• Writers of the Future Volume 41; The Best New SF & Fantasy Short Stories of the Year

    Writers of the Future book cover.

    The Ultimate Commute Escape: Getting Lost in the Future (While Avoiding the Present) Hello, fellow readers and audiobook lovers! Let’s have a quick moment of honesty. I absolutely cannot be in the car without a story playing. It is a non-negotiable rule of my life. Why? Because the car is my temple of solitude. It is the only place on Earth where the dog isn’t aggressively demanding attention or a treat, and “The Husband” isn’t wandering from room to room asking, “Hey, where is the remote?” “( Spoiler alert: It’s exactly where it was yesterday, babe. )”What’s for dinner?” (Ummmm it’s 9am. I have NO IDEA!) So, when I click that seatbelt into place, I am not just driving to the grocery store—I am escaping. My Five-Star Genre Mashup Now, my reading tastes are a bit of a chaotic cocktail. My top five genres are romance, mystery, thriller, sci-fi, and suspense—basically, anything that keeps my heart rate slightly elevated. If…

  • The Orchid: Nature’s Most Beautiful Drama Queen (And How to Please Her)

    My green thumb is AWAKE!! My plants are happy little guys, growing like crazy, EXCEPT of course The GG Cactus (remember my Mom’s cactus? The one that grows EVERYWHERE but Idaho?) Everyone else including my orchid plants are thriving. I know! I KNOW! Orchids are the high-maintenance divas of the botanical world. They don’t just “grow.” They negotiate. They don’t just “wilt.” They throw elaborate, silent tantrums because you dared to look at them wrong on a Tuesday, or because the draft from the hallway was exactly two degrees too cool. However mine are blooming with amazing regularity. I’m THRILLED! Now, while owning an orchid is less like gardening and more like hosting a volatile, aristocratic houseguest who refuses to leave but demands the finest linens. If you throw a classic, waterlogged plastic pot at a creature this refined, she won’t just die—she will judge you on her way out. Enter the BUYMAX Ceramic Orchid Planter. It is the ultimate…