by Chantal Boudreau
When someone mentions female characters in fantasy, some stereotypes come to mind. There is the damsel in distress, the plucky princess, the matronly queen or the bawdy tavern wench, just for a few examples. These seem to show up everywhere, unfortunate tropes who sometimes serve as sidekicks and who often give the male hero extra purpose to their cause, but don’t have much purpose in their own right.
Then there’s the flip-side – the “strong female” character: the man-hating amazon, the stoic and noble female warrior who is an exception to the norm, the experienced sorceress or priestess who often proves self-sacrificing. While they may have a prominent role in the story, they tend to be loners and atypical of the women in that particular fantasy culture. Most of the women in the story other than that one outstanding character fall into the traditional medieval female roles:…

by Bruce Blake

The time has finally come…the return of the Guild of Dreams.

After a lengthy hiatus (if you choose to read that as ‘Bruce got lazy for an extended period of time’, I would probably be hard pressed to argue the point), the motley blog crew have returned to entertain and enlighten. Returning to the Guild are myself, Autumn Birt, Chantal Boudreau, Scott Bury, Joshua Johnson, AM Justice, Steven Montano, and Benjamin X. Wretlind.

So here’s the set up: we’re paring things down a little, with regular posts scheduled for Mondays and Fridays. That’s not to say you won’t see the occasional post on other days…special guests, book announcements, cover reveals, and the like may pop up at any time, so be sure to sign up for email updates over there on the top right if you haven’t done so…

2/4/2015

Dear Amanda

This can’t go on. Really, it can not go on.

You say this to yourself every time you flush the toilet in your bathroom and find yourself pulling the lid off the tank, pushing up your sleeve, and reaching in to adjust the stopper so the toilet won’t run. That stopper has failed to properly seat itself upon flushing for over a month now.

A month. Maybe two.

There’s no excuse for letting it go so long. There’s a plumbing supply store and 2 hardware stores around the corner from your apartment. You wouldn’t even have to cross the street to buy whatever you need to fix it. Of course, it offends you that you cannot figure out what’s causing the stopper to fall askew and let water leak into the bowl (it’s not a faulty chain or balloon, all you plumbing experts). You want to fix…