Still on deadline(s) so just dropping in here with a few quick things. First off, SFX has a great preview of the Strange Chemistry imprint today by way of a fab interview with editrix-in-chief Amanda Rutter. It includes some newsy-ness, including that the imprint will be going to two titles per month starting the second …
The great, cranky genius Maurice Sendak has died at age 83. Excerpt from a letter by Sendak's editor Ursula Nordstrom to a writer at the New Yorker on Where the Wild Things Are in 1964: You asked me how "revolutionary" Where the Wild Things Are is. There have been a good many fine picture books …
This time for Kage Baker, who won't get nearly the amount of ink of other writers who've passed away recently, and whose work I love more dearly than any of theirs. I first read her in 2004, it turns up through a little googling, and immediately became a devotee. It does not feel just that …
John Hughes. His influence lives on. EW names his 20 key movies; Mark Kozelek remembers a phone conversation; and a long-time pen pal remembers her long-distance friend.
Some of you who've been reading this blog so long you recall its previous homes on blogspot and journalscape might also remember a great number of "Glove Monster" posts during a certain time period. I find it hard to mourn such a problematic personality, but I certainly mourn the kid who gave us some great …
Madeleine L’Engle has died. Her acceptance speech for the 1963 Newbery Award for A Wrinkle in Time is up at her official site; here’s an excerpt: So how do we do it? We can’t just sit down at our typewriters and turn out explosive material. I took a course in college on Chaucer, one of …
Theresa Duncan is dead. This is so strange; I didn’t know her, except through the occasional e-mail and through her blog, The Wit of the Staircase. I always expected we’d meet someday IRL and become great friends. What a terrible, terrible thing. (Via Ed.) My condolences to those who did know her, and to those …
And now word is starting to spread that one of the victims of this terrible, unthinkable tragedy may be SF writer Michael Bishop‘s son, who apparently teaches/taught German at Virginia Tech. I hope it’s not true. I don’t know Michael Bishop at all, but E Bear is right: the field is small and we’re a …
On NPR this morning, Gore Vidal was suddenly there, calling Kurt Vonnegut a "good science fiction writer," and so I knew he was dead. His work was very important to me growing up and I got to see him read once. I’m grateful for the work, and the reading, and his life. But, boy, does …
My hero. I can’t quite deal with this one yet. When Ann Richards shook off this mortal coil last year, the only way I could quite find to deal with it was by calling on the words of Molly Ivins. It makes me angry that she’s gone, and sad beyond reckoning. A real remembrance to …