Blog Archives

In Praise of Procrastination

If time were all a day, they say, then earth whirled in, late evening, like a drunkard, threw up life, five minutes to midnight, all human history compressed to less than a sec. But see, gentle in the twilight, the

Posted in Poetry, Whimsy

Video Interview, Fast Forward

Mike Zipster interviewed me at Balticon last May, and it’s now online for anyone who wants to watch it. It’s mostly about the Thessaly books as I remember. Jo Walton Fast Forward Interview.

Posted in Uncategorized

Poetry

I’m not sure what I’m going to do about new poems. Traditionally, when I write a poem I put it on livejournal and on my Patreon — always the best way to support me writing poetry and make me feel

Posted in Writing

I would have stayed on Livejournal forever

Somebody bought me a permanent account — an anonymous person, in 2005. And I really would have stayed there as people left in droves, through thick and thin, through changes in format and bad service and whatever. I had all

Posted in Life as it blossoms out in a jar or a face

10th November 2016: How I feel when people reference Farthing

Generally if something in the world causes somebody to think of something I have written, it’s delightful. It means I’ve succeeded in encapsulating something, in finding a way of describing something that’s useful to somebody. Something I’ve written has helped

Posted in Human culture, Life as it blossoms out in a jar or a face, Small Change, Writing

2nd May 2016: My Goodreads review of Petrarch’s letters

Five hundred and ninety years before I was born, Petrarch died in the middle of writing me a letter. What do you mean it wasn’t to me? It totally was. It was addressed to “Posterity”, and if I’m not his

Posted in Books, Human culture, Life as it blossoms out in a jar or a face

1st December 2015: 51 Today

AM is here and I’m going out for breakfast and later today for dinner with Z as well, and the book is done, and I have such great family and friends, and being fifty-one is lovely so far. I won’t

Posted in Life as it blossoms out in a jar or a face, My Books

29th January 2015: Everything alive and dead to weep as one

There’s a family anecdote about me that I’m not sure whether I actually remember or whether I just remember being told about it lots and lots of times. I was four or five, and we went to St David’s Cathedral,

Posted in Books, Human culture, Life as it blossoms out in a jar or a face

1st December 2014: Best birthday present ever

So Marissa Lingen gave me a book. And lots of people have given me books before, and sometimes books I really really wanted, like the time my aunt gave me The Silmarillion when I was fourteen, and I had wanted it

Posted in Books, Life as it blossoms out in a jar or a face

1st December 2014: Half a century

I am fifty, except that, like Neil Gaiman, I still feel twelve. AM is here, Marissa Lingen and family are in town, we have plans with Z tonight and a party next weekend. Fifty is an odd age, awfully old, but

Posted in Life as it blossoms out in a jar or a face, My Books