I knew something was wrong when I woke to the television muttering downstairs. My parents rarely watched anything other than evening news and weather. If they’d turned it on at nine a.m. on a Tuesday, it could only mean trouble. In trepidation I crept downstairs and into the living room. Mom sat in front of the … More Fiction’s Dark Mirror: Dystopia and the 9/11 Generation
Wednesday. I hit the alarm, staggered to the bathroom to get ready for work…and gasped as a cosmic pearl dazzled my bleary eyes. At 5:45 AM, the moon still hung over the field behind my house, shrouded in lavender dawn clouds. The sight was breathtaking, and appropriate: it’s not just Wednesday, it’s Moon Day! July … More Moon Day 2016: Four Facts About Luna that Influenced My Science Fiction
My guest post on the gender gap in science fiction posted on the LibraryJournal SELF-e blog today, just as Iron Man 3 co-writer Shane Black revealed that Marvel’s corporate interests forced him to change the gender of the movie’s villain to sell more toys. According to Black, the original script featured a female version of antagonist Aldrich Killian, … More The Invisible Woman: Sexual Segregation in Sci-Fi
Okay. Rant time. Remember when Blue Karma won some indie publishing awards late last year? One of the granting organizations just published interviews with the winning authors. Awesome, right? Except for one thing: “[We] recently caught up with author J.K. Ullrich, whose book Blue Karma won the science fiction category. You can click the link below to visit [our] website and read more about his winning … More Gender and Genre: Female Sci-Fi Authors are NOT an Alien Species
“Did you see the new Star Wars movie?” I texted my friend last weekend. He’s one of the few people in my circle who shares my lifelong affection for the franchise, so I was eager to discuss it with him. “No,” he replied. “I don’t want to see what they did to it.” For him, a … More Schrödinger’s Star Wars: Multiverses in Popular Fiction
The cli-fi piece I wrote for The Atlantic has gone international! French publication Libération picked it up last weekend. My French language skills are currently limited to gist translation of old Edith Piaf songs, but I like the sound of “J.K. Ullrich est romancière.” Romancière is a much more elegant term than “obscure-but-determined indie author”, don’t … More “Dystopies climatiques”: some things just sound cooler in French
Wild Type 