There are few things that excite me more about the end of the year than David Brooks' Sidney Awards. He gathers the best-written …
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A Look Back at 2018, Plans for 2019
As I was reading the translation of my first novel into Russian to my wife yesterday, she was holding our third baby. He was …
Nietzsche’s Superman: the Perfect Villain or Anti-Hero
There's one thing no one does enough of these days. Read philosophy. As I've been going through this first semester of my Masters …
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A Sneak Peak into The Forge of the Covenant
The setting is this: Lebía has just woken up to a changed world where nothing is as it seems. A Changer has sneaked into the …
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Two Ways of Writing “Christian Fantasy”
You might think we're living in an age remarkable for its low level of culture and thought. People on all sides of every …
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Monsters from Slavic Mythology: Mermaids, Water Spirits, Vilas
Have you ever heard writers say something strange like, "My characters have minds of their own"? They go on to complain that …
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Finding Baba Yaga by Jane Yolen: a Review by Me.
Ok, so Russian fairy tales. My favorites, obviously. And not merely because I grew up with them or because I have to love them due …
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Is Patriotism the Same as Nationalism?
Recently, in a lamentable [unspecified amount] of time lost while scrolling my Facebook feed, I ran across a post from a person …
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Renaissance Man: Seven Inventions of the Russian Leonardo da Vinci
When you think about the great inventors of history, a few names come up: Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Thomas Edison. …
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Water in Slavic Mythology (Part 2)
Have you ever seen photos of Russians getting in long lines in the middle of winter only to jump into a cut-out in the ice? Have …
Protected: files for audiobook (Book 1)
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A Russian Cinderella Story: How the Tsar Chose His Bride
Sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction. Take the story of Cinderella, the quintessential rags to riches story, the …
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When evil seems unbeatable…
Have you noticed a strange thing about modern culture? People everywhere are complaining that the world is becoming a more evil …
Water in Slavic Mythology: the Giver of Life and Death, Part 1
Perhaps the most mythologized element in Slavic mythology is water. In my own first novel, The Song of the Sirin, the Water of …
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Olga, the Viking Queen of the Rus
It seems that Vikings, and everything Viking-related, is internationally popular right now. Take the multi-season History Channel …
5 Fantasy Books to Read at the Beach This Summer
It's that time again. Somehow, despite four nor'easters in the space of a month, the world didn't end. The sun came out again. Our …
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A Hero for Our Time: Prince Dimitry Pozharsky
Does the news cycle depress you? Have you lost any hope in the emergence of a hero for our time who might direct our political …
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Heroes from Slavic Mythology: Russian Warrior Princesses
As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I’ve been slowly hammering away at a screenplay based on the life of St. Olga of Kiev. …
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