Space Station Mir

Book Review: Would You Rather? A Memoir of Growing Up and Coming Out by Katie Heaney * Released March 6, 2018 from Penguin Random House * Katie Heaney's second memoir expands on a "bigger truth" following her first memoir, Never Have I Ever , about never getting the guy at twenty-five. Three years later, she is happily dating her first girlfriend. Although each chapter tells a self-contained story regarding Heaney's unexpected epiphany, they build on each other and are best read in order. Heaney's writing is structured, funny, and wordy in an endearing way, like your best friend who can't wait to spill (and micro-analyze) every detail. She's undoubtedly a millenial, and references to Twitter, Instagram, and being sucked down internet rabbit holes will be familiar to readers of her generation. Heaney's late-blooming revelation isn't the answer for single girls everywhere, as she's quick to point out, but it paints an alternative narrative...

I would have no problem being a human father. Being a human mother, on the other hand, is much more complicated. Science fiction, however, offers some inspiration, and after I finished reading Becky Chambers' Galactic Commons books, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit, I   realized--I want to be an alien mother. I’ve long been impressed by the parenting solutions of science fiction. For example, the group marriage parenting in Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land , or the village parenting model in Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time . However, Heinlein’s solution problematically had only women doing the parenting, which, although it freed up some of the women to pursue careers, is marginally superior to today’s model of childcare for those who can afford it. Piercy’s solution has long seemed the most elegant to me. Get rid of women’s unique biological ability to bear children, and--voila!--goodbye gendered inequality overall, and inequali...

Just Finished: Song Yet Sung by James McBride I listened to this on audiobook, and I'm glad I did because of the atmospheric accompanying music. I've read McBride's two best-known books, The Color of Water and The Good Lord Bird , both of which I loved, especially the latter. I didn't like Song Yet Sung quite as much, mostly because it is just extremely hard to live up to  The Good Lord Bird, but I do think it's an important read for a portrait of the psychology of slavery from surprisingly diverse viewpoints. Not only are the two primary main characters, Liz and Amber, African American slaves, but there's also some viewpoints from white slaveowners and slavecatchers, and the book has a surprising amount of sympathy for them. Another interesting point for me, and others, is that the book takes place on Maryland's Eastern Shore, a mere "80 miles from freedom." Characters imagine they can see Philadelphia on a good day. It's a very particu...

Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl ! Top Ten Favorite Poets Today's a freebie for Top Ten Tuesdays, so in honor of National Poetry Month, and my recently discovered appreciation for poetry these past few years, I'm challenging myself to see if I can list ten favorite poets! Favorite Contemporary Poets 1. Najva Sol I went to high school with Najva, and her poems from my school's 2005 literary magazine are still some of my favorites. You can find some of her writing here . Though she sadly now claims to be an ex-poet, she does some awesome feminist writing here 2. Leigh Stein My mom introduced me to Leigh Stein when she thought it would be HILARIOUS to give me a copy of Stein's novel about a character moving back in with her parents after college, when I was, ahem, moving back in with my parents after college following the Great Recession. I was not a fan, BUT I recognized her name when I saw her poetry collection Dispatch from the Future ...

I've been posting less often, but I have been working on a couple of longer pieces. The first was my review of Miriam Seidel's The Speed of Clouds , which is now out! I wanted to do justice to how I felt about the protagonist, Mindy, and the world of fanfiction, and I'm glad I took the time to do that. The second is a long simmering piece inspired by Becky Chambers' fabulous Galactic Commons series that touches on an issue that's both personal and political for me. But because I care so much about what I'm writing, and about developing my writing, it takes time. Anyway, I'm still reading and writing, and I'll be back with more soon!

Book Review: The Speed of Clouds by Miriam Seidel *To Be Released from New Door Books on April 10, 2018* Mindy Vogel is haunted by the future. In frequent daydreams, she toggles between her real, wheelchair-bound life and the adventurous life of her fanfic alter ego, SkyLog officer Kat Wanderer. She's haunted by all that Kat can do which she cannot---belong to an organization of comrades, walk, and fall in love---yet. Because at twenty-four, Mindy's future is very much ahead of her, wheelchair notwithstanding. Through Mindy's "SkyLog" fanzine and related emails, Seidel evokes Star Trek fandom around the turn of the millenium, but also creates a new and compelling science fictional universe, similar to what Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl  does for the Harry Potter fandom with "Simon Snow." Mindy is among the pioneers transitioning fandom from print to digital, boldly encountering like-minded individuals from the comfort of her chair behind the monito...