Posts Tagged: Blogging

News

Charlie Jane Anders is the new Editor-in-Chief of io9

By Aidan Moher January 20th, 2015
Charlie-Jane-Anders1

Mega-blog io9 has a new Editor-in-Chief: Charlie Jane Anders. It’s a name that should be familiar to io9 readers — Anders has been Managing Editor of io9 for a number of years and writes many of the site’s most visible and popular articles. She replaces Annalee Newitz, who is moving on to become Editor-in-Chief of Gizmodo. Newitz was Editor-in-Chief of io9 since its founding in 2008.

“I’ll be serving as the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo, and Charlie Jane Anders is going to become editor-in-chief of io9,” revealed Newitz on her blog. “The two sites, along with Sploid and our diagonals, will be collaborators within the greater universe of the Future Initiative. Some editors and writers will be shared across the sites, and we’ll be working together on a lot of story packages. But the sites will also retain separate identities, with separate commenter communities.”

This change is the first step in what Newitz dubs the ‘Future Initiative’, a program to bring io9 closer to its sister sites, Gizmodo and Sploid. “My goal for the Future Initiative is to produce original reporting, must-read explainers, and smart analysis,” said Newitz. “I want our sites to have clear opinions — even if they piss everybody off — and distinct voices. And I also want us to be experts in the topics we cover.”

Art

Cover Art for Speculative Fiction 2012, The Years Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary, edited by Landon and Shurin

By Aidan Moher January 17th, 2013
Speculative Fiction 2012, The Years Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary, edited by Landon and Shurin

It’s a nice cover. Clean, and reminiscent of high end literary journals without looking stale. It’s a cute play on expectations to change the letters of the keyboard as well.

Of the project, Landon says:

Our goal, if any such thing can be claimed, is to create a record of all the incredibly rich content being created on the web. We put out a call for submissions from the community at large and received over 200. Accounting for our own finds, that means well over 300 pieces of non-fiction that range from reviews, to essays about the field, to what it means to live the genre life (or something to that effect).

I’m very excited for this project, and contributed several handfuls of links and articles around the web for consideration by Shurin and Landon. I’m hoping to see some of these articles, written by my favourite online members of the fan community, make it among the 40-50 articles published in the collection. Speculative Fiction 2012, The Years Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary is a great step towards not only chronicling the best online fan writing, but also for providing a new audience for these writers. How great would it be to see a collection like this appear in packages distributed to members of major conventions, like WorldCon or the World Fantasy Convention? Speculative Fiction 2012, The Years Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary is set for release in late February or early March by Pandemonium Fiction.

News

Feed my ego, an interview with Jo Fletcher Books

By Aidan Moher December 12th, 2012

Jo Fletcher BJo Fletcher BooksooksThere used to be a time, way back when, that I used to run interviews with authors. They were fun, challenging and people liked to read them. Then I stopped for some reason. Well, today, the interviews are back, but the tables are turned. I was asked by Jo Fletcher Books, a great genre imprint from the UK, to be subject to an interview. Mostly, we talk about blogging, but there is also discussion about some of the novels that really opened my eyes to the world of Fantasy literature. Since its terribly topical and popular, here’s a taste from the interview that discusses one of my favourite novels, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien:

What are your all-time favourite reads?

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

As I grew from childhood and into adolescence, I veered away from Fantasy, magic and adventure, replacing them instead with laser guns, time portals and spacefaring. Science Fiction ruled much of my pre-adolescence. I still remember being in grade four, I was nine, and getting gruff from my teacher because I wasn’t reading the assigned novel during silent reading. It was The Cay by Theodore Taylor, appropriate for most readers my age. Instead of reading The Cay, I was reading Jurassic Park. I lost touch with Fantasy because, well . . . I was a boy and Fantasy was full of princesses, unicorns and other such girly stuff. I don’t know where I got such ideas, certainly not from my parents, but there they were.

At age eleven, however, my mom finally convinced me to give The Hobbit a shot. She was an avid reader of both Fantasy and Science Fiction, and rarely steered me wrong. I expect the only reason I gave The Hobbit a shot, however, was because of the languorous, fiery Smaug, stretched out atop his pile of gold, scrolls of gold-etched dwarfish runes capped the top and bottom of the book’s cover. It was pretty cool. I still own that copy of The Hobbit I read it, and fell in love. The rest, if you’ll pardon the expression, is history.

You can read the rest of the interview on Jo Fletcher Books’ website. I hope you enjoy it.