Author Archives: oraziamortimer

It’s kind of amazing just how much Nnedi Okorafor packs into this little book: so much bigger on the inside than the outside. The basic bones of the story look familiar to anyone who’s spent even a little time with myths and fairy tales: girl leaves home, girl encounters terrible tragedy, girl encounters strangers, girlContinue reading “Africanfuturism: Binti”

2020 reading seems to fall into 2 categories: binge reading and almost no reading. I’m in the latter, at least as far as reading something new goes (I’ve reread a few novels). But there is hope for those of us who are struggling find time/energy/focus to read fiction: novellas! I have read THREE of these!Continue reading “From Murderbirds to Sherlock Holmes”

I love reading nonfiction as well as fiction. And if I’m busy or lacking focus or for whatever reason don’t have a lot of time to devote to reading, I almost always plump for nonfiction. I find it easier to put down, whereas I tend to binge novels and then there’s the whole “up tilContinue reading “Adventures in Reading Nonfiction”

Hello! [insert standard note about infrequency of actually writing anything on this site] I wrote a novel. It’s nearly 80,000 words, it has an identifiable beginning, middle and end, with a plot. It has characters – some of them really good! It even had NAMES and WORLDBUILDING (and naming people was like pulling teeth). AndContinue reading “Archived, with love”

If you’ve written anything at all, you’ll know the hair-pulling madness that comes of having to name ALL THE THINGS. People, places, made-up foodstuffs. The most common suggestion (based on my completely unscientific random scrolling of twitter) is to use baby name books. Which is probably not a bad start, but what if you’re doingContinue reading “Who are all these people, and what do I call them?”

Every once in a while on twitter, people talk about how they visualise a character, or how a casting choice didn’t meet their expectations, or their dream cast for a book. And I just don’t get it, because I don’t picture characters with that level of visual detail. Not even my own. I can describe them,Continue reading “It’s not how I pictured it”

Soapbox time! Which is more important, plot or character? Oh, how we love our binaries…and this one is about as useless as a lot of binaries. I like mysteries, I like a good puzzle, and that’s “plot”. I love a good character, and will follow a well loved character through the most bizarre and unlikelyContinue reading “What did they do (and do I care)?”

Full disclosure: I’m a white anglo person. Which means I have a whole lot of privilege in the place where I live, and a lot of other places too. I don’t always see it, but privilege is like oxygen: I don’t have to see it to benefit, and you don’t really appreciate it til youContinue reading “By any other name”