Category Archive

I had planned to blog about The Village, another M. Night Shyamalan movie. The untimely death of Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, took me by surprise as it has the rest of the world. My family loved watching his show, The Crocodile Hunter. Many times we were concerned over his antics and wondered if one day he might fall to a black mamba or a crocodile, after all. The fact that he died in such a freakish manner, is all the more disturbing. I’m sorry for his wife, Terri, an Oregonian, and their two children. I confess I even modeled …

Becky Miller nailed it. The Twist in The Sixth Sense is that the man who thought he was helping the little boy stop imagining that he saw dead people was actually one of the dead and the little boy, who was gifted with this sixth sense, was helping him. Love that ending! There are several other of M. Night Shyamalan’s movies I’d love to explore. Not sure which one is next. Could it be The Village or Unbreakable? Hmmmm. Don’t forget to visit Favorite Pastimes this week where I’m blogging. I’m posting an interview with Carol Umberger. And my character …

Recently I participated in a flash fiction contest–flash fiction defined as a short story under a thousand words. One wouldn’t think it would be too difficult for a novelist to write a short story. I learned a lot. First that I was trying to put too much story into it. Second, it was a great exercise in writing tight. Third, I was missing something–that umph that gives the story/scene meaning. I put it aside for a few weeks hoping that the missing piece would reveal itself to me while I was thinking about something completely different, or in the middle …

Welcome to Day 3 of the CSFF Blog tour featuring Science Fiction author Kathy Tyers. What is your personal all-time favorite SF work and why? By “SF,” if you mean “speculative fiction,” including all of the speculative genres, that’s easy. Lord of the Rings—the books, though I also enjoyed the movies. For sheer richness of invention, the Lewisian sense of longing for a country I’ve never visited, the memorable characters, and for the many years of pleasure I’ve drawn from that trilogy. By the time I graduated from high school, I’d read them … well … more times than I …

And so the SFF blog tour continues. I visited some of the blog tour particpants yesterday–or their blogs, rather. Tina Kulesa posted a review of the trilogy. Mirtika Schultz posted a guide to pronouncing names in the Firebird Trilogy. Though I confess, while reading the books, I pronounced them all differently than the the guide! Now to begin the interview. Thanks to Stuart Stockton for his help with questions. And thanks to Kathy Tyers for the interview. Where did you grow up and what is your background? In the 1950s, my part of Long Beach, California was full of apron-wearing …

Kathy “Firebird” Tyers, as she is often called among Christian SFF fans, has grasciously agreed to an interview even though her schedule is hectic with summer school. Kathy is a multi-talented musician and writer, an icon among Christian science fiction fans because her career extends into both the secular and Christian markets with such titles as Firebird, Fusion Fird, Crown of Fire, Shivering World, Crystal Witness, One Mind’s Eyes and numerous Star Wars novels. Kathy is an exceptionally talented writer–her 3-1 book, Firebird Trilogy–is a must read for fans of the genre. I read the first book in the trilogy, …

Have you ever noticed that there are quite a few homeschooling moms who also write novels, many even published. I’m one of them. . .well not published (in novels anyway) but I homeschool several children and I write novels. I suppose that the love of books is just one reason many moms choose to homeschool their children. Walls covered with overfilled bookshelves, books stacked against empty wall-space or piled high on top of the nightstand and next to it–these are some of the outward symptoms of the homeschooling-multi-children-novel-writing moms syndrome. Though I’m sure many homeschooling moms that don’t write novels …

The Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy (CSFF) Blog Tour Group will feature Kathy Tyers, author of the Firebird trilogy August 21, 22, 23. The participants, fifteen or more bloggers, will post such things as an author interview, book reviews, reflections on Tyers’ influence on Christian fiction, discussion of her work and much more. Be sure to check back at Writing with Fire for further announcements and a list of sites involved in the tour. Blessings!Beth

I have really enjoyed this week of blogging. Last week I stressed big time at even the thought of keeping up with all of the posts for the SFF blog tour, the Speculative Faith blog and Favorite Pastimes occuring this week. I wonder if it will be like this every month. Still, it wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as I thought it would be. It was more of a burden for me last week as I worried about it. That must be why the Lord tells us not to worry–the worrying is by far more painful than the actual experience. LOL …

I’ve been completely amazed to read all of the fascinating stories about Christian Fandom and how it came to be. Through the blog tour I’ve also learned what Con-V (or was it V-Con) means and all of those references to con. If you want to read more about that check out Shannon McNear’s or Karen Hancoc’s link. I think they both go into great detail about how these conventions sparked the creation of Christian Fandom. I went to the Christian Fandom site today in order to look for reviews and interviews. Not so easy to discover. After clicking on several …