Revisionaries: What We Can Learn From the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Authors is a fun and interesting book for writers and for readers who like to know how authors work. It imparts twenty-one lessons to writers using the challenges and unfinished writings of classically regarded writers. Easily read and easily digestible, each chapter uses a different author to teach a different lesson. These examples aren’t modern, and the diversity is … Continue reading Revisionaries: What We Can Learn From the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Authors by Kristopher Jansma →
Find creative inspiration in this fascinating rummage through the wastebaskets, secret diaries, and abandoned files of 20 literary superstars. If you like to write—whether it’s a pastime, a passion, or a profession—you’ve probably found yourself reading something brilliant and thinking, “I could never do this! I might as well give up.” But if there’s one thing every great author has in common, it’s they’ve all written some hot garbage. Revisionaries takes you on an engrossing … Continue reading Revisionaries →
This piece of literary mayhem is exclusive to Smart Bitches After Dark, but fret not. If you’d like to join, we’d love to have you! Have a look at our membership options, and come join the fun! If you want to have a little extra fun, be a little more yourself, and be part of keeping the site open for everyone in the future, we can’t wait to see you in our new subscription-based section … Continue reading Tarot After Dark: A Reading for Spring →
This Rec League came from our own Sarah! It was a tough one: What do you think about a Rec League of escape books: stories, esp romance, that are so absorbing, you disappear into the book for a long while. And the catch is, no one can rec a book they’ve rec’d before? Sarah: Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan, but this is not a cozy kind of fantasy. A young woman with cancer … Continue reading The Rec League: Pure Escapism →
When we talked about DNFing books and why, a few of y’all asked if we could talk about re-reading, which is a popular antidote to Too Many DNFs in a Row. PamG wrote in the comments: I think it would be an interesting counterpoint to the DNF question to also discuss the practice of rereading. Some people never reread a book or so they claim. Others, myself included, have whole stables of books they gleefully … Continue reading Your Top Three Re-Reads — And Why! →
David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas meets Octavia Butler’s Earthseed series, as acclaimed author Monica Byrne (The Girl in the Road) crafts an unforgettable piece of speculative fiction about where humanity came from, where we are now, and where we’re going—and how, in every age, the same forces that drive us apart also bind us together. “A stone-cold masterpiece.”— New Scientist The Actual Star takes readers on a journey over two millennia and six continents—telling three powerful tales a thousand years … Continue reading The Actual Star →
Hello, everyone! It’s time for Wednesday Links! By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be on my way home for Orlando. I built a lightsaber at Galaxy’s Edge on Monday and my partner and I ate and drank our way around the world at Epcot on Tuesday. I’m sure there are photos on my instagram account (I’m writing this ahead of time! Hello from the past!). I also mentioned in a previous podcast that I’m … Continue reading Links: Witches, Fashion, & More →
In The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, singer-songwriter, actor, fashion icon, activist, and worldwide superstar Janelle Monáe brings to the written page the Afrofuturistic world of one of her critically acclaimed albums, exploring how different threads of liberation—queerness, race, gender plurality, and love—become tangled with future possibilities of memory and time in such a totalitarian landscape…and what the costs might be when trying to unravel and weave them into freedoms. Whoever controls our … Continue reading The Memory Librarian →
This Rec League comes from Kayla. Thanks, Kayla! I’m dying for some BIPOC vampires I can really sink my teeth into. Ideally wise cracking and leather pants wearing but I’m not that picky. I just want more diversity in my night life. Shana: Well, there’s classics that I love, like Jewelle Gomez’s The Gilda Stories , Tananarive Due’s My Soul to Keep , and Octavia Butler’s Fledgling , but that doesn’t get you the lighthearted … Continue reading The Rec League: BIPOC Vampires →
Fledgling, Octavia Butler’s last novel, is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly un-human needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: she is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted—and still wants—to destroy her and those she cares for, and how she can save herself. Fledgling is a captivating novel that tests … Continue reading Fledgling →
A compelling debut by a new voice in fantasy fiction, The Conductors features the magic and mystery of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files written with the sensibility and historical setting of Octavia Butler’s Kindred: Introducing Hetty Rhodes, a magic-user and former conductor on the Underground Railroad who now solves crimes in post-Civil War Philadelphia. As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Hetty Rhodes helped usher dozens of people North with her wits and magic. Now that the Civil War is over, … Continue reading The Conductors →
