C. L. Schneider

I remember the exact moment when I decided: I’m going to be an author. It was an easy decision. I loved books. They’d been my constant companion since I was old enough to read. I would come home from the library with a stack so big I couldn’t see over the top. I’d stretch out on my bed and dive inside their pages, disappearing inside make-believe worlds for hours at a time. I loved to write, too: poetry, short stories, or scripts for my favorite TV shows. It didn’t mat

My magic knew nothing of sides. My spells fed without discrimination. They were selfish, heartless. They didn’t care who was right or wrong, who was strong or weak. To create themselves, they would drain friend as easily as foe. —The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price Power is never free. It can’t be. If there were no consequences, no limits, the world would be a scary place. So would my fantasy world. In building a magic system like the one I created for The Crown of St

I’ve always had a thing for stars. Though my back yard here in NY never feels quite dark enough for stargazing, where I grew up in the Midwest was ripe for it. My mother was a bona fide night owl—something she most definitely passed down to me. In the summer, we would go swimming (just the two of us) in the wee hours of the night. Floating in the water, soaking up the peacefulness, we would stare up into the sky, looking for shooting stars and daydreaming about what might be

There's an indie band I've been following for some time out of Chicago. The title song of their latest CD, "Set Fire", has nothing to do with writing. I imagine it's about a relationship, as most songs are. But the first time I listened to the lyrics, one particular phrase stuck out. "I set fires in the pouring rain." Immediately, I thought: This is what I've been doing for years. We all have pursuits and dreams. They're fun to think about. They keep us going. But turning a r