This month’s Reading Round Up offers a collection of some of the best articles I read last month, covering topics including Karli Morgenthau, THEM, and Samuel Delany. Plus a list of my own written work. Get those tabs ready!
My Writing
Discourse: BLOSSOM Conference Response
Book list: 9th Grade Summer Reading Recommendations – 2021
Book list: 10th Grade Summer Reading Recommendations – 2021
Book list: 11th Grade Summer Reading Recommendations – 2021
Book list: 12th Grade Summer Reading Recommendations – 2021
Short fiction: Must-Read Speculative Short Fiction: March 2021
TV review: Them Relies on Brutality Over Nuanced Social Commentary
Feature: “A Tale of Ashes” by Ann Dayleview
Feature: “White Magic” by Elissa Washuta
Book review: “Submergence” by Arula Ratnakar
Book review: “Blood Follows Vein”: Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart
Book review: There Once Was a Ship That Was Put to Sea: In Deeper Waters by F.T. Lukens
Book review: “Elatsoe” by Darcie Little Badger
Book review: “White Magic” by Elissa Washuta
Other Works
“Samuel Delany and the Past and Future of Science Fiction” by Peter Bebergal for The New Yorker: “Delany came of age at a time when the genre was indeed characterized by gee-whiz futurism, machismo adventuring, and white, heterosexual heroes. From the beginning, Delany, in his fiction, pushed across those boundaries, embraced the other, and questioned received ideas about sex and intimacy. And, within a few years of publishing his first stories, he won some of the field’s biggest awards. Delany’s career now spans more than half a century, and comprises dozens of novels and short stories, many of which have challenged every notion of what science fiction could or should be. Even now, when graphic sex and challenging themes are hardly unusual, Delany’s rapturous sexuality and his explorations of race within the trappings of science fiction have the power to startle.”
“how come these ghosts is white?” by Brandon Taylor: “As I watched the racist supernatural violence unfold in the provocative but metaphysically incoherent series Them, I thought of Northrop Frye’s description of tragic irony: ‘If there is a reason for choosing him for catastrophe, it is an inadequate reason, and raises more objections than it answers.'”
“Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s Karli Morgenthau and the Frustration of Mainstream Media Handling Radical Revolutionary Politics” by Princess Weekes for The Mary Sue: “A few years ago, for Black History Month, I wrote about slave rebellions across the Black diaspora. As I’ve gotten older, my opinions about revolutions and rebellions have grown. When you study history, you learn that the difference between terrorists and revolutionaries is often who wins and gets to write the history after the fact. That means whenever I watch a series that attempts to deal with the complicated realities of a revolution, I always have my armchair historian brain ready.
Enter The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s Karli Morgenthau and the Flag Smashers.”
“How False Narratives of Margaret Sanger Are Being Used to Shame Black Women” by Imani Gandy for Rewire: “In the wake of the attacks by the Center for Medical Progress, Planned Parenthood’s origins and its founder, Margaret Sanger, have once again become the center of conversations regarding Black women and abortion. And since anti-choice fanatics seem utterly incapable of making an honest argument in support of their position that Black women should be forced into childbirth rather than permitted to make their own decisions about what to do with their bodies, they resort to lies, misinformation, and half-truths about Sanger and the organization she founded.”
Punk-Ass Book Jockey 