Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Sword is my pick for first.
Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor puts me in a quandary as to which book should be second place.
Have bookbag, will travel |
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For me, the Hugo is an award that says a book is fabulous, shows me something new and different, blows my mind with magic, technology, setting, culture and/or concept and above all make it accessible, immediate and visceral. I need to be able to fall into the world, into the character without feeling hitches and jerks and I need to feel deeply connected to the characters and their plight.
Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Sword is my pick for first. Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor puts me in a quandary as to which book should be second place.
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What book would you hand someone to get them hooked on SF/F? It's a great question isn't it?
My answer and several other writers' answers is at Novelocity. I'm guesting at Novelocity, where almost a dozen fabulous speculative fiction writers ask questions of themselves every week. You'll find their answers to questions such as: What's your idea of a perfect SF convention? How do you handle rejection? or What's the best non-English speculative fiction book you have read? Tina Connolly asked for my perspective as a librarian on the question: What book would I hand someone to get them hooked on SF/F? My perspective as a librarian is different than my perspective would be for what I enjoy personally, what I might recommend to SF/F fans, and what I would suggest to writers. So I was very excited to add to the collective suggestions of Tina, Dale Evan Smith, E.C. Ambrose, Ken Liu, Lawrence M. Schoen, Beth Cato, and Steve Bein. Their suggestions include a couple of my favorite books. Go over to Novelocity What book would you hand someone to get them hooked on SF/F? and see if you can guess which is my favorite. I recommended -- err, crammed -- 18 titles into 265 words. Hopefully there's something for every taste, though I left some categories on the editing computer's hard drive. My first draft contained 44 books in 400 words. Tina very graciously suggested that I could cut that down. (I expect she would be a little shocked to see the emails, texts to self and chicken scratched post it notes that became the sizable pile of possibles that I culled into a first draft. If I have time, I'll post my DVD extras as it were here. (I'm in the middle of three projects at work and at home this month and next so I'm not going to have time until early August.) So why are you still here reading my ramble? Zip over to Novelocity and see the post. Still, here? OK. Why don't you try to guess which of the books recommended by the authors of Novelocity that I have read and of those, which are my all time personal favorites? And you could comment here or at my Facebook. or you could just go to Novelocity and find the answer to: What book would you hand someone to get them hooked on SF/F? pera link: http://www.novelocity.org/?p=718 Washington Library Association Conference in May In May, Ann Crewdson, Donna Colamatteo, and I presented a session at the Washington Library Association's Conference. Ann and Donna are colleagues from WLA's Intellectual Freedom Interest Group.
You can download the Power Points from our session Material Challenge Aerobics from the WLA website. Here are the links:
I was looking back at 2013 at my nonfiction clips and realized today that I posted stories as they occurred on Facebook but had not posted links to links here. Yep, call me slacker.
Here's the stories I forgot to post here at Pulp and Pixels:
Right now I'm dividing my free time between thinking about a session that I'm working on with two other members of WLA's Intellectual Freedom Interest Group (IFIG) for the state conference in early May and preparing for panels at Norwescon, the regional science fiction convention in mid-April.
For WLA, I and my two fabulous IFIG colleagues will present "Material Challenge Aerobics." Basically, it's a session aimed and front-line library workers who are often the first staff members that a patron will interact with if he or she is upset about something on the library shelves. Our plan is to give participants tips and strategies about body language, vocal tone and responses that will make library works and patrons feel more comfortable in these types of situations. So If you're at the WLA conference, come to our session. It's from 10:30-11:45 a.m. Friday, May 2 and we guarantee a mental workout before lunch. Geek alert! I got my schedule for Norwescon a couple of weeks ago and found out that I'll be interviewing one of the Guests of Honor the artist Robert Gould! He's work is pretty amazing and he's best known for his illustrations and cover designs for Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone saga. He won the World Fantasy Award for Best Artist in 1991 and is credited with starting a new style of fantasy illustration. I'll also be critiquing three manuscripts for the Fairwoods Writers Workshop and participating on panels about eBooks, Steampunk, science fiction and fantasy for young readers, author's promoting their books, and rewriting and reworking stories. If you're going to be at Norwescon, don't miss my interview at 3 p.m. Friday, April 18, and don't miss the PK Dick Awards, a great evening of words and chocolate, also on Friday. I expect that I'll only have time to read a few of the nominees before April. There's at least one Northwestern writer in the group this year. I'll give you a hint, he's the one who wrote to book that is set in Seattle. If you can figure out who, post in comments. On the night of the awards, the nominees (see the list here) read from their work, and there's a huge table filled with deserts, including tons of chocolate. So load up on rich calories and listen to fabulous words. Yum! Over the past two weeks, when I have a few spare moments, I've been playing with Mozilla's Webmaker at work trying to figure out how to load photos into its Meme Maker and its Make your own Comic templates.
