BookLife

Ken Scholes is the author of the Psalms of Isaak, a multi-volume post-apocalyptic, epic fantasy series that includes the novels Lamentation, Canticle, and Antiphon.   In his words, Scholes writes “about people facing dark circumstances, doing what they can to rebuild from those circumstances.  Themes of survival, redemption, hope, struggle and even love seem to show up in my work.  And ultimately, I think I’m really just processing my own life experiences, my hopes and dreams and fears, bent through the lens of fiction.”

Elegant and innovative, Scholes’ prose is marked by an astounding warmth and familiarity.

“Speculative fiction,” said Scholes, “is the sandbox of ideas — a place where we can try out what-if’s and see what sticks.  It also can provide (as it did in my case) a great foster home to grow up in when you’re own home isn’t such a great place to be.”
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Back again with more from Altered Fluid, a critique group based in New York that includes such authors as N. K. Jemisin, Matthew Kressel, and Saladin Ahmed.  The group contains writers at various stages of their careers, though there seems to be a general trend lately that their careers are taking off.

In a previous Booklife post, members of the group talked about what they enjoyed about writing.  Here they share some of the advice on taking advice.
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North Carolina-based author Scott Nicholson is best known for his thrillers, but he also writes children’s books, YA, paranormal, science fiction, non-fiction, and horror in a variety of media including comics and screenplays.  He maintains a number of websites, including Indie Book Blog and Write Good or Die.  A journalist by training, Nicholson’s writing, even at its most fantastical, is marked by a certain hard-edged realism, a remarkable crispness and clarity.

Recently, Nicholson made a free writing guide available here.  Write Good or Die, edited by Nicholson, includes 33 essays (plus an introduction and afterword) about the art, craft, and business of writing.  Contributors include Nicholson and a few dozen others, such as Kevin J. Anderson, Heather Graham, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Jonathan Maberry, Gayle Lynds, Douglas Clegg, and J.A. Konrath.
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Jesse Bullington is the author of The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart and the forthcoming The Enterprise of Death.  This two-part interview finds him poised between an astonishing debut and a much-anticipated second novel.

Reviews of Bullington’s work are often enthusiastic and cautionary.  One reviewer for the Library Journal Review says of The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart, “This debut novel is kind of like the unexpurgated versions of Grimm’s fairy tales, as imagined by Chuck Palahniuk on some seriously bad drugs. Bullington clearly has a great appreciation for the rich history of folklore, and his viscerally evocative writing is excellent… A zestfully grotesque adventure; not for the squeamish or faint of heart.”
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