Rati Mehrotra's Blog, page 6

Witcher, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways

[image error]I rarely rave about a show, and I never watch the same show twice. But for The Witcher, I made an exception. It was even better the second time round, because I caught all the little things I’d missed the first time, trying to figure out the timelines. Why is it so darn good? It’s produced by a woman.

It’s sword and sorcery, with all the tropes you can expect from medieval fantasy, but for women, with plenty of strong female characters. Yes, of course we have the titular Witcher, Geralt of...

Favorite Novel Reads of 2019

Thank goodness for fiction. It’s been a rough reality today – I just cannot believe the results of the UK election! But then, I never believe it when right-wing, racist, climate-change-denying, xenophobic fundamentalists get elected and yet here we are, with Boris in UK, Trump in USA, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duterte in Philippines, Netanyahu in Israel, Putin in Russia, and Modi in India. Even in Canada, the Liberals lost their majority this year. The world is a garbage fire so yeah, thank...

Story Sales, Jury Summons, and More

Winter is coming. No, scratch that. Winter is here. It’s in the dark, gloomy skies, the icy wind, the slushy road, and in the overpowering desire to go into hibernation for the next four months. Wake me in April when the days at least start to get longer, if no less chilly.

I’m not here to write about the weather, though. I have two great short story sales to report. I sold my second story to Lightspeed Magazine, yay! The first wasn’t a fluke, heh. And I sold my first ever story to The...

CAN-CON 2019 Schedule

The schedule is in! This will be my second year attending Can-Con – The Conference on Canadian Content in Speculative Arts and Literature in Ottawa. I had a great time last year and am looking forward to meeting old friends and making new ones this year. While registration is now closed, I recommend putting this convention in your calendar for next time, if you can possibly make it. It is very well organized and the content is varied and interesting, for both writers and readers of science fi...

A Spammy Poem

Like you, I get a ton of spam emails every day. Unlike you (probably) I did something silly with them. Here is a poem made entirely of the subject lines of spam emails. I wouldn’t dream of actually clicking them open, or this piece would be even stranger. But the subject lines alone are enough. I look at it, and it seems to be saying something about the human condition. Something monstrous. Enjoy.

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Finance 101 for the Aspiring Writer

There’s an article making the rounds on Twitter in which a writer says she got USD 350k to write 5 books, and how she blew the advances because she thought there was more money coming and no one ‘mentored’ her. But guess what, her books did not earn out, and now she is not only not rich, but still in debt. And her advances have ‘fallen’ to USD 20k. Which is still more than what most writers get for a book. But anyway.

A lot of the stuff in the article appalled me, apart from the figures toute...

The 2019 Toronto Writing Workshop

Oh no, where did July go? The summer is flying by and I am Not Ready for autumn. Must eat more ice cream before September. Must take more walks. Must see Shakespeare in High Park. Must write more words…okay, scratch that last one. Summer is not great for productivity. Too many competing desires, mostly revolving around the weather.

I popped in here to say that I am going to be teaching a class on Worldbuilding in Science Fiction and Fantasy this Saturday at the 2019 Toronto Writing Workshop....

Dasa Mahavidya – The Ten Great Wisdoms

I’m often asked about the inspiration behind my books Markswoman and Mahimata. The answer varies, because there are so many things that come to mind: the science fantasies I read as a teen; Star Trek, which aired weekly on our lone television channel and which the entire family watched, along with assorted friends and neighbors; the comics I borrowed from the local bookstore (they had a lending scheme, much more affordable than buying books.)

But the bedrock of my world building for the Asian...

New Story up at Lightspeed Magazine

[image error]Story Day is always a happy day! Very pleased to announce a new short story publication This Way to Paradise at Lightspeed Magazine. You can read or listen to it for free – the audio narration is by Justine Eyre. I also answer some interesting questions for their Author Spotlight feature.

This is the last major short story I wrote before drowning in novel edits for Mahimata, and it means a lot to me. It is also one of the longest short stories I’ve written, at over 7700 words. My short work t...

Lucifer, Dissected

I just finished the third season of Lucifer, and I have thoughts. I’m going to try to avoid spoilers here, but this post might not hold much interest for those who have not seen even a single episode of this ridiculous, entertaining, and surprisingly emotional drama. The premise is quirky: imagine the Biblical Heaven and Hell are real, and the devil, bored and rebellious, has abandoned his post as Lord of Hell and decamped to Earth – Los Angeles to be precise – to become a sleazy nightclub ow...