Welcome back to World Wide Wednesday! Any of the regular readers of WWW will know that every now and again there is a week’s break from the post: I should explain that it will most often fall on the first week of a month since I am an accountant and work increased hours, hence finding it hard to fit in extra-curricular activities.
I’m going to stop blathering now, and give you this week’s ten items of interest (at least to me!)
1) Nanowrimo
Those in the know will already recognise that this stands for National Novel Writing Month. This takes place every November, and offers the opportunity to join many thousands of others in the crazy endeavour of attempting to write a novel in a month – that is, 50,000 words! As long as you write 1,667 words every day in November, you will hit the target. Authors (such as Nicole Peeler) also use this month to romp through the first draft of a new novel. It is entirely mad, but extremely good fun!
2) Announcing ConJour 2011
This is a link for the British readers amongst you – I know there are some! Next March a new SF convention is coming your way – ConJour 2011. It is to be held in Leeds, and confirmed authors include Mark Charan Newton, Mike Carey, Kate Griffin, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Justina Robson and Freda Warrington. Check out the website for further details.
3) A new editor!
At World Fantasy Con last weekend Strange Horizons won a World Fantasy Award – but now it is all change at the helm. Niall Harrison (formerly features editor of Vector) has taken over as editor-in-chief. Congratulations Niall!
4) What is….?
It has been a celebration of steampunk over at the home of the Mad Hatter and, as part of this, he asked authors and reveiwers their opinion of what constituted steampunk. What do you recognise steampunk to be?
5) Six Word Stories
Over at my home away from Fantasy Literature, Tor.com have been having a little bit of fun – first asking for six word fantasy stories and then for six word sci fi stories. Some of these were extremely clever! How about coming up with some of your own and leaving them in our comments?
6) What is better than the Lord of the Rings?
Well, according to SF Signal, quite a few things! Their latest Mind Meld talks about those fantasy books and series that people believe are better than The Lord of the Rings – do you agree with the choices?
7) Dark Fiction Magazine
I bring you news today of a new online magazine for dark fiction – dealing with narrated short stories by some of the greats of recent horror novels.
8) Ms Maura Kelly
Now this one makes me steaming mad – and also proud that Babbling About Books was brave enough to tell us her own, deeply personal experience on the matter. Ms Maura Kelly wrote an article for Marie Claire called “Should Fatties Get a Room” and Katiebabs responded admirably in her own article: This Fattie Is Not Amused.
9) Intimidation
The lovely Mieneke wrote a post about Reader Intimidation, asking if you are ever intimidated – either by genius authors such as China Mieville, or by classic books that EVERYONE seems to have read. What form does your intimidation take?
10) Wert’s Essay Corner
Recently Adam from The Wertzone has started to write essays concerning the state of fantasy today – they are all worth a read. His latest is entitled “Roleplaying, the Malazan Book of the Fallen and Cliches.“
That Maura Kelly article made me so mad. It also made me want to grab all my fat friends and go fatly snuggle at her. AGGGH! THE HUMANITY!!!
I’m NaNoing this year, mostly to get myself back into the swing of writing and to enjoy the community aspect. My novel is kind of intentionally awful, but I need to get back into the habit of daily writing and I think this will help. I’ve NaNo’d several times before, and finished a novel in (I think) 2004.
Maura Kelly’s post was insensitive and the response to it was overwhelming. She has updated it with a sincere apology. Sometimes when we speak from the heart, evil-sounding stuff comes out. Fortunately, she was humble enough to admit this and to apologize. I don’t think she meant to be hurtful — she is just clueless about how overweight people might feel about her remarks.
One of the problems with the internet: We can spout our righteous-seeming personal opinions for the entire world to read and then it’s too late to retract them when someone alerts us that we’re being insensitive idiots.
Clueless, and also speaking from her own issues; she battled an eating disorder in her own life. So I think it’s a really loaded issue for her.
You’re right; the Internet means that lots of us can spew rants all over the place and they never really go away.