Cooking Through Fiction: Dracula's Robber Steak

Continuing in the pursuit of cooking my way through fiction, I’ve been reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Within a few chapters, it’s as though a shroud has been draped over the entire world. Sunlight cannot penetrate the darkness, and as a reader tumbles into this gothic realm, one begins to wonder if anything other than flickering firelight exists at all. Perhaps there are only degrees of darkness, ranging from the silvery gray of twilight to the absolute stygian blackness. On the rare occasions when a moon can be seen, villagers are mesmerized, desperate for its light.

The Baker's Man Full Moon Giveaway

From one full moon to the next, enter to win a copy of The Baker's Man!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Baker's Man

by Jennifer Moorman

Giveaway ends May 24, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Words I’ve never read

not in its entirety.

But I can’t see it or think of it

and not have you come dancing into view.

Without meaning to, I think of your smile

then your smirk

then the time I hit you,

and suddenly I’m not sorry you and I forked in the road,

you going your way, me going mine.

Wednesday Word Museum

When I went to college, I took a linguistics class because my advisor thought I might like it. He knew I was a lover of words. He also knew that if I randomly won a truckload of cash, I'd buy my own set of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary). Turns out, I loved the Intro to Linguistics course, and then I loved all of the other courses I took for the minor. 

Both for fun and for class presentations, I read The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary and The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. I loved them both. I would suggest that anyone who loves the making of dictionaries, especially the OED, read these. These two books fueled my love of words. They also push us think about how we choose which words are important to us, how some words were burnt to a crisp in a stove, and how other people choose what is important to us without even our knowledge.

The Baker's Man Full Moon Giveaway

From one full moon to the next, win a copy of The Baker's Man!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Baker's Man

by Jennifer Moorman

Giveaway ends May 24, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

5 Ways to Tackle Writer's Block



Writer's block was first described by a psychoanalyst, Edmund Bergler, in 1947. For most writers, "writer's block" is a common affliction. Because writers approach their work in different ways and they have various ways of writing, an array of things can cause anxiety, which most often leads to the dreaded writer's block.

Beautiful Creatures Review

4 out of 5 cupcakes
bookshelves: ya fantasy, ya supernatural

I'm usually a little hesitant to review a book in a series before I've finished the series, but I'm also a firm believer in novels being able to stand on their own (even when they're part of a series). I think there should be a beginning and an end, even if I know there are more novels to follow. I do not like cliffhangers that force me to go out and buy the next book. Beautiful Creatures is not a cliffhanger series. It does wrap up the ending in enough of a way that I did not feel frustrated.