Woohoo!!! SPARK made the Florida Sunshine State Young Readers Award 2020-21 list! Thanks so much, Florida librarians! You have absolutely made my day!

https://www.floridamediaed.org/ssyra.html 

 

Tomorrow (Friday 5/8) I'll be taking over the HarperCollins Library Love Fest Instagram to show you my writing space, with a video tour at 11am EDT. Come visit my writing room, meet my cat, and see where I create my monsters and the women who ride them! https://www.instagram.com/harperlibrary

 

TODAY!!! Come visit me on the HarperCollins Library Love Fest Instagram today (Fri 5/8)! I'm taking over their Instagram account all day to show you pictures and videos of my writing space! Just posted the video tour! 

https://www.instagram.com/harperlibrary

 

八神蓮 11月15日（水）の公開生放送に出演 公開生放送は12:00〜13：00!! 番組で聞いてほしいことをコメントにて受付けております!! 詳しくは番組Twitterとブログをチェック！観覧は無料！みなさんのご来場をお待ちしています〜※観覧者多数の場合は並んで頂き、入れかえ制とさせて頂きます。※混みあった場合は、譲り合ってご観覧ください続きをみる

『著作権保護のため、記事の一部のみ表示されております。』

原作：生江有二『竜二―映画に賭けた33歳の生涯』（幻冬舎アウトロー文庫）脚本・演出：森岡利行キャスト：八神 蓮上杉 輝（TOKYO流星群）　松島庄汰　高岡保成　伴 優香黒木千春(A)　宮崎 京(B)　鎌田彩樺(A)　白石彩妃(B)　野村奈央　山本佳志　美月まりも　お宮の松(A)　酒井健太郎(B)　重松隆志 A：仲谷 憲　佐藤俊彦　梶野春菜　坂本朝美　青山 隼B：石川竜太郎　平川慎之介　永島美穂　田嶋高志　佐藤 翔 ★八神蓮専用チケットフォームPC用【https://ticket.corich.jp/apply/94367/003/】携帯用【http://ticket.corich.jp/apply/94367/003/】 〇チケット発売一般　【A席】前売：5,500円／当続きをみる

『著作権保護のため、記事の一部のみ表示されております。』

A piece I finished five years ago today, on April 15, 2012, for the blog of Gollancz, my UK publisher: Triggers, FlashForward, and Me by Robert J. Sawyer Thanks to the good people at Gollancz, I was recently interviewed in SFX, the world’s top-selling English-language magazine devoted to science fiction. I spoke in that interview […]

One thing I like about the Star Wars franchise: it is coherent; it doesn’t keep trying to reimagine or reinvent or reinterpret itself. The latest film, Rogue One, goes to great lengths to look like and fit in with the very first film, the original Star Wars, from 40 years ago. Star Trek made a […]

A friend wrote to me today urging me to read Killing the Rising Sun as, by he said, Bill O’Reilly, since it made the case that the U.S. had to drop atomic bombs on Japan. My reply: You underestimate me, my friend; I’ve already read to Killing the Rising Sun. The key issue out of […]

The times they are a-changin’ in publishing, and so I’ve set up a Patreon page at patreon.com/robertjsawyer, where my readers can support my work directly. Please check it out! Many thanks! Robert J. Sawyer online:Website • Facebook • Twitter • Email

On Saturday, January 26, 2019, I had the privilege of giving this year’s Paul Sykes Memorial Lecture to the Vancouver Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. My topic was “Astronomy and Science Fiction” and during the talk I mentioned the following SF novels (listed in italics) and short stories (listed in quotation marks):H.G. […]

Robyn Meta Herrington, active member of both SFWA and SF Canada, passed away fifteen years ago today, on Monday morning, May 3, 2004, in Calgary, Alberta, after a courageous multi-year battle with cancer. Robyn’s short fiction appeared in such places as On Spec, Talebones, Adventures of Sword and Sorcery, Parsec, and in Mike Resnick‘s DAW […]

Many years ago, I attended a talk by Cynthia Good, publisher of Penguin Canada. When asked what was the first thing she looks for in a book submission, she said, “A way to get the author on TV.” I’ve now got over 400 TV appearances to my credit, and an equal number of radio interviews […]

In my new novel, The Oppenheimer Alternative — coming June 2, 2020, and available for pre-order now — the following exchange occurs between J. Robert Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty (with Kitty employing a racial slur that was regrettably all-too-common during the Second World War): “They … they’ve dropped a second bomb,” Oppie said, holding her. […]

You may recall that some time ago I had felt out of shape and was unhappy with it. After hitting a high weight of nearly 200 pounds, and also feeling tired walking up stairs, I set a goal of getting down to 170 pounds. With regular exercise and calorie counting, I hit that goal last […]

I will try to make these brief, but I'm trying to post when I think of it so I don't just keep all the updates in my head.

