In honor of the new school year, I made a cheeky little video on TikTok about required summer reading, what my local school district required of its high schoolers, and how it compared to my own summer reading back during my school years. It opened this very interesting little conversation in the comments about other… Continue reading An English Class Case Study
Check the end for promos, free books, and special sales. SolarisStanislaw LemScience Fiction-1961 From Storygraph: "When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others examining the planet, Kelvin learns, are… Continue reading July Reads and Reviews
On Tik Tok (and occasionally some other reading groups) I talk a lot about my own experience reading classic science fiction and fantasy (mostly sci-fi). And I think sometimes that gives a false impression of age. But the reality is that a lot of the classic or vintage or generally older sci fi books I… Continue reading A Childhood of Science Fiction Classics
How do we then go about creating our little genre classic retinue? Because, surprisingly, this is a question you have to ask, sometimes.
Previously, I've touched on some of the benefits that come from reading classic books in your preferred genre. Sci-fi classics. Fantasy classics. Romance classics. Horror classics. Because society becomes more progressive through time, however, these older books are going to present outdated and obsolete societal views. Some to the point where they do start to… Continue reading Balancing the Problematic and the Emblematic in Classic Literature
It’s not uncommon for the hobbyist reader to completely abandon classics and more retro or vintage literature once they’ve moved on from reading for academic purposes. Why not? So many new books come out a year that just getting through all the new releases you’re interested in is a task unto itself. But then, on… Continue reading Why Read Genre Classics if they Come With So Many Problems?
Harsh opinion, but if someone says “I like/read classics” with no additional clarification, I don’t trust them in terms of actually knowing what kinds of books they like. The more they insist that “classics” are “superior,” the more that trust diminishes. And it’s not even really because of the pretension that tends to haunt those… Continue reading I Don’t Think Some Classics Readers Actually Like Books
In the real world, when it comes to language about queer identities, we often find ourselves in a bit scuffle with pre-conceived linguistic notions. What’s the actual difference between pan and bi? What are the different ways non-binary identities (genderfluid, genderqueer, agender) interact with each other? What about the micro-labels that pepper the asexual spectrum?… Continue reading Creating a Queernorm Fantasy Setting: The Language Around Attraction
I made a decision very very early in honing my writing as a craft. I was never going to center a story around what someone of a certain gender could or couldn’t do.You’re not going to read a story from me about a young girl who has to pretend to be a boy to join… Continue reading Creating a Queernorm Fantasy Setting: Exploring True Gender Equity
Something that came to me, in a study of biology, was how much more interesting a fantasy setting would be if some of the sapient peoples in the world I was creating didn’t adhere to the typical reproductive binary. From this thought process came how I ended up writing hermaphroditic goblins and a whole planet… Continue reading Creating a Queernorm Fantasy Setting: Genetic Restructuring
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