Month of Joy: “Growing Up w/ Genre and Singaporean SF/F” by Joyce Chng — @jolantru
I grew up with genre. No, seriously, I did. It all began with a book of children’s stories complete with shape-shifting and transformation. The girl turned into a fluffy plush-tailed cat… and I was hooked. And it just kept on coming: Star Blazers (Battleship Yamato), Battle of the Planets (or G-Force), Robotech (Macross – Southern […]
Week of Joy (Day Seven): “The Wonders of Whimsy” by Adam Callaway
Whimsy is important to me. Most everything I love about art — music, movies, books — comes down to one aspect: whimsy. I appreciate technical masterpieces like a Rachmaninoff concerto or a Joycean short story. I enjoy gritty realism like Law and Order or Lord of the Flies. However, my love lies with those pieces […]
Week of Joy (Day Seven): “The Genre Books That Influenced & Inspired Me to Read & Write” by Stina Leicht
It’s funny. While I’ve always loved books, I don’t remember the moment when I decided I wanted to be a writer — not any longer. You see, originally I wanted to be an artist, but during seventh grade I decided that writing was what I wanted to do more than anything else. From the moment […]
8 SF/F Writers Who Changed My Life (#WeekofJoy)
Books change lives, right? Well, they certainly changed mine. Books have been a part of my life since I was a kid, though I honestly didn’t understand their true value until much later in life. They were entertainment in my younger years. I read Goosebumps and Hardy Boys because they provided quick, fun narratives (and some […]
Genre Books for Non-Genre People: Still Missing the Point, Folks!
The other day, Damien G. Walter posted the following on his Google+ account: Now that Fantasy / SF is taking over the mainstream, which books do you recommend to people who have not read it before? Thus far, two people have responded with posts of their own: my friend and podcast co-host Paul Weimer and […]
SFWA, Sexism, and Progress (A Response to Jason Sanford)
(Note: I originally intended this as a short comment on this recent post by Jason Sanford. In his post, he basically suggests that the men in our field need to stand up and say “no” to sexism; his post is, I think quite obviously, a response to the SFWA Bulletin kerfluffle from this weekend, which […]