The Lesson That Superhero TV Shows Keep Learning

November 7, 2023

Two pieces of news struck me recently. First, Superman and Lois is ending with its upcoming fourth season. This bums me out, because I love that show. Tyler...

Why I Don't Like Halloween

October 31, 2023

I didn't always dislike Halloween. When I was a kid, I kind of liked it: I used to dress up as one of the Doctors from Doctor Who almost every year (see...

Why Is It So Hard For Hollywood To Create Brand New Heroes?

October 25, 2023

The other day, director Matthew Vaughn argued in favor of going back and retelling the story of Anakin Skywalker and his scrappy kids. Vaughn said he would...

12 Male Role Models From Science Fiction and Fantasy

October 17, 2023

Lately I feel like everyone is talking about masculinity and what it means to be a good dude. The other day, I was on a panel at the Pride on the Page book...

Jedi Knights and Vulcans Both Suck Now. What Happened?

October 10, 2023

Jedi Master Plo Koon and T'Lyn, a Vulcan character on Star Trek: Lower Decks Something strange happened to both Star Wars and Star Trek around twenty-five...

News Flash: Trans People Have Internalized Transphobia!

October 3, 2023

Trans Solidarity March in Washington DC (Photo by Ted Eytan, Creative Commons) A dozen years ago, Julia Serano called me up and asked me to speak at Girl...

There's No Queer Liberation Without Fighting Capitalism

September 27, 2023

This pink flag that says QUEERS AGAINST CAPITALISM has been hangging in my apartment for as long as I can remember. It comes from some rally/event I attended...

11 Books That Changed How I think About Space Opera

September 19, 2023

A detail from the cover of Stainless Steel Rat: Deluxe Edition from 2000 A.D., by Carlos Ezquerra and Kevin Cosnell, based on the characters created by Harry...

7 Hot Takes About Star Trek

September 8, 2023

Hey everybody, happy Star Trek day! I'm just barely recovered from COVID now and haven't had time to write a new newsletter, so please enjoy this repost of a...

The Internet Is About to Get a Lot Worse

August 22, 2023

We've all watched in horror as red states have banned books in schools and libraries. We've seen teachers fired merely for reading a book about gender...

One Thing (Almost) Every Aspiring Writer Needs

August 15, 2023

I'm regularly asked what advice I have for newbie writers, and I usually say stuff about trying to find community by joining a writing group, going to...

Stuff I Love Right Now

August 3, 2023

I usually include a recommendation at the end of every newsletter for a piece of music, a book or a TV show/movie. I haven't been doing that lately, because...

If you see me on Twitter, it's not me

July 29, 2023

Thank you to everyone who just subscribed to my newsletter! I really appreciate it, and I promise that I will be putting out new posts at least once a week...

The Year of the Woman... and What Happened Next

July 7, 2023

Hey y'all... sorry I haven't published a new newsletter in a couple weeks. I'm desperately trying to get my new adult novel to my editor before I fly to...

The Vital Lesson Superhero Movies Should Learn From Deadpool

June 18, 2023

As you read this, The Flash is in theaters, and it's somewhat underperforming, with an opening weekend on par with Black Adam. As I said on Mastodon a while...

"Churn" Might Actually Be a Good Thing for Streaming Services

June 5, 2023

If you've been reading a lot of coverage of the Streaming Wars [TM] lately, you've probably been hearing about the problem of "churn." Churn, we're told, is...

Revision is the Process of Going from General to Specific

June 2, 2023

Here's another half-baked essay about revision — since I'm in the middle of revising a novel right now! (If you missed it, last week's essay was also all...

Revision can be fun. No, really.

May 24, 2023

Revising a work of fiction is pure agony. This is one of the main tenets of the writer credo (or maybe just a huge meme among writers.) And yeah, it...

Some (Probably) Worthless Thoughts About Content Moderation

May 10, 2023

Here's an incredibly crappy fable: Once there was a young person of great distinction who wore the most scintillating pair of kaleidoscopic pants. We'll call...

10 Hot Takes About Star Wars

May 4, 2023

Hey, everyone. I'm reupping a piece I wrote for Star Wars Day back in 2021, because I figure most of y'all never saw it. I hope the Force is treating you...

What People Have Been Saying So Far About Promises Stronger Than Darkness!

May 2, 2023

It's been a few weeks since Promises Stronger Than Darkness came out, and I have been so chuffed about the response to this one so far. I've never written a...

What the Universal Translator Tells Us About Exploring Other Cultures

April 17, 2023

Science fiction is full of miraculous technology. You've got instantaneous teleportation across great distances, time travel, faster-than-light starships,...

Here's What I'll Do If You Buy My New Book!

April 10, 2023

Hello everyone! My novel Promises Stronger Than Darkness comes out tomorrow. It's the last, and I think the most fun, volume in my young adult trilogy that...

EVERYTHING You Need to Know Before Promises Stronger Than Darkness!

April 4, 2023

There's just one week left before the release of Promises Stronger Than Darkness, the final book in my young adult trilogy, which I've been calling...

Don't Say Characters Lack "Agency." Here's Something Talk About Instead.

March 29, 2023

There's one common term that I was pretty careful not to use in my writing advice book, Never Say You Can't Survive: "agency." As in, "characters in a story...

