Reading Time: 7 minutes My heart is a touch heavy this birthday of mine. Don’t get me wrong: all birthdays are fantastic, so long as you’re on the right side of the green. (And even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t be in any position to complain, now would I?) Moreover, I’m publishing my first novel today, which is a […]
literature
Posted inGaming
LitRPG: When roleplaying games collide with fiction and anime
Reading Time: 6 minutes I saw an unusual book offered for free on Amazon last week. Its author described The Whispering Crystals as LitRPG, or literary roleplaying games. The plot involves a young woman transported to an alien world, then sent through trials to learn to survive. As she slowly progresses in essential skills, she updates her character sheet […]
Posted inSocial Media
What next? Twitter’s complicated role in the literary world
Reading Time: 11 minutes Not long after Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, another exodus of site users began—and with it, discussion about the people who aren’t ready, or able, to leave. Transitioning to a new platform isn’t easy for everyone: for many disabled people, for instance, leaving Twitter means learning all the ins and outs of yet another system […]
Posted inHistory
On the brink: How yesterday’s fears can help us move through today’s war
Reading Time: 9 minutes In 1919, a poet started drafting what would eventually become one of our most oft-quoted poems, especially in times of struggle and disaster. In its earlier forms, it referenced tensions on the Russian border, before being scrubbed of precise details and left with a more all-encompassing sense of dread. As the poet was writing it, […]
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
On ‘tomorrow sorrow’: How we grieve the future today
Reading Time: 7 minutes I was six years old when Star Trek: The Next Generation first aired one of its most beloved episodes, “The Inner Light.” In it, Captain Jean-Luc Picard wakes to a life not his own. He lives in a small village, where he works as an iron weaver, and everyone explains that he is recovering from […]
Posted inBooks
Let’s talk humanist science fiction: An interview with writer Ray Nayler
Reading Time: 15 minutes In North American literature, strict boundaries are often propped up between fiction and nonfiction, along with “literary” and “genre” prose. These are useful for commercial purposes, but out of step with our history. Speculative fiction might even be considered our oldest literary form: a realm of play and exploration, and a way of reaching deeper […]
Posted inCulture, History, Myth & Folklore, Religion
The Rifle, and Other Stories, by Tomás Carrasquilla: Translating a Catholic writer as a secular humanist
Reading Time: 11 minutes Outside my work here at OnlySky, I’m a writer of speculative and science fiction, and a translator. My science fiction usually focuses on alternative justices and social contract theory, so the overlap with my humanist essays is obvious. But my work as a translator? Well, that’s a labor of love, and an act of thanks. […]
Posted inHistory, Religion
How John Milton Changed Hell — Again (Journey Into Hell #13)
Reading Time: 7 minutes Hi and welcome back! During our Journey Into Hell series, we’ve sure seen the Christian concept of Hell change a lot from its humble origins. And now, it’s changing again. John Milton, who wrote Paradise Lost, brought a unique point of view to Christians’ existing package of Hell-beliefs. That point of view would become an […]
Posted inBooks
My personal science fiction/fantasy canon: ‘Weirdo Feminist’
Reading Time: 4 minutes The spring semester is over but my brain is still melted from it and the rest of me is burnt out too, so here’s a fun little personal essay I’d submitted elsewhere and that had been rejected (yes, that happens to even the great Dr. Jorgensen). Ruminations on identity and SFF (science fiction/fantasy) follow.
Posted inCulture, General
Andrew Seidel on the Naked Diner Podcast
Reading Time: 2 minutes Andrew Seidel from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) talks about his new book ‘The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American’ on this week’s Naked Diner Podcast.