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Posts Tagged ‘Fiction’

I wrote a drabble yesterday but decided not to share it. Why not? Because it’s dark and it’s sad. I like to keep things largely upbeat here, for my readers and for myself. 

That doesn’t mean I’m all unicorns and rainbows, obviously, but I want you to come away from this site feeling at least a little hopeful. I try to focus on the future, and I hope that it’s a good one. 

Sometimes that means facing down darkness, and I’ve done that before even in a 100-word format. Not this time, though, so I’ll keep it in my files for now.

Still, progress is progress, and I’m happy to be writing!

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As the run-up to back-to-school time is starting up again, I’m thinking about students and teachers and technology.

With that in mind, I share this short in the tongue-in-cheek spirit in which it was written:

How I Learned to Stop Teaching and Love AI by Brian Michael Murphy

All students, for all assignments, should use ChatGPT to complete each task. Why would you waste your time writing a paper? We now have a tool that can do that for you. And all professors will save massive amounts of time and energy by using ChatGPT to grade all those papers. Isn’t that great? I mean, what an educational revolution.

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I talk about science and fiction here, but I also like fantasy, science and otherwise. What’s up in the world of speculative fiction, fantasy edition? The World Fantasy Awards shortlist, that’s what!

Here’s the full ballot, with links to the short fiction list where available:

Here Are the 2025 World Fantasy Award Finalists – Reactor

Short Fiction

Our Best Selves” by Hiron Ennes (Weird Horror Magazine )

Godskin” by CL Hellisen (Strange Horizons, March 4, 2024)

The V*mpire” by PH Lee (Reactor, October 2024)

“Raptor” by Maura McHugh (Heartwood: A Mythago Wood Anthology)

Everything in the Garden is Lovely” by Hannah Yang (Apex Magazine , March 2024)

Do some of these look dark and scary and filled with content warnings? They do, but perhaps that’s your thing? If not, check out the other novels, novellas and more. 

Winners will be chosen and awards presented at the World Fantasy Convention in the UK this November! 

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Updates on the Arc of the Moral Universe – McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

The arc of the moral universe is running very late. It’s sitting in standstill traffic behind a fleet of Amazon delivery vans, a burning Tesla, and a stretch limousine with Truck Nuts.

The arc of the moral universe is leaning on the horn.

The arc of the moral universe shouldn’t have stopped for that latte.

The arc of the moral universe owes you an apology.

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Photo by Kyle Wagner on Unsplash

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Just a quick reminder that the Technology Revolution panel is today at 11 am Eastern!

Here’s the info:

I’ll be part of a discussion with fellow writers Jason Palmatier, John W. Maly, and Brad C. Anderson about the influence of AI and other technologies on characters and plots in sci-fi.

If you’re interested in such topics (and really, who isn’t? :), join us today at 11 am Eastern / 8 am Pacific to discuss

The Future of Sci-Fi Characters and Plots + AI.

Hosted by Bonnie D. Graham.

WATCH Live-stream and On-demand: Linkedin and Facebook and YouTube

LISTEN Live: Technology Revolution Radio and Later: On-Demand

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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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Need a quick pick-me-up? Here you go:

Mystery Group Prowls Town Conducting Mischievous Kindness- Stealing, Restoring & Returning Garden Gnomes

Mischief reigns in a small Canada community after a kidnapping left a man’s garden vacant of the ten ceramic garden gnomes that resided there.

(Don’t worry, there’s a happy ending.)

I’ve had a soft spot for gnomes ever since my parents gave me a copy of this classic: Gnomes by Wil Huygenn (Rien Poortvliet, ill.)

Most of my childhood books went by the wayside over the years, but I’ve slowly built my library back up with replicas of my favorites. I’m looking at a new copy of Gnomes on my bookshelf right now.

“Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.”

― Tom Robbins

May you never lose your childhood delights.

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Photo by Sarah Mae on Unsplash

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The business of a novelist is, in my opinion, to create characters first and foremost, and then to set them in the snarl of the human currents of his time, so that there results an accurate permanent record of a phase of human history.

—John Dos Passos (1896–1970), U.S. novelist, poet, playwright, painter.

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Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

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This story just came across my desk, part of the Grist Climate Fiction collection, which I’ve mentioned before. I haven’t read this piece yet but I’m looking forward to it. If you’re the sort of reader who enjoys hopeful views of the future, perhaps you’d like to join me.

Heirloom | Grist (by Joy Donnell)

A slight pressure on the mattress moves Dru’s foot. She looks down her body to see Helene sitting beside her toes. Her ancestor is a stunner. Perfect red lips. Her hair is curled and controlled, yet slightly tousled. Helene is also wearing the party dress but her version is composed of starlight regalia shaped like luna moths and floating bubbles of light.

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Photo by Evie S. on Unsplash

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I’m sad that I haven’t written a lot of things, but I’m incredibly happy that I’ve written as much as I have. Because there was a point when I was younger where there was a very good chance that I wouldn’t write anything – I was just too frightened.

— Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

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Photo by Deva Darshan on Unsplash

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You may have seen that Canadian author and Nobel laureate Alice Munro passed away this week. A prolific titan of the short story genre, she published her first story in 1950 and continued to produce award-winning work in the many decades since. When asked how she got started in short stories, she said it was because that’s all she had time for.

She certainly made it work.

Here, award-winning Canadian author Margaret Atwood reads Dance of the Happy Shades by Alice Munro.

In this exclusive recording, The Handmaid’s Tale author reads the eponymous short story from the late Munro’s first collection in 1968.

If you’d like to read more of Munro’s work, here are 25 Alice Munro Stories You Can Read Online Right Now.

Enjoy!

“A story is not like a road to follow … it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.”

― Alice Munro, Selected Stories

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Photo by Senning Luk on Unsplash

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