Essays, math, humor, and other pieces of nonfiction.
Free books (and other stuff)
A list of books and other things that I’m giving away. Updated every few months.
Distances and directions
An essay about walking in the snow and missing my mother, written in 1989.
How to host a story reading
Recommendations on how to get people together to read stories aloud to each other.
Tools
Info about tools that I use and recommend for various purposes.
Notes on sleep
For many years, I had various forms of insomnia, and I still occasionally have trouble falling asleep and/or wake up too early and can’t get back to sleep. This page covers some of the things that have and haven’t helped me with that.
How to drive in Boston: A survival guide
Tips for driving in Boston, for people who are new to it.
i to the i power
A writeup of a lovely derivation of the value of i to the i power.
Review: Goblin Market, by Christina Rossetti
A review of Christina Rossetti’s poem “Goblin Market,” first published in Clean Sheets in 1998.
Strange Horizons Flashbacks
A retrospective of some of the fiction we published at Strange Horizons during my time as a fiction editor there, from 2000 through 2012.
Guide to John Rogers’s Leverage posts
A link to my spreadsheet that lists all of Rogers’s Leverage-related blog posts.
Guide to Joanna Russ’s published short fiction
A link to my spreadsheet listing all of Russ’s published short fiction.
Mary Anne and Jed’s critiquing guidelines
A guide to giving good critiques in a writing workshop, by Mary Anne Mohanraj and Jed Hartman.
My unread-books project
Overview and current status.
Some responses to Omelas
A list of fiction pieces that respond to Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”
Where are all the dreamers that I used to know?
A two-part essay arguing both in favor of pursuing your dreams and in favor of being happy with what you have.
Sovietism and Americanism
A parody of an essay by Matthew Arnold; written for a high school English class.
Hugo statistics
A couple of pages with Hugo Award-related statistics.
San Francisco Bay Area attractions and tourist stuff (all-audiences version)
A list of some stuff that I consider worth seeing and doing in the SF Bay Area, without the NSFW/adults-only items.
Laws and sayings
Hartman’s Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation and other laws.
Classics recast into high school settings
A link to my spreadsheet that lists classic works adapted into modern high school settings.
Prestigious unthemed original-anthology sf series
A link to my spreadsheet that lists high-profile unthemed series of original sf anthologies.
My most widely distributed work
An unofficial list of the things I’ve written or co-written that have probably had the widest audiences.
Chain letters and forwarding mail
In the mid-’90s, I wrote several pages on the general topic of mail that asks you to forward it.
Marriage equality status
In 2014-2015, this page was an attempt to stay up-to-date on the status of marriage equality in many US states. This page became irrelevant after the US Supreme Court recognized marriage equality throughout the country in 2015; I’m leaving it up for historical purposes.
Movie list
My ratings and reviews for movies I saw in and before 1999.
Old HTML authoring tips
A set of HTML authoring tips from 1997, preserved for historical purposes.
Old tips on websurfing and troubleshooting HTTP servers
A set of tips from 1996, preserved for historical purposes.