The Clarion Writer's Workshop is generally considered to be the leading training ground for science fiction and fantasy writers. Not that I'm biased — I attended the program myself in 2013, where I honed my chops under the mentorship of established writers like Cory Doctorow, who attended the program himself when he was younger. — Read the rest
In 1923, experts took a stab at making predictions about what life would be like in 100 years. These predictions included four-hour workdays, women with shaved heads, and a complete lack of ugly people. Paul Fairie, a researcher at the University of Calgary, compiled 100-year-old newspaper clippings with such predictions and added them to a now-viral Twitter thread. — Read the rest
— Read the rest"Black Speculative Art is a creative, aesthetic practice that integrates African diasporic worldviews with science or technology and seeks to interpret, engage, design or alter reality for the re-imagination of the past, the contested present, and to act as a catalyst for the future.
I've written about the work of artist and composer, Noah Wall, on Boing Boing before (here and here). In his latest project, Speech Patterns, Noah derives music from the rhythm, tone, and timbre of the human voice using source material including the voices of Octavia Butler, Michel Foucault, a cattle auctioneer, people speaking in tongues, and ASMR. — Read the rest
Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower was originally published in 1993, as the first part of a planned dystopian trilogy that she would not live to complete. Set in the mid-to-late 2020s, the book tells the story of Lauren Olamina, a Black teenager who is gifted (or cursed) with "hyper-empathy syndrome," which makes her feel other peoples' pleasure and pain. — Read the rest
Financial services company Robinhood hired Collins to design its new brand identity. The illustrations Collins commissioned as part of its world-building exercises are beautiful and obviously heavily inspired by the late cartoonist Mœbius.
From Collins:
— Read the rest[From] a visual design perspective, the illustration system really takes center stage.
I first learned of Philadelphia Printworks because of a sweatshirt they designed for the Brooklyn Museum's showing of Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963–1983, an absolutely essential exhibition of black artists' work at the intersection of activism, empowerment, and cultural pride. — Read the rest
Here's 28 of our favorites from the last year – not all of them published in the last year, mind you – from fairy-tales to furious politics and everything in between, including the furious fairy-tale politics getting between everything. The links here include Amazon Affiliate codes; this helps us make ends meet at Boing Boing, the world's greatest neurozine. — Read the rest
The MacArthur Foundation has announced its 2018 Fellows (AKA the "MacArthur Genius Prize winners"), a list of 25 remarkable people from all disciplines, including the incomparable Kelly Link (previously), who joins other science fiction writers who won the prize, including Octavia Butler and Jonathan Lethem. — Read the rest
The latest Humble Bundle features dozens of Nebula-winning and Nebula-nominated novels and short stories from past and present, everyone from Octavia Butler and Ursula K Leguin to Samuel Delany and John Brunner, to say nothing of Kate Wilhelm, Joanna Russ, and four titles from Serial Box.
The BBC has published a long and welcome feature on Afrofuturism, the term coined by former Boing Boing guestblogger Mark Dery to describe (in the words of Steve Barnes) "science fiction, fantasy and horror created by or featuring the children of the African diaspora (people of African origin living outside of the continent)."
Here's this year's complete Boing Boing Gift Guide: dozens of great ideas for stocking stuffers, brain-hammers, mind-expanders, terrible toys, badass books and more. Where available, we use Amazon Affiliate links to help keep the world's greatest neurozine online.
The Freemasons. Fight Club. The Bilderberg Group. The Illuminati. The Watcher's Council. The Knights Templar. The Order of the Phoenix.
Bookburners, out now from Saga Press, is about a team of experts trying to keep magic from breaking out all over the world. — Read the rest
The instructors for this summer's Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy writers' workshop are Dan Chaon, Lynda Barry, Nalo Hopkinson, Andrea Hairston, Cory Doctorow, C.C. Finlay and Rae Carson: the workshop runs from Jun 25-Aug 5 at UCSD in La Jolla, California.
Kameron "Geek Feminist Revolution" Hurley notes that writers like Octavia Butler crafted stories that feel eerily prescient of our present moments with books like Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents — but not because they were fortune tellers, but because trumpism — corrupt confiscation of wealth, overbroad policing powers, discriminatory hiring practices, impunity for violent abusers — has been a daily fact of life for brown people, women and queer people.
A guide to the charities we support in our own annual giving.
NAACP founder WEB Du Bois wasn't just a committed, effective activist for the rights of black people in America: he was also a prolific author of early 20th century science fiction and fantasy stories.
Ghost writes, "The Octavia Project, named for Octavia Butler, is a project 98% funded at Indigogo, with only a few days left. Helping them get over the top would be great, and the more they raise, the more girls they help. — Read the rest
Can science fiction be a form of social activism? Walidah Imarisha thinks so, and she's recruited everyone from LeVar Burton to Mumia Abu-Jamal to help her prove it.
Here's a guide to the charities the Boingers support in our own annual giving. As always, please add the causes and charities you give to in the forums!
