Dialog, Patois: If It’s Good Enough for Anthony Burgess, It’s Good Enough For You
Tonya Liburd dives into why patois is praised in some novels and disparaged in others.
A Special Kind of Gaze: Meta-Representation in Science Fiction
Over the next few years I would come to realize that science fiction and fantasy were uniquely festooned with such checklists, tabulations, indexes, enumerations, catalogs, and bibliographies.
Sex Is Great, But Have You Ever Seen Your Real-Life Relationship Depicted in Fiction?
Does every plot require a romantic angle? Nicole Kornher-Stace examines why so many unnecessary relationships are shoehorned into stories.
The Enduring Ensorcellment of King Arthur
Oddly, the one character who absolutely bores me? Merlin. Whether depicted as a real wizard, a Druid, a mystic, or simply a man with more sense than most, Merlin is, without a doubt, a failure.
Telling Stories of Ghosts
I spent three or four years giving every dead creature I found in our yard or along our narrow country road a proper burial. Instead of joining Girl Scouts or 4H, I devoured books about ghosts and the undead. Instead of becoming horse crazed, as so many second- and third-grade girls do, I developed a passion for war, weapons, and Romantic poetry. I eschewed pink for a palette of all-black.
Jimi Hendrix Sang It
Until only recently, the World Fantasy Award, both the winner’s trophy and the nomination pins, were a bust of the author H.P. Lovecraft. Howard Phillips Lovecraft, someone who clearly had zero compunctions against being the worst he could be under the most specious of excuses, is well-known for pointedly toxic, virulent racism.
Trapped In Stories
Stories are good; stories are dangerous. We know this, if from nothing else, then from stories themselves. Stories save Scheherazade; stories drive Don Quixote mad. How do we tell the difference?
Story-Less: A Forethought
The text came in the evening: a colleague I’d met at a business meeting four days before my symptoms started had tested positive for COVID-19.
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