Category: News and Editorials
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Challenges Facing Chinese Literature, Sci-Fi in the Trump Era…
Chinese literature still facing challenges reaching broader audience overseas (Global Times) While China boasts a good amount of best-selling authors, only a few of them have managed to make any headway in English-speaking countries. Besides Mai, Galaxy Award and Hugo Award winner Liu Cixin and Nobel Literature Prize winner Mo Yan, there are not many…
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Harry Potter turns 20, Queer South Asian Fiction, and more…
It’s Pride Month, and here are five queer South Asian speculative stories to raise a toast (Scroll.in) The speculative fiction community has progressed right along, and it’s hard to find a science fiction or fantasy story these days that is openly homophobic in its plot or insinuation. And it’s not only the foreign or white…
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Queer Writers, Women’s Voices and the Future of Sci-Fi…
The Women’s Prize for Fiction: Why female voices matter more than ever (The Telegraph) Yet this is surely what we need now more than ever – female protagonists who are blunt and sassy; snarky but strong. Characters who are not necessarily likeable or even admirable, but entirely themselves without any inhibitions. And that means rescuing overlooked…
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Dystopian Fiction, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Comic Books…
A Golden Age of Dystopian Fiction (New Yorker) Dystopias follow utopias the way thunder follows lightning. This year, the thunder is roaring. But people are so grumpy, what with the petty tyrants and such, that it’s easy to forget how recently lightning struck. “Whether we measure our progress in terms of wiredness, open-mindedness, or optimism,…
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TV Binging and Conservatives Killing Literature…
Blurring the lines between fiction and reality (The Straits Times) Recently, I interviewed an imaginary character. This was Geronimo Stilton, journalist and author, who has penned more than 100 books for young children about his travels to ancient Egypt, the kingdom of fantasy, back in time, too many places to count. He is also a fictional…
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#ThingsOnlyWomenWritersHear, Queer Graphic Novels, and more…
How a self-published author inspired by Stephen King knocked his idol from the top spot on Amazon (CNBC) It was King who first inspired Jones to try writing. “He was, I think, probably the single reason that I started writing, to be honest,” Jones tells CNBC. “He’s definitely a role model.” So it felt almost surreal…
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Climate Fiction, Arabic Science Fiction, and more…
Arabic Science Fiction for Teens Ajwan (Oye! Times) Impressing young adults is a difficult undertaking, and Noura Al Noman admirably attempts to reach teen Arabic readers with Ajwan, almost certainly the first contemporary Arabic science fiction novel for young adults out of the Emirates. Gender gap in fiction writing is shrinking, but women still seek recognition (The…
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Whitewashing Book Covers, Actors Publishing Fiction, and more…
Australian science fiction authors feel let down by local publishers (ABC News Australia) While the overall Australian publishing scene is robust, Australian science fiction writers believe their work is not being adequately supported by the industry. “It’s quite difficult to get a science fiction novel published by an Australian publisher,” says Cat Sparks, a publisher…
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The Rise of Sci-Fi in China, Inclusive Writing, and more…
How China Became a Sci-Fi Powerhouse (Foreign Policy) In its early days, Chinese sci-fi was merely the side project of a cohort of internet-based writers and fans. Today, China’s twist on the genre is hovering up international awards and attracting serious commercial interest from Chinese production companies. It is an astonishing transformation that tracks the…
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Too Many Superheroes, Trump’s Making America Read Again…
Can The Industry Survive On Superheroes? Retailers, Publishers Talk Genre Diversity (Newsorama) But decades later, the majority of comic books shipped each week to comic book stores are still the ones starring Marvel and DC heroes. And now that the film industry seems to be in the midst of a love affair with superheroes, the…
Waking Writer 