Cold

Manhood. It almost feels archaic to write the word, because it’s become so muddled, seeming to have as many definitions and contradictions as there are coffee beverages offered at Starbucks. But manhood has been on all of our minds of late - you know it's true. As the Ukrainian conflict continues to unfold, and we watch (mostly) men leaving their families to fight the Russian invaders, as we ponde...

It's been hard for me to consume news the past couple of weeks. For someone with my family history - two generations of political refugees, a mother who was an actual political prisoner and Enemy of the State - the crisis in the Ukraine has a very familiar ring, an awful, pit-in-my-stomach feel. I know I should at the very least be reading the front page of the paper, but I just haven't been able...

This week in the Cold, we talk about the art of conversation. There is a reason why in so many ancient cultures, the written word is synonymous with destiny. "It is written," they say. It's because words - written, spoken, exchanged - can have a profound effect on our lives. Conversations with lovers or strangers, even fictional parleys in a novel can adjust our perspectives, pull us away from a p...

Stories of love and forgiveness compel us in both literature and life. They help us examine our own behaviors, and understand the motives of our loved ones. They offer hope. Today in the Cold, I have just such a story to offer you. It's a magnificent, damned near miraculous story of love and forgiveness, and it is so much better than a mere Valentine. This episode is also available as a blog post:...

This week in the Cold, we're talking about sex and love and how to make it burn in a story - lighting a fire that spreads from page to page. It's easier said than done. Because one of the hardest parts about writing a love scene is the simple act of letting go. Allowing yourself to experience the same feelings of bonzai-passion, trembling-fear, vein-popping love, and button-exploding lust in which...

This week in the Cold, we talk about what makes winter so damned enchanting, and why it's the most creative and romantic time of the year. I'll tell you about why I love the cold, and how I celebrate the poetry of winter - even as I sit through our second major snow storm in as many weeks. The first had us out of power and water for days. We lit a fire, boiled snow, shivered under blankets...and w...

This week in the Cold, we talk about those "there, but for the grace of God" moments. The missed opportunities, sharp left turns, and steps through the looking glass that might flip our lives upside down, but also offer unexpected gifts...like hope, clarity, and wisdom. Sometimes, they even save our lives. These abrupt changes of plans are the stuff of novels, of the stories we fiction writers lov...

New Year's resolutions are famous for being comically short. We often start out strong, but by early spring have lost our mojo. If we haven't kicked our resolution to the curb entirely by that point, we've surely cheated. But all is not lost. This week in the Cold, you'll hear a story that will make sure you never feel shame for breaking a New Year's resolutions ever again. You might even fell a s...

This week in the Cold, we ring in the New Year with a few words on the magic of spending the winter in a f-f-freezing climate. You heard me. The enchantments happen in cities like Chicago, Toronto, Minneapolis, Prague, and Copenhagen. These are places where people have no choice but to make the best of it. They drink and cook and play games and tell stories and fall love in front of a hot fire! I...

This week in the Cold, I have a story for you that will not only renew your faith in humanity, but leave you agog. It's about a man, an art collection, and a simple transaction between two sons that might just heal the world. Please join us. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victoriadougherty.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/a-little-something-to-get-the-holiday-season-started/

This week in the Cold, we talk about the enchanting, utterly wonderful, magical, charming-as-hell traditions of St. Nicholas Day in Prague, and the spirit of atonement this day brings to the holiday season. This is armchair traveling at its finest, and storytelling at its most sincere. I've also got some St. Nicholas Day treats for Cold listeners. Just visit my blog in the link below and scroll do...

This week in the Cold, I offer you one helluva story. It's a war story, a love story, and an account of survival from a woman I knew. I offer it in honor of the human spirit, in honor of Hanukkah, and my one quarter Jewish heritage. Most of all, in honor of art and the hope it inspires. And I do hope you'll join us. Here are the links to Dina Babbitt's interview for the Shoah Foundation. Part 1: h...

