Bad Poetry Week: “Reptilicus” by Troy Lumber
Bad poetry is like karaoke: best when shared. One site dedicated to doing just that is the aptly named Very Bad Poetry, where I found the gem of a poem below. Which, incidentally, definitely needs to...
View ArticleBad Poetry Week: Great War, Not-So-Great Poem
The First World War is often remembered for the amount of poetry it produced. Alan Seeger’s beautiful and chillingly accurate “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” speaks for the pro-war poets, while...
View ArticleBad Poetry Week: The Cheese Poet
For our penultimate day of Bad Poetry Week, I’d like to introduce you to the work of Canada’s James MacIntyre, also known as the Cheese Poet. This is a man who cruelly and with malice aforethought...
View ArticleBad Poetry Week: Call US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, Tell Her Her Job Is...
Welcome, O Reader, to the final entry in this spontaneous Bad Poetry Week Celebration. Spurred by Amanda Palmer‘s example at the start of the week, we’ve since gawked at horrifying lizard-themed...
View ArticleMy New Tintype Author Photo
On a recent trip to Astoria, Mr. Waite and I were walking back from dinner when we quite literally stumbled over a man on the sidewalk outside a tattoo parlor. He had a butane torch and was running it...
View ArticleHow Many Does It Take?
{Trigger warnings for discussions of sexual assault and consent issues, both of which are below the jump. Be aware that this story is also very long, though not very graphic.} To tell this story...
View ArticleFrom Bennets to Billionaires: Some Thoughts on Writing Money in Romance
Money has been woven into the romance genre from the start. Take Pride and Prejudice, that classic foundational text. Sandwiched between the witty banter and the embarrassing family antics is a deep,...
View ArticleEnjoy marvelous newsletter, earn free book!
Things on the blog have been a little haphazard lately — but my negligence in posting doesn’t mean you have to miss out on all the Olivia Waite goodness! For one thing, I have written some books, which...
View ArticleThe Fine Art of Literary Theft
I had an absolute blast this past weekend at the Emerald City Writers’ Conference — the friendliest conference you’ll ever attend! For some reason, they let me have access to a microphone and a slide...
View ArticleIf You Can’t Say Anything Nice, Come Sit By Me
Let’s get one thing straight: I am a natural critic. I doubt. I rethink. I overthink. I was practically born with a side-eye. I love Project Runway and feminist critique and Dorothy Parker’s hatchet...
View ArticleAnd Now I Wish I Could Make This A Real Thing
So Rose Lerner recently noticed that Booklikes had substituted a scholarly book cover in place of the proper cover for Cecilia Grant’s A Woman Entangled. But Rose is gifted with a sense of fun in...
View Article[Clickbait Headline About Romance Novels and Ladies]
[Introductory anecdote about the writer encountering a romance reader in public.] [The writer's shock at the chasm between the woman's successful, professional self-presentation and the assumed sexual,...
View ArticleThe Ghosts of Christmas
Dickens’ preface to A Christmas Carol famously describes it as a “Ghostly little book.” Scrooge’s journey is indeed full of ghosts — the ghosts of memory, of imagined futures, of symbolic spirits and...
View ArticleYou’ll Never Believe How This Author Marketed Her Books
It’s hard out there for an author. There seem to be more of us than ever before, and we ARE SHOUTING. ALL. THE. TIME. in order to be heard above the cacophony. Books for sale! we cry. Well-crafted,...
View ArticleBlogging From April A to Z: Intersectional Feminism in Romance Series!
Lately it seems like we’re all talking about feminism, diversity, and representation in fiction (and games, and movies, and so on) a lot more than we used to. This is marvelous! Even when we’re...
View ArticleA is for Ash
{Welcome to the first post of my April A-Z challenge! For the full alphabet of intersectional feminism in romance, click here.} This is my second time reading Ash, Malinda Lo’s lyrical lesbian...
View ArticleB is for Beverly Jenkins
{Click here for the full alphabet of intersectional feminism in romance.} Ask anyone who knows: they’ll tell you Beverly Jenkins is the queen of African-American historical romance. I’ve had Destiny’s...
View ArticleC is for Zen Cho
{For the full alphabet of intersectional feminism in romance, click here.} Let me not even pretend I can write with perfect objectivity about author Zen Cho’s The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo. It has been...
View ArticleD is for Tessa Dare
{For the complete alphabet of diversity in romance, click here. <– origin page link} There’s a lot to like about Lily, Tessa Dare’s deaf heroine in Three Nights with a Scoundrel. Lily combines a...
View ArticleE is for Vicki Essex
{Content note: the text below describes a character dealing with being triggered and recovering from a past sexual assault, though nothing is graphically depicted in this post. There is also some...
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