Response to Comment

I recently received this comment (on a different website):

There is very little evidence in her [my] writing that she understands how
the world works. In other words, her writing lacks verisimilitude, a quality of
entertaining, engaging writing (even in fantasy novels).My conclusion is hard to
prove because it requires negative evidence. But every good story reflects
something about our shared reality--our existence, the choices we must make, the
difficulties of being human (even in stories about non-humans), the moral
ambiguity, etc. There is little of this in her writing.

I can understand why the commenter may have felt this way. Many of the stories I post on this blog are fantastical in nature, often with seemingly little connection to real-life situations. I wanted to note that I write many of these stories with third-grade audiences. As a result, I talk about things that are interesting and fun to a third grade audience--which will probably not be the same thing that feels realistic to the (presumably adult) commenter who wrote this.

So, just as a disclaimer, any stories I post here where I say "written with" an audience, or with elementary schoolchildren, will bear a reflection of that fact. Which is not to say, of course, that I don't enjoy writing them. :)