Authors Electric

There are fantasy novels built on spectacle, and then there are fantasy novels built on emotional truth. Shattered Energy: A Memory in Time by Athena Plencner manages to deliver both. At its center is Ariyana, a woman whose terrifying dreams begin to unravel the reality she thought she knew, forcing her to confront loss, identity, and the dangerous truths buried inside her own memory. As we celebrate Mother’s Day here in the United States, it feels especially fitting to talk about a novel whose heroine remains, through all the chaos and revelations surrounding her, a fiercely loving and deeply protective mother. Even while facing impossible choices, Ariyana’s concern for her children never leaves the emotional center of the story. I spoke with Athena Plencner about memory, dragons, fear, vulnerability, and building worlds that feel both epic and deeply human. Dianne Pearce: The idea that Ariyana’s dreams are actually memories is so compelling. What sparked that concept for you? Ariyan...

  The New York Times today published a fascinating interview with author George Saunders .  Saunders, born December 2, 1958, is an American author known for short stories, essays, novellas, novels, and books for children. His work has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, and GQ . From 2006 to 2008, he also wrote a weekly column titled “American Psyche” for the weekend magazine of The Guardian. Saunders is a professor at Syracuse University and has received multiple National Magazine Awards for fiction, winning in 1994, 1996, 2000, and 2004. He earned second prize in the O. Henry Awards in 1997. His debut collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, was a finalist for the 1996 PEN/Hemingway Award. In 2006, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and received the World Fantasy Award for his short story “CommComm.” His later collection, In Persuasion Nation , was a finalist for The Story Prize in 2007. Saunders won the PEN/Malamud Award in 2013 and w...

  My sister is staying with me at the moment, and we went to see The Roses the other day, in the movie theater, which people don't seem to do as much, but which we especially like to do. My sister is eight years younger than me, did not go to college, but worked her way up in the field of TV production, chose to not have children, and has a long-time domestic partner because she's not into marriage. I could not wait to get married and have kids almost as much as I couldn't wait to go to college, have gotten a few degrees, in fact, I'd still like to be in college. I have one child through adoption because of infertility, and would love to have a thousand more if I had the means to do so. I put this out there, because our "takes" on life are often very different, and were very different on this film. I should also out myself and say I have a major crush on Benedict Cumberbatch since I first saw the Sherlock series. My sister does not, and she thought the Sherl...

Nuts and Bolts by Roma Agrawal  I could say this book is 'interesting', 'fascinating', 'absorbing'... It is all of those things. It's also an absolute delight.  I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and it's not only taught me a lot, but also made me think a lot-- Oh, about history, and the gob-smacking ingenuity of all people, everywhere, at all times. How, from the Stone-Age (and before), they've observed, applied, invented... I mean, how did anyone come up with the idea of melting metal out of rocks? Or of using the power contained in a bendy branch to make a bow and arrow? If I think about it for too long at a time, it makes me dizzy. The author, Roma Agrawal, studied engineering at Imperial College, London, and physics at Oxford. She worked on the Shard. So, she knows what she's talking about. And her love for her subject is evident in every word. The subtitle is 'How Tiny Inventions Make Our World Work' and her first chapter is on...

                                                                      I consider the ups and downs of being a freelance businesswoman and creative, and why it is sometimes a battle to be taken seriously. It’s a stormy day in what promises to be a sweltering summer, and am I relaxing with my feet up on this ‘day of rest’? Don’t be silly, I’m self-employed! Time off? You must be joking! Whilst you nine-to-fivers can make plans for the weekends and evenings, every time I do something other than my actual job, I lose money. So, I work seven days a week, every evening and a bit of Saturday and Sunday morning. Yes, I love what I do, and you know what they say – if you love what you do you never work a day in your life. Well, it sure feels like hard work sometimes, I can tell you. ...

As we enter May, the sun is shining and some of us are looking forward to our summer holidays. No doubt some of us booked it months ago, although some of us favour spontaneity and book ‘last minute.com’! As someone who works a lot of the time at hours which some would find unsavoury – evenings, weekends and stepping off stage at 10 pm, I thought about how much I enjoy work. In fact, I feel a bit lost without it. However, I still need a break. So, what do holidays mean to us, and how can we make the most of them?   Sometimes you just have to stop. In our hectic world, we must find a way to genuinely switch off the noise, as tempting as it may be to find the hotel with the fastest internet connection. For me, it’s difficult to separate home and work life because I mostly work at home. There’s always the ironing pile looming like an undiscovered mountain range, or the depths of the dishwasher to dive into; housework often squats at the back of my mind threatening to de-rail the writin...

  Tom Robbins died.  Oh, I didn't have any easy way to say it because there is no easy way to tell the world that your favorite author of all time has left you here without another book.  News Report Oh, don't even speak to me. I don't care if I am being dramatic. I cannot tell you how many rough patches in my life this odd man's odd books got me through. Nor can I adequately describe how he made me want to be a writer. I keep my laptop on a stand now, at the behest of my chiropractor, and I have Tom's photo on the stand, looking up at me from under my laptop. Telling me to be laid back, but to also write the thing. You can see me talking about his book Still Life With Woodpecker here . I've met some cool authors in my life: Ken Kesey, Kinky Friedman, Walter Mosley, Juan Felipe Herrera, but never Tom, my #1. And never my #2, which would have to be Raymond Chandler, but I think he was gone before I got here. If you haven't read Tom Robbins try what is probab...

 Just before the pandemic (the 2020s, to clarify for when I beocme nothing but a blip in history), we sought a better situation for our daughter and enrolled her in a private school. Moving from a class of 30 to one of 12 transformed her academics, though it strained our finances. Among her new classmates was an unexpected addition—a guinea pig named Miss Addie. The school asked for volunteers to care for Addie over Christmas break, and we eagerly stepped in. Addie and I bonded instantly (I’m a self-proclaimed pet whisperer), and when it came time to return her, I delayed by almost a week, because I just couldn't! I mean, look at those lovely, soulful, pink eyes! Pink! When the pandemic closed the school in March, they asked me to take her in again. By May, the school announced its closure (lack of funds... and at 1500/month, in a rural farm area, I understood why), and Addie became a permanent part of our family. During lockdown, my daughter discovered, through taking a guinea pig...

I am a new blogger here at Authors Electric (welcome, me!) and I was going over and  over  what to write to you for my first post. So, you should  know  a teensy bit about me, because  why am I even here? One thing people find out about me fairly quickly is my tendency to be tangential. So let me tell you about  my mother’s friend, Nancy. Nancy worked as a telephone operator (Directory Assistance 411 in the USA) in Upper Darby, right on the edge of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. Nancy was married to Bud, a blue collar guy. My mom was "from the 50s." Nancy was probably "from the 40s," so she'd never learned to drive. Bud would drive her to work, or my mom (also a telephone operator) would. But sometimes it just didn't work out, and, finally, Bud said Nancy had to learn how to drive. Nancy was in her mid-fifties then. And she did learn how to drive, but she was terrified of making left turns, so she only turned right, meaning that she’d drive a...