MetaFilter posts tagged with nicolagriffith

Nicola Griffith on her writing, genre, kittens, ableism, and more

brainwane — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 04:30:05 -0800

"To me, honestly, genre is just a vehicle I use to cross the story terrain. So depending on what story I want to tell, I use the appropriate genre." Author Nicola Griffith, author of scifi, historical fiction, detective fiction, nonfiction, and more, discusses her books and writing journey in an interview from late 2020. She learned more about how her own fiction works while writing a PhD thesis a few years ago. Griffith's blog has tons of interesting musings, on topics including the phenomenon of marginalized readers feeling "momentarily flummoxed by fiction that doesn't push us down" and identity and science fiction. "Reading SF, the over-riding value of which is the new, keeps our reticular activating systems primed: we expect everything and anything."

Recent reviews of reviews

Wobbuffet — Sun, 30 Dec 2018 16:49:02 -0800

Aaron Bady (Popula, 12/20/2018), "Milkman: I Have Not Finished This Very Good Novel (Though I Probably Will)": "Why would I get mad at [Dwight Garner] for the structural impossibility of the genre he's paid to write in?" Nicola Griffith (nicolagriffith.com, 4/2/2018), "How Ableism Affects a Book Review": "So Lucky's first review ... epitomises the bias faced by novels about disabled characters written by disabled authors and it's time this bias was called out." Mark Brown (The Guardian, 10/7/2018), "Kate Atkinson calls authors reviewing their peers a 'callous art'": "Atkinson called Dee's review bizarre. 'He was making a whole article out of me not being Rachel Cusk.'" Incidentally, Milkman has won the Booker Prize. Both Milkman and So Lucky are on the Tournament of Books shortlist this year (previously). And in a recent series of tweets about appreciating classics, John Scalzi (@scalzi, 12/24/2018) arrived at a point that perhaps intersects with Bady's: "Some things will only speak to you at a specific moment in your life and/or only once."

Booksellers, this one weird trick could increase your bottom line by 25%

dorothyisunderwood — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 07:33:36 -0800

Nicola Griffith points out in a helpful post (with downloadable guide!) why making bookstores and book events accessible to disabled readers both online and in RL makes profitable sense. She also updates her Fries Test (named after activist Kenny Fries) count. Given that 1 in 4 people already in the US have some kind of disability, there should be roughly 1.25 million books out there on the Fries Test list yet so far only 55 have made it past the extremely low requirements -- which do not include the disabled character even having a name. Me Before You by JoJo Moyes sadly did not make the cut.

A letter to Hild

dhruva — Sat, 12 Sep 2015 19:11:36 -0800

My Story, Mystery: A Letter to Hild of Whitby by Nicola Griffith "DEAR HILD, You were magnificent, I think, but hidden: a black hole at the heart of history. We can trace you only by your gravitational pull. We know, for example, that the very first piece of English literature — Cædmon's Hymn, certainly the earliest extant example of Old English vernacular and very possibly the first created — was forged in the fire of your influence; that in the so-called Dark Ages you built and ran Whitby Abbey, the foundation at the center of what became Northumbria's Golden Age. There you hosted and facilitated the meeting of kings, princes, and bishops that changed Britain. But we have no account of you beyond a five-page sketch in a 1300-year-old history, most of which recites the standard hagiographic miracles and visions of the time. We have no gossipy Life, no scholarly monograph, no racy romance cycle. There isn't even a grave."

Books about women don't win big awards: some data

sciatrix — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 13:33:56 -0800

"When women win literary awards for fiction it's usually for writing from a male perspective and/or about men. The more prestigious the award, the more likely the subject of the narrative will be male. I analysed the last 15 years' results for half a dozen book-length fiction awards: Pulitzer Prize, Man Booker Prize, National Book Award, National Book Critics' Circle Award, Hugo Award, and Newbery Medal." Nicola Griffith notes the absence of stories about women from prize-winning novels--even when those novels are written by women. The Seattle Review of Books adds an interview with Griffith on the writing and aftermath of her original blog post.

