Random Epiphanies

The Good Friday homily that melted my heart

Very timely for Holy Week, if you are Catholic. A Jesuit discusses how people cannot handle so much love and how they fight outrageous love with outrageous hate.

EvilEmperorSerge

Below is the homily that Fr. Arnel Aquino, S.J. gave today at the Gesu for Good Friday.

I didn’t get to hear this in person. I only stumbled on this when my friend, Harvey Parafina, posted pictures of the sheets of paper it was printed on. I was very moved by the words that I immediately had to type them out. I can only imagine how much more moving this would have been to have heard this in person.

Thank you very much for sharing this online, Harvey. It’s exactly what this time for reflection is all about and what I needed to hear on a night like this.

Waa

A Good Friday Homily by Fr. Arnel Aquino, S.J.

A couple of months ago, ISIS took a video as they incinerated a Jordanian pilot in a cage. My friends said the internet was awash with the footage, but I resisted the temptation of…

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Random Epiphanies

Dear Punks and Speculators

New solarpunk anthology coming up! Call for submissions TBA.

Wagner & Wieland

Join us as we reach for the sun and into the soil. Solarpunk takes its place in line with Cyberpunk and Steampunk as a new way of thinking, a new word to define a generation’s genre. As humanity faces an ecological tipping point, we are ready for stories of the peoples living during such tipping points, and the spaces before and after them, the stories of those who fought to effect change and seek solutions, even if it was too late.

These are our stories, whether they are set in the future or in a new land.

Upper Rubber Boot Books will be publishing this short story anthology in spring of 2017 edited by us, Brontë Wieland and Phoebe Wagner.

This anthology will be funded via a Kickstarter, which we will be announcing before long. We’ll be paying SFWA rates for original fiction.

The anthology will focus on the aftereffects of environmental disasters, but…

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Random Epiphanies

Why I’ll Never Be a Witch in Harry Potter’s World: Language, Politics, and the Elitism of a Magical Education

I. I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire the year I turned 11. Like so many other Harry Potter fans, I was hoping against hope that Hogwarts was real and that I'd get a letter inviting me to attend (of course, no such thing happened). But then, I read a phrase that I didn't… Continue reading Why I’ll Never Be a Witch in Harry Potter’s World: Language, Politics, and the Elitism of a Magical Education

Random Epiphanies

You Don’t Have to Attend Clarion to Be a Real Writer

Because there’s outrage in the Internet today over Neil Gaiman’s wording of a Clarion promo.

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But it helps.

For those not in the know, the Clarion and Clarion West Writers’ Workshops are intensive six-week residential programs where aspiring, semi-professional, and early-career professional writers are exposed to and connected with accomplished working professionals in the speculative fiction field. The focus is on writing short fiction, and critiquing it (building a less-shitty first draft, if you will). But as much as that, it’s about learning what it is to be a professional or at least serious writer, both in terms of lifestyle and in terms of the business of speculative fiction and the people and standards within it. I have, for many years, described it as a provisional membership in the kool-kids club (please note the tongue planted firmly in cheek).

Both are currently acceptingapplications.

As you’ve likely guessed, or knew already, I attended Clarion in 2010. It was, in many ways, a watershed experience. I…

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Analysis/Reviews, Random Epiphanies, Writing

Questions About Heroes

Yesterday (Aug. 31) was National Heroes' Day in the Philippines. Coincidentally, I also finished the novella I've been working on since October 2014 on the same day. Hooray! Being high off the triumph and unable to keep my brain from running on ideas, I've begun to brainstorm what the next work I set in the… Continue reading Questions About Heroes

Random Epiphanies

Book Review: ‘The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic’ by Emily Croy Barker

WARNING: SPOILERS AHOY. I bought this book for four reasons: Finding this book (and its unusually bright cover) in the usually snooty Literature section of the bookstore, The blurb from the amazing Kelly Link at the back, Finding out that the author's day job is that of a journalist, And the summary stating that this would… Continue reading Book Review: ‘The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic’ by Emily Croy Barker