writer. screenwriter. learning person. loves being human.
Nicola has won the Lambda Literary Foundation’s James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize. Because she is awesome and unique and a brilliant writer; a speaker of truth who tells beautiful, hard, joyful stories. It makes me deliriously happy that she has received this recognition.
And it means that we will be at the awards ceremony! And there will be a PARTY! So come, come, and raise a glass with us, and watch Nicola shine.
Enjoy your day.
I’m thrilled that Nicola and I will be Writer Guests of Honor at Westercon 66 in Sacramento, CA from July 4 to 7. We will join Artist Guest of Honor Eric Shanower and Small Press Special Guest David Maxine, and Fan Guests of Honor Warren Frey, Steven Schapansky, and Chris Burgess (“The Three Who Rule“).
Westercon is the longest running general science fiction convention in the North American west. This means they know how to put on a convention. There will be fun! Programming of every variety. Nicola and I will talk, listen, discuss, meet folks, answer questions, park ourselves in the bar at various times, and generally hang out. There will be panels and interviews and presentations and readings, and a dance! (And I am happy to make a spectacle of myself on the dance floor because dignity is overrated. So really, it’s like extra value for your convention membership dollar.)
And perhaps we will persuade Nicola to bring her ukelele….
It’s our 25th anniversary of attending the Clarion Writers Workshop (and therefore, you know, falling in love etc.) and the 30th anniversary of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, of which I’m a board member. We’ll be celebrating these things and much more at the con. We hope to see old friends and make new ones. We love to meet people who love science fiction. And did I mention the fun? So please come to Sacramento and enjoy the weekend with us!
Roger Ebert taught me how to watch movies critically and love the hell out of them.
And he said this (from the Chicago Sun-Times obituary):
“‘Kindness’ covers all of my political beliefs,” he wrote, at the end of his memoirs. “No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”
Amen.
Enjoy your day, no matter what. Be kind.
Brené Brown is a researcher storyteller who — despite fighting mightily against it — found her way to the power of vulnerability. She began by researching shame, and ended with realizations about connection and worthiness and imperfection.
So, this:
What [people who felt worthy of love and connection] had in common was a sense of courage. And I want to separate courage and bravery for you for a minute. Courage, the original definition of courage,when it first came into the English language — it’s from the Latin word cor, meaning heart — and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. And so these folks had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect… they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were, which you absolutely have to do that for connection.
And this:
[Children are] hardwired for struggle when they get here… our job is not to say, “Look at her, she’s perfect. My job is just to keep her perfect — make sure she makes the tennis team by fifth grade and Yale by seventh grade.” Our job is to look and say, “You know what? You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” That’s our job. Show me a generation of kids raised like that, and we’ll end the problems I think that we see today.
So, maybe you’re not a kid reading this, or maybe you are still growing up (god knows I am), but never mind how old we are right now. One of these days we can talk about the difference between struggle and work, or the nuclear toxin of shame, or the Darwinian nature of childhood. But today let’s just be imperfect, and wired for struggle, and worthy of love and belonging. Today that is enough.
Enjoy your day.