Author: Amber Porter

Amber Porter was born in Fort Carson, Colorado and has recently finished her bachelor’s in Psychology—with a minor in creative writing—from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. She loves writing, particularly: horror, fantasy, young adult, and humor and has a fascination with the darker and stranger side of life, it’s probably why she wanted to be a psychologist—to probe into the deepest most secluded areas of one’s psyche. Amber also enjoys learning about new cultures, particularly their languages, and hopes to one-day return to Italy where she spent several years of her childhood. As a side-note, she’s rather fond of video games—especially those with good characters and story—and getting lots and lots of sleep.

Music as a Writer’s Block Cure

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Recently, I’ve felt the heavy weight of “writer’s block” bearing down on me. Between life, preparing for upcoming classes, and working on the print version of hinterlands, I’ve found what little inspiration I’ve managed to scrounge up slinks away. To get back that creative energy, even if it’s only a smidgen, I’ve been listening to music. Have you rolled your eyes yet? This is the part where you’re probably throwing your hands in the air shouting at the screen, “How is that anything new!?” It’s not. We all know it’s not. It might not even be the sound that’s inspiring, maybe it’s the visuals of the music video. Maybe it’s the vibrations of the bass through the floorboards beneath your feet. Maybe it’s just the lyrics. Whatever it is, whatever strikes your fancy and gives you that inspiration—hold on to it. Because I’m about to ask you to write.


Was that all an elaborate, and no doubt inelegant means of shoehorning in a prompt that pertains to music. Yes, yes it was. Doesn’t mean I didn’t mean any of it. I actually have been listening to music—well just one song really…on repeat. And as I do so, I write what I interpret the song as. Then the next day I do it again, only this time I try to interpret it in a different way. I try to see how many stories one song can inspire; and how many different ways I can view one thing. And once I feel I have no more stories for that song, I move onto the next.


So…I’m asking you to do the same. Find that song that really gets you going and write as many different stories about it as you can.

The Book Club Swaps: Amber and Addey

Amber Porter

Some time ago I chose the book Sabriel by Garth Nix for Addey to read. When I was younger my first sense of world building came from this novel. The first taste of the vast scale of an area traversed, the first sense of wonder. I received all of that from this experience.

It also exposed me to a character who has stayed with me for years. The sassy and ever entertaining Mogget. While I appreciate all the characters in Sabriel, and their progression through the novel, this small fluff ball is by far my favorite. I suggested this book for Addey specifically because of the world building and the how deeply it delves into its own fictional history and to see what she thinks of it.

Now that Addey’s finished reading the book, here are her thoughts…

We’ve mentioned it before, but I have a drastically different taste in books that both Amber and Nicole.  That’s why we decided to do book swaps—we thought it would make things exciting and fun.  But, it also makes for a bit of an intimidating proposition.  It is a little stressful to take on a book that is one of your friend’s favorites but that you also know is not your typical cup of tea.

So, with all this in mind, I dove into Sabriel with trepidation.  I decided to read it first because out of the two books I got from Amber and Nicole, this seemed like the book I would like the least and I wanted to get it out of the way.  That doesn’t sound promising, does it?

Well, once I started reading I was worried that my initial thoughts were right.  The book didn’t draw me in at first and it took me quite a while to get through the first half of the book.  I think that this is due to the fact that I am not used to the world building that has to take place in fantasy.  There was a lot of confusion for me when I first started reading.  I simply didn’t understand the world Sabriel and her companions lived in, which is kid of the point of a fantasy novel that takes place in an imaginary world, but I’m not used to that.

But I plowed on anyway and noticed that I did get more involved in the story and with the characters as I read on.  Mogget confused me a bit, but was quite an interesting character, and once he came onto the scene I had a much easier time following along.  Then, once the third central character, Touchstone, showed up, I had a much easier time following.  That’s where the action really picked up and where the story became interesting to me.

In the first half of the book, I struggled to read a chapter a day, which was the goal I was striving for, and once the action picked up in the latter part of the book, I think I finished it in just a couple days.

To sum up my thoughts on Sabriel, while it wasn’t may favorite book I’ve read or anything like that, it was very good and was a nice little venture outside of my comfort zone.  I had fun reading it, and am even interested in reading the next books in the series in the future (once I can get to the library and snag them after this whole quarantine thing is over.)

If you are like me and read primarily in one genre, I think I would recommend reaching outside of your comfort zone and reading something new—especially if that something new is a recommendation from a friend who you know has good taste!

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Stay tuned for more from the book club as we all read books picked for each other and write our reviews here.  And if you want to join the club and recommend books for us to read, or take a stab at our recommendations, leave your comments and suggestions below!

Submissions Update

Amber Porter

The final selections for the journal have been chosen. We thank all who have submitted and hope you will continue to lend us your patience as we embark on the final stages of production.

Please watch out for emails coming your way from us very soon, as we editors have already jumped into editing.