Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 366

A Missive To Our Reading Thralls – Free Range Oyster

*Yeah, I’m days late posting this. Yeah, I’m okay. This weekend just got really weird, what with the classless behavior of the SF Aristos, at the same time we were putting a home for sale AND dealing with paperwork and last minute stuff AND figuring out some things we forgot when moving boy out AND still recovering from beyond massive auto-immune attack. Now I’ve delivered Black Tide short, after dissuading it from becoming a novel. Betas say it’s good. I’ll write the other two overdue shorts...

Bibliotherapy – Cedar Sanderson

Bibliotherapy – Cedar Sanderson

Cedar Sanderson

A meta-analysis of the utilization of, and reading recommendations for effective bibliotherapy in a non-clinical setting.

Bibliotherapy is the use of reading to improve mental health, reduce anxiety, and increase ‘mindfulness.’

Firstly, what is mindfulness? Psychology Today defines it neatly. “Mindfulnessis a state of active, open attention on the present. When you’re mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judgi...

Burning Down The Field in Order to Save It

So, I thought I didn’t care about the result of the Hugos, because in making the establishment lose their collective sh*t at the “non approved” nominations, we’d proven our point: that there is a political color bar in SF/F; that the self-proclaimed elites of sf view what fans like as problematic and therefore view the supposed “fan” award as the toy of the glitterati; and that NATIONAL PUBLICATIONS marched in lockstep with the narrative of a tiny clique over an award that in the past has som...

SO Tired of the Bull Excreta

Okay, this is an odds and sodds post, but the first thing to do is to say that while I thought Captain Comic’s pamphlet juvenile, I didn’t think it was unfunny, I certainly didn’t think it was offensive (ah, yes, the famously bad word genitalia. Let me clutch my pearls.)

The Science Fiction Establishment Clutches Its Pearls!

I can sort of understand their taking the pamphlets off the table, though, not because they were the Worst Thing EVAH but because they were a direct attack on their philo...

You Fight Like A Girl — a Spoiled and Ineffectual One

Okay, today was really not a good day for me to wake up back in middle school. For those not aware of it I had an ENORMOUS auto-immune attack. Yes, I know what set it off and it was very stupid of me. It probably wouldn’t have set off if my whole system weren’t weakened by the grueling months of work on the other house. (Yeah I’ll post pictures here. Those who saw the pictures on FB know what an Herculean task it was, mostly performed by Robert and I in hero mode.)

The attack was so bad that...

How hard is “I don’t care” to understand? – Tom Knighton

*From what I hear — what you think I have time to read them? I’m overdue on three stories and five novels, guys — the other side didn’t understand the meaning of “Go ahead, I have no objections.” So today I’m bringing ESL guest lecturer Tom Knighton to explain the meaning of “I don’t care.” ESL, you ask? Well, I don’t know what they speak, but it’s CLEARLY not English. They keep insisting we don’t mean what we PLAINLY say we mean, so they must be reading what we say in some other language. Br...

Poor But Honest

When I was in North Carolina, at one time while my dentist was asking me questions while she had both hands and instruments in my mouth, she finished one of my sentences that started with “Oh, we grew up poor” with “But honest” which was not at all what I meant to say. Oh, we were honest, as in we didn’t steal, but mostly for two reasons: one, grandma would have given us her “more in sorrow than in anger” look, and second, we weren’t conscious of needing anything.

Don’t get me wrong, I was a...

The Wealth of People

I’m no Adam Smith — which is good since otherwise I’d be really, really old — and I thought until recently that most human beings understood where money came from, how it was earned, and what it was necessary for. Also, of course, what it was. I.e. a symbol that allows free trade between individuals.

I thought this, arguably because when in 6th grade my younger son had to do a paper on the history of one of the inventions that made modern civilization possible, he did it on money, complete wi...

A Spark of Hope – Amanda Green

A Spark of Hope – Amanda Green

I’m probably going to get into trouble for this but I don’t care. You see, something happened Thursday night of last week that made me stop and think. Yes, I know. It can be dangerous for me to think. That’s when those non-approved thoughts happen and I forget to walk in lock-step with those who are so willing to tell me what to think and what to do. Well, screw ‘em. Thursday night showed me there is at least a glimmer of hope for our country and I’m going to cl...

It’s All About The Bling

So, let’s suppose there was an award that no longer meant increased circulation for the book that sported the little seal on the cover: how far would you be willing to fight to preserve the right to have the award given to the people you wanted/to have the chance at the award yourself? If you were, that is, someone who played by the rules of the “in” group, the writers and publishers we’ll call “the old establishment”?

I am making a leap here, as I’m not sure the Hugo no longer boosts print r...