Just a quick post here: If anyone lives in or around the Twin Cities, VERS/ATILE is hosting a reading this Sunday at 6pm. There are featured readers, followed by open mic. I’m one of the featured readers and I’ll be reading a couple of published shorts as well as one scheduled for publication this fall. Sort of a sneak peak.
If you’re interested in attending, the reading will be at Gingko Coffeehouse on Snelling in St. Paul.
I should note that if my wife ends up having our baby on Sunday, I’ll probably not be there, but I’ll update this if that’s the case.
Good morning everyone! Just on here to share my latest published story. Then I’m going to go back to my post-Christmas lounging and playing with my presents.
Ripe for the Future is a Christmas story about a newly divorced dad trying to navigate the holiday with his young daughter for the time as just the two of them. It’s cute, sad, funny, and of course is complete with song and dance. Because those just make everything better.
Enjoy the read, enjoy your holidays, and stay turned for more to come.
Happy Holidays to all! If you don’t celebrate, hopefully you at least get some time off. I’m writing this during my last prep period of the year. I managed to kick out 5000 words the other day so figure I can take the time for another post.
First order of business: upcoming publications. On December 26 a short story of mine will hit the internet on Spillwords.com. I’ll probably do another post then to remind you all. 🙂 It’s a Christmas story about a divorced dad trying to connect with his daughter during their first Christmas with just the two of them. There’s kookiness, drama, heartbreak, and that warmhearted feeling you get this time of year. And bananas. Somehow, there are bananas.
I also just signed up to be on the editorial staff of Water-Stone Review, so I’ll have a healthy bit of reading to do over the next few weeks. I’m expecting a wide gamut of genres and themes, so hopefully it’ll be a fun time.
On a non-writing note, I’ve decided to apply for the next season of LegoMasters. That translates to Fall 2025 because of filming schedules. I need to build five sets of my own design for the application, so I just finished sorting the 90000 Lego pieces I’ve accrued since childhood and am partway into the first build (and already running out of the right color of pieces).
Don’t judge yet! It’s not done! If all goes according to plan it’ll balance perfectly on the beak, like those toys from when we were younger. But instead of being three inches across and made from one piece of plastic, it’ll be over a foot wide and made from hundreds. Given my piece limitation, it might not look the prettiest, but the goal is creating that perfect balance. I can do pretty on a different build.
I have faced some other distractions these last couple of weeks, though I like to think them the good kind of distractions. I had an idea for an educational chemistry game for middle and high school and developed that a bit. I fortunately have subbed a few chem classes during that period and was able to get very positive input from chem teachers, so yay!
I’ve also been thinking a lot about AI’s role in brainstorming and story creation. I obviously don’t want it to generate anything, but I think it could be very useful in organizing thoughts and characters and stories and a whole lot more I won’t delve too far into. Based on what research I’ve done, I don’t think AI is sophisticated enough to do what I want, but in a few years…
I’ll close out with the acknowledgement that I tend to bite off more than I can chew. AWP is coming up in just over a month, and I’m a going to send the first five pages out to agents as part of their Writer to Agent program. But that means I have just over a month to get this story into ship shape. While also building Lego. And working. And designing that game. And prepping for a new baby. And running a D&D campaign.
It’s a good thing I don’t have any hair, else I’d probably be pulling it out.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year. Enjoy your time with loved ones and remember that diets don’t count on holidays.
Today’s the day! It’s my brother’s birthday! And, of arguably equal importance, it’s the release of Space Brides, LLC.
“Tired of those lonely dark nights? No one in your settlement suitable? We are here to help! We will help you find the bride or husband to keep you company, raise your children, and be your partner building a dream together. Contact us directly and give us your specifications. Success guaranteed.”
Space Brides, LLC is a sci-fi romance anthology where all the stories revolve around relationships created via the Space Brides program, matching individuals to find their happily ever after. In space.
My story, A Spectrum of Secrets, follows a single mom whose kid has a terminal disease as she does whatever it takes to find a cure. Opposite her is a genetic researcher on Europa, someone trying to prioritize the discovery of life with the value of life. Secrets jockey for priority, and emotions, well, who can ever really predict emotions?
There are fifteen stories in this collections, with a huge variety of location, race, species, orientation, pretty much everything you’d want in sci-fi stories. Paperback and ebook are available, and are available now!
Also, if amazon isn’t your thing and you like discounts, you can get 15% off at Smashwords with code LQ25S as well as from the publisher with code NR2023.
Welcome back to the far too infrequently updated Taverenbooks blog. I keep telling myself to post more, and as much as I do like to talk about myself, I like to write stories more. So my word count goes to Word instead of WordPress. But I’m here now, so let’s do this.
Since my last post, I received an acceptance for a short piece in The Avalon Literary Review, and just yesterday I got my copies in the mail. The piece, et tu Jesus, came from an exercise in my MFA point of view class this past spring and has loose parallels to my own summers in North Dakota when I was a kid. It’s a quick read, but one that’ll make you chuckle and put a smile on your face.
Last week I heard back from an anthology I submitted to, Space Brides, Inc, and they’ve accepted my story for that as well. I’ve always enjoyed reading sci-fi and it was fun combining things I’ve always had interest in (the moon Europa and extremophiles) with the scariest thing known to mankind… relationships. The anthology should be coming out later this fall, so something else to look forward to.
I just sent in a short story that takes place in the early 1500s in France and am currently working on a middle grade short about an eleven-year-old girl who, even though she just saved the world, can’t figure out what’s happening at her grandma’s house. I’ve read some of it to Westley (my five-year-old son) and he’s enjoying it so far. Though to be fair, magic and light potty humor are always golden with him.
Speaking of Westley, one of the reasons I’ve had less time to write this summer is because kids require a lot of attention and energy. In particular, he’s been super into science and we’ve been doing experiments and watching all sorts of videos. Some of the things we’ve done are a marble run, elephant toothpaste, creating S’mores “molecules”, and later today we’re going to combine baking soda and vinegar in different amounts to see what changes.
Driving some of that interest are some videos we’ve been watching. On YouTube we’ve been watching Science Max and Mark Rober, and on Netflix it’s been Emily’s Wonderlab. Science Max and Mark Rober are really good about explaining the science and presenting the results in fun, eye-popping ways. Emily’s Wonderlab is really good about including kids in the actual experiments, so it seems to him something he can do.
I’ll try to keep this next section short because as my wife can attest, I can ramble and ramble on the subject. Growing up near Seattle, I’ve always had a passion for the Seattle Mariners. The last few years have been great with their ever-improving record, and with reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2001 last fall. Since most of the games are on the west coast I don’t get to start watching until 9pm in Minnesota, which in turn makes for many late nights. So when they come to town to play the Twins, it’s especially exciting given how few chances I have to see them in person.
This year when they came I took Westley to his first Mariners game and made sure to get seats close enough to engage and entertain him, as much as can be expected for a five-year-old anyway. Of course it ended up being 95 degrees that day, so that sucked, but it was still a fun experience, even if his favorite part ended up being the Dippin’ Dots. By the way, if any Mariners person ends up reading this, I’ve got a great idea for a collaboration. Call me. 🙂
I keep saying I’ll try to post more often, and I keep meaning it. Hopefully it won’t take two months for the next post.
Eric Taveren 