-Tricia Sullivan on “SFF and reality checks”, aka how “making stuff up” can be actively harmful. Well worth a look; and Cécile Cristofari is also awesome in the comments about Barthes and how we make up stories to interpret “reality”.
–“Tiger Stripes” by Nghi Vo, over at Strange Horizons is a fantasy set in Vietnam, which is rare enough to mention. Also pretty impressed that the diacritics were left in, though really, the only word affected is “Huế” (I imagine that if the main character had been called something other than Thanh, which has no accent and no non-Latin vowel, it might have been harder to leave everything in). The story itself is lovely and poignant without being sappy (and it’s got all those lovely details like the chopstick in the mouth of the dead, the references to two of the great rivers of Vietnam, etc.)
-The Million Writers Awards longlist is now up (many thanks to Jason Sanford and the tireless judges). It includes “Exodus Tides”, published in IGMS (and, by a happy coincidence, collected in my forthcoming ebook sampler Scattered Among Strange Worlds); and many other familiar names from Ken Liu to Mari Ness. Also includes “Ghostweight” by Yoon Ha Lee, one of my absolute favorite stories of the last year, one I think was really slighted in the awards season nominations.