Ryan Spires

In first grade, I was special. Ms. Haugen would pick me up from class and lead me through the empty halls, through the cheesy bread smelling cafeteria, and into her tiny office. I didn't know what a speech pathologist was, but I thought she was cool. We would play games, talk, call up random businesses to ask questions, and all sorts of random things. At the end of every session, she would let me pick a Starburst from the jar on her desk (of course I nabbed the pink ones!) At some point I was deemed cured and Ms, Haugen no longer would pull me from class. Some other lucky kid must have been eating those pink Starbursts, leaving the neglected yellow and orange to pool at the bottom of the jar. I now knew what they must have felt like. As an adult I still have minor speech issues. Not so much the classic stuttering people think of, when a section of a word is repeated, like a skipping record. Instead it's more of a sporadic pause, where I want to say the word, but I can't...

Whether it be family and friends, interviews, or fans, authors get asked a fair amount of questions. The infamous inquiry that has been identified by a number of writers as their least favorite is: where do you get your ideas? Not that I have people beating down my door to seek my audience, but I don't mind that particular question. Personally, I don't think the actual method is usually interesting, but the details for a particular story can be. The reason I don't think the method is all that fascinating, is it typically involves the same two components. Unhinging the mind, and metacognition. Don't worry, I'm not getting all new-age on you. Or stated in another way, you let your mind off the leash and follow it into the weeds. It might be a full-blown plot that develops in the mind, or it could be a scene, a concept. One of the starting blocks for Rise of Raulet was a scene from a TV show where a young man is taking care of his publicly shunned sister. Bo...

Turn back the time machine to the late 1980's and think video game consoles. The glory of the Atari had mostly waned, and two competitors rose to fill the void. My family was fortunate enough to have some disposable income and snapped up one of these amazing boxes. You're probably picturing this:   Nope. While everyone else was jumping around with Mario and shooting ducks, my brother and I were taking precisely-timed 30 minute turns on this beasty: This $200.00 investment came with Hang-On and Safari Hunt: Kids around the neighborhood invited us over to experience Mario and Top Gun, but no one wanted to play Hang-On or Alex Kidd. That didn't stop my brother and I from spending many glorious summer days inside maintaining our pale and haunted appearances. I still recall reading about a new game called, Phantasy Star. It was to be our introduction to the role playing game. Looking at this picture elicits a stream of nostalgia bound glory and also a li...

There are two ways to nab that elusive literary agent and obtain that big book deal born of dreams. Method 1 First, you must obtain a mint condition, first edition Stephen King novel. I’m talking pristine. Which one? Doesn’t matter. The next step involves locating an abandoned crossroads. Preferably one with a lonely, flickering light that even the flies know to avoid. Bury that aforementioned book at the dead center and wait five or ten minutes for the next available agent. Try not to let your senses be dulled by the soothing music. The agent will appear with a puff of smoke and a whirl of discarded query letters. The summoning was the easy part. She will demand you pass two tests. The first test is a brutal trial that eliminates nearly all. She places a vintage version of the board game, Operation, upon the dusty road. Time has only made the damn thing more sensitive (did I just switch tenses?). She points wordlessly to the wishbone. If you somehow manage to skirt the b...

Some books are devoured whole, the tension arc building and carrying us through the pages, defying the rest of our carefully planned schedule for the day. After these books are set aside, we may never step inside that particular universe again. It was a delightful ride, but it didn’t linger, it didn’t resonate. A knee-jerk response would be to judge that rapid finish as the ultimate measure of enjoyment. But, these aren’t the books I seek the most. The works I revel in, are the ones that even after I refile the book, filling the gap on the shelf, I can’t help but think about it more, relive a particular scene, wonder what if . . .? I have found that these resonating experiences come in three varieties: 1.       A particular passage 2.       The ending 3.       The entire breath of the book I recently had the pleasure of reading Elizabeth Bear’s All the Windwracked Stars. I cer...