Season’s Readings everyone! As is generally true, there have been some marvelous books published in 2023, and I’m thrilled to share my favorites with you. As I’ve done the last few years, I’ve listed…
Delilah S. Dawson is the New York Times bestselling writer of Star Wars: Phasma, Galaxy’s Edge: Black Spire, Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade, The Disney Mirrorverse: Pure of Heart, Bloom, The…
Daniel Sweren-Becker is an author, television writer, and playwright living in Los Angeles. His play Stress Positions premiered in New York City at the SoHo Playhouse. He grew up in Manhattan. He is…
Connie Willis is a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. She has received seven Nebula awards and eleven Hugo awards for…
Lina Rather is a speculative fiction author and graduate student living in Central New York. Her short fiction has appeared in venues including Lightspeed, Podcastle, and Shimmer. Her Tordotcom…
Hajar Yazdiha's an Assistant Professor of Sociology, a faculty affiliate of the Equity Research Institute, and a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar (2023-2025). Dr. Yazdiha received her Ph.D. in Sociology…
Dr. Kathryn Harkup is a former chemist and author. She completed a doctorate on her favourite chemicals, phosphines, and went on to further postdoctoral research before realising that talking, writing…
S. L. Coney obtained a master's degree in clinical psychology before abandoning academia to pursue a writing career. The author has ties to South Carolina and roots in St. Louis. Coney’s work has…
Fulton Ross is a writer and journalist from the Scottish Highlands. A graduate of Scottish literature and history from Glasgow University, he has worked on national newspapers for more than a decade…
Timothy Janovsky is a queer, multidisciplinary storyteller from New Jersey. He holds a degree in theatre and dance from Muhlenberg College. His work as a humor writer has been featured on Points in…
The first season of The Twilight Zone in 1960 included an episode written by show creator Rod Serling entitled “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” Serling presented a block of homes, filled with “typical” American families, on a summer evening. There is a bright flash of light, whose origin...
Jody Armour is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California. He studies issues of race and legal decision-making as well as torts and tort reform movements. He also studies and teaches on the intersections of language, the law and ethics. His latest book directly...
The year is 1704 and Lady Cecily Kay has returned to London from her husband’s posting as a consul in Smyrna. Upon learning of her imminent return to the British Isles, Cecily sent a letter to Sir Barnaby Mayne, a renowned collector in London with one of the most expansive...
David Gerrold is speculative fiction royalty. His career spans six decades, over which he has won the Hugo and the Nebula awards. He has written more than 50 novels, worked on numerous television series and created cultural touchstones like tribbles (from Star Trek) and the Sleestak (from The Land of...
A pirate, a refugee, two pre-teen boys in love with speculative fiction stories, and two adult men who are friends and are each searching for what seems to be missing in their lives. Over the course of nearly a century, these disparate individuals will orbit the missing manuscript of a...
Halley's Comet is quite possibly the most famous, and infamous, comet currently known. It is a “periodic” comet, coming close enough to the earth for viewing approximately every 75 years. Over the centuries, the appearance of Halley’s Comet has been erroneously blamed for earthquakes, illnesses (including the Black Plague in...
In a "locked-room" or "impossible crime" mystery, a crime, or series of crimes, is committed under circumstances that appear, at least initially, impossible for said crime to have been enacted. Those same conditions will also seem to preclude the criminal entering or exiting the crime scene.The first “locked-room” mystery was...
In the early 1940s, a Scottish professor of mathematics devises a mathematical definition of the murder mystery story and writes seven provocative stories as proof of his theory. He publishes a journal article regarding his ideas and then self-publishes his seven stories in a small volume, entitled The White Murders.Decades...
What if Sasquatch is real? What if there actually is a large, hair-covered hominid that lives in the undeveloped areas of the Pacific Northwest and is occasionally sighted by unsuspecting humans? What if a natural disaster displaced these creatures and their prey, forcing them to move closer to human settlements...
As the days grow short and the nights grow longer, as the air gets cooler and the leaves on the trees shift in color from green to brown, red, and gold, we know that we have moved into autumn. And autumn is the time for movies that provide chills, from...