I won a Rhysling Award?!
The Rhysling Award is the top award within science fiction, fantasy, and speculative poetry, as voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA). I’ve had poetry make finalist for like four years now–but this is no short list. The nominees fill an entire small book, and these poems are GOOD. Like, make you cry or gasp in reaction kind-of-good. I’ve always been happy to have my poems hang with that crowd.
This year, something bonkers happened. I WON. My poem “After Her Brother Ripped the Heads from Her Paper Dolls,” published in Mythic Delirium, won 1st place in the short poetry division. Even more bonkers, I also placed 2nd in the long form category with “The Fairies in the Crawlspace,” published in Uncanny Magazine.
Thanks to everyone who voted for my poems. I remain gobsmacked by this honor.
#SFWAPro
Read MoreBready or Not Original: Easy Apple Cinnamon Cake
Easy Apple Cake! This delicious cake is great to bake up, slice, and store in the fridge or freezer to enjoy for weeks to come.
If this recipe looks familiar, it’s because this is a rewrite of a recipe I posted back in 2016. The original version asked the baker to arrange the apple pieces in the middle and again on top.
After making this cake many, many times, I realized that was an unnecessarily fussy step. Ain’t nobody got time for that!
I started folding all of the apple chunks into the batter, and this saved a lot of time. The apples were perfectly distributed and the taste was the exact same.
This cake remains a very favorite for both my husband and my dad. They’ll eat it for breakfast, snack, or dessert.
When I travel back home to California, I always make this cake for my dad. Since my mom doesn’t stock baking ingredients, I measure up my own (one sandwich baggy with brown sugar and cinnamon; another with flour, baking soda, and salt; one more with white sugar) and whip him up a cake in no time!
Bready or Not Original: Easy Apple Cinnamon Cake
Ingredients
- 3 medium apples peeled, cored, & chopped into small chunks
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon heaping
- 1/4 cup brown sugar packed
- 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1/3 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 eggs room temperature
- turbinado or maple sugar for topping optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Line a 9×9 square pan with foil and apply butter or nonstick spray.
- In a medium bowl, toss peeled and chopped apples with cinnamon and brown sugar.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- In a larger mixing bowl, whisk together the white sugar, vegetable oil, sour cream/yogurt, and vanilla extract until it's smooth. Add the eggs.
- Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until everything is just mixed. Fold in the apple chunks.
- Pour batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle turbinado or maple sugar over top, if desired.
- Bake 1 hour, until it passes the toothpick test in middle. Cool completely, chilling in fridge if desired. Use foil to list contents onto a cutting board. Cut into pieces.
- These are great individually plastic wrapped and stored at room temperature or in the fridge; bars can be frozen and keep well for months. Eat from the fridge, or at room temperature, or warm in the microwave or oven. However you eat it, it'll be delicious!
- OM NOM NOM!
Interview with F&SF about my poem “My Ghost Will Know the Way”
My poem “My Ghost Will Know the Way” is in the July/August issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. (Allow me to pause and happily flail about that for the hundredth time.) I was recently interviewed about the inspiration behind the poem. Read that here!
This is a very personal poem for me (as the interview explains), and the positive reactions to it have added much-needed brightness to my life this month.
#SFWAPro
Read MoreBready or Not Original: Citrus Scones
These citrus scones offer a bright way to start the day in portable and delicious form!
I managed to score a container of candied citrus peel–the stuff usually used in fruitcakes–on an after-Christmas clearance. “Oh, what to do with us?” I wondered.
Finally, it hit me: scones! An original scone recipe that my husband could enjoy before work.
Of course, I had to add a glaze. Orange juice and confectioners’ sugar made that easy.
Plus, I found that the scones freeze like a charm, even while glazed! They thaw quickly at room temperature, too.
Unlike other scone recipes I’ve made, this one produces soft, fluffy results. Not dry or crumbly at all. I credit the sour cream for that. It sure works wonders in cakes and bars, too.
Bready or Not Original: Citrus Scones
Ingredients
Scones:
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 5 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup plus 1 Tablespoon milk or half & half
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1/3 cup candied orange peel
- 1 egg lightly beaten
Glaze:
- 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
- 3 teaspoons orange juice [or water]
- sprinkle of additional orange peel optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 400-degrees.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the butter until it resembles coarse crumbs.
