As summer temperatures in Tucson finally drop below 100°F and we head into autumn, I’m preparing lesson plans and writing new exercises for two fall workshops at the Writers Studio.
Author: Richard Leis
Richard Leis (he/him/his) lives in Tucson, Arizona where he writes poetry and fiction, attends and teaches writing workshops at the Writers Studio Tucson, and works for HiRISE, a team in the Lunar & Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona with a camera in orbit around Mars onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Review: Kids by The Midnight
I only became aware of the music genre known as retrowave or synthwave a few years ago, though I had been listening to examples of it for longer. In 2018 my appreciation for the genre deepened into love. This is music I jog to. This is music I write to. This is music that makes me nostalgic for the 1980s, but it also makes me question and critique that era. One musical act in particular is responsible for my current retrowave obsession: The Midnight.
New Poem: “November in Portland” in Impossible Archetype, Issue 6
Issue 6 of Impossible Archetype (a free PDF download) is now out and it includes my latest poem, “November in Portland.” It’s a poem based loosely on the death of a classmate in high school in the Pacific Northwest, a setting that cannot help but underline any given mood.
Summer 2019 Writing and Teaching
This week kicks off a busy summer of writing and teaching. I’m currently preparing lesson plans and writing lessons for two summer workshops. There are only two spots left in my science fiction, fantasy, and horror writing workshop online for the Writers Studio. I’m grateful for the interest! And there’s still room in my face-to-face […]
2019 Rhysling Anthology edited by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Lots of good poems this year, but when I read the poems I later selected while voting for the Rhysling Awards, they really leapt out at me and I love them fiercely.
“Crafting Fantastic & Imaginative Worlds” at The Writers Studio!
I am so excited to announce that my proposal for a workshop on writing speculative fiction and poetry, including science fiction, fantasy, and horror, was recently approved, and the class is now listed and available for registration! This new 6-week workshop is titled “Crafting Fantastic & Imaginative Worlds” and it uses The Writers Studio method of persona writing and critiquing. It begins Saturday, July 27, 2019.
Recommendation: “Forever Baby” by Dana Diehl in Cartridge Lit
Dana Diehl’s latest flash fiction piece titled “Forever Baby” and inspired by the game Stardew Valley is available on Cartridge Lit in the new “The Double Click Temple Issue.” Her story is awesome, sad, allegorical for so much, and you don’t need to know anything about Stardew Valley to appreciate it.
Summer Writing Workshops at the Writers Studio!
The Writers Studio Tucson is holding eight-week writing workshops again this summer, and there are two options for the beginning level: I’m teaching Workshop Saturday mornings from 10:00am – 12:30pm starting July 20th. Lela Scott MacNeil is teaching Workshop Wednesday evenings from 6:30 – 9:00pm starting August 7th. Registration and the full list of courses including […]
Supporting Professional Payment Rates in Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Markets
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America sets the minimum payment rates for professional short fiction markets. In September, this rate rises from 6 cents per word to 8 cents per word. Interesting to me, because I’m submitting stories to these markets… One of my favorite magazines is Beneath Ceaseless Skies, devoted to “literary […]
Movie Review: Assimilate (2019)
Assimilate isn’t the cheap and nauseating found-footage film the trailer led me to believe it would be, but instead an effective low-budget thriller that relies too much on jump scares but tempers these with earned emotions and suspense.
New Poem: “Distraction” in Impossible Archetype, Issue 5
“Distraction,” my latest poem now available in the five issue of Impossible Archetype (a free PDF download), began as an exercise in anaphora and setting to tell a larger story. I also wanted to capture a particular mood.
Review: The Low Passions by Anders Carlson-Wee
With stuff I didn’t want to know about the world and reminders of things I don’t want to remember, Anders Carlson-Wee’s poems in The Low Passions feel like they have exactly the right words, the perfect, accessible, blunt, beautiful, challenging, and surprising words.
The Limits of Success
I was not prepared for how much worse imposter syndrome would get once I started writing regularly, getting published, participating in public readings, teaching…
New Writing Instructor at the Writers Studio Tucson
I’m now a writing instructor at the Writers Studio in Tucson, Arizona and I’ll be teaching an 8-week introductory workshop in fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction beginning Saturday, April 20th!
22 January 2019
I condemn reinstatement of this bigoted ban by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court. There are no valid reasons for banning transgender personnel from the military, but reason is not behind this decision. Trump’s is an administration of hate, perpetuated by a widespread system of hate, enabled by supporters who hate.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
13 January 2019
🎥 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a fantastic movie! I love the energy, art style(s), story, and characters. If this is the future of the Spider-Verse (and Venom 2 turns out to be a major improvement on the first one), then I’m eager for the franchise to expand.
Alice Hatcher Craft Class
📚 I participated in a fantastic craft class today with Alice Hatcher, author of The Wonder That Was Ours. She was interviewed by Reneé Bibby, Director of the Writers Studio Tucson, and local students in the Master and Advanced workshops.
Recommended: “What’s Done Can’t Be Undone” by Reneé Bibby and “CARBORUNDORUM > /DEV/NULL” by Annalee Flower Horne
How does the writer of genre fiction approach difficult subject matter like sexual assault? Two excellent and potentially triggering recent short stories by two fearless writers suggest two effective approaches. “What’s Done Can’t Be Undone” by Tucson writer Reneé Bibby in the January 2019 issue of Five on the Fifth weaves ugly revelations with witches […]
Space as Solace During a Government Shutdown
The recent space activities I’m writing and posting about provide solace during this government shutdown that has furloughed most NASA and related departments employees and contractors.
“Meet Ultima Thule”
And Ultima and Thule, according to New Horizons’ principal investigator Alan Stern at today’s NASA press briefing, the informal names the team have given the two lobes of the red object out in the Kuiper Belt New Horizons spent New Year’s encountering. The contact binary connected by a neck of material indicates two objects that came together and stuck sometime in the distant past when these kinds of interactions were leading elsewhere in the solar system to accretions that would eventually form the planets and their moons.
