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Red Carpet Rundown: The 2017 Golden Globes

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  It’s time for the Golden Globes, that shot across the bow of awards season that offers us our first real glimpse of the public images the potential awardees are going to be wearing this year. As always, if you’re worried I’m making fun of outfits on the red carpet because I think it’s fancy dresses and frivolous nonsense, and somehow my previous rundowns don’t convince you, never fear: I wrote two novels about weaponized public image as the world’s most bulletproof cover for political machinations, so probably not. (Those novels are Persona [Indiebound | Barnes & Noble | Amazon] and Icon [Indiebound | Barnes & Noble | Amazon].) Icon opens on a red carpet. I respect the red carpet. It is a merciless machine of celebrity and its power only grows. (My favorite red carpet game: How Many People in This Picture are Actually the Celebrities? I see one. I thrill to the idea that she might be the only celebrity in this picture.)   If you’re here, you probably know all that already.… Read more »

Another Year

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Well, this was a hell of a year. 2016 was illuminating on all levels. [I had some specifics here, but I erased them for being too personal. My reticence to talk about myself was definitely one of the things this year illuminated! And yet, here we are.] For that reason, I also find it hard to talk about how grateful I am for the people who read my stuff. I don’t tend to talk about it, because that means acknowledging feelings and if there is one thing my social media feed will tell you, it’s that I do not like having public feelings. But if you read my stuff, trust me: It means a lot. (Earlier this year, people wrote in to the AV Club about Elementary to the point that they revived coverage and asked me back to write recaps for this season; that felt pretty great, actually.) Anyway, work continued, and there’s some stuff I did this year that I’m really proud of. Below, some highlights of what I published in 2016! FICTION… Read more »

“Themis,” Starlit Wood, & Other Things I Wrote

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I wrote some fiction recently! We’ll start from the top. First, I’m very happy to have a novelette in Clarkesworld’s tenth anniversary issue! “Everyone from Themis Sends Letters Home” is a story about systems of power, also bread. (Also, generally speaking, don’t name your first settlement on a new planet after the personification of long habit, social stasis, and rightful order. That’s asking for trouble.)   Second, my story “Familiaris” is in The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales! It’s based on a very interesting Bavarian fairy tale that is extremely concerned with ambivalence toward motherhood. My story is about that ambivalence, and what stories about motherhood can do. It’s not pretty, but neither is the original, so it works out. I mean, if you don’t want to have one,” he says, that single line down the center of his forehead like his face is about to peel. “Someday,” she says. His hand is too tight in her hand. One of them is sweating. # The prince and princess had no child. Eventually, wolves. # Long… Read more »

Red Carpet Rundown: 2016 Emmys

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The marvelous ecosystem of red carpet season has begun again. Every autumn, the gentle crinkle of several thousand square feet of carpet-preserving plastic wrap heralds the annual harvest of actors who return to these grounds every year in hopes of spawning more parts. Lest you think I’m saying any of this to be holier-than-thou, let me assure you, I am serious as hell. It’s amazing to watch the edges of the frame and realize this thing is exactly as complicated as you might have once imagined it to be, only add about twice as many staff, invisible conversations with casting directors and designer labels, and a bunch of begrudging agreements with the press that mean everyone stands on the press dais and answers awkward questions and talks about how no red carpet is complete without the fresh zing of Trident. Trident, for all occasions! (The amount of respect I have for the machinations behind the forced-casual-glam of the red carpet is no joke; my latest novel, ICON, is about celebrity diplomats with conflicting agendas; it… Read more »

Penny Dreadful, and a Blade of Grass

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Penny Dreadful, that glorious bastion of subtext-made-text, ended this past weekend, bringing a three-season fascination with Vanessa Ives to a close. The series finale was…a disappointment. I wrote about the problems with this arc in a piece at Salon, so we don’t need to rehash all of it here, but I do want to dig into a few specifics. We’ll start with this picture of The Big Moment, because it gets to the heart of my ambivalence. Is that a stunning, Gothic moment? Hell yes it is, look at that shit. When Ethan lifts her corpse and carries her out of there he’s going to have to keep kicking her fifteen-foot Virgin Queen of Hell train out of the way with his foot, it’s that Gothic. Is that where this season’s narrative was leading us? Oh, it sure was not. I will say this as often as I need to say it, since there’s some weird pushback in the Salon comments that I’m just mad because I didn’t want a downer ending: while there is… Read more »

Red Carpet Rundown: The 2016 Met Gala

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I knew the Met Gala was gaining steam as a mainstream cultural event, but I didn’t realize how much it had entered the fray until I heard 1) that E! was going to be streaming the red carpet live, and 2) that Anna Wintour had forbidden any social media once inside. Together, it’s an almost sublime attempt to appease the unwashed masses (me) while maintaining the proper distance from them by establishing clear social strata. We don’t get to know what goes on inside the Gala, because why would we deserve it? (God, please take everybody’s cell phones, can you fucking imagine this crowd giving up their cell phones, I would straight-up watch a movie about that unfolding in real time.) So! The New Versailles is coming along wonderfully, and it is not stopping me from recapping this red carpet whatsoever. My latest short story is “La beauté sans vertu”; I am invested in red carpets. This year’s theme was “Manus x Machina,” and like all other Met Gala red carpet themes, it was a… Read more »
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