Amy H. Sturgis's Blog, page 174

September Is Here! (And the crowd goes wild.)

It's September! It's September! Fringe and Chuck return, and The Event premieres. Only three weeks until the joint birthdays of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. Only thirty days until my favorite month of the year. Starbucks is serving pumpkin lattes again, and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is selling a limited edition pumpkin latte fragrance that is out of this world, and so it smells like the best season of the year, even if the thermometer doesn't quite yet reflect the feeling of fall.

Happy birthday ...

Follow-Up Lovecraftiana, Etc.

Happy birthday to super_chik and happy early birthday to dement1a . May you both enjoy many happy returns of the day!

In honor of H.P. Lovecraft's 120th birthday this month, StarShipSofa ran my unabridged narration of F. Paul Wilson's Lovecraft homage, the novella The Barrens, in three parts. The third and final installment is now available to stream or download on the latest episode of StarShipSofa. (Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.)

In related news, my most recent StarShipSofa "History of t...

Genre Links

I thought these links might be of interest...

* SFF Audio has David Gill's three-part lecture on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? from the 2010 Philip K. Dick Festival available here for download.

* io9 has posted a fall guide to science fiction films here.

* Will Hart has posted some wonderful audio files for download at his blog in honor of H.P. Lovecraft's recent birthday. These include, among other treats, his unabridged reading of Lovecraft's The Fungi From Yuggoth and recordings of t...

All for Fall

Happy birthday wishes go out to tiny_antares and dormannheim . May you both have a fantastic day and a brilliant year to come!


The Fall 2010 semester is here.

* This time around I'll be focusing on my Native courses:

For my usual Belmont University Liberal Studies rotation, I'll be teaching my undergraduate class on the Trail of Tears.
This course investigates the historical Trail of Tears and its popular legacy from both U.S. and Native American perspectives, considering the constitutional, po...

Happy 120th, H.P. Lovecraft!

On this day in 1890, the stars were right -- and H.P. Lovecraft was born. Happy 120th, HPL!

In celebration of this auspicious day, StarShipSofa is running my unabridged narration of F. Paul Wilson's Lovecraft tribute, The Barrens.
-- Listen to Part 1 here.
-- Listen to Part 2 here.
-- Part 3 and my own tribute to Lovecraft will both be on next week's show!

Here are a few Lovecraftian links of mine:
* My Photo Tour of Lovecraft's Providence
* "The New Shoggoth Chic: Why H.P. Lovecraft Now?"
* Neil...

Happy Monday: Podcast Links, Birthdays, & A Trailer

FYI, here are some podcast links that may be of interest:

* From ankh_hpl : "Science-minded Lovecraftians might want to check out June's "special literary edition" of MonsterTalk, a free audio podcast from Skeptic Magazine. Entitled "Cthulhu Rises," this episode offers an in-depth interview with Lovecraftian scholar and editor Robert M. Price -- plus all the cephalopod information you could possibly want, from biologist P.Z. Myers. A truly tentacular spectacular!" Check out the show notes here....

Links, Birthdays, and That Creepy Uncle Silas

Happy Wednesday!

Here are a few links of possible interest:

Alt Hist is a new magazine dedicated to readers and writers of historical fiction and also alternate history.

From The New York Times: "The Kids' Books Are All Right," on the phenomenon of adults reading young adult literature. Beth Kephart responds here and Finding Wonderland responds here.

In honor of H.P. Lovecraft's upcoming 120th birthday, StarShipSofa is running my unabridged narration of F. Paul Wilson's Lovecraft homage, the...

I'm Back From NASFiC 2010

The Flyer Table at NASFiC 2010
ReConStruction, The 10th Occasional North American Science Fiction Convention was a success!

In the attempt not to write a novel-length report, I am limiting myself to the highest of the high points:


In Which Much SF Goodness Ensues

I was happy to be able to attend The Golden Duck Awards (for Science Fiction Literature for Children), which has a long and distinguished history. This year Suzanne Collins's Catching Fire became the first novel to win after its...

YA Dystopias at NASFiC

NASFiC is underway and off to an excellent start! I will report more soon. Today I'll be giving my multimedia presentation: "Young Adult Dystopias: What Do They Mean for SF?"

For those attendees and others who may be interested, I am posting the bibliography of primary and secondary sources used to prepare my talk. (Note: This list has been updated since my last posting. If you follow/bookmark this link, you'll always be directed to the most recent iteration of this list. Suggestions/recommen...

NASFiC or Bust!

Shortly I'll be off to ReConStruction, The 10th Occasional North American Science Fiction Convention.

The final schedule is not yet available (and the current pocket version includes two schedules that conflict with one another), so I'm not sure when my events will take place. I do know that this is what is lined up for me:

I'll be giving one solo multimedia presentation: Young Adult Dystopias: What Do They Mean for SF?

I'll also be on the following panels:

LIT042: Isn't Young Adult Fiction A...