Kelly McCullough's Blog, page 63
June 10, 2011
Friday Cat Blogging
Coconut says "I'm ready for my closeup Mr DeMille."
Bellicle cat wants to make sure you get her good side.
It's deeper than it looks…
"Too Nakma Noya, Solo!"
Cameras have STRING!
I can move water with my mind!
Bellicle cat wants to make sure you get her good side.
It's deeper than it looks…
"Too Nakma Noya, Solo!"
Cameras have STRING!
I can move water with my mind!
What If...?
I used to love when Marvel Comics would run the ocassional "What If..?" issue, well, Scientific America poses the question: "What if Earth Switched Places With Mars?"
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*Via David Brin on Facebook, who adds, "But Musser assumes that Earth would freeze. It would -- but not forever! Volcanoes would supply CO2 till a greenhouse melted the seas. Simple calculation. If Mars were bigger, it'd have oceans now, under a dense gaia-greenhouse."
---
*Via David Brin on Facebook, who adds, "But Musser assumes that Earth would freeze. It would -- but not forever! Volcanoes would supply CO2 till a greenhouse melted the seas. Simple calculation. If Mars were bigger, it'd have oceans now, under a dense gaia-greenhouse."
June 9, 2011
Short Story Contest (Minnesota)
I came across a notice in my local Romance Writers chapter that someone noticed that there's a contest for Minnesota Writers (with a $1,000 cash prize) on the theme of... wait for it... sex.
It would be cool for one of us speculative types to win it, wouldn't it? Yeah, I'm lookin' at _you_ out there!
It would be cool for one of us speculative types to win it, wouldn't it? Yeah, I'm lookin' at _you_ out there!
Campbell Nominees
John W. Campbell award nominee's announced! Congratulations to them all. (And, look, Eleanor! Someone you recently read is on the list.)
Interesting Bits..
... but not the sort Congress critters send over Twitter.
Here's an article about volcanos that have shaped the world from New Scientist.
And, for something completely different, our friend Jim C. Hines talking about his take on the Wall Street Journal YA kerfluffle.
If you want to have your blood pressure spike and/or become (in)famous for calling in and ranting on NPR, the author of the aforementioned WSJ article will be on NPR's Midmorning show today.
Here's an article about volcanos that have shaped the world from New Scientist.
And, for something completely different, our friend Jim C. Hines talking about his take on the Wall Street Journal YA kerfluffle.
If you want to have your blood pressure spike and/or become (in)famous for calling in and ranting on NPR, the author of the aforementioned WSJ article will be on NPR's Midmorning show today.
June 6, 2011
Why Fiction Matters
DC Comics has announced that Barbara Gordon will no longer be Oracle. Jill Pantozzi has an awesome op ed piece about why this is a honking, huge shame.
As she writes, "For all their fictionality, we let characters become very important to us and Oracle was the most important to me. When I was told the news, I cried."
As she writes, "For all their fictionality, we let characters become very important to us and Oracle was the most important to me. When I was told the news, I cried."
The Light at the End
There's been a lot of talk this morning about a Wall Street Journal article/review called "A Darkness Too Visible," in which the author talks about what she sees as a disturbing trend in young adult fiction -- Darkness! In particular, she singles out (and I paraphrase) the normalization of self-destructive behaviors and pathology. Jackie Kessler has an right-on, awesome response, in which she points out that, in many cases, things like cutting or bulimia *are* the reality of teenage life and not talking about it in fiction is the literary equivalent of plugging your ears and shouting "la, la, la."
I think that the WSJ missed the mark in another way, and, that is, they forget what fiction is FOR. I wasn't able to be on a panel at WisCON that I was really looking forward to which was called "How Science Fiction Saved My Life." Science fiction, I had planned to say, saved my life because, in a time before YouTube, it offered me a version of the "It Gets Better" movement. When I read "World Well Lost" by Theodore Sturgeon, I realized that gay people existed. Then, when I found Elizabeth A. Lynn, I discovered that gay people wrote books with happy endings for gay people.
In effect, that saved my life. Because one of the things that I believe fiction (particularly SF/F and speculative YA) does is that it offers up possibilities -- possible futures and possible SOLUTIONS.
I can see why the Wall Street Journal (which, as someone reminded me on Facebook, is the newspaper arm of Fox News) would be scared of the latest crop of young adult novels. I've read a bunch of the newer YA books and enjoyed them tremendously, but they're actually kind of radical. In at least two (three, if you count Harry Potter's fight against Voldemort's fascist regime) end in revolution. Scott Westerfeld's UGLIES series and the HUNGER GAMES trilogy show a dark, repressive future and our heroines find a way to go beyond, step outside, and rise up and take arms against the powers that be.
I haven't read all the books blasted in the WSJ article, but I know that satisfying fiction usually has an ending that offers a solution, or at least a way for things to be "okay" for the hero/ine. Young people are living in a much darker place than we were twenty, thirty or forty years ago. Their fiction is reflectively that much darker. But I suspect their endings are twice as bright. There is always hope.
Things get better.
I think that the WSJ missed the mark in another way, and, that is, they forget what fiction is FOR. I wasn't able to be on a panel at WisCON that I was really looking forward to which was called "How Science Fiction Saved My Life." Science fiction, I had planned to say, saved my life because, in a time before YouTube, it offered me a version of the "It Gets Better" movement. When I read "World Well Lost" by Theodore Sturgeon, I realized that gay people existed. Then, when I found Elizabeth A. Lynn, I discovered that gay people wrote books with happy endings for gay people.
In effect, that saved my life. Because one of the things that I believe fiction (particularly SF/F and speculative YA) does is that it offers up possibilities -- possible futures and possible SOLUTIONS.
I can see why the Wall Street Journal (which, as someone reminded me on Facebook, is the newspaper arm of Fox News) would be scared of the latest crop of young adult novels. I've read a bunch of the newer YA books and enjoyed them tremendously, but they're actually kind of radical. In at least two (three, if you count Harry Potter's fight against Voldemort's fascist regime) end in revolution. Scott Westerfeld's UGLIES series and the HUNGER GAMES trilogy show a dark, repressive future and our heroines find a way to go beyond, step outside, and rise up and take arms against the powers that be.
I haven't read all the books blasted in the WSJ article, but I know that satisfying fiction usually has an ending that offers a solution, or at least a way for things to be "okay" for the hero/ine. Young people are living in a much darker place than we were twenty, thirty or forty years ago. Their fiction is reflectively that much darker. But I suspect their endings are twice as bright. There is always hope.
Things get better.
June 4, 2011
Friday Cat Blogging II Catsitter's Revenge
You're not my real parents! I hate you! Go away!
You're not my real parents! I hate you! Go away!
You're not my real parents! I hate you! Go away!
Who are you? Will you pet my belly?
You're not my real parents! I hate you! Go away!
You're not my real parents! I hate you! Go away!
Who are you? Will you pet my belly?
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