Tag: Cold War

“The Ghost of Worshops Past: How Communism, Conservatism, and the Cold War still molds our path into SFF Writing”

At Tor.com, S.L. Huang writes about the history of writing workshops and its influence on SF/F workshops and writing today. “To those outside the industry, the name “Clarion” might not have much meaning. But to those with aspirations of being a professional SFF author—of joining those like Gaiman—workshops […]

Gods in Wigs

In November of 1989, The Berlin Wall — the second-most potent symbol of the Cold War after Ivan Drago — became a speed bump as the physical, social, and political barriers separating West and East Germany collapsed. As Germans began streaming back and forth across the once imposing […]

Will I Dream?

September 2017. Socorro County, New Mexico — It moved slowly, with a grinding of motors and gears, its focus drifting across a brilliant blue September sky. It took several minutes, and I stood transfixed by something that must, to so many, seem so mundane. When it finally clicked […]

Shvitz & the City & the City

There’s a place in New York’s East Village called the Russian & Turkish Baths. It’s a neighborhood institution that has been in operation for some 125 years, give or take. I’m not a regular, but every now and then a writer needs to shvitz, especially during the winter months. […]

Folk Horror for the Atomic Age

Folk horror is one of those nebulous sub-genres that seems, when one first sets out to define it, relatively simple. Yet the longer one dwells on it, the more one is exposed to it, the more complicated the definition becomes, until at last one simply throws up one’s […]

Battle of the Brains

For anyone with a body, it’s no surprise that there is a genre of film dealing entirely with our seemingly never-ending battle with our own mortal coils. The human body is often private enemy number one for those who inhabit it, and there are times when it seems […]