I’m very pleased to announce that I have a story now up at Cast of Wonders, the speculative fiction podcast for young adults. The story is “Taxidermy and Other Dangerous Professions” (originally published as “Heaven’s Lot” in Not One of Us), and it is narrated by the marvelous MK Hobson. Free to listen or read along, check it out!
Posts Tagged ‘sff’
How Science Fiction Leads to Science Futures
Posted in Likes, Science!, Writing, tagged Center for Science and the Imagination, creativity, design fiction, dystopias, Eileen Gunn, ethics, Fiction, genre fiction, inspiration, MIT, science, science fiction, sff, society, speculative fiction, Writers, writing on April 30, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Writer and editor Eileen Gunn has a new piece out on science fiction writers and the art of possibility. For Smithsonian, no less.
How America’s Leading Science Fiction Authors Are Shaping Your Future
The literary genre isn’t meant to predict the future, but implausible ideas that fire inventors’ imaginations often, amazingly, come true
An instructor at MIT’s Media Lab “laments that researchers whose work deals with emerging technologies are often unfamiliar with science fiction. ‘With the development of new biotech and genetic engineering, you see authors like Margaret Atwood writing about dystopian worlds centered on those technologies,’ she says. ‘Authors have explored these exact topics in incredible depth for decades…'”
Check out the full article for more on the role of science fiction in imagining, and creating, potential futures.
Today in Awesome
Posted in Entertainment, Likes, tagged Andy Serkis, awesome, Brendan Gleeson, Carrie Fisher, entertainment, Episode VII, Harrison Ford, John Boyega, Mark Hamill, Max von Sydow, movies, Oscar Isaac, Peter Mayhew, science fiction, sff, star wars, yay on April 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Yes, a lot of these names come up in previous discussion around the film, but there’s nothing like an official announcement to make things, erm, official. The core cast from the original trilogy is returning, which is terrific. And I’m particularly pleased to see John Boyega after his impressive turn in Attack the Block, and of course “stone cold veteran badass Max Von Sydow” (oh Ming the Merciless, you slay me!). And they start shooting in a couple of weeks. Better and better!
/fingers crossed
New Story Out at SQ Mag
Posted in Writing, tagged Australia, creativity, Fiction, finishing, free, genre fiction, sff, short stories, speculative fiction, SQ MAg, work, writing, yay on March 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »
I’m very pleased to tell you that my new story Catch of the Day is now out at SQ Mag, a delightful speculative fiction zine from Australia. This “tale of magical artefact smuggling, full of betrayal and twists and turns” is now freely available online. Enjoy!
Ancillary Justice
Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged Ann Leckie, awesome, books, Fiction, genre fiction, recommendations, science fiction, sff, spaceships, speculative fiction, writing on February 17, 2014| 1 Comment »
I don’t post book reviews per se but I’m all for recommendations. I’ve just finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie and enjoyed it thoroughly. This space opera follows the humanoid remnants of a self-aware starship on a quest for justice. Well-written and beautifully developed, it was an entertaining and unexpected read. Worth reading for the reprogramming of your neural pathways around gender alone, and it’s so much more than that.
Recommended.
Free Download: “The 2014 Campbellian Pre-Reading Anthology” at Stupefying Stories
Posted in Writing, tagged books, campbell award, free, genre fiction, inspiration, literature, science fiction, sff, short stories, speculative fiction, Stupefying Stories, Writers, writing, yay on February 4, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Another year, another free Campbellian download!
Stupefying Stories has just made available M. David Blake’s “The 2014 Campbellian Pre-Reading Anthology.” This collection contains more than 860,000 words of fiction by authors eligible for this John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer award. Fabulous fiction, and all free free free!
Limited time offer, get yours today!
Persistence
Posted in Writing, tagged artists, Chuck Wendig, creativity, Fiction, finishing, Kameron Hurley, Motivation, rejection, sff, work, Writers, writing on January 22, 2014| 1 Comment »
“Persistence.” That’s what my father told me when I asked what it took to succeed in graduate school. Smart helps, yes, but there’s no beating the commitment and perhaps sheer bloody stubbornness that comes with persistence. That advice served me well in academia and elsewhere, particularly when it came to writing.
There are a lot of challenges around writing: the difficulty of learning a skill so complex that the greatest achievement is to make it look simple, the often solitary pursuit of improvement, and “overnight success” that is usually anything but. Kameron Hurley, author of God’s War, has an essay about this topic today on Chuck Wendig’s site. She sums it up well:
Persistence, I realized, was not the end goal. It was the actual game.
Now, I argue for a balanced approach to writing or whatever your project may be, and I’m too attached to my family and my health to sacrifice them in the hopes that will make me a better writer. For me, the opposite is true; strength in one area translates into strength in others. If, as my ever-wise father says, you are willing to persist. That note rings loud and true.
For more on Kameron’s experiences and her long journey to (and eventual redefinition of) “success,” read the full essay here.
Then whatever it is you are working on, finish it.
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