( reading/watching )

( family )

( work )

( health )

comments

Good stuff:

* 3-day weekends all summer, yay!
* If the zebras stay away today, I get to stop taking the icky meds.
* Other than a couple days of some weakness, mom's doing really, really well after her valve replacement.
* Feeling almost well enough to start writing again. Planning to start tomorrow if the zebras stay away.
* House is almost clean.
* I'm just generally feeling fine and in a good mood. And I originally typed that "good moof" and thought it was really cute and funny, so maybe I'm a little dopey today. Which is also a good thing. So there you have it.

comments

I desire to get back in the habit of posting regularly here, so I will post every day in September and see if that helps. This blog (if you count its beginning on my 35th birthday, just after 9/11, as a LiveJournal) is the oldest internet "belonging" I have, except for my email address. I don't want to lose it through neglect.

Today, I will report that in August, I paid off 1.20% of our consumer debt, and I expect that to snowball as we pay off the higher-interest stuff. I will report in once a month.

comments

Today, I will be interviewing for a half-time job: the hourly wage is a fair bit higher than what I'm currently making at my day job, but the hours are 20 a week versus 40. It has benefits, though, and it would free up my time to write, and to take more editing gigs. I enjoy the editing, I'm good at it, and it pays well, so this could be the best of both worlds.

I have to give a presentation as part of the interview, and I'm just printing out handouts for that in case their projector doesn't work. I don't have any fear of public speaking, but I confess I'd rather have an interview without this component, or hey, no interview at all.

Into the breach!

comments

My week has been stressful. They called Thursday and offered me the half-time job. They needed to know that day -- we haven't heard back on the lucrative job James has applied for, so I declined, citing the fact that I'm the only breadwinner and James hasn't heard back about the job he was waiting to hear from (I didn't mention to the HR person that it's a job at my same employer, because it's probably not her fault they're lagging on his job, and I'm not an asshole). She wanted to know when I'd know, and I said, "Well, I was supposed to know two weeks ago, so I mean, soon, I hope, but no guarantees."

She called me back an hour later and offered to give me a week to decide (because they actually don't want the other two people who interviewed, is my surmise), so yeah, rollercoaster day on Thursday.

And then a student's mom called and cussed me out for like half an hour. I don't take that stuff personally, but it does wear on me. My co-workers marvelled over and over about how calm I stayed, and I said (and I meant it), "She was frustrated. That's understandable. And I don't have to attend every fight I'm invited to," which became a theme for the week.

My mom got in a fracas with another member of her senior center, and I shared my week's theme with her. I think she felt a little chastised, but she also seemed to latch onto the theme as a potential sanity saver.

And then today at the donut shop, I accidentally passed up another person who was waiting to pay (because I followed the person who gave me our donuts to the register and didn't notice the other person who was standing away from the registers at the window. She berated me for many minutes about how rude I was, and how I should give a bitch some space, and how in America, we call this White Privilege, and and and... I just apologized, didn't engage beyond that, (felt frankly detached and mildly amused -- not sure what that says about me) and then once she'd left, the cashier apologized to me for the customer.

Me: "Nah, she's not wrong. I didn't see her, but I did cut in front of her."

I mean, I don't like being yelled at, or having people behave in ways that I perceive as rude towards me, but I'm not gonna fault someone for standing up for their space when I've violated it, so long as they're not hitting me or something. Not a fight I need to get into; not a hill I'm gonna die on.

So yeah, stressful week for many reasons, but not something that's gonna ruin my Saturday, which will now be completed by spending many many many hours writing and catching up on webcomics.

And how are YOU, dear ones?

comments

I want to write this, but I don't want anyone to feel compelled to read it, so here, have some cut tags!

( Work stress )

( MtY stress )

( MtE stress )

( Mom stress )

I'm thinking of getting therapy just to have someone to talk to about all the stress. The good thing (honest, I see it as a good thing) is that most of the stress is basically external to me -- my days are generally easy and pleasant, and everyone who's not me may be melting down, but all my stress is in the way of a contact low, as it were. Other than being in a sandwich-generation holding pattern (when will the next phase of my life begin? no one knows), things are pretty good. I'm making more money than I ever have, I love my work, I get lots of downtime to read and hang out with James and mom, and my health is better than it's been in years. So yeah, if the universe could just leave my loved ones in peace, that'd be great.

comments

Just emailed this to a family member and thought I'd put it here for my later reference:

Thanks for the update. Sorry for being brief before. They closed my school to move to online instruction (and UCSD; and most or all the K-12s; I don't know about SDSU yet). We're off for at least two weeks, and they'll let us know for sure on the 23rd if we're going back on the 30th. They're paying us, thank goodness (and thank labor unions), and they've given me remote access so I can work from home, which I'm happy about.

