Marjorie M. Liu's Blog, page 2
July 1, 2018
The light!
Morning light is a sweet light. I love taking a walk first thing in the morning, breathing in the sweet air, breathing in the light.
Benicio Del Toro, Hollywood’s Instant Antihero: For Mr. Del Toro, that has sometimes pit his desire to excel as an actor against a competing impulse to challenge negative stereotypes, a predicament faced by many actors of color. Mr. Del Toro said that he decided to focus only on how well a character is written and on the merits of the filmmakers involved. “If I...
June 30, 2018
The baby birds are gone.
Two evenings ago the baby birds above the front door were doing great — sitting on each other’s heads, pushing each other around — healthy and active and no doubt a pain in the ass for their hardworking parents.
And then, yesterday morning, they were dead. One of them was out of the nest, already a goner, and the other two were completely still. I watched the nest off and on during the day, hoping the others would move, but they never dead. This evening the ants and flies had already moved...
June 29, 2018
Poodle or cat?
In my experience it has always been cats who insist on one of my hands being constantly available, especially when I’m on deadline, but in this case I think the poodle has them beat. Every time I think he’s finally fallen asleep and I can start typing with my left hand, he lets me know he’s still boss.
Things of interest:
Mapping China’s frontline: the Yangtze at 100km intervals – a photo essay: “In modern China though, it is the Yangtze that has been promoted by the central government as th...
June 28, 2018
Still forest-bathing…
Ponderings:
We Must Not Forget Detained Migrant Children: “These families and children, and others who find themselves in the crosshairs of this Administration’s draconian immigration policies, will still need us to keep paying attention, even when the media coverage wanes and we are no longer seeing photographs of children in cages, or hearing recordings of their pleas and cries.”
Rising seas: ‘Florida is about to be wiped off the map’: “The rate of sea level rise is currently doubling ever...
June 27, 2018
SDCC
In the comments to yesterday’s post, Monique asked: “Will you be coming to SDCC this year? Also, do you think San Diego will be on your tour list for volume 3?”
Unfortunately, I will not be coming to SDCC this summer. I made that decision late last year when I realized that Monstress Vol. 3 wouldn’t be out until early September. I love SDCC, but it’s expensive, particularly without a new book to promote. I’ll have more details about the fall tour some time soon, however (some of you will h...
June 26, 2018
Bits and pieces…
I love historical romance novels (I’m always open to recommendations, by the way, including paranormal romance), and in my free time I’ve settled in with Sarah Maclean’s latest, called Wicked and the Wallflower. It’s so good, so fun, amazing writing, such great longing between the hero and the (fantastic, be-my-best-friend) heroine. If you enjoy romance novels, check it out ASAP.
Yiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.
Supreme Court Upholds Trump’s Travel Ban: ‘President Trump acted lawfully in imposing limit...
June 25, 2018
Please don’t let this be THAT tick…
I pulled a lone star tick off my thigh yesterday and because it’s been about five years since that happened, I might have screamed — a lot — when I found it.
And then, this morning, I read this: Red Meat Allergies Caused By Tick Bites Are On The Rise: ‘”I found [the tick] 3 or 4 inches to the left of my hip bone,” Stirling recalls. At the time, she say, she didn’t think much of it. “I just took it off and threw it away.” Then, three weeks later, after she ate an Italian-style pork sausage fo...
June 24, 2018
Forest-bathing; or, the benefits of a potted plant.
I’m in Indiana, soaking up the sun, spending time with family, the poodle. I’ve documented part of it on Instagram. I’ve also been spending a lot of time in the woods. Not long ago someone introduced me to the idea of “forest-bathing”. The term made intuitive sense, because I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and my idea of a fun afternoon was to run away into the woods and hang out with trees. But I went ahead and googled it, and found this article: “In Japan, we practice something called...
June 23, 2018
I guess it’s been 10 years?
On Thursday the last issue of Monstress’s third arc went off the printer. Sana Takeda poured her heart into the art — it’s a beautiful issue. All of her work is beautiful, and to me it keeps becoming more so — deeper and lovelier, and magical.
I always have mixed feelings about my own writing, but there were a couple emotional beats that I was finally able to get on the page — beats that I’ve been waiting to write, beats that I kept trying to insert into the book before the characters were...
Book Tour! September 6-9th! Portugal!
The book tour for Monstress Vol 3: HAVEN is beginning to come together. I’ll be adding more dates in the next couple weeks/months, but the first announcement is that Sana and I will be attending Comic Con Portugal! If you’re in Lisbon the first week of September — or around Lisbon — come and see us!
