John Baker’s Blog

Alex Pheby argues for difficult books over at Vulpes Libris. He lists what he does and doesn’t mean by ‘difficulty’ and ‘accessibility,’ and goes on to tell us:
It’s not about genre either. I don’t have anything invested in a particular ‘type’ of fiction. To be honest I don’t even understand the supposed differences between most [...]

Lauren Kirshner, whose first novel will be published in Spring 2009, remarks:
I don’t know how I come up with metaphors. Anytime I’ve consciously “tried” to make a metaphor the result has been a little, uh, forced.
She gives examples of very bad metaphors, but it prompted me to think of some of the best ones:
Orwell’s Animal [...]

Ballad of the Moon
The moon came into the forge
in her bustle of flowering nard.
The little boy stares at her, stares.
The boy is staring hard.
In the shaken air
the moon moves her arms,
and shows lubricious and pure,
her breasts of hard tin.
“Moon, moon, moon, run!
If the gypsies come,
they will use your heart
to make white necklaces and rings.”
“Let me [...]