Rachel Swirsky's Blog, page 42

Recommendation Form for People of the Book

SF Signal's Charles A. Tan has generously programmed a web form people can use to submit recommendations for the People of the Book anthology (the best of the decade's Jewish science fiction and fantasy).

The form is here. It should cut down a lot of work for me and Sean if people want to use it--but no worries, I'll be manually entering all the suggestions we've received so far.

Thanks everyone for all your helpful recommendations, and if anything else occurs to you, please drop it in the for...

My Fake Marriage Proposal.

Amanda Marcotte is talking about fake marriage proposals. At Double X, she writes:

The traditional marriage proposal was male domination dressed as chivalry distilled: He controls when and how, and her only power is to say no. And even that power is undermined by the immense social pressure to say yes—or else be taken for an ingrate. But nowadays, women have too much at stake to leave marriage proposals to chance, and so marriage is actually a mutually agreed-upon decision. Yet the...

Welcome, Abigail Sue Livingston

My best friend from high school just had her first baby--Abigail Sue Livingston. Both mother and child are fine.

Josie is the first of my close friends from my generation to have a child. It's a sea-change, definitely.

I wish I could be nearby to help with the first few months and years. Australia feels further away than ever.

Mazel tov, Josie. Welcome, Abigail.

Cat poetry. You know you want it.

Sorry for the flurry of posts, but I wanted to redistribute these guidelines.

One of my compatriots at Big Other, A D Jameson, is editing an anthology of cat poetry. I think he's kind of seriously brilliant, but you can check out his posts yourself. I'm not always one for long, theoretical discussions of the components of art, because sometimes I think they lose sight of the action pragmatic reality and just start spinning theories into space where they build on other theories without ever com...

Dealing with emails

I'm dealing with emails that have been rotting in my inbox. I'm down to 40. They date from today back to the middle of November or so. There are a number of compliments and things like that which I sometimes get too aw-shucks about to be able to answer. There are also a number of questions that required some thinking, which I just wasn't sure how to reply to, and set aside for later thought... and then didn't get to in anything resembling a timely fashion (my deep, deep apologies to Beth Wodz...

In author news...

Dawn Allcot interviewed me at Writers Roundabout. The first part is up now, and it's mostly questions about the hugos, Tor.com, and workshops.

Also, I'm thrilled that "Eros, Philia, Agape" was nominated for the Locus Awards. Many wows, and much grinning!

Transcript of a birthday card

From my 10 year old nephew:

HAPPY
BIRTHDAY
!! :-) !!

Dear, Ant Ratchel

I hope you have the best Birthday Posible.

love: Anson
!! :-) !!

Additional notes from my brother and sister-in-law:

Happy B-day! love, Emily

I LOVE YOU ANT RATCHEL!
Love - BRENDAN

I never knew I was so insectoid. ;)