Adventures in SF Parenting: Kids and their YouTubez
Recently, I realized that I am no longer relevant. This was not something that I thought would happen to me at the tender age of 35, but I don’t really get a say in the matter. It is also possible that I wouldn’t have realized this for another decade had I not had children at a very young age. Or perhaps if I were less liberal with my computer usage policies in our home. Regardless, the epiphany occurred, and it was mind blowing. A little background data for those of you who haven’t listened to The Skiffy and Fanty Show podcast – I am the occasionally proud, more commonly flabbergasted, parent of two girls. My daughters are 11 and 12 years of age, and they are both in 7th grade at a local public Junior High School. You’ll learn more about that at some point in these “Adventures in SF Parenting” posts. Suffice it to say, if you bothered to do the math, I had my kids when I was fairly young. I was 22 when my older daughter, Mo, was born, my husband was only 18. That probably gave us an entirely different viewpoint on parenting than
Announcement: Skiffy and Fanty 3.0 Begins Now!
A lot of things are happening around the Skiffy and Fanty compound. Big things. You’ve already heard about Stina Leicht joining the crew and the World SF Tour. Now it’s time to announce the next big step for the show: the 3.0 Upgrade. What is it? 3.0 is the next phase of The Skiffy and Fanty Show. It will involve a slightly revamped audio program and a complete content overhaul on the blog. We decided it was time to take this venture to the next level, and everyone who has contributed to this show in recent weeks jumped on board without much hesitation. When you have that many people enthusiastically jumping into the mixer, you just can’t ignore it! Here’s what you can expect from the podcast for the next few months (before the World SF Tour kicks off): 3-4 discussion/interview episodes of the podcast, including our Worldcon interviews and new interviews with Nick Mamatas, Emma Newman, Ann Leckie, Doug Lain, and more. The continuation of the Torture Cinema feature: September (Sharknado — recorded at Worldcon), October (The Gate — the Halloween Special), November (listener’s choice), and December (listener’s choice — the Christmas and Winter Holiday Special) 1-2 episodes of Shoot the WISB, featuring reviews of new movies and/or re-watches of movies (coming soon: The World’s End, the Riddick Trilogy, and a Babylon 5 re-watch) And here’s what you can expect from the blog: Almost daily posts, each one written by an S&F crew member. These will include discussions about recent SF/F-related events and reflections about genre fiction, geek parenting, the business world of SF/F, the wonders of horror, and much more. Our new “My Superpower” guest posts (Stina Leicht is the first victim)(authors are welcome to email us if they’d like to write one) A new monthly post: Recommend Reads (self-explanatory, I hope) A maybe, just maybe, a few more things! This is just the beginning for 3.0. Who is involved? The Skiffy and Fanty Crew’s contributions will be made by our regulars — Shaun Duke, Julia Rios, Paul Weimer, Jen Zink, and Adam Callaway — and by a whole bunch of new folks, including David Annandale, Stina Leicht, Mike R. Underwood, and Keffy Kehrli. Basically, Jen decided five people wasn’t enough for a single podcast, so she went ahead and added four more, bringing our total up to nine. We’re pretty sure it’ll turn out OK. How can you get involved? Join the Discussion! Leave a comment, email us your opinions about an episode, or share our stuff on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and wherever else you feel like. S&F is an open door. If you’ve got something to say, then say it. And if you want to help contribute to the show or the blog, let us know. Nothing like a crowd to make a blog and a show, wouldn’t you say? There may be more announcements in the future. For now, enjoy the beginning of what we hope will be a really good thing indeed!
Announcement: The World SF Tour Begins in 2014 (Here We Come!)
