Community News

"joanne mcneil – author of “lurking” – suggested this panel and it was a wonderful one: claire l. evans with a history of women who worked on the foundation of the internet and continue to shape it , a deep critique of the attention economy by jenny odell and a delicious satire of dystopian tropes that jonathan lethem somehow manages to deliver in both hysterical and mindful tones= my week in reading was a delightful one! enjoy the conversation:" Read more on the blog.

"a panel of 4 published authors that are also active second life residents: jessika jenvieve, lori alden holuta, first time novelist ana valladares rubi also known as ruby geek in our circles and of course r. jacques aka gospeedraser. that is what is on the menu today: a talk about world building, marketing, craft, inspiration, specific to a subset of writers who are native to our wonderful universe." Read more on the blog.

"the indie publisher the parliament house press bills itself via their website as a place where authors are helped to produce “brilliantly bizzare” stories and i have to agree after devouring 3 books from their vast catalogue." Read more on the blog.

"eliot peper came to “town” [or the club?] to discuss his analog trilogy [bandwidth, borderless and breach]. in a bit over 60 minutes we of course could only scratch the surface of the intersection of big ideas in fiction and imagining them being applied to the “real world”. enjoy the conversation with this profilic and refreshingly independent author." Read more on the blog.

"courttia newland appeared on my radar via twitter recommendation and i could not believe that his ouevre [books, tv work, plays] had escaped me prior? maybe it was good to start with the super ambitious “a river called time” and then work backwards because sprawling, unapologetically non-compliant to genre expectations, epic, time/identiy/history challenging narrative is – as listeners know – totally my thing, so: enjoy a wideranging conversation and pick up that book!" Read more on the blog.

"a poet, a novelist, a short story writer, an author of so many wonderful words and sentences and paragraphs that become coherent in their chosen form, including children’s books and a newspaper column that unearths wisdom even in somewhat pedestrian topics such as road closures." Read more on the blog.

"today on the show czech writer julie novakova, prolific crafter of short stories, novels in her native language, translations from czech into english of amazing talent from her home country, mother, scientist, advocate of educational outreach and most importantly = a connossieur of pan tau." Read more on the blog.

"Today on the show: heidi james. and yes: i discovered her via twitter. as much as i despise algorithmically driven “social” media, i have to say it works in the sense of “you have ordered from influx press before, you may like bluemoose books & specifically heidi because her fictional mothers are quite evil!”" Read more on the blog.

"samit basu is on the show today. he has a thing for ducks although he really does not know why but at least he knows how to write awesome speculative fiction that is relevant to the current moment in indian society, comic books and bollywood movie scripts …. enjoy:" Read more on the blog.

"prolific writer and editor nick mamatas is on the show today. we have readings, performed by otherworldly entities, we discuss craft and process and we devise a plan how to deal with “problematic” authors … ok, racist authors and one in particular whose work has changed popular culture forever." Read more on the blog.

"it was the last book club in 2020 and the community came together to say farewell to a tough one all the while celebrating the wonderful art of the written word. enjoy the conversation featuring some community voices and “vip” guests who dropped in plus a look at the amazing gallery of floating books built by arietu! may 2021 be a fruitful reading year:" Read more on the blog.

"anna vaught is a writer, poet, educator and mental health activist. her prose is exquisite and her “saving lucia” [to mr. drax anyway] is an ode to imagination. locked up and forgotten in a mental asylum in the 1950s, a group of women embark around lady violet gibson [who tried to kill italian fascist leader benito mussolini in 1926] on an exploration of creativity and as a they free their minds, will their body follow? we also discuss anna’s most recent collection of short stories “famished”, which some call [ok drax does!] a “vicious attack on the beauty of communal feasting” … enjoy a nourishing meal dished out by a talking trifle:" read more on the blog.

"jeffrey ford has won tons of awards and his work has been translated into over 20 languages. jeffrey teaches, questions his own talent, is funny as heck and his stories are just boiling over with good prose and imagination. draxtor is appaled that this man is not a household name in germany so the agenda ’21 is clear: make jeffrey great in deutschland! enjoy the conversation:" Read more on the blog.

"two australian authors on the show today: cat sparks and james bradley, both dealing in their fiction with the climate crises [yes, the one that should have us most definitely a bit more concerned than most mainstream media reporting suggests, especially in regards to humans accelerating it and the impact it has on our as well as future generations …]" Read more on the blog.

"anne griffin‘s “when all is said” is a powerful meditation on the nature of the beauty and pain of human existence: a 84-year old irish man who came to riches from his poor farming background reflects on opportunities missed, mistakes made, relationships cherished and lost and all the obsessive grudges that he now realizes drove him to miss several chances to be kind and heal old wounds." Read more on the blog.

"today two writers from south asia, also friends and colleagues as well as warriors in the battle for acceptance by the indian/sri lankan publishing world for the great talent that they are plus for respect of the genre they choose to “dabble” in: yudhanja wijeratne and indrapramit das write fascinating speculative fiction, scifi, fantastical sprawling fairy tales and everything in between in their refreshingly unique voices. today we talk a lot about books, the creative process, paralyzing covid anxiety and ai poetry, however we touch very little on the relationship between politics, activism and art" Read more on the blog.

"patricia murphy writes about the history of ireland [her books are published in the “hands on history” series by poolbeg] and she does not shy away from “exposing” her young readers to the violent past of their country." Read more on the blog.

"we learned a lot about jules rivera this last book club [and we also learned what a neckbeard is btw!]" Read more on the blog.

"molly flatt is in the house, author, journalist, editor at the bookseller, she brought an umbrella, a spectacularly ambitious, genre-defying and quite magical debut novel and a lot of opinions on publishing, creativity and everything else. even a short crash of second life did not stop the conversation so prepare for plenty food for thought [holding you over for next week we are sure!]" Read more on the blog.

"i discovered a new writer and he is not that new but i am very slow and my to-read stack still contains tons of mandatory german classics my late mother has forced on me, way back during my teen years … [wish i had a time machine to mark those as read]" Read more on the blog.

"author and activist cory doctorow is back with a grand new book and he is also back in second life! as some audience members during the book club stream observed: his account aka rez day is from 2005" Read more on the blog.

"a wonderful show [and i know i say this every week!] with two non-humanoid creatures at the second life book club: katharine duckett as centaur and chana porter as mermaid." Read more on the blog.

"it is living legend, grandmaster of scifi, prolific – yet retired – teacher, painter, writer joe haldeman and he is back in virtual world reality [you recall he was in sansar before don’t you?] & we dive deep into all aspects of his creative life!" Read more on the blog.

"margi preus is guest on the show today. the taping with her from wednesday’s second life book club covers many aspects of her work for young adults but specifically the current novel “village of scoundrels” set in nazi-occupied europe and could not be more timely!" Read more on the blog.

"will wiles is in the house. his books, starting with his debut “care of wooden floors” in 2012, deal with – among many other themes – our longing for authenticity in a world of increasing homogenous conformity. will’s stories reveal the the horror of everyday tasks like caring for someone else’s cats or trying to remove a stray plastic bag from a backyard tree and they [the stories!] do so via delicious prose." Read more on the blog.