T.A. Leederman's Blog

Before We Begin… While I love science-fiction romance, it’s also important to note that I regularly taught a college class, during my years in PhD-earning service, about genre—primarily High Fantasy. One of the class’s concerns was to distinguish between different formal and literary genres, and we explored the distinctions between subgenres of fantasy and science fiction, as well as their tropes and the sorts of stories they better enabled an author to tell. Some of my favorite questions...

Preamble Caveat right up front: The author, Urna Semper, is the pen name for my friend Parrish Baker, a mentor and one of our editors at Tender and Tempting Tales. We have appeared and are set to appear in anthologies together, so what’s good for that gander is obviously good for this goose. I also beta-read quite a few of Parrish’s stories before he submits them to anthologies these days—both Rac and T&TT—so I’m fairly familiar with the range of his work. So why am I reviewing this book?...

Odyssey always has homemade curry for lunch before game begins, since we run out of my house, and I like to make different versions over the course of the year. We have an established Thanksgiving curry with sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce, and we serve it over stuffing instead of rice. That’s an old favorite. This year, I wanted to try my hand at some Christmas Curry.

Introduction: On the Holiday Hallmark Movie Two disclaimers: I received this novella as an ARC, requested specifically because I like Suzy, we’re in anthologies together, and I wanted to provide her with a review. Second disclaimer being that I don’t like holiday Hallmark movies. I know. You’re shocked. What, the girl who writes merc stories, radioactive murders on space cruises, and long weird romances in cyborg loony bins hates Hallmark romances?! Le shock. I can’t write a romance without...

The cover for Star Groomsman, created by me by layering and altering assets in the stock library on Canva, and the Starship Valkyrie logo. Release day is here! Mercs and Mayhem with my story "Power Play" released last week, and hit No. 1 in SFF anthologies on Amazon. You can get it here for some real merc action: Amazon.com : Mercs and Mayhem (Raconteur Press Anthologies Book 64) eBook : Nethery, Nick, Burke, Spearman, Stone, Dean, Malory, Lizzi, Ken, Hathaway, Ross, Gibson, B K, Waltz,...

Introduction Seldom has my life been so different between one year and the next. A few standouts come to mind: the stark difference between October of my seventeenth year and October of my eighteenth were particularly different, given the total upheaval to my life and family in that time. 2019 and 2020 were so very different for so many of us that it barely bears repeating. In September of 2022 I was pregnant and a PhD candidate; by September of 2023, I had my PhD and my first child at home. ......

Hello folks! Woof, last week was a lot, in case you were wondering where my typical blog post went. I was copyediting and reading through the MS for the anthology Midnight, Mischief, and Mistletoe from Tender and Tempting Tales, where I work as Social Media and Marketing Manager, as well as doing various other whatever-needs-to-get-done tasks (alongside Jenna and the editors). There are some great pieces I very much enjoy, in addition to my own entry ("Crimson Bride"), which I think is one...

Normally on Mondays, I post a new chapter of my serialized novel, What Remains . (You can find the most recent chapter, posted last week,...

Phew! What a week… and what a month! For those of you who don’t know, I’m a co-leader for my writing group here in South Bay/Long Beach...

This is in the walkthrough, but my basic advice for posting on Instagram is....