(Note: if you’re just arriving to this post, you can find episodes for the World SF Tour under the Interviews tab; additionally, posts and other materials will be listed under the World SF Tour label.) For those who hung out with us over the course of this year’s Worldcon, you’ll have heard us talk about our 2014 schedule or seen our magic “We’re All About World SF in 2014” super special t-shirts (pics coming soon). But all of you at home missed the big announcement: The Skiffy and Fanty Show is proud to announced our 2014 World SF Tour. What does this mean? One of the things we care a great deal about on this show is diversity in SF/F. But we’re all based in the U.S., which means it is easy for the show to get stuck on what’s going on here. Since 2014 is the same year of the World Cup (Brazil!), a huge international competition, we decided to celebrate SF/F from all over the world at the same time. The World SF Tour will consist of discussions about World SF, the SF/F literary traditions in non-U.S. spaces, and related topics, along with interviews with SF/F authors from as many places as we can fit on a single season of the show. So far, we know we’re going to talk to South African, Japanese, Irish, Canadian, and Israeli authors, critics, translators, and publishers. That list of countries will get much longer (we’re working on authors and fans from the Middle East, Central and South America, other parts of the African continent, the Caribbean, and so much more)! How can you help? Share this news with the community. The biggest challenge will be reaching writers, editors, translators, and fans from other parts of the world. Let’s face it: the Earth is actually quite a big place, with over two hundred individual countries and more languages than we can count on our figures. So if you know somebody from Nigeria, South Korea, New Zealand, Qatar, American Samoa, etc. (or someone who knows a lot about the SF/F in X country), let them know about what we’re doing! Authors, publishers, editors, filmmakers, and translators from all over the world should contact us at skiffyandfanty[at]gmail[dot]com and tell us about yourself. Do you have a book coming out next year? A movie? Do you work with translators to or from a language? Contact us! We’re going to try to cover as many topics, peoples, and countries as we can, but we can’t do that without people to talk to! So that’s the big announcement. Long live World SF! ————————————————————- Note: We’ll still have American guests; when we say “the world,” we mean “the world” and not some essentialized version where there’s the “United States” and “Everyone Else.” The U.S. isn’t the center of the universe, so a true World SF tour has to acknowledge the contributions of writers from as many places as we can possibly fit in a year.
149. Lauren Beukes (a.k.a. the Travel Ninja) — The Shining Girls (An Interview)
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode149InterviewWLaurenBeukes/SandF%20–%20Episode%20149%20–%20Interview%20w%20Lauren%20Beukes.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSTime travel, murderers, and American pastimes, oh my! After one heck of an exciting year of bidding wars and writing, Lauren Beukes returns to the show to talk about her new novel, The Shining Girls. We talk about serial killers, her research into American history, time travel, and so much more! We hope you enjoy the episode! (Don’t forget to check out our interview with Lauren for her novel, Zoo City, here.) Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below): Episode 149 — Download (MP3) Intro and Discussion (0:00 – 1:04:05) Lauren’s Website Lauren’s Twitter Lauren’s Tour Schedule The Shining Girls TV Show Announcement! Lauren’s Big Idea over at Whatever (Scalzi’s Blog) Check out Lauren’s books! They are awesome! You can also support this podcast by signing up for a one month free trial at Audible. Doing so helps us, gives you a change to try out Audible’s service, and brings joy to everyone. Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0). That’s all, folks! Thanks for listening. See you next week.
146. Artificial Intelligence and You w/ Mary Robinette Kowal (A Discussion)
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode146ArtificialIntelligenceAndYouWMaryRobinetteKowal/SandF%20–%20Episode%20146%20–%20Artificial%20Intelligence%20and%20You%20w%20Mary%20Robinette%20Kowal.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSRunaway robots, evil computers, and automatons, oh my! Mary Robinette Kowal, author of the recently released Without a Summer, joins us to discuss one of science fiction’s longest-lived concepts: artificial intelligence. We explore the motivations behind their prevalence in SF, early examples of AI (pre-Victorian Era), and more. Plus, we talk a little bit about Mary’s new book, which we’re sure a lot of you will love! We hope you enjoy the episode! Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below): Episode 146 — Download (MP3) Intro and Discussion (0:00 – 1:28:58) Mary’s Website Mary’s Twitter The Year Without a Summer (Wikipedia) Shades of Milk and Honey (UK Edition) The (Mechanical) Turk (Wikipedia) Eerie, Indiana (IMDB) Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (Wikipedia) The Future Eve by Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (Wikipedia) de l’Isle-Adam on Project Gutenberg (all in French, I’m afraid) Check out Mary’s books! They are awesome! You can also support this podcast by signing up for a one month free trial at Audible. Doing so helps us, gives you a change to try out Audible’s service, and brings joy to everyone. Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0). That’s all, folks! Thanks for listening. See you next week.
135. Folklore, Myth, and Narrative w/ Marie Brennan
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode135TalkingFolkloreAndNarrativeWMarieBrennan/SandF%20–%20Episode%20135%20–%20Talking%20Folklore%20and%20Narrative%20w%20Marie%20Brennan.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSFolklore, narrative, and dragons, oh my! Marie Brennan, author of A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent (among other great novels), joins us to discuss the influence and relevance of folklore to narrative, her new book, genre fiction, and much more. We hope you enjoy the episode! Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below): Episode 135 — Download (MP3) Intro and Discussion (0:00 – 1:24:40) Marie’s Website You can also support this podcast by signing up for a one month free trial at Audible. Doing so helps us, gives you a change to try out Audible’s service, and brings joy to everyone. Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0). That’s all, folks! Thanks for listening. See you next week.
