Shaun’s Rambles 013: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (w/ Special Guest Mareen Kincaid Speller)
Geek references + the Dominican Republic = instance classic. In this episode, Maureen Kincaid Speller joins me to discuss the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. We tackle the novel’s treatment of geekery, its exploration of masculinity, romance, and the coming-of-age narrative, and much more! I hope you enjoy it! https://media.blubrry.com/shaunsrambles/archive.org/download/ShaunsRambles013TheBriefWondrousLifeOfOscarWao/ShaunsRambles013–TheBriefWondrousLifeOfOscarWao.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
2016 WISB Awards Long List
It’s that time of year: time for me to release some kind of list of things I loved in 2015. This year is different, though. This year, I’m releasing a long list for the WISB Awards, and it is from this list that I’ll select the winners of my annual WISB awards, the jury-less, vote-less monstrosity of an award that is only of value to myself. Since I cannot include my own work on the following long list, I’ll include those works here: Best Fancast: The Skiffy and Fanty Show (Shaun Duke, Julia Rios, Paul Weimer, Mike Underwood, Rachael Acks, David Annandale, and Jen Zink); Totally Pretentious (Shaun Duke and David Annandale) Best Non-Fiction Work: Speculative Fiction 2014: The Year’s Best Online Reviews, Essays, and Commentary edited by Renee Williams and Shaun Duke (Book Smugglers Publishing) If you feel there’s a glaring ommission, let me know in the comments. I haven’t read everything there is to read (obviously), and it’s likely I’ve missed a lot of really great work. Now here’s the official 2016 WISB Awards Long List:
Shaun’s Rambles 012: Introducing Podcasting for Authors (Part 1)
The first episode of the Podcasting for Authors series is here! In this episode, I provide a brief overview of the project: what it’s about, what to expect, etc. If you have questions for me, please send an email to arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com OR use the contact form on my contact page. You can also leave a comment below. I hope you enjoy it! https://media.blubrry.com/shaunsrambles/archive.org/download/ShaunsRambles012IntroducingPodcastingForAuthorsEpisode1/ShaunsRambles012–IntroducingPodcastingForAuthors–Part1.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Why I Try Not to Talk About Things I Know Nothing About
Update: SF Signal has officially removed the post and issued an apology on their website. To be honest, I think they handled it well. They responded quickly to criticism, removed the post, and apologized basically in the same evening, which is not something you could say about other places in our community. John DeNardo has accepted full responsibility, and Sarah Chorn, who runs the column, has said her apologies and apparently gone dark for a bit. I know both a little bit (not as much as I would like, but we do live in different dimensions, so…), so I feel confident in saying their responses are sincere and that they both feel pretty awful about it all. I hope that is the end of it and that we can use this moment to move things in a more constructive direction. —————————- In 2014, I was on a panel about postcolonialism and science fiction at LonCon3. It was a tough panel for me because as much as I should know what I’m talking about when it comes to the field I’ve spent the last 8 years studying, I’ve always had a bit of that impostor syndrome. And that feeling is always enhanced by the fact that I know I come from the very group which made a field like postcolonialism necessary. My ancestors probably enslaved people, stole land from others, destroyed entire cultures, colonized entire regions of the world and stole as many resources as they could. What right do I have studying and writing about these things in the academic context? A lot of that was in the back of my mind when I walked over to the panel location with my fellow panelists, and it stayed there even as I gave my thoughts on questions from the moderator and the audience. What am I doing here?
The 2016 Hugo Awards Reading/Watching List (or, My Next Few Months)
Last month, I asked for recommendations for my annual Hugo Awards reading bonanza. A bunch of you responded with books, movies, TV shows, cookbooks, and so on. The form will remain open for the next month or so, so if you haven’t submitted anything or want to submit some more stuff, go for it! So, without further delay, here is the big massive monster list of stuff I’ll be reading or watching for the next few months:
2016 Hugo Awards Recommendations: What should I read/watch?
It’s that time again: time to ask for recommendations for the Hugo Awards. The nomination period will open up soon, and I haven’t done as much reading/watching as I would have liked this year. The only categories I feel comfortable voting in at the moment are Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form), Best Novel, and Best Podcast. That means, as always, there are a lot of gaps. So, this is your chance to let me know what you loved reading or watching this year. To make things a bit more organized, I’ve created a Google form with options for every category. You don’t have to fill the whole thing out to suggest a work. In fact, you can come back to the form as many times as you like. If you want to let me know what you loved in the comments below, you’re free to do that, too. Thanks in advance for your suggestions! Loading…