My dragons in the books I’ve been rereading are like magpies, drawn to the shiny, the silver, to the gold of Napoleon’s eagles. I like glitter, too, and quiet neighborhoods and memories of Sundays when I was a child in Tujunga, and I sat in the back seat of our white Monza while my father drove, and every store on Foothill Boulevard was closed and the sidewalks were empty.

[Spontaneous writing prompt, words were silver and Sunday. The books I reference here are Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series.]