Uncanny Vale

Home to the Literary Creations
of Erin Wilcox

Writing-Wise

Come to My Kaffeeklatsch!

On Sunday at 1:00 p.m. New Zealand time (Sat. 6:00 p.m. PDT), attendees of the World Science Fiction Convention are invited to come and talk shop with me at my scheduled Kaffeeklatsch. Here’s some of the ground we might cover, depending on the interests of whoever’s there:

Editing

  • I ran an editing firm for more than a decade, working with individuals, agencies, small publishers, and Big 5 publishers

Great Online Learning Resource for Kids

Many parents are homeschooling their kids these days and looking for online reading options so they can reduce their family’s exposure to COVID-19. I want to let folks know about Learning A–Z, which publishes books and resources targeted at specific reading levels K-6. As a writer of more than a dozen of their resources and copyeditor for many more, I’m familiar with the high editorial standards and production value of these materials. They emphasize crisp writing and beautiful illustrations procured from publishing and education industry pros. Many of the leveled books have associated lesson plans and activities you can download.

Le Guin Memorial Reading Tonight

It’s going to take me a few blog posts to explore the feelings of loss and responsibility that have arisen in me since the passing of Ursula K. Le Guin. One quote that keeps coming to mind comes from Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog: “Finally I saw it, the connection between love and death, and that the purpose of death is the release of love.”

National Novel Writing Month: Day 30

My NaNoWriMo challenge is complete, word count officially validated! Cue horns!! Cue bagpipes!! Cue all the kazoos!!! This is my third attempt at NaNoWriMo and my first ever win. What has changed since the other two efforts? From my perspective, I’ve just kept at it, hacking away (hopefully in just one sense of the verb, but possibly more than one) until I started to have some momentum. I went to the Viable Paradise Workshop, the Out of Excuses Writing Retreat, and then this summer, the NASA of writing workshops: Odyssey.