNo-ing, but I am putting together a self-published collection of my short stories and just got the book cover done via Fiverr. I will also put together some of my blog writing into a book so I can put stickers of my award winnings on something physical. ;-)

  98. 98.

    J.

    @eclare: Thank you.

    And thanks to everyone who left a kind comment. I really appreciate you guys. (I’ve been reading Balloon Juice and occasionally commenting for 15 years now. And am always impressed by how supportive this community can be.)

  99. 99.

    Chris Johnson

    I wrote a nine-book series for fandom. I’d written more than a few books before that, but it was the first time anybody was actually reading.

    https://www.fimfiction.net/user/2888/Applejinx

    You can’t see the books without making an account and setting it to allow adult fics, ‘cos that’s how Trixieverse started, but by the end of the first book it had gotten dramatic and emotional, by the end of book two I’d worked out how to do even more dramatic set pieces, and it just started dragging in everything I could do as a writer. Arguably a very inappropriate use of talents, but there was no point in betraying that initial spark of prurient interest, just… twisting it. Lots.

    That was my life, during a very difficult period (I know Balloon Juice was real unhappy with me… well, we both survived all that, so (yay) )

    I could have wished that the best writing I ever did or maybe ever will do, would’ve been done in a way more easy to share/sell/even talk about, but that’s life for ya.

    Yeah, I too am a writer. I still miss it.

  100. 100.

    WaterGirl

    @Lyrebird: Good for you!  I am tempted to say that getting started is the hardest past, because as a non-author, that’s how it seems to me, but I’m thinking that some of our many authors might jump all over that as being totally incorrect.

  103. 103.

    Just Some Flyover

    I co-wrote a book called Make This Town Big published in 2016 about the Wichita Wings indoor soccer franchise. The team played between 1979 and 1992 in the old Major Indoor Soccer League. I was a huge fan when I was a kid and the Wings were a BIG deal in Wichita. (Indoor soccer was very popular in many of the league’s cities and even outdrew some of the NBA and NHL teams for a while in the early ‘80s. St.Louis Steamers, anyone? New York Arrows? Baltimore Blast, San Diego Sockers, etc?)  We wrote this as an oral history format so everyone’s voice comes through true. Colorful personalities for a colorful team in a colorful, sexy 1980s time!  If I may also plug the accompanying documentary film we made about the Wings, it’s called God Save The Wings (kind of a play on words for the team’s British influence combined with the fact the Wings always needed “saving” to survive year to year). We’ve only now released blu-rays and DVDs and we hope to have it streaming somewhere in the next few months.

    https://www.amazon.com/Make-This-Town-Big-Wichita/dp/1530856272

    https://godsavethewings.com/

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