Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, excerpt, free fiction, Writers, writing on October 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Read an Excerpt From Nnedi Okorafor’s She Who Knows
When there is a call, there is often a response.
Najeeba knows.
She has had The Call. But how can a 13-year-old girl have the Call? Only men and boys experience the annual call to the Salt Roads. What’s just happened to Najeeba has never happened in the history of her village.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, art, artists, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on October 19, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity. It’s our attempt to influence things, the universe internal to ourselves and external to us.”
— Mae Jemison, Doctor and Astronaut
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, inspiration, persistence, Thoughts, Writers, writing on October 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“And so, does the destination matter? Or is it the path we take? I declare that no accomplishment has substance nearly as great as the road used to achieve it. We are not creatures of destinations. It is the journey that shapes us. Our callused feet, our backs strong from carrying the weight of our travels, our eyes open with the fresh delight of experiences lived.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, climate, climate change, creativity, environment, fellowship, funny futures, green futures, technology, Writers, writing on October 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »
I don’t write screenplays, but perhaps you do? If so, consider this new grant from The Black List, the NRDC’s (Natural Resources Defense Council) Rewrite the Future program, The Redford Center, The CAA Foundation, and NBCUniversal.
That’s a lot of organizations getting behind climate storytelling. If you want in, here’s how!
2025 NRDC Climate Storytelling Fellowship | The Black List
We need it all–the bleak and the inspirational, the fantasies, dramas, comedies, and rom-coms. It is the power and privilege of writers to show us how climate change is transforming our world, and to help us find a path to salvation. This program aims to support well told stories with climate themes that entertain viewers and allow them to engage with the range of emotions caused by the climate crisis.
Application deadline is December 05, 2024.
Even if you aren’t into screenplays or don’t want to navigate The Black List sign up/apply for a fee waiver process, you may want to check out the list of Writer’s Resources at the bottom of the description page.
Examples include the Sustainability Onscreen Tipsheet and The Last Laugh: Comedy in the Age of Climate Change.
Because whatever else happens, the future needs laughter.
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Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, awesome friends are awesome, creativity, inspiration, Thoughts on October 4, 2024| 2 Comments »
Recently I received the most amazing present.
I found a pickup tag in the mailbox. What could this be, I wondered, I hadn’t ordered anything. After a day or so of speculation it was off to the post office. I was given a cute little box covered in international signage (expected, I am in Canada), from Germany (unexpected, I have ordered nothing from Germany!). What could it be?
I put the box in the center of the kitchen table so that I could walk past it all day, wondering what was inside. Finally, I broke down and opened the package.
A puzzle box. You may remember that I wrote a recent post about puzzle boxes. A friend did, and she sent me this.
How incredibly, unbelievably, extremely cool.
I wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years, and yet it is absolutely perfect.
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Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, artists, awards, creativity, inspiration, Thoughts on October 3, 2024| Leave a Comment »
This year’s Genius Grants were announced this week. I love this award, not just for the secrecy and drama, or because deserving artists and innovators are being rewarded (monetarily, even!) for their work, but because the scope and creativity of their ideas helps us all think more expansively.
Here’s the 2024 MacArthur Fellows list – NPR
This year’s Fellows include performing and visual artists, writers, scientists, historians, activists and one filmmaker, Sterlin Harjo. The MacArthur Foundation considers these grants as investments in people whose “ideas, experiments, and solutions expand our expectations of what’s possible.”
Here’s to genius, whatever form it may take.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on September 25, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“You can write. You can. Almost any damned fool can, and many of them do. If I can do it, believe me, you can too.”
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on September 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Success isn’t about how your life looks to others. It’s about how it feels to you.
— Michelle Obama
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Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, climate change, creativity, environment, genre fiction, innovation, inspiration, Kim Stanley Robinson, science fiction, technology, Thoughts, writing on September 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Today’s question of the day:
BBC World Service – The Climate Question, Can Science Fiction help us fight climate change?
The acclaimed US sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson is also a star in the world of climate activism because his work often features climate change – on Earth and beyond. Robinson has been a guest speaker at the COP climate summit, and novels such as The Ministry For The Future and The Mars Trilogy are admired by everyone from Barack Obama to former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres.
Now, the answer to this question seems fairly self-evident to me. I see innovation as a conversation, in a way, between what is and what we can imagine will be. And fiction is excellent at helping us imagine new and better worlds.
Other examples of sci-fi ideas made real:
Ten Inventions Inspired by Science Fiction | Smithsonian
6 scientific innovations inspired by science fiction
10 ‘Star Trek’ Technologies That Actually Came True | HowStuffWorks
Look around you. What are our technological and social capabilities? What are our needs? And what do you think we’ll invent next?
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers on September 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.”
— Stephen Hawking
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