Dr. Shaun Duke, Professional Nerd

Editor. Writer. Professor. Host.

ICFA (Are You Going?) and Disappeared Shaun (Temporary!)

Two things: I am presenting at this year’s ICFA (International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts).  That means I will be rather busy this week with, well, paper stuff, conference stuff, and stuff stuff.  However, if you are attending ICFA and would like to get together, send me an email or leave a message […]

Adventures in Writing: So Begins a New Project (of Doom)

I’ve also started a new writing project, which I’m tentatively calling The Last Fable of Maxine Swansey, which takes place (currently) over three different time periods in a character’s life (1984, 2050, and 2155). I may add more time periods, and possibly other characters across the years inbetween. I don’t know. What I do know […]

My PhD Reading List — For the Exams of Doom

Obviously, I’m in this thing called a PhD program.  In English (not Creative Writing).  And that means I have to take a series of exams (half written component and half oral).  As such, it’s necessary for me to have a reading list of primary and secondary texts (in my case, literature for the primary and […]

Live-writing: Experiments Be Fun

For the curious, I’ve been doing irregular live-writing sessions for a short story to appear on this blog called “Lendergross and Eaves” (a weird fantasy crime noir involving a toad-person drug lord and a female police inspecter–the latter of these is to be played by my friend Jen).  Live-writing is more or less like it […]

Adventures in Worldbuilding: Genealogical Obsessions

For those that don’t know (which might be almost all of you), I have jokingly said that I am working on a 25-novel (1,000-page per book) epic fantasy series. In truth, said series will likely be 4 or 5 books, but that depends on how many subplots I decide to include. Lately, I’ve been trying […]