Here are Some of My Favorite Trans/Non-Binary Books!

March 20, 2023

Some amazing folks, led by author Sim Kern, are launching a Trans Rights Readathon starting today, to raise money for trans organizations. I meant to tweet...

The First Article I Ever Wrote About Trans Issues

March 13, 2023

I've written countless articles and essays about trans people over the past twenty or so years, including some recent ones in Teen Vogue, the San Francisco...

Writing Comic Books is HARD. Here's Why

March 6, 2023

I've heard prose authors say stuff like, "I wish I could just write comics. You just have to write some dialogue and sketch out some action, and the artist...

7 Hot Takes About Star Trek

February 21, 2023

1. The Federation is most interesting when it has an ideological foil. The original Star Trek pitted Captain Kirk against fake gods, rogue Starfleet...

J.K. Rowling and "Separating the Art from the Artist"

February 11, 2023

In case you've been living under some kind of magical rock, there's a new Harry Potter tie-in video game out now, called Hogwarts Legacy. I honestly wasn't...

I Still Loathe The Concept of "Careers"

February 3, 2023

So I used to have a rant that I spouted off sometimes, about how much I hate the idea of having a "career." Back in the day, I was lucky enough to have a day...

Everything you need to know about New Mutants: Lethal Legion!

January 28, 2023

I've always dreamed of writing superhero comics. I love how colorful and earnestly weird they are, and how well they lend themselves to a mixture action and...

Interview: Assigned Media's Evan Urquhart Explains Why We Need Trans Journalists

January 23, 2023

Lately I've been so grateful for Assigned Media (assignedmedia.org), a new outlet where journalist Evan Urquhart keeps track of transgender news, and...

Some Ideas for How to Save Short Fiction!

January 20, 2023

Hey, thanks for reading my newsletter! I don't charge any money to read Happy Dancing, but if you would like to support me, I would be super grateful if you...

I Was a Religious Icon for a Dozen Years (Part 2)

January 5, 2023

Note: You're reading the second half of this essay about singing in church choirs as an atheist... the first half came out last week, and you can scroll down...

I Was a Religious Icon (Part 1)

December 28, 2022

I was ten or eleven years old the first time I wore a frock in public. My parents had pushed me to join the choir at an Episcopalian cathedral in Hartford,...

What the Original Star Wars Teaches Us About Storytelling

December 18, 2022

I think one decent litmus test for any story is: is it about what it's about? This may sound kind of silly --- how can a story not be about what it's about?...

In Praise of Naive Tricksters

December 5, 2022

Issue #32 of New Mutants comes out on Wednesday, and I'm super proud of this one. (Above is a sneak peek from the four preview pages Marvel just released,...

Don't Just Create One Big Story, Build a Mosaic of Tiny Stories!

November 29, 2022

Lately I keep thinking about an odd metric for thinking about prose fiction: the amount of stories per story. I really like stories that have a lot of other,...

Not Another Think Piece About Twitter, I Promise!

November 21, 2022

Okay, I lied. Sort of. This isn't going to be a think piece about the slow decomposition of the birb app, days after everyone else has already written...

What is the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

October 23, 2022

Two things happened around the same time recently. Marvel displayed a greater willingness to make fun of itself than ever before, with the robot K.E.V.I.N.,...

What If You Run Out of Funkadelic? Don't Worry, I Got You Covered.

September 8, 2022

Listening to Funkadelic is one of the most worthwhile things you can do with your life — which makes it utterly tragic that at a certain point, you're bound...

The Best Convention I Ever Went To

August 24, 2022

In the summer of 1985, my mom had a fellowship at Oxford University, so we packed and moved to a rental place in the U.K. I'd lived in Britain before,...

You Can Love Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Without Dissing Star Trek: Discovery

July 21, 2022

I swear this newsletter is not turning into a Star Trek blog or anything, but Star Trek has been on my mind quite a bit lately, for various reasons. And this...

Some Other Words That Trans People Should Destroy, Now That You Can't Say "Woman"

July 10, 2022

We did it, everybody! We totally got rid of the word "woman!" Nobody is ever allowed to use that word again*. (Okay, I just used it a moment ago, but that...

One Thing I'd Like To See From The Next Vampire Diaries Series

July 5, 2022

Ever since Legacies finished its run on The CW, I've been thinking a lot about what I would like to see next from the Vampire Diaries universe. The Vampire...

A Fun Surprise We Snuck Into the Marvel Pride Issue

June 27, 2022

Marvel Voices: Pride #1 (the 2022 pride issue) came out last Wednesday. I was meaning to write a newsletter to celebrate, but I was traveling to Arizona for...

The Sweetweird Manifesto

June 4, 2022

A spectre is haunting pop culture — an adorable and friendly, but slightly messed-up creature that beckons us into a world of kindness and surrealism....

We Need Heroes Who Can Remind Us That Heroism Is Fun

May 24, 2022

I wrote this newsletter last week and tried to send it out on Thurs or Fri. Not sure what happened, but apparently it got eaten? In any case, here it is now!...

I Helped To Create a New Marvel Superhero!

May 13, 2022

Now it can be told!!!! I have co-created a brand new superhero for Marvel Comics (along with her best friend!) Meet Shela Sexton, aka Escapade. She's trans,...