Month: January 2007
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On getting what we need
Today, just when I was going through a period of wondering if I’m able to reach and help my students as much as I hope to, I got an email from my supervisor in the English department, asking me to come to his office when I’m free. So I wandered over just minutes ago to…
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What is language?
Via Cory Doctorow at Boingboing, a non-verbal autistic woman presents us with a video at Youtube, in which she speaks her own language, using gestures and sounds we don’t readily recognize as language, and visual cues that aren’t recognized as “normal” communicative cues either. She then translates the first two sections with the aid of a text-to-speech…
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Finding myself in Japan
Something that happened while I lived in Japan was the event most people refer to as “finding” yourself. A lot of theories that discuss what the idea or essence of a “self” is exist. Some proclaim the self is something you are born with, that it is an innate part of the human species, which…
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Little Miss Apocalypse
As mentioned in the comments of the So Fey entry, I found out today I sold my story, “Little Miss Apocalypse” to Realms of Fantasy. It’s a darker sort of fantasy set here in Youngstown. Very happy.
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2007 Crawford Award Finalists
The shortlist for this year’s Crawford Award, for best first book by a new fantasy writer, has been announced: Daniel Abraham, A Shadow in Summer Alan De Niro, Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead Keith Donohue, The Stolen Child Theodora Goss, In The Forest of Forgetting Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora…
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So Fey
This coming Fall, in September if I’m remembering correctly, Steve Berman’s anthology “So Fey” will be published. My story, “Isis in Darkness”, is included in the contents. All of the stories in the book are faery stories of some sort, although mine isn’t so obvious at first glance. All of the stories are also “queer”…
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An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton
I wrote this entry at my old blog last weekend, when Hillary Clinton announced she’d be running for the Democratic nomination. Since then, I moved to this new website, but today a comment from my friend Jeff Ford over at the original post has spurred me to repost it here, too, and I think I’ll do as…
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Waiting for the Light
Last night I watched the President’s State of the Union address. It was interesting to see who clapped for various plans the President proposed, and who didn’t. One of the things I find most interesting about political players is the way they talk about their plans for the country. It’s very broad and general, and…
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Extreme Makeover: City Edition
Another article on Youngstown’s 2010 Plan and how it’s slowly but surely revitalizing the area, this time from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Don’t forget to watch the slideshow narrated by our Mayor, Jay Williams. Previous articles about Youngstown’s 2010 Project have appeared in the last year in The New York Times and USA Today as well. …
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And Now Read This…
If you missed it before in the mass of information we call the internet, make sure to read Yoshio Kobayashi’s essay on the new generation of Japanese SF writers. I myself wish American SF publishers would give us more international writers to read. I’m sure it’s probably based on statistics that Americans don’t like to…