by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 7, 2021 | Blog
There have been four men in my life who I have considered to be beyond brilliant. One was my father, the second a professor at my law school, another an inventor and space visionary, and the fourth was my friend, Dr. Michael Engelberg. I first met Michael at what would become our traditional meeting at Hop Li Seafood Restaurant in L.A.’s Chinatown. Michael was an oncologist at Cedar’s Sinai, a brilliant physician, but he was also a movie producer. He had made Heinlein’s...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 28, 2021 | Blog
Folks, I know we had hoped to release Currency of War in February, but one member of the staff was trapped in the Republican apocalypse that befell Texas and was without power for a week. So it’s going to be a few more days. Please be patient and understanding with us. Life in the time of Covid and climate change has made everything so much more difficult.
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 16, 2021 | Blog
I thought people might be interested in reading the speech I gave at the 2021 Life the Universe and Everything conference. So I’m going to post it here. Please excuse any odd phrasing or formatting, it was to add me in the delivery. Very strange to give a speech on Discord where you have no feedback from the listeners. Life in the Time of Covid has made us all very adaptive. Anyway, here it is. (I attempted to center the title, the work from which it was derived and the author of said...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jan 12, 2021 | Blog
We are getting close. Here is a sneak peak at the cover of the upcoming fourth Imperials book Currency of War. It will be out in February. I’ll update once I have the actual date when it goes live. Such deep thanks to Alexi Vandenberg and the staff at Prince of Cats Literary Productions. I completed this novel over two years ago, but then hit a hiccup with my then publisher. Actually I’m really happy things worked out the way they did because now I get to have Elizabeth Leggett do...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jan 6, 2021 | Blog
I am beyond joyful. We turned Georgia blue. We flipped the Senate. It’s stunning to contemplate what this means. The symbolism alone is overwhelming. Reverend (Senator-Elect) Raphael Warnock pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King led the fight for voting rights and human dignity. John Lewis — a lion of the civil rights movement was a parishioner at that church. He is buried across from the church. Reverend Warnock is the first black Democrat ever elected to the...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Dec 19, 2020 | Blog
This all started because Gareth Powell, a really terrific British science fiction writer, suggested that we post pictures of what lurks on our desks and hash tag it as #writersdeskcompanions. I took a picture of the most interesting things on my desk — the boxes containing my gaming dice, my lovely kaleidoscope that I got on a trip to Big Sur, a crystal paperweight and the famous Dumb Stick from the Star Trek: TNG writers room. After puzzling everyone on Twitter with this post I realized...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Dec 18, 2020 | Blog
This post is ultimately going to be about how life for women prior to 1900 was nothing but drudgery and toil unless they were fortunate enough to be rich and have servants, but first some background. I’ve been having exciting adventures with the Viessmann boiler that not only provides hot water to my house, but also heats the house through the in-floor system. Turns out the boiler had a fatal fabrication flaw that had necessitated a recall. The plumbing company that installed it and...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 11, 2020 | Blog
I met Kay McCauley at the World Science Fiction Convention in Toronto back in 2003. I was in desperate need of a new literary agent, and George offered to introduce me to his agent. Kay was there to support George who was the GoH, but wasn’t much into the convention scene so I took a taxi and met her for lunch at her hotel. The woman I met was a bit taller than me with elegantly coifed brunette hair, elegant gold jewelry, a chic pantsuit and a perfect manicure. Kay alternated between being...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 3, 2020 | Blog
As few days ago I heard Jon Meacham, imminent historian and author of numerous history books, the most recent about Representative John Lewis, one of the lions of the Civil Rights Movement. Meacham said something on a news show that shook me. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to locate the exact quote, but here is a close approximation: “This election will determine if we are the citizens of the country of Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass or of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee? Are we the...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 26, 2020 | Blog
2020 was the year where we lost two giants who led in the pursuit of justice and a more perfect union. Representative John Lewis who fought for civil rights and voting rights to the point of shedding blood and nearly dying on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg who fought for women’s rights and fought gender discrimination for her entire life. It’s daunting to realize that it’s only been 100 years since women gained the right to vote, and in 1920 that franchise...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 23, 2020 | General, Subversive
“It is with your aid, as the people, that I think we shall be able to preserve – not the country, for the country will preserve itself, but the institutions of the country – those institutions which have made us free…” Abraham Lincoln. Last night I engaged in a spirited, but very civil Twitter exchange with Tom Nichols who is a professor of national security affairs at the United States Naval War College. I am certain that Mr. Nichols and I would agree on little...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 10, 2020 | About Writing, The Craft of Writing, Wild Cards
I was scrolling through Twitter this morning and came across a gif of a group of cows jumping over the white line on a road. And it reminded me of a funny Roger Zelazny/Wild Cards story. Also how Roger was freaking brilliant and one of the finest writers ever to grace the field of science fiction and fantasy. Anyway, we were working a particular volume — Down and Dirty — where Roger’s iconic character Croyd Crenson aka The Sleeper has awakened with a horrible new power...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 5, 2020 | Blog
I don’t often do this, but in this “splendid” Covid isolation I don’t have anyone to talk this out with so I’m going to pour it out on the page. Typical writer, right? So on Wednesday evening a lovely family came and took away the sort-of-antique-beds that were in the casita. The bed I had in Los Angeles will be coming back to New Mexico and I decided a queen with a really good Tempur-Pedic mattress was a better choice for any guests I might have once the plague...
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 8, 2020 | Blog
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”― Edmund Burke We are where we are — 76,740 dead from Covid-19 — because of the cowardice of putatively good men, brave men, intelligent men, patriotic men. Where is Rex Tillerson who reputedly called Trump a “fucking moron”? You have anything to say? Where is General Mattis who said Trump had the understanding of “a fifth- or sixth-grader,”, and ultimately resigned, but now refuses to speak out about what he has...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 20, 2020 | About Writing
I’ve been pacing and staring at the white board trying to lay out the full plot for book 4 of the Edge series. This one’s called The Edge of Infinity. I know the final scene of the book, I have major (tent pole) scenes, and lots of plot threads some of which are to tie up hanging threads from other books. But what I don’t have is the unifying bad guy. I had been considering using the Old One disguised as a homeless Jesus figure, but then I was texting with a friend this...
