Death to Realism! 025
Death to Realism! 025
Hello and happy whatever multiply-coinciding holiday you feel aligned with, if any! If you need a refresher on the origin & nature of these bi-weekly updates, check out the first issue before reading on.
What's New?
Red Futures, the leftist sci fi fiction group I'm a part of, has put up some of the pieces that resulted from our second round of writing to prompts, including one of my own. We're also making responses to the next prompt open, so if you are interested in writing and discussing science fiction that explores the impact of technology on work, social organization, and culture, feel free to join in!
The Plaintext Distro site has also been officially updated to reflect the in-person table details for GZF 2022 on July 3rd! I will be refreshing some of my own offerings, and accepting relevant submissions to sell at the festival. Check the site for a more in-depth explanation of how to submit your work, as well as the email newsletter to sign up for to get friendly reminders on timeline (they have been going to spam for some people, I'm not sure why or how to fix it, so my only advice is to check for them and mark them as "not spam...").
Coming Soon
We finally have all of our stuff in the new place, and are comfortable and around 50% unpacked. It was kind of exhausting, which partly explains how light this update is. But fortunately, it means that we have a lot more space, which will allow me to take some concrete steps on the long-promised zine filing cabinet and improved zine documentation that I've wanted to do for a while.
My current work contract will also wrap up at the end of April, putting me back on the market for freelance/other jobs. I may do another bit of a push on this newsletter, mainly to remind people I still exist, and also plan to spend a month or two using my savings to be able to work fully on writing, specifically to get to a full revised draft of my novel-in-progress, and figure out what to do with it.
The Rec Room
I love the attention to detail that's gone into this (WIP) Yume Nikki Game Boy demake
I recently re-watched Dark City with the zonies, which I only vaguely remembered from years ago. It's often described as a pre-Matrix Matrix, but what I find best about it is committing a full movie budget to an Outer Limits episode level aesthetic and twist. Recommended, lol
This cover is certainly something... and not bad imo...
Being on a UFO kick (though when am I not...) I also found the C64 text adventure games in the Alien Infiltration series, playable on Archive.org, to be extremely charming
I've Been Reading
I've been continuing Bleeding Edge, which, aside from its size, is ideal for dipping into on my bus commute. It's funny and daunting in the sense that it really motivates me to write and stretch my own writing, while fully knowing I can't do that (yet anyways). I also popped in to Young's Interesting Books, a local used bookstore now dangerously close to our front door and always with, well, a ton of interesting stuff, and picked up Lotte in Weimar for my next-ish read, since I enjoyed The Magic Mountain so much last year. I thought I was allergic to huge tomes, but I've actually read a lot over the past year...
I've only got one article this time, because I was so busy, but it's a really good one. Chaoyang Trap (again) kills it with a fascinating deep dive on electronic dictionaries and the games made for them. Come for the ditherpunk namedrop, stay for the strange and wonderful alternative possibilities offered by the variety of personal devices the hegemony of the touch screen smart phone left behind... for now.
I think that's all I have this bi-week! For new subscribers who have signed on since the last newsletter, you can check out the archive of past issues at any time!
Thank you again for your support,
Emilie