“The cactus thrives in the desert while the fern thrives in the wetland.The fool will try to plant them in the same flowerbox.The florist will sigh and add a wall divider and proper soil to both sides.The grandparent will move the flowerbox halfway out of the sun.The child will turn it around properly so that the fern is in the shade, and not the cactus.The moral of the story?Kids are smart.”

Armenian-Russian American writer, artist, and publisher

Vera Nazarian is an Armenian-Russian American writer, artist, and publisher of Norilana Books. She writes fantasy, science fiction, and other forms of wonder fiction, including mythpunk, and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. She is the author of ten novels, among them Dreams of the Compass Rose, a collage novel made up of linked stories, Lords of Rainbow, an epic fantasy set in a world without color, the Cobweb Bride trilogy, and The Atlantis Grail books. Her work moves across imaginative forms and layered structures, often drawing on myth and speculative worlds.