Category Archives: Setting

Guest Post from Morgan Keyes, and a Book Giveaway!

Posted on August 29, 2012 by dbjackson

Today we welcome my good friend Morgan Keyes, who has just published a brand new middle grade fantasy, Darkbeast (Simon & Schuster).  Morgan also writes as Mindy Klasky, and in that guise she is not only a colleague of mine … Continue reading →

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Ethan Kaille’s Diary: 30 May 1765

Posted on May 30, 2012 by dbjackson

Late in the spring of 1765, word of Parliament’s passage of the Stamp Act, one of the so-called Grenville Acts (named for George Grenville, Prime Minister of Great Britain and King George III’s Chancellor of the Exchequer) reached the New … Continue reading →

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Sneak Peak at the THIEFTAKER T-Shirt!

Posted on May 17, 2012 by dbjackson

Here it is, all!  The official THIEFTAKER t-shirt!  (Pay no attention to the red line down that middle.  That’s a graphic tool used to center the image on the shirt — the actual t-shirts won’t have it.)  In case the … Continue reading →

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Flash Writing Tips: Three Rules I Follow When Creating Magic

Posted on May 4, 2012 by dbjackson

This post is about creating magic.  Literally.  More to the point, it’s about creating a viable magic system for your fantasy story or novel.  A couple of months back I wrote about worldbuilding and might have alluded briefly to magic … Continue reading →

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Flash Writing Tip: Research — How Much Is Enough?

Posted on April 26, 2012 by dbjackson

Researching the Thieftaker books and stories has been a great deal of fun.  Lots of work, yes, but incredibly interesting and gratifying.  And weaving that research into the text of the books has been fun, too.  There is something incredibly … Continue reading →

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Today In History: Lighting the Fuse

Posted on March 22, 2012 by dbjackson

On this day, in 1765, the English Parliament passed legislation that would come to be known in the North American colonies as the Stamp Act.  In the wake of the Seven Years’ War against France (referred to in the colonies … Continue reading →

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Flash Writing Tip! Making Our Imagined Worlds Come Alive

Posted on March 13, 2012 by dbjackson

Okay, birthday is done, but I’m still on the road.  Time for another Flash Writing Tip.  Today’s topic:  Worldbuilding! The object of worldbuilding for writers of speculative fiction is really no different from the goal of mainstream writers setting up … Continue reading →

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Researching New Thieftaker Books

Posted on January 17, 2012 by dbjackson

One of the things that often strikes friends and family as strange about my work is the distance in time between “what I’m working on” and “what I have coming out.”  We are still six months away from the July … Continue reading →

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A View of Costa Rica, Part I

Posted on November 30, 2011 by dbjackson

We spent Thanksgiving week in Costa Rica, visiting my older daughter who is an exchange student at a high school in Monteverde — the Cloud Forest School, it’s called. Today, and in days to follow, I will share my impressions … Continue reading →

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A Bit About Boston in the 1760s

Posted on February 17, 2011 by dbjackson

Had a comment on another site from a friend — he was wondering about the size of Boston in the 1760s, where “The Tavern Fire” and the Thieftaker books are set.  Boston was, by that time, the third largest city … Continue reading →

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