Some notable SF/F/H short fiction from 2014

Monsieur Caution — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 21:10:30 -0800

Locus Magazine has published its 2014 Recommended Reading List. BestSF.net has given its Best SF Short Story Award for 2014. Tables of contents have been announced for The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirty-Second Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois, Year's Best Weird Fiction, Volume Two edited by Kathe Koja and Michael Kelly, and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Nine edited by Jonathan Strahan. And several writers have called out their favorite stories of the year too, e.g. Ken Liu, Carmen Maria Machado and Sofia Samatar, Usman Malik, and Fran Wilde, Michael R. Underwood, Tina Connolly, and Beth Cato. Quite a few of these short fiction selections from 2014 have been published online in full. Charlie Jane Anders, "The Unfathomable Sisterhood of Ick." Lightspeed, June 2014 ("Women Destroy Science Fiction!" special issue); reprinted at Tor.com. [LM] Eleanor Arnason, "The Scrivener." Subterranean, Winter 2014. [JS; LM] Dale Bailey, "The End of the End of Everything." Tor.com, April 23, 2014. [LM; UM] Jessica Barber, "Coma Kings." Lightspeed, February 2014. [GD] Elizabeth Bear, "Covenant." Slate, September 11, 2014. [GD; JS; LM] Elizabeth Bear, "This Chance Planet." Tor.com, October 22, 2014. [FW; LM] Helena Bell, "Lovecraft." Clarkesworld, October 2014. [UM] Holly Black, "Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind)." Lightspeed, September 2014. [JS; LM] Aliette de Bodard, "The Days of the War, as Red as Blood, as Dark as Bile." Subterranean, Spring 2014. [GD; LM] Richard Butner, "Circa." Interfictions Online #3, May 2014. [UM] Richard Bowes, "Sleep Walking Now and Then." Tor.com, July 9, 2014. [FW; LM; UM] Chaz Brenchley, "The Burial of Sir John Mawe at Cassini." Subterranean, Spring 2014. [GD] Siobhan Carroll, "The Year of Silent Birds." Beneath Ceaseless Skies, January 9, 2014. [FW] Dario Ciriello, "Free Verse." Free Verse and Other Stories, Panverse, 2014. [KL] C. S. E. Cooney, "Witch, Beast, Saint: an Erotic Fairy Tale." Strange Horizons, July 21, 2014. [LM] Julio Cortázar, "Headache." Tor.com, September 3, 2014 (first English translation). [K&K] Tom Crosshill, "The Magician and Laplace's Demon." Clarkesworld, December 2014. [KL; LM; UM] Amanda C. Davis, "Loving Armageddon." Crossed Genres, July 2, 2014. [K&K] Amal El-Mohtar, "The Truth About Owls." Strange Horizons, January 26, 2015 (originally published in Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios (eds.), Kaleidoscope, Twelfth Planet Press, 2014). [JS; LM] Ruthanna Emrys, "The Litany of Earth." Tor.com, May 14, 2014. [LM] K. M. Ferebee, "The Earth and Everything Under." Shimmer #19, 2014. [FW; K&K] Jeffrey Ford, "The Prelate's Commission." Subterranean, Winter 2014. [LM] Karen Joy Fowler, "Nanny Anne and the Christmas Story." Subterranean, Winter 2014. [K&K; LM] Max Gladstone, "A Kiss with Teeth." Tor.com, October 29, 2014. [TC; previously on MeFi] Kathleen Ann Goonan, "A Short History of the Twentieth Century, or, When You Wish Upon A Star." Tor.com, July 20, 2014. [LM] Theodora Goss, "Cimmeria: From the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology." Lightspeed, July 2014. [JS; LM] Nicola Griffith, "Cold Wind." Tor.com, April 16, 2014. [JS] Shane Halbach, "Copy Machine." Flash Fiction Online, June 2014. [KL] Maria Dahvana Headley, "The Tallest Doll in New York City." Tor.com, February 14, 