On January 10th, Catherine Schaffer and Mary Robinette Kowal organized a fundraiser to raise money for a genome sequencing procedure for fellow writer, Jay Lake. Lake, as you might know, has been battling cancer for years, and recently received some terrible news about his future. Having this procedure done could very well suggest new treatments that could extend his life. The fundraiser offered a lot of amusing perks for different goal levels — Paul Cornell, for example, offered to sing “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush (goal reached!):
You can find many of the other amusing examples, from ancient trunk stories to Mary Robinette Kowal’s amazing rendition of “Mother Goose” in her “phone sex” voice.
Needless to say, the cause is a good one. When I had the fortune to have Jay Lake on my podcast last year, he shared a great deal about his personal life, which had the effect of convincing me that I should write about my own travels with cancer (which I started here). While it’s not fair to offer up one of those “if anyone deserves it” statements (almost everyone deserves the right to a long, healthy life, as far as I’m concerned), I have to admit that I’m extraordinarily happy that so many wonderful people stood up to raise money for Jay.
And that fundraiser has, at the time of writing this post, raised over $36,000 in under 48 hours, with numerous bits of joy added on as previously unexpected financial heights were reached (the fundraiser has now become a way to help Jay pay for his medical bills). I imagine Jay is overwhelmed for very good reasons. After all, the community came out en mass to help him get a potentially life-saving procedure he otherwise couldn’t have afforded. I can imagine he’s ecstatic and emotional over this. I would be too if I were in his position.
But I’ve found myself overwhelmed too, for different reasons. Folks who know me have been, shall we say, gifted to my perpetual cynicism about our culture. Barely 12 hours before this fundraiser went live, I recall telling my friend, Adam Callaway, that our culture is a painfully selfish one, and that we are capable of so much good if we could only get over our desperate need to hoard wealth and back-stab one another. I still believe that, but the enormous success of this fundraiser (one that still has a month left) has made me realize that there is a strong pocket of what I’d call “true humanity” right here in the genre community.
That so many people who don’t even know Jay would pour out their support for him, and at such a rapid pace, has taught me that maybe I shouldn’t be so cynical about everything. After all, fundraisers happen all the time, for very good causes, and some raise massive amounts of money too. The genre community is relatively small, though. The people offering to embarrass themselves in public or donating their money have done something extraordinary, as they have done many times before. This time, it was too obvious to ignore. Too big. Too amazing.
That’s more or less how the genre community restored my faith in humanity. You’ve shattered my view of the world in all the right ways. And I thank you for that.
For those who haven’t helped yet, please head on over to the fundraiser for Jay and give a little money. The stretch goals have since been, well, stretched to the $100,000 mark, in which someone will produce a Jay Lake musical (after Howard Taylor draws a picture of Jay beating the crap out of cancer). I’d love to see that musical, and I’d love to see Jay ride out the rest of his life with a little less stress. Go donate!
Shaun Duke is an aspiring writer, a reviewer, and an academic. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Digital Rhetoric and Writing at Bemidji State University. He received his PhD in English from the University of Florida and studies science fiction, postcolonialism, digital fan cultures, and digital rhetoric.
Sometime near the end of the Spring semester, I decided it was time to take another crack and reorganizing my life. I’ve gone through years of on again / off again burnout, some of it my own fault (I’m disorganized and try to do too much) and some of it a consequence of things about which I have no control (my former university essentially bankrupted itself, forcing me to find a new job in my field, and I’ve since moved twice — the short version). All that burnout and overfilled plate-ism has made it harder to keep up with grading and find the energy to complete tasks on time. So it seemed only logical to use my university library privileges to borrow a variety of recommend productivity and project management books to see what advice, systems, etc. are out there.
Why would someone make a list of important and interesting works of dystopian fiction? Or a suggested reading list of works that are relevant to those dystopian works? There is absolutely no reason other than raw interest. There’s nothing going on to compel this. There is nothing in particular one making such a list would hope you’d learn. The lists below are not an exhaustive list. There are bound to be texts I have forgotten or texts you think folks should read that are not listed. Feel free to make your own list and tell me about it OR leave a comment. I’ll add things I’ve missed! Anywhoodles. Here goes:
And so it came to pass that I finished up my annual Best of EDM [Insert Year Here] lists. I used to do these on Spotify before switching to Tidal, and I continued doing them on Tidal because I listen to an absurd amount of EDM and like keeping track of the tunes I love the most. Below, you will find a Tidal playlist that should be public. You can listen to the first 50 tracks right here, but the full playlist is available on Tidal proper (which has a free version just like Spotify does). For whatever reason, the embedded playlist breaks the page, and so I’ve opted to link to it here and at the bottom of this post. Embeds are weird. Or you can pull songs into your preferred listening app. It’s up to you. Some caveats before we begin:
How the Genre Community Restored My Faith in Humanity
Reading Time
On January 10th, Catherine Schaffer and Mary Robinette Kowal organized a fundraiser to raise money for a genome sequencing procedure for fellow writer, Jay Lake. Lake, as you might know, has been battling cancer for years, and recently received some terrible news about his future. Having this procedure done could very well suggest new treatments that could extend his life. The fundraiser offered a lot of amusing perks for different goal levels — Paul Cornell, for example, offered to sing “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush (goal reached!):
You can find many of the other amusing examples, from ancient trunk stories to Mary Robinette Kowal’s amazing rendition of “Mother Goose” in her “phone sex” voice.
