Hello hello all. Today I finished pretty much devouring Paladin of Souls in one sitting (barring work commitments), then had a nap with very weird dreams as London once again demonstrated its ability to wring humidity out of the scantest amount of heat. It’s after this odd mix of events I bring you my Friday Five, which has absolutely nothing to do with the post but I felt like sharing anyway.
1. Let’s start with the blog of the week and why. It’s The Fantasy Hive, and they’re doing a Women in SFF Month that’s providing a fun opportunity to talk random shizzle about books which is all I ask for in life. It doesn’t feel like there’s quite as big a community going for this as Wyrd & Wonder, but who knows what can be? And it’s a conversation towards a good end too.
2. Moving on, got a few good posts on writing today. The first one comes from the Hive as well, and their interview with Miles Cameron on his authorial process.
This article by Sarah Chorn on emotionally powerful writing is a good ‘un, and I particularly like the idea of point 6 about treating the emotions like a landscape.
Also this twitter thread by RJ Barker featured a lot of what I consider good sense
3. Blog time!
There was a very thoughtful interview write up on Glasgow in 24, where Fabienne interviewed a trans fantasy fan Bina Fisher about finding books in the genre that represent her life (it comes with recs).
A very cool project I’ve completely forgot to talk about prior to this is the Neurodivergence in Fiction series over at FanFiAddict, the most recent of which was Participating in Events as a Neurodivergent Individual. And I’d just like to add – seems like Justin Gross is always looking for more article writers, so anyone neurodivergent in the genre who fancies talking about it should get in touch with him.
And a couple more articles and reviews I enjoyed reading
First Lines Friday: Female Debut Authors in SFF – The Book Nook (thequaintbooknook.com)
Fantasy Book Review: No Gods No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull (tarvolon.com)
4. Now here comes a grab bag of random stuff that I found really interesting.
The History and Politics of Wuxia | Tor.com
Averse Miscellany: The New Poetry, Part 1 of 2 – Poetry London
5. Finally, in a category of its own, as it’s a pretty weighty one, is this article on the twitter discourse on the short story “I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter”.
How Twitter can ruin a life: Isabel Fall’s complicated story – Vox
An on that heavy note, that’s my Friday Five, have a good weekend all.
Thank you for the mention! I enjoyed reading through the other links you shares too 😊
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The article about Isabel Fall is very very good. What Isabel went through is tragic and heartbreaking; I’ve managed to get to a place where I can (mostly) ignore or laugh off the worst parts of Twitter and how pathetic people can be there but this incident was on another level and it makes me so sad and angry.
More generally I thought the bits about how it inherently functions as a contextless cesspool of shit that amplifies the most divisive voices was very illuminating and something everyone should bear in mind while using the platform. They won’t though.
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Believability vs. realism in fantasy! Yes!
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