I start probably half of my conversations by saying, “I heard on a podcast…” Recently, I listened to an episode of No Stupid Questions called Why do we forget so much of what we’ve read? It featured the regular hosts, psychologist Angela Duckworth and economist Stephen Dubner, discussing the extent to which they have forgotten details — and even major plot points — from some of their very favorite books. When the titular question was Read more…
Growing up, I was almost unconsciously tracked into the same advanced classes as all of the other little girls — English, social studies, art. I loved it. I thrived. And clearly, because I’m blogging about my life and thoughts in advance of a book release, I am an artist, in whatever sense of the word you like. But as a child, the world taught me that’s all I was. I could not be an artist Read more…
I lived in Silicon Valley for five years before I realized it was an actual valley. You can see it on any topographical map, or even a roadmap if you note where the roads go windy and understand that means there are hills. I should have noticed sooner. But it seems like a flat place, a small place, forgotten and the center of the universe at the same time. The whole Bay Area is rimmed Read more…
Contemplating dystopia in 2020, part 4 — 2021!! Happy New Year! As I look back on this very strange year, I think of some bad puns (hindsight is 2020, anyone?), but mostly I wonder at how we have, and haven’t, coped. Books are the ultimate form of escapism. They temporarily immerse us in a different world, where things are better than they really are, or at least different. They replace our problems with someone else’s Read more…
Contemplating dystopia in 2020, part 3 In dystopian fiction — indeed, in any fiction — I am interested in the act of surviving itself, not the triumph we hope it’ll lead to. Sometimes characters won’t win, and that doesn’t make their fight unworthy. The same is true of our real lives. I’ve long felt this way, but I didn’t fully grapple with it until reading Ta Nehisi Coates’ essays about the Obama years, collected in Read more…
Contemplating dystopia in 2020, part 2 When the worst happens, humans don’t become monsters. We don’t turn on each other. All of human history has been about community, or at least I prefer to read it that way. I’m not interested in stories that uphold the Great Man Theory of history; I’m interested in stories that explore how people survive and manipulate the world around them, whether they’re experiencing war or disaster or anything else. Read more…
Sometimes this year has felt like the opening scenes to a disaster film. I’m far from the first person to make this observation, or to joke about the 2020 showrunners being overzealous in their writing. I mean, those murder hornets in the first act showing up briefly in the headlines again right before the big election? Or the deciding Senate races in that election being pushed off to the opening salvo of Season 2021, rather Read more…