JOURNAL

Writing adventures and related musings.

Update on the Inhuman Peace (Commonwealth Empires #2)

Saturday. Powercut. I’ve been lying in bed going through the editor’s feedback on the Inhuman Peace (book two of my Commonwealth Empires trilogy).* The feedback for book one and two has has been largely the same: “show us more of this alternate Ceylon!” I had intended the first book to be short, sharp, a setting of the gameboard, as it were, and I was wary of over-writing and over-describing. I… Read More »Update on the Inhuman Peace (Commonwealth Empires #2)

The Ricepunk Manifesto

As a writer, I am powerless. In the face of armies and governments and foreign media corporations with overblown pundits, I am just one beige soul with a keyboard. But I have my words. And while I cannot dispatch these pocket tyrants I can strike at the stories they build. And because we are Homo Narrator, and not Homo Sapiens, if I can change the story, I can change how… Read More »The Ricepunk Manifesto

The Poetry Machine

I’ve always admired the translations of Chinese poetry – I’m no expert on the field, but there are two poets named Du Fu and Li Bai that I really like. They were legendary masters from the Great Tang Dynasty, and (if the translations are accurate), they had a phenomenal talent for freezing a moment and capturing that particular slice of time with their words; their poems read like a string… Read More »The Poetry Machine

South Asian science fiction: roots, strains, influences, themes, and a personal re-examination

I first met my agent, Kanishka Gupta, on a cold afternoon in Delhi. February, 2018. It took me several tries to get to his place, because apparently he lives bang in the middle of Delhi’s military zone; to compensate, he rolled out a truly magnificent lunch spread, and over many sandwiches we discussed my writing and what I wanted to do next. One of the things that he said to… Read More »South Asian science fiction: roots, strains, influences, themes, and a personal re-examination

“Incidentally, there is support for Wijeratne’s story”: part two – aftermath and decision trees

  Continued from previous. So,  recap of recent events [1]: Many in the writing community expressed their sorrow that this had happened. Some in the Sri Lankan Comic-con community, angered [and, I feel, with good reason], went a step forward, responding quite harshly [2].  I have been unable to talk them out of it, so needless to say the search record will stay tainted. Despite my dislike for Bellet’s actions… Read More »“Incidentally, there is support for Wijeratne’s story”: part two – aftermath and decision trees