‘Power of a Woman …’ ~ Melissa Snell reviews ‘a monumental challenge’: Mr. Fripp has taken on a monumental challenge. Not only does he handle the delicate balancing act of telling a good story while maintaining accurate historical detail, but he does so by getting inside the head of someone who actually lived more than… Read more

  ‘Science’ (25 November 2017) published a story I thought both weird, wonderful —’Seeing the Beautiful Intelligence of Microbes …’ — and strangely familiar. [1] The story begins: “Bacterial biofilm and slime molds are more than crude patches of goo. Detailed time-lapse microscopy reveals how they sense and explore their surroundings, communicate with their neighbors… Read more

A Perilous Venture: Channeling Aphrodite Welcome to Aphrodite, more recently known as the Venus de Milo. I’m writing her fantasy. Writing serious stuff is like farming. It does not pay. I used to write television scripts, technical stories and features about advanced software. That paid well. Now I write to keep my brain in shape… Read more

  Excerpted from ‘Let There Be Life’ (published by Paulist Press, 2002) By Robert Fripp Verse 1. In the beginning was darkness and the silence of the void. And the spirit of God looked out upon the void, and was alone within it. Verse 1, commentary ~ For the authors of Genesis the moment of… Read more

Out of the ashes Carol Kaesuk Yoon wrote much of the story below in 1999, from which this is adapted — giving credit, of course. Her story was beautiful. I merged text from my ‘Let There Be Life’ (2002) . Here is Wildfires, wildflowers … ¶ ‘Ninety million years ago, on what [was, in 1999] an… Read more

Nature isn’t classical ‘Nature isn’t classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you’d better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly, it’s a wonderful problem, because it doesn’t look so easy.’ ~ Richard P. Feynman, Ph.D. Well, all right, Professor Feynman. Quantum it shall be. As you say, it’s not so… Read more

  It’s the summer of 1949. I’m approaching my sixth birthday. Mother and I are watching a movie, The Red Shoes, in the cinema on the Cunard Line’s Queen Elizabeth. This is my second trip to Mother’s family in New York. (I say ‘Mother’. I should explain that Hazel Lisle Batson Fripp became my stepmother… Read more

  ¶   “A POTTER CREATES his or her most original work using virgin clay. A creator does so using virgin DNA. No! That’s true for the potter—It’s not true for the Creator. ‘Old’ DNA is as good as new “Life-plans use genes over and over again, assigning DNA secondary tasks within a species even while… Read more

  Stumbling through the Internet, as one does, I found ‘John Grimshaw’s Garden Diary’. I was surprised to discover John’s comment, with his photos of Long Purples (Orchis mascula). I recently mentioned long purples in a story, ‘Ten Years, Six Miles, and One Canoe‘. The story describes my ten years of school holidays in a… Read more