Earlier this year, for the first time in my life, I dipped my toes into baking seriously. I bought an oven, stocked up on dark cooking chocolate (for what is cake without chocolate?), researched recipes, measured my dishes, and rolled up my sleeves. The first few attempts ranged from the ordinary to outright disasters. (Those […]
Social issues
The terrible tropes of YA fiction
What are some of your pet peeves in YA fiction? The kind of things that make you groan aloud? If you’re an author, which of these have you been guilty of, or used with the intention of subverting it? If you’re a reader, which one do you secretly loooove? Or do you have an example […]
Yes, you deserve to be paid!
We are somehow conditioned to believe that asking for money is a sordid undertaking. As authors, illustrators and storytellers, this means that when we get invited to events as resource people—guest speaker, workshop facilitator, expert speaker, competition judge, awards juror, or simply as an entertainer—we hesitate to ask for money. Even though writing (that is, […]
Change
There have been lots of thoughts and feelings about this year, not just from me in particular, but because…well, we’re in the middle of a global crisis that makes every disaster movie you ever watched feel a little bit too familiar. Yet it’s been well over six months since I’ve written anything here. That’s half […]
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2019: A year in solidarity
Twenty nineteen was a crappy year. Right-wing hate spread its tentacles deeper and wider around the world—the BJP was elected back in power; we lost some good people—some died, some showed their true colours; the economy got worse; Kashmir was annexed by the BJP government; and the climate crisis got worse. There’s more, but I […]
An open letter to Catherine Russell
Dear Catherine, Now that the news is out that you’re leaving Holby City, I find myself thinking back on all the drama that happened in relation to the Berena story. I know I’m not the only one, but I speak here for myself only. I used to believe you when you said you were an […]
- Social issues
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The Big Bang and the little whimper
**HERE BE SPOILERS** The TL;DR version: I did not like the ending of The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon’s sudden epiphany about his “other family” was reductive, and what happened with Penny (pregnancy) and Amy (makeover) were downright offensive. Read on for the meandering version or skip straight to the comments to vent (or to disagree […]
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Who decides who cares?
A couple of developments in the past few months have had me thinking about the power of stories and the different ways we experience them. As creators, we have no control over how a reader, viewer or listener may interpret our work, whether they will see it through the same lens we used to create […]
Why I want you to watch Holby City
**Note: Here be spoilers.** #1 Because representation matters The older I get the less patience I have for stories about men, for men. It doesn’t help that this covers most of TV. This started me on a quest to seek out series featuring women or series that have stories about women (not the same thing). […]
New book alert: A Helping Hand
Back in 2015, I was asked by Vidya Mani if I’d like to do a book on the theme of fitting in for the StoryWeaver open-source repository of stories. She was commissioning a set of books on the broad subject of emotional intelligence. Of course, the answer was yes. The result was A Helping Hand, […]