A neighbor is away on an extended family visit, and she asked me to take care of her plants while she’s gone. She seems to think I’m doing it just to be nice. I think I’m doing it because I get to have more plants. I have them only temporarily, true, but look at these beauties! These quiet guests are content with a sunny window and weekly watering, and they add color and delight to my home. They’re very welcome.
I’m interviewed in the latest issue of Panel Magazine in an article called “Lessons from the Future.” Published in Budapest, Panel is a magazine of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and the arts produced in Central and Eastern Europe and originally written in English or translated into English.
Half the proceeds from Issue #9 will go to help Ukrainian people currently residing in Hungary. You can order an electronic copy here.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview by editor Jennifer Walker:
Question: Clones play a key role in Immunity Index … Were you drawn to clones to explore the concept of what it meant to be human, as a device to show what happens when a group becomes dehumanized, or was it something else you were curious to explore?
Answer: I know some human clones. We all do. Identical twins are clones. Most of my houseplants are clones, too. When you take a cutting and grow a new plant from it, that’s a clone. And yet, the simple, natural, common state of being a clone has been associated with evil. Other natural states like being trans-gender are actively being dehumanized right now. This is another political choice, and who’s making those decisions and why? As I said, anger seeped into my novel.
I’ll be participating (virtually) in the 2022 Current Research in Speculative Fiction Conference held June 30 and July 1 at the University of Liverpool.
The annual conference is designed to promote the research of speculative fiction, media and technologies. It aims to shine a spotlight on the research of postgraduates and early career researchers working at the overlap of speculative fiction, theories and cultures.
For CRSF’s 11th year, this hybrid event “seeks to generate interdisciplinary discussions of communication within speculative fiction, breaching boundaries of communication and how forms of communication and kinship manifest themselves within textual and visual cultures in the present-day.”
I’ll appear in a roundtable on Friday, July 1, at 3 p.m. BST, on “Communicating the Other” with hosts Jonathan Thornton and David Tierney, and special guests Chana Porta, Vandana Singh, Aliya Whitle, and Sue Burke.
Other panels and keynotes include “Building the Other,” “Gender,” “Uplift Fiction and Listening to the Other,” and “Degrees of Distance from Consensus Reality.”
Sign up here. Registration closes June 24.
If you’re in Chicago, come to the preview reading Tuesday, June 14, 7 p.m., at Fado Irish Pub and Restaurant, 100 W. Grand Ave., near the Magnificent Mile downtown! More information here: Ludlow Charlington @ GFS 6/14/22 | Facebook
Each year, the City of Chicago Animal Care and Control gets thousands of unwanted animals. Some are pets whose owners can no longer keep them, some are strays, and a few are evidence animals in court cases. Most of these pets are looking for homes, and all of them need care.
That’s what Friends of Chicago Animal Care and Control does: its members help Chicago’s neediest animals.
At Ludlow Charlingtons Coffee Shop in Chicago, eleven ornate portraits of contemporary dogs dressed in historical costumes hang on the walls. As a fundraiser for FCACC, nineteen writers, mostly from Chicago, have donated work to an anthology based on those portraits.
In all, thirty-four stories, poems, and plays tell about guarding kids, dealing with queens and kings, captaining a pirate ship, and creating a fashion trend. They span the globe and historical eras. I wrote a sonnet about Dog Six.
You can buy the Ludlow Charlington’s Doghouse starting June 14 for only $5.99:
Roses have prickles,
violets do not,
inside has icicles,
outside is hot.
Chris Helzer, The Nature Conservancy’s Director of Science in Nebraska, wants to convince you that prairies are interesting and important, even though there aren’t any trees.
Read his entreaty here: Tribulations of a Prairie Evangelist.
I’ll be reading from my novel Immunity Index on May 19 as part of the Strong Women Strange Worlds series. The Zoom presentation is at 7 p.m. ET. Sign up to attend at https://strongwomenstrangeworlds.weebly.com. Other readers are Heather Rose Jones, Missy Jane, Kyoko M, Cass Morris, and Mari Ness.
The novel Immunity Index is now available in trade paperback, hardcover, ebook, and audio book editions. Find your favorite retailer here.
“Prescient and powerful, this is a gut-punch of a book.” — Seanan McGuire
“You can sometimes count every orange on a tree but never all the trees in a single orange.” — A.K. Ramanujan (1929-1993)
You can pre-order the trade paperback edition of “Immunity Index” for 25% off from today to Friday, April 20 to 22, at Barnes & Noble. Coupon code: PREORDER25
Immunity Index: a novel by Sue Burke, Paperback | Barnes & Noble
Chicon 8, the 80th World Science Fiction Convention, will be held in Chicago from September 1 to 5, 2022.
I’ll be there. In fact, I’m already doing a little volunteer work for the convention, helping edit the Progress Reports. Progress Report 3 is just out (PDF here), and I have an article in it about Chicon 8’s logo, the rocket that will “take it to the stars.” The logo is based on the Chicago city flag.
Progress Report 3 also includes a report about the first Worldcon in 1939, an article about fandom, a report from the convention chair, and news about the Art Show, Dealers’ Room, Exhibits, Hospitality, Member Services, and Programming. If you’re not sure if you want to attend, this might tempt you. Exciting things are in the works!
As Convention Chair Helen Montgomery puts it: “We really cannot wait to bring you all to Chicago, to show off our city and our fandoms, and to share our love of science fiction and fantasy together. Help us make our dreams, and yours, reality.”
I also have an article in Progress Report 2 (PDF here) about the Chicago city flag. Each of the four stars on the flag represents an important event in the city’s history.
As I said, I’ll be at Chicon 8. I plan to hop on a bus in front of my house, hop off the bus twenty minutes later, and be ready for five days of fun and inspiration with thousands of fellow writers and fans.
Semiosis