Asked and answered
Please file this in the drawer marked "Questions that answer themselves":Why Are Boomers Getting STDs?, asks a NYT headline.Really? Really?I'm going to go ahead and guess that it's because...they're...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gas leak
So, I come home at 12:30 or thereabouts from working at circehelene's, and walk into my apartment. Immediately upon opening the door I cannot help but notice an overpowering odor of gas. Hmm. I...
View ArticleGas Leak 2: Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Come Home
Why is it always around midnight, that's what I want to know. Why can't gas start pouring into my apartment at a decent hour of the day?Better yet, gas could decide not to pour into my apartment at...
View Article"Ripley, she's just a piece of plastic."
I'm sure that everybody who might read this LJ already knows about the way the recent run of SFWA Bulletins has apparently been watching too much Mad Men and decided the gender mores of 1962 were...
View ArticleShouting "fire" in NYC, 1906-1911
I was away on a blessedly internet- and cell-phone-free vacation when my novella, "Burning Girls" went live at tor.com.I love this novella. I've worked on it for years. It's about a Jewish witch who...
View ArticleVoting Rights Act, do NOT rest in peace
Rise back up like a particularly pissed-off vampire.Four days ago, Representative John Lewis pointed out on Twitter that it was the 49th anniversary of the disappearance of Andrew Goodman, Mickey...
View ArticleHey, I've got an idea for a dystopia:
Only white people get to vote, and women don't even get to finish talking about abortions, let alone have them. Throw a teenage love triangle in there, and maybe we could get a movie deal out of this...
View ArticleHow many?
"O when may it suffice?" -- W. B. YeatsA very, very incomplete list.Henry SmithJesse WashingtonLaura NelsonL. D. NelsonWill JamesAnthony CrawfordIsaac McGhieElmer JacksonElias...
View Article'Cause you're just a So So Glo
Friday night, I went downtown to see the So So Glos, the best band in NYC, play the Mercury Lounge. This was nice for me, because usually they play their own place, Shea Stadium, which is what we New...
View ArticleSurfacing
I'm watching the 2005 TV show <i>Surface</i>, about a bunch of different people dealing with sea monsters, and the government cover-up to prevent the general public knowing about the sea...
View ArticleClik here to view.
My work at Tor.com
Tor.com has provided me with two awesome bits of news recently, about two pieces I'm particularly proud of, one each. Without further ado:1) Burning Girls, the novella I wrote a Jewish witch in Poland...
View ArticleWish you were here, Psyche...
This write-up is specifically for my friend Psyche Ready, who could not come with me to Irving Plaza Saturday night because she is very responsibly committed to paying her rent, and so had to go into...
View ArticleWhat I missed
When I was a teenager and depressed, all that helped was music. I stopped reading, I didn't really care about anything else, I lost almost all my friends (well, they were asshole teenagers anyway), I...
View ArticleWhat I liked
You know what I liked in 2014? Lots of things, actually. I liked being nominated for writing awards. I liked winning the Shirley Jackson. I liked becoming pregnant (well, the actual process lacked...
View ArticleLies they tell you about pregnancy
There are a bunch of lies about pregnancy that need to be dispelled immediately. 1) Pregnant women have glowing, clear skin.Right now, you could play connect the dots on my face if you were so inclined...
View ArticleMusic to end the world by
I was walking home the other day, and I had the music on my iphone set to shuffle, and some of the most ominous sounds I have ever heard came through the headphones. I recognized it, but I couldn't...
View ArticleReturn of the Super Squeak
Back when my godson was just a little baby, instead of the big-boy-underpants-wearing, articulate, mobile child he is today, his mother, my best friend, got in the habit of calling him Squeaky Mouse,...
View ArticleEllen Datlow's Doll Collection - [beware spoilers under LJ cut]
It's been an exciting week! Not only did I turn 39 and finish my 25th of pregnancy (the baby is kicking up a storm and I'm super-showing!), but Ellen Datlow's anthology The Doll Collection was released...
View Article'Cause she thinks SHE'S the passionate one...
I have a new story up at Tor.com today, "Ballroom Blitz." It's a retelling of the 12 Dancing Princesses fairy tale set in a punk dive on the old Lower East Side. It's a story with a lot of history...
View ArticleRIP DR. J. Donald Millar, slayer of smallpox
Haven't posted in a while, but this is the kind of thing I can't resist.I didn't know smallpox persisted as long as the late 1970s, but thanks in part to this man, we have actually eradicated it....
View ArticleCan cursive be saved? Why bother?
What topic of burning importance could return me to blogging? Human rights? Infectious disease? Right-wing assholes?Cursive, obviously.I like fountain pens. I collect them in a small way, i.e., in a...
View ArticleGhost Towns
Yesterday, my mother came to look after Solly so I could go buy some clothing that fit me (I've gone up a size or two since having my son; I have no worries about that in and of itself, but it does...
View ArticleBeing Jewish
I was reading a great piece about queer YA lit the other day about intersectionality, and the multiple ways that characters and people can embody differences from the normative “white, cisgender,...
View ArticleAnti-Semitism, July 2016
Well, yesterday was a day, wasn't it?First Trump tweeted his impressively anti-Semitic anti-Hillary ad: a star of David calling her "corrupt" on a background of dollars. Here it is. After criticism, he...
View ArticleNo Reconciliation. No Empathy. No Kindness.
I've been seeing a lot of calls for people on the left (defined very broadly as "everyone who opposed Trump") to have empathy for Trump voters. To listen and respond to their concerns. To reach out to...
View Article
