A speculative mind

                              Welcome to the wild and wooly era of self-publishing. Anyone can publish a book now. The only requirement is that you have to actually, you know, write it. To be fair, there have always been ways to get your book published. Vanity press is the term used for a “publishing company” that, for a fee, would publish your book, no questions asked. It didn’t matter what the book was about, or if it was any good, or if it was even legible. If you put up the money, they would publish it. Vanity press companies have been around for eighty years or more. They are still around today in one form or another. There are also hybrid quasi vanity platforms that have some discernment about what they print, but you still have to pay for it up front. The advice I was always given was to avoid publishing companies that you have to pay. If they are legit, they should be paying you. Vanity press companies have the reputation as being not the most scrupulous organizations to

I think of science fiction as being one of the more imaginative genres of literature. After all a science fiction story has to do all the things every other kind of story does, plot, character development, setting the scene, building relationships, etc., plus it has to introduce at least one wonder that the readers are unfamiliar with. It could be world building on an alien planet (or our own planet in some unrecognizable future). Or it could introduce a technological wonder or evolutionary advancement. You often hear science fiction credited with predicting the future. Being an imaginative genre that is often set in the future, this seems like a logical conclusion, especially when you can point to times that science fiction got it right. Way back in the 1800’s Jules Verne showed humans going to the moon. He even showed his astronauts experiencing weightlessness.   Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World talked about genetic engineering. Science fiction grand master Arthur C. Clarke dev

Merriam Webster defines geography as: “ a science that deals with the description, distribution, and interaction of the diverse physical, biological, and cultural features of the earth's surface .” From that definition you can tell that it is about more than just learning the names of capitols and rivers, but still that definition is broad and vague. I think it is sometimes hard for geography to be taken serious as a science. People look at physics and chemistry and geology, and they can see the science inherent in them. They are about measuring and quantifying. Not too many science fiction stories get written about geographers. And yet, there are some cutting edge things that have been happening in geography. GIS stands for Geographic Information System. In simplest terms a GIS is just maps linked with databases. You have all used a GIS whether you know it or not. Anytime you have used an app like Google Maps or Bing and you ask it where the nearest McDonald’s is, you ha