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State of the art

State of the Art: Spring 2020

The past several months have seen many important essays published related to Science Fiction and Fantasy. We’ve been late getting them collected, and this is only a partial listing, but here’s the first part of the rundown.

Jeanette Ng: On Identity, Performing Marginalisations and the Limitations of Own Voices; or “Why I can’t just repeat my uncle’s joke about eating dogs” On Medium

Terri Windling has an in-depth look at French Fairy Tales writers in Once Upon a Time in Paris… from her blog.

Steve Toase looks at homelessness and SFF in Confronting the Default: Portraying Homelessness in Science Fiction and Fantasy at Tor.com

Cat Rambo discusses new voices and playing nice in SFF in The New Rude Masters of Fantasy & Science Fiction – and Romance from her blog.


We’ll be back soon with the most recent roundup of important essays.

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State of the art

State of the Art: December 2019

December’s collection of recent fantasy and speculative fiction related essays and articles.

  • As You Know, Bob… by Jeannette Ng at Uncanny Magazine
  • Old Women in SF—the List by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley at SFWA
  • 6 Speculative Fiction Books About Migration by Malka Older at Tor.com
  • Shapeshifting Sorcery: The Persistence of Mesoamerican Magic by David Bowles at Fireside
  • Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth: Part 1, A Species Built for Racial Terror by James Mendez Hodes at Strange Horizons
  • The Science Fiction and Fantasy of Genre by Alexandra Erin at Uncanny Magazine
  • The Power of Giving a Damn by Kameron Hurley at Locus

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State of the art

State of the Art: October 2019

It’s been too long since I’ve collected essays on the speculative art. There were some great ones published this summer.

  • Writing Through the News Cycle – Kameron Hurley at Locus
  • Monsters, the Monstrous, and Reclaiming the Other by Leo Elijah Cristea at Fantasy Faction
  • Sir Elsa of Tortall, Knight of the Realm by Elsa Sjunneson-Henry at Uncanny
  • Beware the Lifeboat by Marissa Lingen at Uncanny
  • Are You the One? Exploring the Chosen One Trope in SFF by Katy Rose Pool at Tor.com
  • Winning Hugo as a Blind Person by Elsa Sjunneson-Henry at Tor.com
  • Reclaiming SciFi’s history at Wired with Desirina Boskovich and others
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State of the art

State of the Art: August 2019

A mission of Modern Folklore Press is to foster the art of Fantasy and Speculative literature. Publishing books in the genre will be one way to do that, but another way is to promote the considered discourse about the art of the speculative and the fantastic.

This series will continue to seek and promote recently published essays and interviews about the genre. MFP will also be seeking original essays. Look for a call and submission guidelines soon.

Recent:

Jacqui Talbot write of the boxes we find ourselves in and how hers has shaped who she is and her art. Fireside Magazine.

R. F. Kuang talks about her writing and the difficulty writing physically graphic and emotionally wrought scenes in R. F. Kuang: Distortions at Locus.

Aidan Moher discusses the influence of JRPGs on fantasy writers of the most recent decade at Kotaku.

Terri Windling continues her series on the storytelling in fairy tales with an excerpt from Katherine Langrish’s book Seven Miles of Steel Thistles. At Myth and Moor.

We’re Here Now: a conversation with Derek lubangakene and Ekpeki Oghenechovwe at Strange Horizons about African speculative fiction.

Also at Strange Horizons, The Avenging Mother: Essun clytemnestra and inter generational trauma in N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy by Alexander Claman.

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State of the art

State of the Art: May 2019

Essays and conversations about Fantasy and Speculative literature.

Closing out Women in SF&F Month: Swati Teerdhala writes, The Unlikeable Heroine at Fantasy Book Cafe

Everyone’s World Is Ending All the Time: notes on becoming a climate resilience planner at the edge of the anthropocene by Arkady Martine at Uncanny

The System is Broken for People of Color: why Dan Mallory’s situation is a grumpy canary in a coal mine by Priya Sridhar at Strange Horizons

Roundtable on Faith in SFF – at Strange Horizons

Let’s talk about Afrofuturism by Troy L. Wiggins at Apex