Mona Eltahawy starts every talk she gives with “fuck the patriarchy.” The words are powerful, and made more so when spoken by a woman, particularly a woman of color and a Muslim. Her approach is the same when she’s writing. … Continue reading
Category Archives: nonfiction
The words we choose to use when we speak and write can bring people joy or sorrow, can make them angry or calm them down, can lead to understanding or conflict. They can excite, amuse, enthrall, and/or inform. A single … Continue reading
Ink Dance: Essays on the Writing Life A cup of inspiration, a dash of understanding, a bouquet of wisdom for writers new and old. From the desk of writer and editor Deborah J. Ross comes a collection of warm, insightful … Continue reading
New Worlds, Year Two: More Essays on the Art of Worldbuilding by Marie Brennan Explore a world of your own . . . Science fiction and fantasy are renowned for immersing their readers in rich, inventive settings. In this follow-up … Continue reading
Some years back, I wrote a story in aphorisms called “Thirty-One Rules for Fulfilling Your Destiny.” (It’s available free at Curious Fictions and is in my BVC collection Conscientious Inconsistencies.) Rule 8 reads: “The male way of warriorship has been … Continue reading
[This review of Nell Irvin Painter’s The History of White People originally appeared in the Cascadia Subduction Zone in 2011. Since I recently posted about her new book, Old in Art School, I wanted to share my praise of her … Continue reading
Worldbuilding is one of the great pleasures of writing science fiction and fantasy — and also one of its greatest challenges. Award-winning fantasy author Marie Brennan draws on her academic training in anthropology to peel back the layers of a setting, going past the surface details to explore questions many authors never think to answer. She invites you to consider the endless variety of real-world cultures — from climate to counterfeiting, from sumptuary laws to slang — and the equally endless possibilities speculative fiction has to offer.
Continue readingThis short memoir from Pati Nagle is an easy and entertaining read. For anyone who’s ever wondered what it’s like to drive a Tesla. I feel like I’m sitting in the future… … Continue reading
Ursula K. Le Guin’s 2017 collection of essays, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters, is one of the five finalists for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. This prize, one of the PEN America Literary … Continue reading
I’ve just finished Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law, a thoroughly researched and brilliant analysis of how government action in the United States built and reinforced racial segregation. It took me several weeks to read this book. That’s not because … Continue reading