Mastodawn

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.08.17 — What's your favorite instrument?

The pen.

It is far mightier than the sword.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Aug 16

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.08.16 — If you had to live solely off of food you could grow yourself, how well would you be eating?

I'd have starved.

I do grow strawberries. In the past squash and tomatoes, but farming? Heck, no. In our climate zone, everything (except the strawberries) gets downy mildew or similar fungus and DIES HORRIBLY.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Aug 15

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.08.11 — Have you ever exhibited artwork in a public place?

Yes. I entered this on in a contest and it got accepted for exhibit.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Aug 14

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.08.13 — What foods can't you stand? This can be a sensitive subject for some people, so consider using a CW if you think it might be difficult.

Cilantro (the wicked weed) and coriander (the seed of the weed). As someone who cooks, I realize the former is important to Mexican and the latter to Indian. I eat both cuisines, but what's important here is moderation. For Mexican food, Cilantro used as a spice provides a distinctive "background" flavoring, but when used as a decorative flourish, or worse as vegetable mixed in with the dish, it is far too much of a good thing. When I find cilantro leaves, or worse more-or-less anonymous cilantro sprouts, mixed in to field greens salad, I become annoyed as it takes over the flavor of the salad. To me, it is both horribly aromatic and chemical tasting.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Aug 12

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.08.10 — What kind of photography do you most enjoy? (Taking, viewing, or both.)

As a photographer who's done weddings, events, and fine art #photography, I can be more fine-grained in my answer instead of simply stating: Both.

I find taking photos far more interesting than viewing them, and I spend much more time shooting than viewing. What I really enjoy viewing is street photography (think Henri Cartier-Bresson), and were I not a shy person, I would engage in it more often. Working a wedding or a child's party, I take candids, not posed pictures. I endeavor to be invisible and capture the special fleeting moments of who people are rather than what they want us to think they are. Kind of like street photography, huh?

I am currently writing a novella where the main character's street photography leads to her finding friends and overcoming adversity. For me, it might be aspirational.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Aug 8

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.08.08 — Do you like baking? If so, what do you usually bake?

Yes. Salmon. With squeezed lemon, garlic, and basil. Wrapped in parchment paper.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Aug 4

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.08.02 — Do you have artwork on your walls? If so, describe one of the pieces.

Mine (on the right) and other artists (on the left). Both copyrighted, so the image is small and blurry-cammed.

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Aug 3

#ScribesAndMakers #ttmd 2025.08.03 @JulieLiddellWhitehead Author Talk to Me Day

Sometimes I get the opportunity to research and sometimes I don't, like today (I'm currently unwell). I hope I'm asking a fair question here; beyond that, that it's not something I should have seen in a bio if I'd looked.

Your book collection of short stories appears to be about characters living through hard times and dealing with hard decisions made or needful. It feels like something an author would write in part to work through their own demons or to make sense of a nonsensical world. Is this the case for you? If not, what drives you and your writing? What do you wish the reader to feel they have learned when they finish the reading the last page of your story?

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RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist Aug 2

#ScribesAndMakers 2025.08.01 — Alt: Word.

This word comes from Mars Needed Women, which is in beta. The Decath Crown, as it is referred to, is one of a number of antagonistic organizations the book's MC ends up dealing with, but it is also the most insidious. I don't expect anyone to read about this out-of-context, but I will admit that I invented the religion for a fascist state instead of using a real one to diffuse my fear of needlessly picking on one religion and likely upsetting part of my potential audience. After the fact, it feels a bit like I am picking on all religions, only kind of passive-aggressively. I'm okay with that. Everybody needs their nose tweaked now and again. What follows is a slightly [annotated] excerpt from the glossary in the book.

Decath - A religious organization which was a successor to the various Christian nationalist faiths that created NADS [North American Decath States] from its predecessor state [the United States], consolidated into a theocratic state-supported ministry. The religion is now world-wide, except where banned in five catholic countries. Adherents say it is not a successor to Catholicism, but a rejection of it. It comes from Dissenting Catholicism, and teaches that the liberal interpretations promulgated by the various orthodox and protestant churches regarding Christ's word was unfounded, and furthermore misrepresented God's will based on improper readings of both the new and old testaments. Their catholicism is a new orthodoxy that properly interprets an apostolic church structure while supporting a protestant ideal of a priesthood of believers that is guided by ministers. It is accurately spelled De-cath not Dis-cath. This because the members of the initial Synod of Alabama—which drew together the leaders or designates of various nationalistic churches, their largest corporate sponsors, and hundreds of US congressmen and sixty-nine senators—thought having the word sound like decaf would sell better amongst the disparate flocks they shepherded.

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