I’m thrilled to say that this past week has actually been almost sort of normal after several weeks of hectic running around between Cincinnati and Huntsville and dealing with the final illness and death of my partner’s mother. While we still aren’t completely finished with that–we have one more trip to Huntsville coming up, just for a weekend, to finish cleaning out her house–I think the worst part was just not knowing what was going to happen or how long it might take, and that part is over. Now it’s just wrapping up loose ends, which is sad and hard but it’s a thing we can actually do something about instead of a thing that just makes us feel helpless.
On the bright side, I guess, we inherited a cat, Isabelle, who we love in spite of her being very antisocial, and yesterday we adopted a kitten, Spot, who we are hoping will be a friend for Isabelle and help encourage her to come out of her shell a little. It hasn’t worked so far, but Spot is freaking adorable (see header image). I haven’t had a kitten since I was a teenager, and I’d forgotten how much fun (and distracting–seriously, a kitten is nothing but a tiny destroyer of productivity) they are.
Also on the bright side, I recovered much more quickly from the last trip, so I’m starting to get caught up on some writing. This past week, I caught up on my Game of Thrones recaps (both Episode 8 and Episode 9 went up this week), wrote a couple of book reviews (for Pride’s Spell and Faith), and revisited my preseason predictions about Game of Thrones. I’m not quite where I’d like to be in terms of content output, but I’m getting more into the right neighborhood than I have been the past few weeks. Plus, with this season of Game of Thrones ending, I’ll soon have Mondays free for more reading (and writing about what I read).
All week I’ve been encouraging people to head over to Kickstarter to back Crossed Genres’ Hidden Youth anthology, which is a sequel to the Long Hidden anthology they published a couple of years ago. It’s got an excellent table of contents, editors, and cover art by the incomparable Julie Dillon, and there’s only 10 days left to back it. $10 will get you a copy of the Hidden Youth ebook when it’s finished. $15 will get you a copy of Long Hidden as well. Bart Kay from Crossed Genres talked more about the project in an interview earlier this week.
Speaking of crowdfunding, N.K. Jemisin talked about Patreon in an interview at Book Riot.
The Book Smugglers have announced the contributors for Speculative Fiction 2015. It’s not available for purchase, yet, but it will be soon. In the meantime, you can pick up the first Book Smugglers Quarterly Almanac.
Dark Horse is going to be publishing both Serenity and Avatar: The Last Airbender adult coloring books.
The winners of the 2016 Locus Awards were announced.
A shortlist was released for a new award inspired by late writer Eugie Foster–the Eugie Award.
Joe Sherry is still working his way through this year’s rather abysmal Hugo shortlist over at Nerds of a Feather.
A Fantastical Librarian interviewed Yoon Ha Lee about his new space opera, Ninefox Gambit.
At Tor.com, Katherine Langrish has some thoughts on writing meaningful fantasy.
Jim C. Hines takes a look at what it would look like if we women were written they same way men are: Part One, Part Two.
Justine Larbelestier has some advice on writing POC protagonists as a white writer.
Brandon Sanderson is posting his lectures on writing online.
Meanwhile, these new illustrations for Frankenstein are lovely.
If you’re interested in the horror genre more generally, you must check out A History of Horror on Vimeo:
“Watch Game of Thrones with Leslie Jones” has been added to my (and no doubt lots of other folks’) bucket lists.
Apparently women in the UK are only just now allowed to participate in professional jousting events.
Book Riot lists 100 Must-Read Books of Speculative Fiction in Translation.
Hot on the heels of word that Hulu is doing The Handmaid’s Tale comes the news that Netflix is adapting Margaret Atwood’s historical novel, Alias Grace.
HBO released a first trailer for their upcoming SF show, Westworld, which is making me rethink my plan to cancel my HBO Now subscription now that Game of Thrones is over:
The first trailer for The Girl With All the Gifts was also released this week. I haven’t read the book, but the movie looks excellent:
SF Bluestocking 