Everything we believe is a story. That red in a traffic light means “stop” while green means “go.” The idea of Western scientific thinking as free of bias. That peanut butter and jelly is the perfect kid’s meal. The American dream. Everything. Whether they’re good stories or bad stories isn’t the point. What matters is […]
When I was five, I moved countries for the first time. I was born in densely-packed, cosmopolitan Singapore, a city-state that felt such tension between its past and modernization that it tore down historic Chinatown, only to rebuild it as a sanitized version of itself; I took piano lessons at a Yamaha studio full of […]
When I tell people that I’m a professor who teaches classes on fandom, I’m usually met by one of two reactions. One reaction is disbelief, as if I had just told them I teach classes on juggling, origami, or beer pong. This stems from the perception that the academic classroom is a hallowed space where […]
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This is really happening. The bullies won. And the bullying will commence. And it will be rough. No one is going to save us. We will have to save ourselves. The good news for science fiction and fantasy fans and creators who are frightened of what political nightmares 2017 will bring: we are already revolutionaries. […]
My feet are cold. My fingernails are blue. I’m cold like everyone else is on this block, and there are 240 of us standing in wait to enter the building. I’m part of a group seeking audience with our House Representative, a man who hasn’t held a town hall in three years. The difference between […]
(Content Note for descriptions of rape and sexual violence.) Only one person has read my most recent book. Two other people began it and stopped. The second chapter is a rape scene. It’s off–putting and uncomfortable, and it’s what drives the entire world, the entire plot. It’s supposed to make you angry. And I’m not […]
I learned of the aswang and manananggal as many Filipino children do, through the memories of my mother. “Like vampires,” she said on a summer afternoon, “they drink blood, human blood, and take flight after the sun has set.” My eyes widened as she continued her story. “Unlike vampires, the manananggal can separate itself into […]
When I was 12, I read my mother’s copy of Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’s Shanna. A typical romance of the late 70s, it features a defiant heroine who tricks a cad bound for the gallows into marrying her and their eventual “reunion” in the Caribbean some time later. My mother was less than thrilled to discover […]
(Content Note for descriptions of child abuse and homophobia.) Sirius shook his head and said, “She’s got the measure of Crouch better than you have, Ron. If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”—Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire I […]