As I normally get up at around 5am, I can track the rise and decline of the dawn chorus. It grows from what seems like a roundel of relief at getting through another cold night in January and February, building through the Spring months and reaching a crescendo in May, when the birds have usually already been up for an hour or more before I rise. Then it dies away until now, in August, the city seems all but bare of birds and the sun rises into a silent sky.
Blog
Morning Light
5am again this morning. It’s quiet now in August. The birds are silent. Finished rearing their young and either heading off or keeping low. But I do get to watch the sun rise.
The Glamorous Life
Up this morning at 5am to finish writing a review of six nature books for Time Out, which had to be in today, and then the rest of the day transcribing interviews.
The Last Librarian online
The Last Librarian, Or A Short Account Of The End Of The World is now available to non-subscribers at Daily Science Fiction.
How would you answer the question posed at the beginning of the story: What’s more important, books or people?
Rejection notes – no.1 in a series.
The normal state of a writer is one of rejection. But a rejection like this one from Brain Harvest is almost better than getting published!
While you are likely doomed wrt growing a mustache as magnificent as ours, you have succeeded in writing one of the best opening lines I’ve ever read since I started reading BH slush. And you also wrote, in < 150 words, a story that is surprisingly subtle, and that says something interesting.
And yet we’ve decided not to buy it for no good reason whatever — in this crop we got some things that suited our moods better, which is probably an infuriating bout of caprice from your point of view. I can only say I’m sorry, and thank you for this story, and to please send us others.