Stephanie Shaver

Sometimes Writer Always Extremely Online


About Me

Hello, my name is Steph. I’ve been writing and publishing since 1988 and I’ve been in the games industry since 1996. I wrote a little bit more on the About Me page. This is my sometimes-updated website. Enjoy.

  • “Payment in Kind” Meanderings

    aka Your Annual Post You know, it’s not that I don’t write posts, it’s that I don’t write here. Microblogging took over my brain and it doesn’t much see the point of longform blogging anymore, even if it does like to go back and read the long posts later on. What I’m saying is: it… Continue reading

  • Watermelon Rinds and the Demons of Burn Out

    Watermelon Rinds and the Demons of Burn Out

    As I pickle watermelon rinds, I’ve been contemplating how to write about my burn out. Like you do. Turns out: Working for your “dream company” for a decade burns you out when your dream ends up collapsing in on itself. You stand on the edge of the pit of a smoking crater, staring down the… Continue reading

  • I’m ready to talk about Jim

    This is Jim Crider. He died on Tuesday. I was a dirtbag teenager. I did dirtbag things. I didn’t get better until my mid-20s. Jim was my friend anyway. I never met Jim in person. We knew each other through GEnie, which was an online service. We were both heavily active on what was called… Continue reading

  • Thoughts on “Good Intentions”

    Thoughts on “Good Intentions”

    The next Valdemar anthology is Anything With Nothing, and “Good Intentions” will be in it. Pretty confident I can say that, even if I haven’t signed the contract, since I just accepted all the edits and sent them my bio. It’s a Khaari story, for those of you wanting a Khaari story. For those of… Continue reading

  • Another Year, Another Story

    This year’s story started out with a pitch about how I wanted to write about the Sankebetsu Bear Incident — except, y’know, in Valdemar — and because my editors are those flavors of madlad they said yes. I mostly stuck to the proposal this time. Where I messed up was in the voice I initially… Continue reading

  • Where to Find Me

    Social media’s a bit of a mess right now, but here’s where to find me. Continue reading

  • The Jelly Plague

    Nathanos and Sylvanas cook up a sticky treat for Darkshire! This is an AU piece of fan-fiction set in World of Warcraft that I wrote for the hell of it. It is not canon, and my employer had no idea I did it. Continue reading

  • Thursday, With My Daughter

    You’re out for a stroll with your two most important people, and there on the sidewalk, in bright pink chalk, are the words. And your seven year old, who is so proud of her reading, stops to puzzle them out. “Black. Lives. Matter.” She looks at you. “What does that mean?” You’re close to home,… Continue reading

  • The New eShopping Normal

    I’ve been really enjoying not shopping at Amazon. We have Prime. Lots of people have Prime. But right now, Prime for physical goods doesn’t matter because right now Amazon (with all apologies) is telling us unless it’s essential it’s not coming in a day or two days or even three. They’re overwhelmed. And (ostensibly) protecting… Continue reading

  • Don’t ask me how the novel’s going

    …but really what I want to call out is the most unhelpful thing I hear along this winding journey to publication-land (or not), that I’ve had lobbed at me by friends and relatives, that drove me to write this whole outpouring. And that is of course the all-too-innocent “how’s the novel going?” question. Continue reading