Thinkythoughts

If Tolkien Were…

/ 37 Comments / Interview, The Industry, Thinkythoughts / By

Didn’t mention this here ’til now because I wanted to think about it a bit, though those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook probably saw it already. But anyway, last week I had an interview with columnist/critic Laura Miller from Salon, who talked with me and David Anthony Durham on the recent incursions of people of color into epic fantasy — which as she noted is a traditionally very Eurocentric sort of bastion. The interview was a lot of fun and the resulting article is phenomenal; she made me sound much more coherent than I actually am […]

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Must Epic Fantasy Be Set in the Past?

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Happy post-Labor-Day, for you Americans out there. I spent the weekend relaxing with friends, eating peaches and drinking peach-flavored wine, and writing — blissfully writing. ::happy sigh:: It’s been awhile since I could write as much as I wanted. Felt really good. Anyway. Earlier this weekend (starting September 3), I inadvertently provoked a sprawling discussion on Twitter by wondering out loud, “Does fantasy have to be set in the past, or use bygone technology?” It was a good convo — included reviewers like Niall Harrison and Rose Fox, as well as fellow writers Justine Larbalestier and Nnedi Okorafor. Go check

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Reading outside the lines

/ 29 Comments / Appearances, Conventions and Workshops, Thinkythoughts / By

Just flew in from Reno, and boy are — ::slaps self:: Sorry. Punchy from the jetlag, hangover, sleeping on airplanes, and oxygen deprivation. Just got back from Worldcon, which was in the quite lovely town of Reno, Nevada. Unfortunately it was in an unlovely series of spread-out, smoke-filled, noisy-with-many-blinky-lights casino hotels, which I might’ve enjoyed more if I was a gambler or a smoker. I’m neither, so I spent much of the weekend trying to fend off sensory overload, watering eyes, and potential emphysema. (On a completely different level, I can’t help but admire the social engineering of casinos like

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Considering Colonialism

/ 35 Comments / 100K, On Writing, Thinkythoughts / By

A few years back, I read a great anthology: So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Meehan. Having not really started studying historical analysis or the impact of colonialism back then, I wasn’t entirely clear on what “postcolonial” meant. “Colonial” I got, since as a longtime fan of SFF I’d read scenario after scenario of stories about people from one society establishing beachheads in another, whether as invaders or friendlier visitors. But what was the “post” part all about? Reading the definition didn’t really bring it home… but that anthology did. In

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The Limitations of Womanhood in Fantasy (and everywhere else, but for now, fantasy)

/ 51 Comments / On Writing, Thinkythoughts / By

One of my favorite manga is a shoujo (girls’) comedy serial called Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge (YNS), sold in the US as The Wallflower. Now, the Japanese title has a more complex meaning than a phrase like “the wallflower” can encompass, in part because it’s referencing a phrase that’s fairly esoteric to Japanese culture — the idea of quintessential Japanese womanhood, or the yamato nadeshiko spirit. But the story itself is fairly simple: four hot guys are offered the chance by an eccentric millionaire to live in a stunning mansion, rent-free — but in exchange, they have to transform her ugly-duckling

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Locus Roundtable on, er, Me

/ 1 Comment / 100K, Awards, Interview, Natter, On Writing, Review, Shorts, Thinkythoughts / By

Locus, that nice magazine that just gave me a big shiny award, also does other cool things. Who knew? Like, they have a series called Roundtables, in which they ask a bunch of writers, reviewers, and other literary folk to chat about a particular work or topic. And — starting before the award, actually — they decided to talk about me. Disclosure: I’m on the Roundtable list, but I obviously bowed out of this conversation. So a couple of the folks there have met me in real life, one (Rachel Swirsky) knows me quite well, and the rest I only

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Go#$%!$ Hollywood!

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YOU CAN’T DO THAT. YOU CAN’T TELL A NUANCED, COMPLEX, INTERESTING STORY ABOUT BIGOTRY AND USE BIGOTRY TO DO IT. YOU WILL SHOOT YOUR OWN MESSAGE IN THE FOOT AND RUIN AN OTHERWISE EXCELLENT MOVIE. DOES THIS NOT OCCUR TO YOU? ARE YOU INCAPABLE OF THINKING FOR TWO MINUTES DURING THE SCRIPTWRITING? DO YOU JUST NOT SEE THAT SAYING “RACISM IS BAD” DOESN’T WORK IF YOU’RE PERPETUATING IT YOURSELF?! WHAT THE EVERLIVING HELL — ?! ::Stops. Takes deep, calming breath. Goes for bike ride, reads something, seeks the peace within herself, etc.:: Okay. Let’s try that again. I went to

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Some points of general interest.

/ 13 Comments / Controversies, Thinkythoughts / By

This is not addressed to anyone in particular, though it is triggered by a comment or two — not necessarily negative ones, if you’re wondering, mostly just perplexing ones — that I’ve seen or heard in places, about me and mine. And me being the kind of girl who points at the giant stinking elephant in the room and says, Dear gods, what is that thing? — well, I felt the need to explain: 1. My editor did not know I was black when she bought my novel. She found out the first time we met in person — after

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An anecdote

/ 19 Comments / Thinkythoughts, WTF World? / By

Been sort of vaguely following the whole kerfuffle over that dumbass article on fantasy over at the NY Times. (I mean “dumbass” in the most respectful way.) I’m not particularly upset about it because ignorant bigotry rarely upsets me; it’s the bigotry of the supposedly knowledgeable that I find more dangerous. And this is bigotry, for all that we’ll probably use a less inflammatory phrase for it, like “genre snobbery” or whatever. The thoughtless, irrational, overly-generalized adherence to a set of wrong beliefs about a whole group of people is always bigotry. It’s worse when those beliefs cause the believer

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