- In a different bowl, stir together 1/2 cup milk and sour cream. Stir into dry ingredients until it just holds together, adding more milk if needed. Fold in the candied citrus peel.
- If using a scone pan, pack the dough into the triangular holes. If shaping by hand, transfer the cohesive dough to a large piece of parchment paper on a large cookie sheet. Shape into a large, even circle. Slice into eight wedges and separate them slightly.
- Whisk egg and remaining tablespoon of milk and brush them atop each scone.
- Bake until scones are golden brown, 15 to 17 minutes. Leave on pan to cool for 20 minutes.
- To glaze, mix together confectioners' sugar and orange juice to create a thick, dribbly consistency. Spoon atop scones. Immediately sprinkle on more candied orange peel and gently press into tops of scones.
- Scones are best eaten within the day, but they can be frozen even while glazed. Freeze on waxed paper then transfer to a freezer bag or plastic container. They thaw quickly at room temperature.
- OM NOM NOM!
Book Blog: Spin the Dawn (The Blood of Stars #1) by Elizabeth Lim
I review everything I read and post reviews on Goodreads and LibraryThing. That’s not enough. Good books are meant to be shared. Therefore, I’m spotlighting some of my favorite reads here on my site.
Spin the Dawn (The Blood of Stars #1) by Elizabeth Lim
out now; Indiebound, B&N, and Amazon
I received an early galley through NetGalley.
Spin the Dawn takes a myriad of genre tropes and spins them in an incredible way, resulting in a book that’s surprising, fast to read, and immense fun. The back cover copy pitches it as Mulan meets Project Runway, and that’s certainly an apt description of the book’s first third; after that, it becomes a fresh take on a fairy tale romantic adventure.
Maia is the Mulan prototype, but instead of dressing as a boy to become a soldier, she disguises herself to compete to be the emperor’s tailor. This competition is still a kind of war, though. Not only are her peers sabotaging her efforts, but the emperor’s fiance is uncooperative and sets up impossible challenges–and then there’s the fact that if Maia is outed as a girl, she’ll be killed for lying to the emperor. When she finds out the scissors gifted to her by her father are magical, she doesn’t want to use them; to my delight, she truly wanted to succeed by her own merits. I loved Maia for that.
Of course, there’s a romance, too, and it’s an incredibly well done one. I enjoyed how it developed and yikes, did the end deliver some major surprises.
I added this book to my list to consider for the Norton Award for next year. It’s that good. I hope its release is heralded by lots of positive attention, and I’ll certainly look for other books in the series.
Read MoreBready or Not: Double Chocolate-Candied Ginger Cookies
Let’s go hardcore chocolaty with these Double Chocolate-Candied Ginger Cookies.
Candied ginger with bittersweet chocolate, you say? Why, yes! The combination is extraordinary. These are grown-up cookies, with heady chocolate and ginger mingling in a great way.
I was surprised at how much the cookies dough hardened during its chill time. I still recommend chilling the dough, though, because aging the flour mix does age the dough and deepen flavors.
Just soften the dough at room temperature for a bit, if needed. My cookies didn’t spread much, either. They ended up as fat. luscious little chocolate bombs!
These are cookies to bludgeon off the lingering foulness of a bad day. Indulge!
Modified from Saveur Magazine.
Bready or Not: Double Chocolate-Candied Ginger Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup plus 1 Tb unsweetened cocoa powder sifted
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 5 Tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 1/3 cup coconut oil
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup light brown sugar packed
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate heaping, coarsely chopped or in chips
- 1/2 cup candied ginger chopped
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
- In a big bowl, beat together the butter, coconut oil, both sugars, and salt, until pale and fluffy. Add the egg, scraping the bowl as needed. Stir in the flour mixture. Fold in the bittersweet chocolate and candied ginger.
- Wrap cookie dough in plastic wrap and chill for a few hours.
- Preheat oven at 375-degrees. Pull out cookie dough; if it fairly hard, let sit out a few minutes to soften some. Use a spoon to shape and form small dough balls. Space out on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Bake 9 to 11 minutes. Let sit on cookie sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to a rack to finish cooling. Store in a sealed container at room temperature.
- OM NOM NOM!
