![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Fannish Friday: Sure Things
As we all know, Robin McKinley is one of my favorite writers, though she hasn't published anything in ten years. She lost her beloved husband in 2015 and then was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, so I had kind of trained myself to not expect another book from her. But I still check her blog now and then in hopes of receiving some good news. She mostly posts about her struggles with technology, what her dogs are up to, and other such domestic issues (which is fitting for a writer who has always cared more than is typical about the domestic).
But today, buried in the depths of a typical ramble post (no wonder she's one of my favorite writers--the inside of her head looks very much like the inside of mine!), she revealed that she has sent a draft of her latest book to her agent! Of course, that's a very early step in the process--if this book does get published, it'll probably not be for another year or two. But still, it's decided progress, and I am so excited! And intrigued--it's not a fantasy novel! It's set in 1969! I have no idea what it's actually about!
But as soon as it is available for pre-order, I will pre-order it. In all her years of writing, she's let me down only two times (Pegasus, which was...fine, I guess, and Dragonhaven, which I am determined to actually get into at some point but have never managed to do so).
She's one of very, very few writers who are an automatic buy for me. As I've mentioned before, I don't tend to buy books until after I read them and know that I love them and want to make them part of my collection. But I buy hers sight-unseen.
I will also buy anything Megan Whalen Turner puts out, and even though she's only published three books, Susanna Clarke has become another automatic-buy for me.
I think they're the only three, though there are a lot of writers who are automatic-put-it-on-hold-at-the-library-regardless-of-what-it's-about for me (Frances Hardinge, Barbara Hambly, Tana French, Joanna Bourne, etc.).
I would love to hear about which creators are an automatic-buy for you. Writers, of course, but if there's, say, a musical artist you feel that way about or whatever, please share that too!
But today, buried in the depths of a typical ramble post (no wonder she's one of my favorite writers--the inside of her head looks very much like the inside of mine!), she revealed that she has sent a draft of her latest book to her agent! Of course, that's a very early step in the process--if this book does get published, it'll probably not be for another year or two. But still, it's decided progress, and I am so excited! And intrigued--it's not a fantasy novel! It's set in 1969! I have no idea what it's actually about!
But as soon as it is available for pre-order, I will pre-order it. In all her years of writing, she's let me down only two times (Pegasus, which was...fine, I guess, and Dragonhaven, which I am determined to actually get into at some point but have never managed to do so).
She's one of very, very few writers who are an automatic buy for me. As I've mentioned before, I don't tend to buy books until after I read them and know that I love them and want to make them part of my collection. But I buy hers sight-unseen.
I will also buy anything Megan Whalen Turner puts out, and even though she's only published three books, Susanna Clarke has become another automatic-buy for me.
I think they're the only three, though there are a lot of writers who are automatic-put-it-on-hold-at-the-library-regardless-of-what-it's-about for me (Frances Hardinge, Barbara Hambly, Tana French, Joanna Bourne, etc.).
I would love to hear about which creators are an automatic-buy for you. Writers, of course, but if there's, say, a musical artist you feel that way about or whatever, please share that too!
no subject
It helps that, along with loving their music, I really admire their politics, social conscience, and just general ethos in terms of how they operate.
That's lovely!
in general it can take them between six months to a year after publication to get even the most hyped and popular YA books
O_O But I'm glad they get them eventually!
Probably the big ones for me are Kate Elliott, Aliette de Bodard (although a lot of what she publishes is free short stories, so there's no buying involved), and Samantha Shannon. I'll generally pre-order everything they write, in physical format, from my local independent bookshop.
I love this!
no subject
They're really big in environmental activism (they won't tour anywhere that requires them to fly in a plane any more, so it's lucky we live in the same country, as if I'd stayed in Australia I would never have seen them live) but I admire them most because (unlike a lot of British, and western European people on the more socialist side of the left), they don't have a huge blind spot when it comes to the lived experiences of people from Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and so on. (Sadly, this is not always a given — there's a huge problem with leftists in the UK uncritically swallowing Russian propaganda, and even supporting horrifying regimes like the ones in Syria and Iran out of supposedly 'anti-imperialist' solidarity, or denying the Cambodian or Bosnian genocides.) Not so with Massive Attack — they've been to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion, they collaborate with local musicians and fundraise for the rebuilding, and their whole approach is basically to just go to places like that and actually listen to the people who live there.
Sorry for the huge wall of text, it's just so refreshing when people whose work you admired in one sphere of your life turn out to be vague decent human beings in another sphere (and the left in Britain is generally so bad in this regard that I was kind of holding my breath with worry about Massive Attack until they suddenly popped up posting photos on their Instagram in ruined buildings in the liberated Kyiv region...)
no subject
It is! It's really rare that very successful people continue to really care about the things they cared about before.