by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 9, 2016 | General
I have been living in fear for months and last night my fears were realized. Here’s what I fear is coming: The climate change accord rejected. Planned Parenthood defunded so no more cancer screenings and birth control for low income women. The ACA repealed. Millions without health care once again. The nuclear agreement with Iran revoked. A new Supreme Court that may well overturn Obergefell granting gay people the right to marry. What happens to those couples and their children? And...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 5, 2016 | General
This is long so I apologize for that. It’s also a post that I hesitated to write because I’m very private person, and I’m telling you a lot about myself. But I think this election is just that important that I’m willing to open up. So here goes — I’m younger than Secretary Clinton, but I want to give you a look at how the world appeared and still often appears to a woman. Especially a woman who is driven, ambitious, smart and educated. I’ve talked about being...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Oct 22, 2016 | General
I recently posted on Facebook a link to a story out of Texas about students walking out of an anthropology class over the discussion that modern humans evolved in Africa. I got push back that this was unfair to Texas, on overblown story because only a small number of students walked out of a class of 390, etc. Then I realized that what disturbed me about the story is that there is a percentage of our American citizenry who is truculent, ill informed, proud of that lack, and suspicious of...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Oct 18, 2016 | About Writing
Reality is so damn unforgiving. I’m working on the third book of the IMPERIALS Saga, and one of my main character is the heir to the throne. Her aides aren’t going to let her go into actual combat unless it’s absolutely unavoidable, and she’s not stupid enough to lead the charge. She’s also now an admiral in command of a large battle group that’s going in to rescue some captured soldiers. So, she’s on the bridge, giving orders and others are...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Oct 9, 2016 | General
“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” Edmund Burke (1729-1797). I first heard this quote while watching a performance of the musical 1776. The representative from Georgia, Dr. Lyman Hall, was sent to the Continental Congress with the instruction not to vote for independence. After listening to John Adams passionate cry of “Is Anybody There?” he quotes the line...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Oct 3, 2016 | Blog
A Man for All Seasons – Act One Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law! More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that! More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Sep 6, 2016 | About Writing
There’s a saying in writing that you have to be able to “kill your babies”. Which means that sometimes there is a scene or a character that you just love, but it has to go. It can’t stay in the narrative. I’ve faced two of those in the past week. Both times, on the Wild Cards story and on the novel, I wrote a scene or in one case a set up, and in the back of my head a tiny little voice went “Ah, come on!” It behooves writers to listen to that tiny...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 14, 2016 | About Writing, TV & Movies
Over the past two weeks I’ve seen two movies. STAR TREK: BEYOND and last night SUICIDE SQUAD. I only went to see the Trek film because I had been asked to do an interview about it. I had been actively looking forward to Suicide Squad. My reactions to both were polar opposites of what I expected. NOW THERE ARE GOING TO BE SPOILERS!!!!!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED I ended up enjoying Beyond far more than I expected, (I kept murmuring to myself, “why oh why couldn’t we have had some humor and...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 17, 2016 | Blog
I can’t believe I’m writing about this again, but as I type three more police officers have been killed today. Three others are in the hospital. As the shooting was occurring the Baton Rouge police were putting out warnings about men armed with long guns — _In a state with open carry_. I know this is going to earn me howls and objections, but can we stipulate that in a civil society open carry is crazy? At this point police forces around the country are worried if not down...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 8, 2016 | Blog
Over on Facebook I’ve been nattering on about horses and the World Science Fiction Convention because I truly cannot make sense of Dallas. Or perhaps it’s all painfully obvious and understandable, and I’m trying to avoid facing it. We have a divided society with economic and social inequality. We have a fraught history as regards race in this country which we have never honestly faced. We have an increasingly militarized police force and minority populations who feel...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 4, 2016 | Blog
I am so glad to be home. No moon, so the sky is like black crystal. The Milky Way looks like a gossamer shawl thrown over Heaven’s shoulders. The longer I look the more stars seem to appear. There are the big, bold ones trying to see who can throw the most light, and then the small, shy ones peeping out from behind them like elf children. There is a soft breeze carrying the scent of piñon and juniper, and making the trees sigh and dip. My wind chimes are singing to each other. ...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 21, 2016 | Blog
**************************************************************HERE BE SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!***************************************************************************************** Saturday night I took myself off to the Cinepolis to see the new X-Men film rejoicing in the rather ominous title X-Men: Apocalypse. I’ve greatly enjoyed X-Men First Class and Days of Future Past. I’ve been a big James McAvoy fan and Fassbender is perfect as young Magneto so this wasn’t going to be a hardship....
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 15, 2016 | Blog
If only it were a delicious frothy drink. Or a fun game to be played at picnics. But it’s not. The Stasi (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit) was the secret police of East Germany. The organization that had neighbors spying on neighbors and citizens reporting each other. It’s a common creation of authoritarian states. Stalin had the NKVD. Nazi Germany had the Gestapo. I wonder what President Trump will call his secret police? Here are a couple of quotes from the presumptive...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 13, 2016 | Blog
I’m still trying to process yesterday’s horror. What I can’t understand is the retreat to the political corners and simplistic binary choice — it’s either guns or it’s terrorism. As the President pointed out this morning in his statement from the Oval Office — it can be both. It is both. In fact it’s a three dimensional mess because it’s also blatant homophobia. Yes, this gunman had been self-radicalized. Yes it was ridiculously easy for...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 8, 2016 | Blog
When I was five or six grownups asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said a jockey. They laughed at me and told me “girls can’t be jockeys”. When I was ten grownups asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said an astronaut. They laughed and me and said, “girls can’t be astronauts”. When I was thirteen or fourteen grownups asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said President of the United States. They laughed at me and said,...