A few years ago on my Cold blog (see link below), the first of what would become an annual list of gratitude was born. It was conceived as an opportunity to take stock and think about all of the elements of our lives – great and small – for which we're truly grateful. This quirky, misty-eyed scroll of various people, places, and things serves as a powerful reminder, that no matter where we are on...

This week in the Cold, we ponder lies and the lying liars who tell them. I don't want to give too much away, because it's just too good. Swear it is! Please join us. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victoriadougherty.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/herein-lies-the-truth/

Come join us this week in the Cold, as we take a hard look at the feats and character traits that make up a hero in both fiction and real life. The common definition of what it means to be a hero has become muddled in the past few years, falling victim to a culture war that has had us arguing over a lot of words and deeds that we used to pretty much agree on. Despite this, I think we all still kno...

Today in the Cold, we are talking about possibly the most fascinating, alluring, and confounding character in all of literature...Count Dracula. What is it about Bram Stoker's "Dracula" that inspired a global phenomenon that turned so many of us into undead junkies? Was it masterfully written - yes. Stoker wove a complex, culturally sophisticated, and truly terrifying horror story. Ultimately, tho...

As promised, this week in the Cold, I'm telling you all about what it's like to live in the wonderful, old, story-machine that is my home. Did I mention that it's haunted? Yes, haunted! But life in a house with a bit of history, and a smidge of woo-woo spirituality is not what you think. Don't even consider skipping this episode! This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victoriadough...

This week in the Cold, we're talking about the woo-woo, the spiritual, the paranormal, and why even the most rational of us just love, love, love it. The paranormal is such a tasty spice in the stories we read and write. It can be a smaller element of a greater work of literature or genre fiction, like the witches in Shakespeare's "Macbeth," or commandeer an entire story, as it did in Bram Stoker'...

It's October, which means Cold is going all-in on ghosts, monsters, aliens, and all creatures of the night or things that go bump in the dark. This week, we're diving head-first into the bloody, brain-splattered world of the horror story! Horror, second only to Romance, is the most maligned genre in fiction. Rarely taken seriously, and treated more like a carnival sideshow. But I charge that horro...

Today in the Cold, we have some harrowing real-life stories that sound like they're straight out of science fiction. We uncover chilling tales of the lost cosmonauts of 1950s and 60s Soviet Russia, including what may be actual audio from one of these failed missions. It includes a female cosmonaut no less! We also ponder the very different ethics which distinguished the American and Soviet space p...

This week in the Cold, we talk about humor as a crucial element to any story that endeavors to rise above cliché. We zero-in on Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander" novels as a gold standard for tackling very serious topics like war, history, and love with a confident and unapologetic sense of humor. We look back on Shakespeare, Twain, Hemingway, Chandler, even ancient literature in order to illustrate ho...

Join us in the Cold today as we excavate the past through photographs, and talk about how to make new worlds out of old ones. Photography is invaluable for me when I'm creating a work of historical fiction. Photos help me conjure stories I could have never constructed without the help of someone else's eye. The eye of a person who is perhaps long dead, but whose perspective lives on through the pi...

I contend that raising kids and writing novels isn't a whole lot different. Both are hugely creative, ambitious, and gobsmackingly intimidating labors of love. So much so that a lot of people contemplating the creative life (and we use this terms loosely - there are a lot of ways to live a creative life) may wonder if taking on two such enormously challenging endeavors is even possible. That's why...

There's isn't a truly compelling fictional story, let alone a real-life one, that doesn't in some way involve a bad habit. Whether it's a propensity that's relatively straightforward, like an excessive love of drink, or more opaque, like a secret lust for bad women. Bad habits have black magic - there's just no getting around that. As much as we might hate them, or hate ourselves for succumbing to...

Last week in the Cold, we talked a bit about how huge adventures and calamities, like wars, for instance, are a breeding ground for coincidences and other extraordinary sequences of events. It's a big topic with so much to unpack, and it's well-worth expanding on. Only this week, I want us to approach it a little bit differently. I want to delve into how chance encounters, those little occurrences...