Lynne Simpson

Sara invented a new word:  bloffle, otherwise known as kerfuffles of various sizes occuring in blogs across the net. There’s something about summertime in Romancelandia that turns women’s thoughts to scandal. And is it just me, or does it seem like people in the publishing world pick this time of year to spectacularly self-destruct? This [...]

Many people who read my blog regularly are probably already familiar with Chekhov’s Gun, but for those of you who aren’t, here’s a quick summary. Anton Chekhov, the famous Russian playwright and short story author, once said, “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” [...]

So I finished The Iliad and immediately started The Odyssey. Can I just say right now that the last line of The Iliad annoys the daylights out of me? And so the Trojans buried Hector breaker of horses. Okay, fellow grammar and punctuation fetishists, what’s wrong with that sentence? I don’t know if it’s a [...]

I’m almost done with The Iliad. Patroclus is dead, Achilles is even MORE pissed, and I suspect Hector’s about to get whacked. I don’t know if I’ve gotten hold of a particularly readable translation of The Iliad or what, but I still stand by my original assessment that this is an amazingly fresh, interesting story. [...]

I went by my local Home Depot today to check out some of their new eco-friendly products, and I was very pleased to find they had a huge selection of organic and heirloom vegetables. If a retailer as big as Home Depot is starting to show some concern about the environment, there may be hope [...]