Kameron Hurley's Blog, page 27

Hugo Speeches: Thanks for All the Llamas

So! How about those Hugos?

As for me, I said what I wanted to say in the acceptance speeches, which I’ll reprint below for those who missed them.

Thanks again to Kate Elliott and Tricia Sullivan for accepting in my absence, and to all the fans, readers, and colleagues who’ve supported me while I ranted my way out here along the margins. It’s an uphill slog, but you all make it worth it – and you made a popular award win possible, which, to be frank, I did not think was within the realm of possi...

How People Really Talk: Language and Signaling Difference

So just last week I happened across this video by Daniel José Older about why we shouldn’t italicize words in other languages while writing in English. If you have yet to see it, enjoy it here for the first time:

I laughed my ass off watching this, because anyone who’s actually known people who speak more than one language will recognize that how people talk in real life – the fluidity of language between English and Spanish, or English and Hindi or English and Zulu, or Zulu and Spanish, or an...

The Increasingly Poor Economics of Penning Problematic Stories

My spouse has been trying to get me to play Space Run for awhile. It’s just this cute little game where you build your own space ship and take it on missions. I played through the tutorial recently, only a little annoyed that I wasn’t able to choose a female gendered character. The tutorial was OK. I moved on to taking the first mission, which is given to you, the protagonist, by a female CEO. After getting the mission, my heroic avatar felt the need to comment to his android sidekick about h...

Valuing the Work: Writers and Chasing Our Way to the Bottom

For reasons various and sundry, I have a lawyer I consult with on Intellectual Property matters. Anyone who knows my publishing history can probably figure out why.

I got an invoice yesterday for $72, a charge for the time it took them to read and respond to an email of mine about a particular matter. I was not at all outraged or whatever by this – merely bemused. All we have on this earth is time, really, and when you take up people’s time, there’s a charge for it. What I found amusing is how...

One Bloke to Rule Us All: Depictions of Hegemony in Snowpiercer vs. Guardians of the Galaxy

Note: Contains All the Spoilers for both films

I had the surreal experience of watching Snowpiercer and Guardians of the Galaxy within a week of each other. I can hear the cries now: but what the hell does a dystopic train apocalypse movie have to do with a MacGuffin-plot galaxy romp with a wise cracking team of misfits?

What actuallyfascinated me mostin watching these two films so closely together is noticing how differently they treated the depiction of the status quo of patriarchal white lea...

Nobody’s Normal: Introversion and the Writing Life

I woke up at 3 a.m. yesterday to a panic attack. Adrenaline coursed through my body; it was like a jolt of juice in the arm, a desperate desire to fight or flee flooding me from head to toe, compelling me to move, to act. I sat in bed for some time, heart racing, talking myself down. There was no immediate danger. No tornado or wild animal to flee from. No invader to fight. No true danger. Just pent-up anger, fear, anxiety, and anticipation, all expressing themselves here, in this moment, in...

On Becoming What You Hate

This is a late night weekend post, which I almost never write, as, you know, metrics and all that, marketing data, numbers, analysis. But sometimes you’re not posting things to be read. You’re not posting them for prime content push times. You’re posting them because you have some things to say.

I sent an email tonight cleaning up some old business. There is still a lot that needs to be done on that, but more later when it’s done. What I realized, going round and round in this messy bullshit w...

MIRROR EMPIRE FAQ: Audible, iTunes, Drop Dates, Hugos etc.

Welcome to August! With THE MIRROR EMPIRE dropping on August 26th (eeeeeeee) I wanted todo a quick roundup post of some questions I’ve been getting about the book. If you start asking me these things in online venues from here on out, expect to be re-routed here!

Q: Will there be an audio version of THE MIRROR EMPIRE?

A: Yes! Audible has bought rights to the book in a not-bad deal (I’m excited to earn out my advance as fast as possible). I sent them a list of preferred narrators, but as with an...

Hacking the Writing Life: On Being a Writer With Three Jobs

There’s a lot of doom and gloom in the publishing industry these days, the biggest doom and gloom of all being from midlist writers who used to be able to make a decent living wage on a book or a book and a half a year who find that, at best, they can pull in $5-15k a year now. The squeezing out of the midlist mirrors the squeezing out of the middle class in many ways – you’re either a top 1% author with a six or seven figure deal out the gate, or a writer who worked their way up to six figur...

GenCon Schedule: Indianapolis Area Appearances

Announcing my final (in person)appearance for the year, and it’s… a busy one.I’ll be at GenCon in Indianapolis, IN as opposed to Loncon (same weekend!), as it is far cheaper and within driving distance from my house. Bonus!

Also, I can avoid the Hugo ceremony there. Because that’s going to be special, for a host of reasons.

I’ll have books for sale at Gencon, INCLUDING copies of the (apparently!) highly anticipated THE MIRROR EMPIRE. You should be able to find these in the dealer’s room at theI...