As we write this, Lynne and I are celebrating the 20th anniversary of us becoming a couple. Our beginning is a ridiculous and tumultuous tale of two overwrought 20-somethings filled with passion and dreams, falling in love with each other when they probably should have known better. It started right here in Urbana, Illinois, with […]
We are writing this on the fifth anniversary of our daughter Caitlin dying and being resuscitated during surgery. Winds howl, making it feel well below zero. A sheet of ice covers Central Illinois. Spring feels a million years away. We opened our first editorial of our new magazine, Uncanny, talking about how Caitlin’s frightening surgery […]
Happy New Year! We made it to 2019! Somebody shook the Champaign-Urbana snowglobe. Wet whiteness drapes the campus trees as we write this in Espresso Royale—the coffeehouse where we’ve been writing things since Nirvana and REM ruled the radio charts. And people listened to radio. And knew what charts were. The Thomases have been taking […]
HI I AM HUGO THE NEW UNCANNY KITTEN AND I WRITE EDITORIAL THIS MONTH ALL OF THE STORIES ARE ABOUT SLEEPING AND EATING AND CLIMBING ONTO THINGS I SHOULDN’T CLIMB ONTO AND OH IT IS A SQUIRREL IN THE WINDOW! Now that we have Hugo off of the laptop… As we write this, the temperatures […]
And so it is. Disabled People officially join Women, Queers, and People of Color currently destroying science fiction. Why, oh, why are we ever bound to destroy that which we love most? Disabled folks love science fiction, did you know that? This personal essay section exists purely because we love science fiction. Because disabled authors […]
Destroy. That’s the brief of this issue. Destroy science fiction. Why? Because disabled people have been discarded from the narrative, cured, rejected, villainized. We’ve been given few options for our imaginations to run wild within the parameters of an endless sky. This issue destroys those narratives and more. As with the previous Destroy projects (Women, […]
The easiest part of being Reprints Editor is knowing that other editors have loved all the submissions, and each one has passed that first (or second or third) set of eyes before it came to me. It’s also the hardest part. So many wonderful stories. So much lovely writing, strong characterization, ingenious worldbuilding. And I […]
Disabled people are here, now. We are everywhere. Based off the media we encounter and consume, that might not be readily apparent. The system fails us. Our bodies and our persons are so often misrepresented, shut down, shut out. Our stories are so rarely told. When we put up the call for submissions for Disabled […]
I am multiply marginalized: I am a person of color; I am queer; I am nonbinary; I am disabled. So it’s not surprising that I talk about marginalization and identity a lot, as they affect my life in big and small ways. The common thread that appears in discussions I have within various communities about […]
The notes that I wrote myself when I started the journey of editing Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction are clear. The words I gave myself were about envisioning a future free from eugenics, about confronting the implicit biases of our genre, and I’m pleased to say the authors in the nonfiction section have torn those […]