Dawn

The Octavia Project might be the coolest thing I’ve ever heard of. Starting this summer, girls from underserved neighborhoods in Brooklyn will have the chance to combine an interest in science fiction with hands-on STEM education, honing their SF writing and world-building skills while simultaneously working with guest experts to learn about programming, architecture, electronics, or game design. The […]

Sprinkled throughout this “first” novel by Claire O’Dell (anom de plume for fantasy author Beth Bernobich) are references to Watson’s reading list, which is packed to the gills with meaty, diverse, interesting—and entirely existent— speculative fiction. It’s great fun, as an SFF reader, to see O’Dell name-drop real books and authors as having influenced her […]

During my college years in the mid-1990s, I worked in a largely black neighborhood and frequently stopped in to a small, cluttered corner drugstore to pick up snacks and drinks. As I do everywhere, I’d also scour the book and magazine racks for anything that looked interesting. We’re not talking about a bookstore here—the selection […]

There are lots of lists out there about literature’s worst mothers. The Mrs. Bennets of the world seem to suck up all the oxygen. (Something with which Elizabeth Bennet likely would agree.) But what of fiction’s fine motherly figures? What of those who try their best to do right by their children—whether they gave birth […]