Mom has finally gotten it in her head that this is serious, so she's bowed out of her big weekly bridge game, which is actually illegal here now -- more than 10 elderly people or more than 250 people, period, is outlawed.

Today, I'm taking it easy except for a visit from the kid and some work-from-home stuff that's not difficult. For the next two-plus weeks, I plan to read a lot, write a lot, and play cards with mom, who will develop cabin fever pretty quickly. We stocked up on necessaries last weekend, so we've decided that barring actual urgency (not, like, "I want ice cream" urgency, that is), we're not going to shop at all during my break. This will be harder for mom, as you can imagine.

My baby brother (he will be 48 this week -- a mere embryo! -- is near ground zero in Washington State, but so far, his family is okay. He's worried about his wife's grandparents, who are quite old and quite ill. He (my brother) is in management at the cable company there, and he's just making sure his installers keep their distance, etc.

Love you, and hope to see you soon. Don't touch your face. :-)

comments

Some of us who are disabled and/or fat are worried we'll be denied access to scarce medical resources during the pandemic. This document describes our legal rights (in the US) and ways to maximize our likelihood of getting care.

#NoBodyIsDisposable Guide to Surviving COVID-19 Triage

Crips and fatties made this.
Please share with everyone who needs it.

comments

Questions and answers, the former from adrian_turtle, who is awesome, and at least one of the latter stolen from hobbitbabe, who is also awesome.

( Read more... )

comments

I just closed a half-dozen tabs that were old posts from y'all that I keep meaning to respond to. Apologies, but I have limited oomph this week, as a lot of us do.

But hey, surveys are easy.

Quarantine meme (quaranteme? quaranmeme?) picked up from julian who got it from crystalpyramid.


( My answers )

( And the blank questions if you want to do this )

comments

On May 4th and 5th, mom and I planted a bunch of stuff in a square-foot-gardening box, and I'm going to start keeping a plant diary here. I'll put them under boredom cut tags. :-)

( Like this )

Plant babies!

comments

1) Because the quarantine is less hard on me than it is on others, I sometimes forget to give myself a break for the ways in which it is hard. Privilege doesn't mean nothing ever hurts. I'm gonna try to be kinder to myself about all this.

2) I'm now getting two weekly farm boxes. I'm not sorry at all.

3) We've killed off 18.5% of our consumer debt since January. We rock.

4) ( Plant diary for May 7 with a pic )

5) ETA: Oh, and my heart? Is not being nice to me this week. But I love it anyway.

comments

Calling all rebels -- only you can help StarWars.com and The Star Wars Show win!

Bring the galaxy home on May the 4th.

Ahsoka's conflict with Obi-Wan can serve as a lesson in disagreement and debate.

That trip to Tosche Station can wait!

Six young Jedi face their fears and themselves in an ancient rite of passage.

The voice of Ahsoka Tano tells StarWars.com about writing the new Little Golden Book and rewatching Star Wars: The Clone Wars for inspiration.

Starting on Star Wars Day, for one week you can enjoy artistic renditions of your favorite films and series.

Co-founder and designer Erik Haldi discusses the company's first Star Wars enamel pin: Luke Skywalker on his tauntaun.

Download the Padmé-starring novel at no charge from May 1 - 8.

May the 4th be with you with these special sales and discounts on items from around the galaxy.

Watch the debut of Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, the finale of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and more!

The actor behind Luke Skywalker takes StarWars.com on a journey through filming the Star Wars sequel in time for the 40th anniversary of its release.

Darth Sidious’s master plan becomes reality, and the galaxy will never be the same.

Pilot your droids from Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge or create your own virtual models.

Plus, get a first look at the game’s key art -- revealed in celebration of Star Wars Day!

The award-winning title from ILMxLAB heads to PlayStation VR this summer.

To celebrate Star Wars Day, employees from Lucasfilm and ILM reflect on what made them fans and what keeps them enthralled with the galaxy far, far away.

Celebrate May the 4th with Death Star-sized deals on some the biggest Star Wars games.

Emmy Nominee Leslye Headland to write, produce, and serve as showrunner for new untitled Star Wars series for Disney+.

These lines are impressive. Most impressive.

Get behind-the-scenes peeks from the production of The Mandalorian with personal photos from Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and many more.

Luke Skywalker discovers a powerful lesson that can be valuable to your own younglings.

Hondo, you ol' pirate.

Two StarWars.com writers debate Luke’s choice in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.