Category: Writing
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leaving spaces for her readers to fill: Diana Wynne Jones as worldbuilder
I have talked a fair bit recently about building futures (and ways of futuring) that are open, and it looks like I’m going to be talking about it a lot more in times to come. It’s an idea that I’m very committed to, but I’m also aware that it comes very much from the creative…
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a tool, not a rule: thoughts on technique and worldbuilding
I’m off the the Netherlands next week, to give a couple of talks and run a workshop based on (among other things) the Magrathea Protocol essay. One of these events is public, so if you’re in or near Utrecht on Thursday 21st September (3pm to 5pm), why not come along and ask me awkward questions?…
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The Plastic Ocean Pirates ride again
The ToC dropped last week, so I figure I can safely announce that I have a story in Jared Shurin’s Big Book of Cyberpunk, the USian edition of which is released on September 24th, with a UK edition to follow some time next year. “Los Piratas del Mar de Plastico” was commissioned by Chairman Bruce…
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an era of simplistic interpretations
Another drive-by quote post: here’s Lincoln Michel discussing surrealism and, more broadly, the interpretation of art. A bit from near the end: We live in an era of simplistic interpretations where across the political spectrum people expect art to be some kind of moral instruction. If something is unreal, it must be straightforward allegory and…
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something you get a gold star on
There’s a little aside in the last few paragraphs of Joanne McNeil’s latest newsletter which manages to totally nail something otherwise rather nebulous about contemporary fiction, a thing that I’ve been struggling to articulate clearly. After a re-read of China Miéville’s The City & the City, Jo wonders: Where are the writers with edges? I…