2014. [FW; LM] Kat Howard, "The Saint of the Sidewalks." Clarkesworld, August 2014. [LM] Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, "Where the Trains Turn." Tor.com, November 19, 2014. [LM] N. K. Jemisin, "Stone Hunger." Clarkesworld, July 2014. [FW] Xia Jia, "Spring Festival: Happiness, Anger, Love, Sorrow, Joy." Translated by Ken Liu. Clarkesworld, September 2014. [KL; UM] Xia Jia, "Tongtong's Summer." Translated by Ken Liu. Clarkesworld, December 2014 (originally in Neil Clarke (ed.), Upgraded, Wyrm Publishing, 2014). [KL] Rachael K. Jones, "Makeisha in Time." Crossed Genres #20, August 2014. [BC] Stephen Graham Jones, "Chapter Six." Tor.com, June 11, 2014. [LM] Vylar Kaftan, "Ink of My Bones, Blood of My Hands." Beneath Ceaseless Skies, June 12, 2014. [FW] Caitlín R. Kiernan, "Bus Fare." Subterranean, Spring 2014. [K&K] Ellen Klages, "Caligo Lane." Subterranean, Winter 2014. [LM] Jay Lake, "West to East." Subterranean, Summer 2014. [GD; LM] Rich Larson, "The Air We Breathe is Stormy, Stormy." Strange Horizons, August 11, 2014. [K&K] Yoon Ha Lee, "Combustion Hour." Tor.com, June 18, 2014. [FW; LM; UM; previously on MeFi] Yoon Ha Lee, "The Contemporary Foxwife." Clarkesworld, July 2014. [LM; previously on MeFi] Yoon Ha Lee, "Wine." Clarkesworld, January 2014. [LM; previously on MeFi] Rose Lemberg, "A City on Its Tentacles." Lackington's, Winter 2014. [SS] Kelly Link, "I Can See Right Through You." McSweeney's Quarterly 48, 2014. [LM] Ken Liu, "Reborn." Tor.com, January 29, 2014. [UM] Ken Liu, "The Long Haul, From the ANNALS OF TRANSPORTATION, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009." Clarkesworld, November 2014. [GD; JS; LM] Carmen Maria Machado, "Observations About Eggs from the Man Sitting Next to Me on a Flight from Chicago, Illinois to Cedar Rapids, Iowa." Lightspeed, April 2014. [K&K; SS] Carmen Maria Machado, "The Husband Stitch." Granta, October 28, 2014. [K&K; UM; SS] Usman T. Malik, "Resurrection Points." Strange Horizons, August 4, 2014. [FW; K&K; KL] Usman T. Malik, "The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family." Medium, October 22, 2014 (originally in Michael Bailey (ed.), Qualia Nous, Written Backwards, 2014). [JS; KL; LM] Tim Maughan, "Four Days of Christmas." Vice, December 24, 2014. [JS; LM] Sandra McDonald, "Selfie." Lightspeed, May 2014. [LM] Sam J. Miller, "Kennth: A User's Manual." Strange Horizons, December 1, 2014. [CMM] Mary Anne Mohanraj, "Communion." Clarkesworld, June 2014. [GD] Sunny Moraine, "So Sharp That Blood Must Flow." Lightspeed, February 2014. [K&K] Sunny Moraine, "What Glistens Back." Lightspeed, November 2014. [UM] John P. Murphy, "Still Life, With Oranges." Lakeside Circus, January 6, 2014. [KL] Anna Noyes, "Becoming." Guernica, November 3, 2014. [CMM] An Owomoyela, "And Wash Out by Tides of War." Clarkesworld, February 2014. [LM] Susan Palwick, "Weather." Clarkesworld, September 2014. [GD] K. J. Parker, "Heaven Thunders the Truth." Beneath Ceaseless Skies, October 2, 2014. [LM] K. J. Parker, "I Met a Man Who Wasn't There." Subterranean, Winter 2014. [JS; LM] K. J. Parker, "The Things We Do For Love." Subterranean, Summer 2014. [LM] Richard Parks, "The Manor of Lost Time." Beneath Ceaseless Skies, June 26, 2014. [LM] Richard Parks, "The Sorrow of Rain." Beneath Ceaseless Skies, October 2, 2014. [LM] Shannon Peavey, "Dogs From Other Places" (audio only). Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, Issue 38, March 2014. [UM] Robert Reed, "Pernicious Romance." Clarkesworld, November 2014. [LM] Alastair Reynolds, "The Last Log of the Lachrimosa." Subterranean, Summer 2014. [LM] Mary Rickert, "The Mothers of Voorhisville." Tor.com, April 30, 2014. [FW; LM; UM] Sofia Samatar, "How to Get Back to the Forest." Lightspeed, March 2014. [CMM; LM] Kelly Sandoval, "The One They Took Before." Shimmer #22, November 2014. [UM] John Scalzi, "Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome." Tor.com, May 13, 2014. [MU] Veronica Schanoes, "Among the Thorns." Tor.com, May 7, 2014. [LM] Karl Schroeder, "Jubilee." Tor.com, February 26, 2014. [GD] Lewis Shiner, "The Black Sun." Subterranean, Summer 2014. [LM] Alex Shvartsman, "Icarus Falls." Daily Science Fiction, September 23, 2014. [KL] Vandana Singh, "Wake-Rider." Lightspeed, December 2014. [LM] Michael Swanwick, "Passage of Earth." Clarkesworld, April 2014. [BN (winner); GD; LM] Rachel Swirsky, "Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)." Subterranean, Summer 2014. [GD; JS; KL; LM] Bogi Takács, "This Shall Serve as a Demarcation." Scigentasy: Gender Stories in Science Fiction and Fantasy #6, July 5, 2014. [SS] Anna Tambour, "The Walking-Stick Forest." Tor.com, May 21, 2014. [LM] Natalia Theodoridou, "The Eleven Holy Numbers of the Mechanical Soul." Clarkesworld, February 2014. [KL] E. Catherine Tobler, "Migratory Patterns of Underground Birds." Clarkesworld, May 2014. [FW] Jeremiah Tolbert, "In the Dying Light, We Saw a Shape." Lightspeed, January 2014. [BN] Harry Turtledove, "The Eighth-Grade History Class Visits the Hebrew Home for the Aging." Tor.com, January 8, 2014. [BC] Genevieve Valentine, "The Insects of Love." Tor.com, May 28, 2014. [FW; JS; LM] Damien Angelica Walters, "The Floating Girls: A Documentary." Jamais Vu 3, September 2014. [KL; UM] Damien Angelica Walters, "The Serial Killer's Astronaut Daughter." Strange Horizons, January 6, 2014. [BC] LaShawn M. Wanak, "21 Steps to Enlightenment (Minus One)." Strange Horizons, February 3, 2014. [FW; TC] Peter Watts, "The Colonel." Tor.com, July 29, 2014. [GD; LM] Kai Ashante Wilson, "The Devil in America." Tor.com, April 2, 2014. [JS; LM; UM] Alyssa Wong, "Santos de Sampaguitas" (also, part two). Strange Horizons, October 13, 2014. [UM] Alyssa Wong, "The Fisher Queen." F&SF, May/June 2014. [KL; UM] Jy Yang, "Patterns of a Murmuration, in Billions of Data Points." Clarkesworld, September 2014. [UM] Isabel Yap, "A Cup of Salt Tears." Tor.com, August 27, 2014. [K&K; UM] Caroline Yoachim, "Five Stages of Grief After the Alien Invasion." Clarkesworld, August 2014. [BN; KL; TC] Initials correspond to names mentioned in the lede. Additional stories are collected in Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2014. Forthcoming annual anthologies with as-yet-unannounced contents include two edited by Paula Guran (The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2015 and The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas: 2015), plus The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2015 edited by Rich Horton, The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 7 edited by Ellen Datlow, and The Year's Illustrious Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Nisi Shawl.

Though I suspect that title is incorrect in this context

MartinWisse — Sat, 23 Aug 2014 03:08:52 -0800

Damien Walter presents 21 of the best British sci-fi (sic) writers of 2014 you probably haven't heard of.

Ask Nicola

Artw — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:31:21 -0800

Nicola Griffith recommends good lesbian science fiction novels.