• OUR LITTLE BIG WORLD

  The atoms of my being are scattered across too many places.

  I'll watch a movie that is arguably set in a "foreign" culture or place ... and things will swim into my conscience from absolutely nowhere. Most recently - Whale Rider, a New Zealand-made movie set deeply into a New Zealand Maori culture, and the science fiction series Charlie Jade, set in South Africa and filmed in Cape Town.

  I am not any sort of expert on Maori ... but I lived in New Zealand and I know enough. I start watching that movie, and the scene shifts to a Maori temple and my subconscious supplies the name, it's a marae. ... The memory of what black volcanic sand looks like, with deep purple streaks in the black, and shimmering with tiny specks of mica so that you start to lose all sense of perspective when you look straight down on it and it feels like you are walking on a starry sky.

  In Charlie Jade, they keep having these panoramic shots of Cape Town - and I know the place. Once again my mind is off and running - the memory of the beaches at Muizenberg (Mouse Mountain), Vishoek, the beautiful white-sand crescent of tiny Llandudno beach with water cold enough to turn your leg blue. The beach at Boulders where you share the ocean with a colony of tiny and opinionated penguins...And the things I wrote in both those places.

  And people wonder where my ideas come from.

  Read More...
• My husband and I are again offering weekend writer's retreats at our home.
• I'm available for visits to your library or school!
• The third and concluding volume of the Worldweavers series, "Cybermage", is now available for preorder here. They don't have a cover image, but fortunately I do.
• A friend on holiday in Spain wandered into a local bookstore and found something wonderful on the shelf marked "bsetsellers". take a look!
• Not comprehensive, but a good overview and a place to start - details on how and where to go about booking me for a school or other appearance are available here. With a new school year starting, I would welcome a chance to talk about books and writing to young readers and potential writers of the future! (If you're reading this and you aren't a school librarian or a teacher but have a kid aged 12 - 17 who is in middle or high school and who might - with his or her classmates - enjoy a visit from an author, let your child's school know!)
• Announcing a short story sale - "Hourglass", to Jim Baen's Universe, slated for the December issue. Merry Christmas to me, as it were! Do go by there and have a look when it's up and running!
  
  In fact, go along and have a look at the place right now:
  
  
  Help save Science Fiction!
  Visit Baen's Universe!

Where's Alma?

2008 - Dates are always getting added, check back regularly!

• September 27: Kidlitosphere, Portland, OR
• October 3-5: VCON 33, Vancouver, BC, Canada
• November 21-23: OryCon, Portland, OR

2009 - So far

• Tentative: Radcon, Lunacon, Norwescon, Wiscon, Anticipation (Worldcon), Orycon

I'm represented by Jill Grinberg of Jill Grinberg Literary Management in New York. I also welcome comments from my readers in e-mail. (Note: To keep spammers at bay, JavaScript is required for the e-mail link. If it doesn't work for you, make sure JavaScript is turned on in your browser.)