Nebula award winning F&SF writer/editor/teacher. Next books are WINGS OF TABAT (Wordfire) and RUMOR HAS IT (Tor Macmillan). Sometimes I swear. They/she.
Grammarly just announced that they've been using customer work to train their AI. If you still use their service, stop now if you care about your copyright.
Putting together Twitter list that is non-binary creatives working in fantasy and science fiction. Writers, artists, game-designers, reviewers, editors, publishers etc are welcome! If you'd like to be on it, please reply to this.
(Please RT to spread the word!)
I learned this in my 20s. You HAVE to take breaks. You HAVE to recharge. You cannot work unrelentingly for too long without exhausting your reserves, and for creative work the results can be baffling and terrifying.
Neighbor down the road is yelling at his dog and included the line, “just when I was beginning to trust you again” which I’m pretty sure is a concept going over the dog’s head.
Taco Cat passed away last night. She was a good little cat, and I know she's somewhere happily watching birds. Going to put her in the garden next to the hazelnut tree. But this is going to be a sad week getting used to not hearing that little chirp in the morning.
My least favorite thing about the whole "take a book to a bar" debate is that it showcases how, deep down in their sad souls, some people feel the act of reading is pretentious.
If you didn't get taught this stuff in school -- I sure didn't -- think about why. Conservative Christians have worked for the last few decades to control textbooks and school boards for a reason.
Thread:
A lot of white people were shocked to learn about the bombing of Tulsa from HBO's "Watchmen" while most black people are familiar with the bombing of Black Wall Street.
Even historians mention these events as isolated incidents.
Every once in a while I think of the person who, 30 seconds after I'd tweeted joy in a major lifetime accomplishment, told me to "read the room" and chided me for expressing that due to stuff happening elsewhere in the world.
Don't shit on people's happiness. We do remember.
Best part of SFWA business meeting might have been the guy standing in the doorway who refused to come in and said, "I'm just here to burn down the Hugos," at which point, several people mentioned that SFWA has no connection to the Hugos.
Just found out that my father passed away. If you need something from me but could push it to next week, I would appreciate it, because this is a third hard hard blow in one year. Thank you.
In a truly class move, a GoodReads stalker has made an account w/ my father's name/picture, taking the latter from the announcement of his death 3 days ago.
Yes, I've reported it. But this demonstrates how deranged, hateful, & willing to cross the line these ppl are.
I would like to say a HUGE thank you to
@sethasfishman
and announce that
@C_Morgs65
is now my editor at Tor for a 3 book deal, which means he gets to decide what subgenre that book is because I'm still not sure. =)
So...as we used to say on DarkCastle MUD...."Level."
Monumental disaster at the Department of the Interior: a new report documents suppression of science, denial of climate change, the silencing and intimidation of staff
"Millennials as a whole earn about 20 percent less than Baby Boomers did during their formative years, and amass roughly half the net wealth."
So maybe that whole avocado toast thing...not so much.
Saying "I was only joking" is one of the most effective weapons a bully has. People don't like to be thought humorless. Watch carefully, though, and you'll notice only the bully is laughing.
Being an award presenter who does not bother to get the pronunciations of the winners' names - let alone nominees - right is showcasing your contempt for the award, the nominees, and the field in general. There is no excuse for this kind of utter arrogance and selfishness.
Apparently Trump has threatened to barricade himself in the WH and not leave when it's time, and if they don't televise the secret service dragging that fucker out while Biden moves in, they are missing the biggest pay-per-view event ever.
If a magazine tells me they have reluctantly been forced to charge reading fees for submissions, I am very sad when I tell them I am reluctantly forced to tell my students not to submit to them.
#dontpaytobeawriter
After several years of watching midwit alt-righters prance around reeree-ing "eight years of the god emperor fwens" I'm feeling a certain savage glee sneaking up on me.
If you're a woman working in F&SF - writing, publishing, editing, illustrating, gaming, reviewing, or whatever -- and want to be on this list of female creatives in F&SF, let me know!
Kinda tired of men explaining to me why the Joker movie isn't actually glorifying a killer, but rather exploring the nuances of mental illness causing a man's delicate psyche to give way to the forces of chaos....and start killing people.
Seattle: currently full of engineers trying to figure out the best possible configuration of fans, wet cloths, and sundry cooling devices to face the coming days.
