This Year’s Hugo Awards Honor Diverse Authors, Shrug Off Sad Internet Campaign
N.K. Jemisin took the award for "Best Novel" for The Fifth Season.
The 2016 Hugo Awards were announced last night at MidAmeriCon II in Kansas City, MO, and after an attempt by an online group to once again derail the list of winners it was made even more satisfying when all four Hugo fiction categories were awarded to women, with two of them being women of color.
Read MoreDisability in Kidlit and the Changing Landscape of Disabilities in Books: An Interview With Corinne Duyvis
Diversity in literature has become a big topic for discussion in recent years. There’s no denying we need more of it. Author Corinne Duyvis is one of the people working to promote diverse titles and change the way we read about the world through her books and the blog she co-founded Disability in Kidlit. Recently she spoke to us about the work she’s done, her writing, and her own experience with disabilities.
Read MoreRebecca Solnit Takes on Male Literary Crybabies in “Men Explain Lolita to Me”
Rebecca Solnit knows all about mansplaining. After all, she's the one who coined the term in her now-classic 2008 essay "Men Explain Things to Me." It appears that since then, need for the term hasn't decreased at all. Men continue to explain why her opinions are wrong - treating their own tenuous opinions as fact - as she explains and illustrates in her recent essay, "Men Explain Lolita to Me."
Read MoreFemale Novelist Learns How Far a Male Pen Name Can Take Her
Answer: very.
There is a gender bias in the publishing industry. Women's writing often gets talked about differently, reviewed differently (if at all), and the content judged differently than writing by men. Of course, publishing is only one industry in which unconscious bias about names based on gender or race exists, and there have been studies done to explore this in other industries. In the case of publishing, a female novelist by the name of Catherine Nichols decided to try an experiment.
Read MoreFemale Sci-Fi Writers Nearly Sweep the 2015 Nebula Awards
Making Sad Puppies even more sad.... :(
We've been hearing a lot lately about the presence of women, or lack thereof, on various ballots in various sci-fi literary competitions, not the least of which are the Hugos. Well, so far - in spite of everything, women are well-represented among award winners this season!
Read MoreDorkly Presents 13 Literary Characters Based On Real-Life Peeps
Bonus: Muggle Snape!
It makes sense that a highly-intelligent, determined bookworm like Hermione would be based on the High Witch of Writing herself, right?
Read MoreWhy Are We Still Fighting About YA Lit?
It's more complicated than "read what you want."
Over the summer, Slate magazine's Ruth Graham ruffled some feathers by attacking the great guilty pleasure that is Young Adult Literature. The main thrust of the article involved Graham waggling her shame finger at the number of grown-ups who seemed to be stuck in Neverland—refusing to read "proper" novels in favor of the latest John Green tearfest or a dystopian sexy teen death duel.
Read MoreThings We Saw Today: New Star Wars Writer and Director Meet the Big Boss
Things We Saw Today
Things We Saw Today: Game Of Thrones “Guess Who?”
Things We Saw Today
Gather ‘Round, Bibliophiles, For A Crash Course on Jane Eyre [Video]
This Exists... Because of A Lady
Reader, if you would enjoy nothing better than to spend an evening debating feminist themes in Victorian literature, then this is the video (and likely, the comment thread) for you. In this episode of Crash Course, host John Green picks apart Charlotte Brontë's masterwork, including her personal history, the plot of the novel, and the tip of the interpretive iceberg. Go make some popcorn.
Read MoreA Literary Dissection of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein [Video]
Aside from offering plenty of chewy goodness on the history and themes of one of the most influential novels ever written, this episode of Crash Course reaffirms my desire to make a giant chart of personal relationships between historical figures of note. Prior to this video, I was unaware that Mary Shelley's stepsister had an affair with Lord Byron (Ada Lovelace's father, for those keeping score). And I'm with John Green on this one -- Shelley could write a sentence like nobody's business.
Read MoreFamous Scenes From Literature, Done In LEGO
Inside of a dog it's too dark to read
You’re Reading Romeo & Juliet Wrong. You’re Supposed to Hate Romeo
And not just the Leonardo DiCaprio Romeo, either.
Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet is a classic love story, but it's one that may be misunderstood. It's not the story of a young couple rebelling against their parents. It's the story of Juliet falling victim to Romeo. It's a tragedy because of what happens to Juliet, not because their relationship doesn't work out. You should hate Romeo.
Read MoreGraphic Posters For Your Library, Word Nerds
Why Not Do It With Some Style?
Turns Out We’ve Been Misinterpreting the First Line of Beowulf for 200 Years
More like Beowhoops, am I right, guys?... Guys?
Hear that sound in the distance? That's a whole bunch of graduate students wailing and gnashing their teeth, because according to an academic from the University of Manchester, one of the most important opening lines in literary history might be less interesting than we all thought. Yeah, this is going to ruin a lot of final theses.
Read MoreClassic Literary Fiction Will Turn You Into a Telepath
The catch is, you actually have to read the classic literary fiction.
While we can't guarantee that reading Dickens will turn you into Jean Grey, new research suggests that reading literary fiction actually enables you to more closely "read" the thoughts and feelings of others around you. Reading while wearing Emma Frost's outfits remains totally optional.
Read MoreChildren’s Literature Transformed into Art, Because Why Not?
Do Try This At Home
When we're feeling nostalgic, we often turn to our favorite books from when we were younger. And while it's always fun to re-read them, we also want a way to incorporate them into our lives in different ways. Which is why we've taken a liking to these sculptures by artist Maria Popova. Click through for more, and find the full gallery at Flavorwire.
What if Great Writers Were Great JavaScript Coders?
What if the Bard of Avon was the Bard of Python? What if Hemingway wrote The Old Man and The C? These are the questions that run through the head of coding guru and Twitter programmer, Angus Croll, as he downs his fourth cup of coffee infront of the glow of a monitor at four in the morning. Croll imagined how five prominent writers would write a program using the JavaScript language and returning a Fibonacci series. If you're a lover of literature, if you're a seasoned veteran of coding, or even if you have no idea what I'm talking about, seeing how Hemingway would've written JavaScript is pretty amusing. Check it out after the jump.
Read MoreStart Out Your Day With the Only Video of Mark Twain in Existence, Taken by Thomas Edison
Great Hera!
Mark Twain lived in a time long before Instagram, before Youtube, even before the true acknowledgment of film as both an artform and as a commercial possibility. He probably liked it this way, but for us used to the modern era it means we are sadly dereft of the pleasures of watching the famous author move around his estate in that crotchety way we can all imagine. Usually. There is, however, this: What is said to be the only existing motion picture of Twain, taken by Thomas Edison himself. (via Flavorwire)
Read MoreWatch Some of Your Favorite Literary Characters Gain Faces Through Composite Technology
And I'll Form the Head!
Recently there's been a composite sketch going around of what 50 Shade's of Grey's Christian Grey would look like. And that's all well and good, whatever, he kind of looks like Jonathan Taylor Thomas, etc. What we're interested in this new video and the tumblr that goes along with it, which features the composites of a whole bunch of literary characters. There's something a tad strange about being confronted with the faces of characters we've imagined in our heads for so long when those faces do not belong to famous or soon-to-be-famous actors. That in itself says a lot about what it's like to consume media in today's day and age, so we find this project by Brian Joseph Davis to be very intriguing indeed. (via Thirst For Salt)
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