Needless to say, the cause is a good one. When I had the fortune to have Jay Lake on my podcast last year, he shared a great deal about his personal life, which had the effect of convincing me that I should write about my own travels with cancer (which I started here). While it’s not fair to offer up one of those “if anyone deserves it” statements (almost everyone deserves the right to a long, healthy life, as far as I’m concerned), I have to admit that I’m extraordinarily happy that so many wonderful people stood up to raise money for Jay.
And that fundraiser has, at the time of writing this post, raised over $36,000 in under 48 hours, with numerous bits of joy added on as previously unexpected financial heights were reached (the fundraiser has now become a way to help Jay pay for his medical bills). I imagine Jay is overwhelmed for very good reasons. After all, the community came out en mass to help him get a potentially life-saving procedure he otherwise couldn’t have afforded. I can imagine he’s ecstatic and emotional over this. I would be too if I were in his position.
But I’ve found myself overwhelmed too, for different reasons. Folks who know me have been, shall we say, gifted to my perpetual cynicism about our culture. Barely 12 hours before this fundraiser went live, I recall telling my friend, Adam Callaway, that our culture is a painfully selfish one, and that we are capable of so much good if we could only get over our desperate need to hoard wealth and back-stab one another. I still believe that, but the enormous success of this fundraiser (one that still has a month left) has made me realize that there is a strong pocket of what I’d call “true humanity” right here in the genre community.
That so many people who don’t even know Jay would pour out their support for him, and at such a rapid pace, has taught me that maybe I shouldn’t be so cynical about everything. After all, fundraisers happen all the time, for very good causes, and some raise massive amounts of money too. The genre community is relatively small, though. The people offering to embarrass themselves in public or donating their money have done something extraordinary, as they have done many times before. This time, it was too obvious to ignore. Too big. Too amazing.
That’s more or less how the genre community restored my faith in humanity. You’ve shattered my view of the world in all the right ways. And I thank you for that.
For those who haven’t helped yet, please head on over to the fundraiser for Jay and give a little money. The stretch goals have since been, well, stretched to the $100,000 mark, in which someone will produce a Jay Lake musical (after Howard Taylor draws a picture of Jay beating the crap out of cancer). I’d love to see that musical, and I’d love to see Jay ride out the rest of his life with a little less stress. Go donate!
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Book Review: Start Finishing by Charlie Gilkey (2022)
Sometime near the end of the Spring semester, I decided it was time to take another crack and reorganizing my life. I’ve gone through years of on again / off again burnout, some of it my own fault (I’m disorganized and try to do too much) and some of it a consequence of things about which I have no control (my former university essentially bankrupted itself, forcing me to find a new job in my field, and I’ve since moved twice — the short version). All that burnout and overfilled plate-ism has made it harder to keep up with grading and find the energy to complete tasks on time. So it seemed only logical to use my university library privileges to borrow a variety of recommend productivity and project management books to see what advice, systems, etc. are out there.
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Like this:
A Reading List of Dystopian Fiction and Relevant Texts (Apropos of Nothing in Particular)
Why would someone make a list of important and interesting works of dystopian fiction? Or a suggested reading list of works that are relevant to those dystopian works? There is absolutely no reason other than raw interest. There’s nothing going on to compel this. There is nothing in particular one making such a list would hope you’d learn. The lists below are not an exhaustive list. There are bound to be texts I have forgotten or texts you think folks should read that are not listed. Feel free to make your own list and tell me about it OR leave a comment. I’ll add things I’ve missed! Anywhoodles. Here goes:
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Duke’s Best EDM Tracks of 2024
And so it came to pass that I finished up my annual Best of EDM [Insert Year Here] lists. I used to do these on Spotify before switching to Tidal, and I continued doing them on Tidal because I listen to an absurd amount of EDM and like keeping track of the tunes I love the most. Below, you will find a Tidal playlist that should be public. You can listen to the first 50 tracks right here, but the full playlist is available on Tidal proper (which has a free version just like Spotify does). For whatever reason, the embedded playlist breaks the page, and so I’ve opted to link to it here and at the bottom of this post. Embeds are weird. Or you can pull songs into your preferred listening app. It’s up to you. Some caveats before we begin:
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