Note: Writerly process navel-gazing ahoy I wrote the last scene, and the last line, of my next book, The Stars are Legion today. That doesn’t mean the book is done, mind you – it just means I finally know where all the disjointed tens of thousands of words are actually going. So now I get […]
Everything is Not Awful Read More »
In May of 1921, a group of vigilantes burned down a wealthy community in Tulsa, Oklahoma over the course of about 16 hours. More than 800 people were admitted to local hospitals and police arrested and detained more than 6,000 people. The riots left 10,000 homeless and destroyed 35 city blocks. Up to 300 people
It’s Always Been Awful Under the Boot: On the Fatigue of Everyday Horror Read More »
I’m supposed to be hip-deep in writing content for other spaces right now, but I wanted to say a little bit about the role of editors in this whole push we’re seeing for more diverse books, especially after that wild Hugo weekend. I will likely have a little more to say about that later, too.
Writing, Editing, Inclusivity: We’re All in This Together Read More »
So just last week I happened across this video by Daniel José Older about why we shouldn’t italicize words in other languages while writing in English. If you have yet to see it, enjoy it here for the first time: I laughed my ass off watching this, because anyone who’s actually known people who speak
How People Really Talk: Language and Signaling Difference Read More »
My spouse has been trying to get me to play Space Run for awhile. It’s just this cute little game where you build your own space ship and take it on missions. I played through the tutorial recently, only a little annoyed that I wasn’t able to choose a female gendered character. The tutorial was
The Increasingly Poor Economics of Penning Problematic Stories Read More »
This is a late night weekend post, which I almost never write, as, you know, metrics and all that, marketing data, numbers, analysis. But sometimes you’re not posting things to be read. You’re not posting them for prime content push times. You’re posting them because you have some things to say. I sent an email
On Becoming What You Hate Read More »
In the first grade (3rd grade? whatever), my best friend ran for some student office, a rather innocuous one, I believe, like Treasurer or something like that. Treasurer was – I knew, even then – a good bet. He was an exceptionally gifted kid: smart, funny, brilliant; played violin and piano, read chapter books to
On Writing the Good Fight: Hugo Roundup Read More »
Spoilers ahoy! When I was sixteen, I dated a guy a with a madonna/whore complex. I had no idea what that was, at the time, being a young woman from a rural town where belittling women as sluts and whores was pretty typical. You were either “the type of woman men married” or you
Some Men Are More Monstrous Than Others: On True Detective’s Men & Monsters Read More »
I once stood at a bus stop in Durban while two young, drunk men murmured sexually explicit threats and promises to a young woman standing next to me. It was just the four of us – the woman being threatened, me, and the two perpetrators. South Africa is not the world’s safest place, though with
I’ve talked a lot about growing up in an area that was largely full of white people (I believe 98% of the county I grew up in was white during the 80’s). The effect this had on me, growing up, was not actually the one you might expect. Instead of (I thought) teaching me explicitly
What living in South Africa taught me about racism in America Read More »