'Blog' Category
Three Vassar Girls Abroad
While I was doing research for a seminar paper a few weeks ago, I came across an 1880s girls’ fiction series that depicts the adventures of “three Vassar girls” as they explore the intellectual delights of Europe, South America, and beyond. I’ve only just begun the first book, Three Vassar Girls Abroad, and it’s just [...]
Zoot the Cat and His Miracle Kidneys of Power
I’ve been meaning to write this up for quite awhile as another data point for people whose cats are sick, and I’m sure that my desire to concentrate on our veterinary success story while we’re waiting (and waiting) to find out my mother’s cancer prognosis is a pretty obvious case of transference, but it’s good [...]
Family update
My mom got to have Christmas at home after spending three days in the ICU. Lab results from the biopsy conflicted with the surgeon’s diagnosis of thymoma, so a specialist team from an oncology lab looked at the results, but we don’t know their findings yet. Tomorrow, she sees her oncologist proper for the first [...]
Then You Get a Biopsy
This post is personal—as personal as it gets. For the next weeks and months, I will be writing periodically about my mother’s experience with a cancer diagnosis. I won’t be going into a lot of medical detail, but I certainly understand if most of you—colleagues, friends, family members, and strangers—want to skip this stuff. We’re [...]
In the Midst of Life
When I was a kid, my mother built a barn, trained quarter horses, maintained miles of fence, and did all the other countless things required for the maintenance of a working farm. She’s in her late sixties now, and is still managing major home renovations, raising border collies, and running a business with five employees. [...]
Readercon 20 Report, Pt II
There’s been some debate, online, about the format of both this and next years’ programming, and about the hierarchical nature of the con, and so on. (Here are two thoughtful posts at the opposite ends of that particular spectrum.) As a Readercon n00b, I don’t have much to add except to say that I’m a [...]
Readercon 20 Report, Pt I
Readercon 20 was my first, and my first con of any kind in about ten years. The list of this year’s guests of honor—Elizabeth Hand, Greer Gilman, and Hope Mirrlees—made my decision to go very easy. (It would be difficult to understate the influence of Elizabeth Hand’s work on my fiction, Hope Mirrlees’ novel Lud-in-the-Mist [...]
Excessive Candour, rescued
If, like me, you’ve been distressed at the disappearance of John Clute’s years of Excessive Candour columns from the web in the wake of SciFi.com’s idiotic, deck-chair rearranging rebranding to “Syfy”—or if you’ve simply never had the pleasure of reading through Clute’s extraordinarily literate and witty book reviews—I have some links for you, courtesy of [...]
Reviving a zombie blog
Turns out that if it’s been three years and two web host moves since you last logged into your Movable Type blog, things are likely to be a bit ahoo when you finally return. I got back from Readercon earlier this week and wanted to write a post or two about it, but that simple [...]
Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City
Kiki Strike: Into the Shadow City, by Kirsten Miller
