Everything I Care to Share

Laughter at the Academy by Seanan McGuire  TL;DR - I recommend this book of short stories to anyone who likes mad scientists, broken dolls, Peter Pan, and stories with dark twists. I first encountered Seanan McGuire when I picked up her novel Feed, which is written under the pseudonym Mira Grant.  I was expecting very little as I was not a huge fan of zombie fiction at the time.  I wouldn't say I was extremely well versed in zombie fiction, but rather that I had a lot of preconceptions about the genre based on the TV and movies that I'd seen on the subject.  But N. K. Jemisin had given the book five stars, and I was going down a rabbit hole of reading books that authors I have much regard for (N. K. Jemisin, Robin Hobb, Patrick Rothfuss, and Rick Riordan) were rating highly.   I came away from that series - full of political intrigue, conspiracy plots, cloning, zombie kangaroos, and scientists who are either mad or the only sane ones there (or ...

Yesterday I was a first-time vendor at the Dallas Makerspace Holiday Gift Fair!  So many people stopped by my booth and told me how pretty my paintings were.  I was really happy with how it went, especially since I'd never done this before.  I came away with some definite notes for next time, but no real failures on my part.  One concept that was particularly brought home for me was that I needed more items in the $5-$20 range.  A lot of people wanted to take something home, but weren't prepared to pay the prices for my originals. I think that next fair I'll be offering some smaller options, perhaps made via Dye Sublimation.  I've been digitizing my work as much as possible, and I think that will be a way I can add some smaller items (perhaps with my business information in a not too obnoxious placement) that won't cost me much time or money.   Another thing that I heard a lot of  is "Are you going to teach a class on thi...