Mozilla's Webmaker takes the idea of Maker Space and puts it on the web. Each online project offers a split screen with the html code of the left and the preview on the right. Sort of like using Dream Weaver. The html also has tips written in. Very cool concept. I love the way the Webmaker sets these up because you need for these projects is high-speed internet access, very basic sense of html code, and for these two templates membership in an online photo sharing service, such as Instagram or Flickr, and have patience. It seems like a great way to offer make what would seem complex code to the un-techy easy to do. I thought what a fun way to introduce html coding to teens and tweens. Finding a poem This is my first attempt at finding a blackout poem in a newspaper. I used two stories from today's (Thursday, Nov. 21, 2013) New York Times to find the words that became "Divided."
Divided Sharp disagreements pleaded My story Embracing Austin, Inside and Out in Library Journal's Library By Design fall supplement on the new Austin Central Library in Texas posted Friday online.
This new library will offer some incredible features. Read about them here: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/10/buildings/lbd/embracing-austin-inside-and-out-library-by-design/. This new library looks like it will go far toward keeping Austin the awesome community that it is and of course, keeping Austin weird. My story on the Washington Library Media Association (WLMA) advocacy for teacher librarians posted Oct. 7 at School Library Journal.
I found the WLMA leaders incredibly inspiring and courageous, especially those who went outside their comfort zones and discovered new talents and skills. School librarians in the Evergreen State, like their counterparts across the United States, have faced and continue to face challenge including shrinking budgets, inaccurate perceptions of their profession and shifting education priorities. WLMA took up the mantle of the Spokane Moms, those high-energy women who descended on Olympia in 2008 and wrestled a stop-gap appropriation to help schools keep librarians. WLMA then worked to transform the teacher-librarian profession in Washington State and teacher-librarians’ approach to communicating their importance to student success. Rebecca Miller, then School Library Journal managing editor, spotted this story in January at ALA’s mid-winter conference. (She’s now editorial director for both SLJ and Library Journal.) I had thousands of words of notes from interviewing many people and wrestling the behemoth that my story had become was a tall order. Rebecca with LJ’s features editor News & Features Editor Meredith Schwartz and freelance editor/writer Sarah Bayliss made me look very good. Since early June, I’ve been working full-time for a library system in the Pacific Northwest. Since there’s only so many hours in the day, I have limited time for freelance. That means this story will be my last big freelance project for a while. Writing the WLMA story was a little bittersweet but also extremely motivating for me as a library professional. WLMA's leaders and their supporters make great suggestions that can be applied by librarians anywhere to create their own DIY advocacy movement. WLMA leaders’ message of adaption and growth (both as individuals and as a profession) resonates with me. Usually I'm the one asking the questions but the shoe was put on the other foot when Naomi House interviewed me for her website I need a Library Job.
For those who don't know of Naomi, she's built an incredible network for job seekers in the library profession and was recognized as a 2013 Mover & Shaker by Library Jounal. I joined her Linkedin group and that's how she and I connected. One of these days, I will find the time to write an article for her. Here's the link about me: http://inalj.com/?p=32951. The photo was taken by my friend Jay Lake. |
Pulp & Pixels:
An occasional blog with thoughts on words, books, tech, and of course, libraries. Obligatory disclaimer:
Pulp & Pixels reflects my (Marta Murvosh) viewpoint and does not represents the library system that I work for, the publications I freelances for, or any of the professional associations that I belongs to or have a leadership role in. Of course, if I happen to say how much any of those organizations rock, I expects there would be agreement on those points. Find my reviews of teen books at BiblioCommons , Goodreads and for a 2011 YA library services class at Murvosh Reads.
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