#seattleheatwave
So many writers I know have put up free work or links to free work during this time, of our own choice.
@internetarchive
didn't give any of us that choice; they yanked hundreds of works and put them up for free at a time when many of us are financially threatened already.
Someone who has me blocked bc I criticized them mailed me today to try to enlist me in their campaign against someone else who criticized them and I can't even begin to think what kind of spaghetti mess thinking their head is full of.
I think my physical Nebula award arrives sometime in the next few days and I fully intend to carry it around with me the first couple of days like the writer from
@mythic_quest
I can't begin to say how awesome it is they named the site for Octavia. One of the lucky things I've had in my life was that she was one of my Clarion West instructors. Go read her work if you haven't already.
News from Mars:
@NASAPersevere
's team has tested its robotic arm, checked science instruments, & taken the rover on its first drive. Mission scientists have named its touchdown site "Octavia E. Butler Landing," in honor of the late science fiction author:
A favorite
@SFWA
Presidency moment :trying to call CJ Cherryh to tell her she was a SFWA Grand Master pick and her dodging me because she thought I was going to ask her to help with an old database she'd created for the org decades ago.
Here's a Twitter list full of nonbinary creatives working in fantasy and science fiction - writing, drawing, playing, publishing and otherwise making art.
(reply if you should be on it.)
I suspect I've lost the last of my conservative/libertarian friends with this particular baenfire, but seriously I have tried so hard to reach you in recent years, and I never see any of you thinking about any of the points I make.
Please stop using PTSD as a synonym for "had a bad thing happen." It's an actual diagnosis, and a disorder that messes with your flight/fight instinct. Acting like it's the same thing as having a bad day minimizes its very real effects on a person.
Suddenly realizing the reason one of the "nice guy" brigade blocked me a while back on Twitter is that they thought I was calling out their bad behavior.
Farscape meets The Great British Bake Off in a fantastical space opera from former
@sfwa
President,
@Catrambo
. We are thrilled to reveal the stunning final cover
#YouSexyThing
, on sale everywhere September 7, 2021! 🚀
I'm sorry, but if you're supporting the guy that has been harassing me for two years now, including encouraging the folks that started impersonating my father two days after he died, you're about to get blocked.
Every once I watch someone run into the fact that I don't give a flying fuck, batter themselves mothlike and ineffectual against that light, and then retreat into the darkness from whence they came.
Oh HEY it’s the season when someone takes a swipe at my teaching credentials, and I get a chance to publicize exactly what sort of classes I have the unmitigated gall to change $9-99 for while offering three free scholarships in each workshop! :)
Unregulated capitalism simply doesn't work for anyone but a handful of individuals who won the birth lottery. We need UBI and saner spending on social infrastructure. We need to move $ from police/military to govt branches that serve, rather than suppress, the people. And more.
I love how people go "following other writers doesn't sell books" like no writer ever reads. I read voraciously and so do most of the writers I know. And we mention other people's books when we love them. Rock on,
#writingcommunity
, and be your own bright self.
Every once in a while I think about Raven and know I will never love another cat like that again. He was just the best boy ever and I still miss him so much.
Watching the alt-right grifters trying to decide between utterly leaning into the crazy or somehow pretending that was their antifa-sponsored clone tweeting all the I wuv oo Donald 8 more years frens as part of an elaborate psyops operation and it is so so so awesome.
Watching the self-proclaimed genius who threatened me six years ago with all sorts of online bullshit, while making menacing noises about "playing the long game," losing their pawns and platforms for being hateful, one by one, and hey, hand me some more popcorn.
I am kinda weary of the "I will shit on something other people enjoy so you will all pay attention to meeeeeeeee" business model, but maybe it's just me but I suspect not.
I remember the Satanic Panic and one friend having to sneak out of her house to play D&D. It seemed to me a lot of the panic was dumb parents freaked out by smart children.
This. Writing is a smaller world than many people realize. Be kind. Don't become known as somebody who goes out of their way to antagonize or attack people.
As writers, we support each other. We're not in competition. The creative industries need many voices and visions to survive. We're not in competition, we're working together to keep publishing alive and a diverse readership engaged—and that requires many voices, many stories.
In the war between orcas that originally were just minding their own business swimming around and people with luxury boats helping make the ocean unlivable, I must confess I am
#TeamOrca