Tracy Townsend's Blog, page 3

The Hive Mind of Book Recommendations

We’re in the final three weeks of the semester now, which means my mind has turned toward final assignments, and of course, final grades. Like a lot of schools, mine encourages teachers to write mid- and end-of-term comments, but let’s be honest: those end-of-term comments are hard, especially for graduating seniors. There’s typically little more to say than an Edward R. Murrow-style “Good night, and good luck.” Such gestures always strike me as pat and hollow.

I hate that, because if there’s one thing I’m good at in my teaching, it’s developing a rapport with my students. By the end of a semester, I want them to know I’ve been actively thinking about who they are and what makes them stand out in my mind. I want them to know they matter to me as an individual, enough to warrant some words meant just and only for them.

But still. End of semester, man. My drawer’s out of spoons.

So, to avoid mouthing platitudes at kids who deserve better, I’ve turned to ending Speculative Fiction Studies with a comment in the form of a science fiction or fantasy book recommendation. The rules are simple: I have to be able to articulate why I believe this particular student would like this book, and I’m not allowed to give any repeat recommendations.

One year, I had to write ninety of these.

This year will be easier, with just forty-five in total. And yes, I read a lot of sf, but I’m a big believer in the power of the sf fandom hive mind.

That’s where you come in.

In the comments section below, pitch me a science fiction, fantasy, or other speculative book you’ve read and loved and would happily recommend to another reader (particularly, perhaps, a precocious teenager). What jumped out to you about this book? Is there a particular type of reader it would appeal to?  Does it remind you of anything else you’ve read, fit into any genre sweet spots of yours?

Who knows — you may help me find, or remember, just the right fit for a student who’s a little hard to peg, or whose reading interests are very different from my own. And even if you don’t, we’ll get into a good discussion here.

 

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The Author Is In: ‘Office Hours’ at the SFWA Nebulas Conference!

This May will mark my second trip to the SFWA Nebula awards conference, this year in Pittsburgh, PA, and my first experience being part of the programming.

So, what will I be doing? The answer is, maybe more than this, as the schedule is finalized, but for now, I’ll be part of their “Office Hours” programming. If you’re coming to Pittsburgh and looking for someone with a knack for the following, I’m your Huckleberry:

Insights into teaching sf/f & running successful workshop groups
Blowing up story concepts
World-building from a random theoretical premise (scientific or others; try me – you’ll be surprised)
Flash fiction critiques
Fight scenes & hand-to-hand combat
Refining dialogue
Tea (yes, tea is a skill set, and I have the receipts, my friends)

I hope to see lots of you there.

Look for a follow-up post from me in the coming weeks about programming I’ll be part of at Readercon this July in Quincy, MA. It’s going to be a very busy spring and summer!

 

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Sometimes, You Need to Ask Better Questions

I was more than a little nervous, going into work on Thursday morning, April 20, because my Speculative Fiction Studies students were speaking with Amal El-Mohtar. I was excited, grateful, hopeful, and yes. Terribly, deeply nervous. I should point out that there’s nothing about Amal that should make anyone fearful, apart from her talent, her enthusiasm, her accomplishments, her erudition, her grace —

No, scratch that. I was anxious about my students – and, let’s be honest, me – having a good showing with Amal because she’s very much to be admired. One never likes to let down one’s heroes. So I told myself what my mother always told me about fear and success: “You only feel so awful because you care so much. It would be wrong if you didn’t.”

My students read Amal’s “The Truth About Owls” as part of their homework and were ready to speak to her through a Twitter AMA on the hashtag #AMALowl. It seemed a perfect plan: low-impact ‘face time’ between a writer and students familiar with her work, with the technology free and practically foolproof. But though the questions the students shared were thoughtful and sincere, and Amal dove into answers as fast as anyone could expect a lone writer on a mission to do, the disconnection of an asynchronous conversation felt a bit wrong.  In a previous, totally spontaneous AMA, Alyssa Wong and Brooke Bolander had been able to tag-team their way through half a class period of discussion. Two against twenty had worked out much better than twenty-to-one odds, as I might have realized if I had used my tactical brain more and my fangirl brain less.

Fortunately, in a quick DM session after, Amal raised the issue that would turn things around for the afternoon: “That was super cool! I hope the answers were ok! I’m sliiiightly regretting not actually doing this over skype because some of those questions definitely deserved more thought-through answers! . . .What do you think pedagogy-wise? I will totally do what’s easier for you / better for class!”

It was the right question — a better question than “Will this go okay?”, which had been the only place I could make my brain focus all morning. Instead, Amal asked what it would take to make the teachable moment itself better. She assumed (rightly) that it would be okay. And it had been. But she also sensed it could have been better.

So, we switched tracks and arranged a Skype call for the afternoon.

As the students on my side of the call gathered (freely sharing expectant looks, without a webcam to capture them all), they looked over the questions they’d written with Twitter in mind and started revising on the fly. More words, nuances, ideas. Amal was a gem, putting up with bad audio and not seeing her audience’s faces as if it was part of the fun.

I wish she could have seen the kids, because they were all smiling.

The conversation really broke open about five minutes in, when a student walked up to my laptop mike and asked, “Why did you decide to leave it ambiguous whether Anisa’s power is real or not?”

It was a joy to watch Amal’s face, already smiling, fill with a sudden light.

“That is. . . you know, that is actually a great question, because usually people want to know which it is –is there a power or not? And I don’t like to answer that because you’re right. I did that on purpose. And I guess it’s because. . .”

And on she went, the student nodding back at her the whole time.

If only she could have seen it.

It’s not often readers have the chance to ask a writer why they make certain choices. But that shouldn’t keep us from asking ourselves different, better questions as we read or work. The student could tell that if Amal had wanted her audience to have a clear sense of what was and wasn’t real in her story, she’d have written that way. She’s well more than capable. So the important question clearly wasn’t what’s the binary ‘truth’ in “The Truth About Owls.” The question was, what does the story gain in its ambiguity? What does it offer its reader, through whatever lens we pick up?

When I write, what questions am I asking myself, and how will they help me get to something beyond the next plot beat? What questions do I hope my readers would ask me, if I were the one on the other side of a chat screen? It’s something I’ll be thinking about tonight as I settle in to draft another chapter of The Nine’s sequel.

At that moment, with Amal almost laughing at the simple beauty of a better question, my daylong nervousness finally washed away.  Between Amal’s question about what would make things better for the students, and my students’ questions about what they’d read, it was clear everyone in the room had gone beyond the obvious to the essential.

That’s what the best writers coax their readers into doing.

Thanks for showing us that, Amal.

 

 

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