As part of my MFA funding, I teach composition and a breakout creative writing workshop. In these classes, one of my goals is to read and discuss with my students work by voices they aren’t familiar with—in other words, not white male middle/upper class writers. While I want my students to become better writers, my […]
National news outlets have been touting the rise in sales of George Orwell’s 1984. My Twitter and Facebook feeds have been sprinkled with comments about how it was time to reread the dystopian classic, particularly after “alternative facts” became a thing. People are following through with this desire to read 1984, according to the New […]
Over the years, I’ve been embarrassed about my top ten favorite books, particularly the top five. The list changes every few years at the discovery of a new author or a favorite book, but my top five are pretty cemented: J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Neil Gaiman, William Faulkner, and Brian Jacques. Sometimes, […]
Are you in the mood for a good scare this Halloween? How about some female horror writers to digest with your candy cache? And what can be better than a day to dress up in costume and read female authored spec lit? Female authored horror short stories of course. Here’s a list of stories you can pick […]
Last semester, I had a conversation with a professor who, after expressing her dislike of Octavia Butler, stated that it was a shame that no women of color wrote science fiction and fantasy. I felt stunned, my brain scrambling to list names, though it, of course, failed me. As soon as I left her office, […]
The conversation on diversity in literature focuses on children’s books and young adult books. One of the most prevalent promoters of diverse literature is the We Need Diverse Books campaign. Their mission: Putting more books featuring diverse characters into the hands of all children. A beautiful, simple and necessary mission statement. If children see themselves […]
Happy birthday, Octavia Butler (1947-2006)! Her novels, novellas and short stories have won Nebula Awards and Hugo Awards, a MacArthur grant and others. A woman of color writing science fiction in a male and white dominated genre, Butler cannot be matched for her refusal to accept the world as it is. I was attracted to […]
If you’re looking for a new and clever way to announce you’re a feminist try this trick: “Hi! I’m looking for book recommendations, but this year I’m only reading books by women and non cis men. Have any suggestions?” In reading books by women for a year, I’m taking after Lilit Marcus who committed to […]
