Hugo Finalist Reaction and Some Links

The Hugo Finalist where announced this morning! You can see the full list here. I'm quite delighted with many things on the light. Xuya is a finalist for Best Series! I've been nominating in every year since Best Series was introduced and I'm so happy its on this list this year. My friends at ladybusiness are nominated for best Fanzine! They do amazing work and they published some of my pieces so I guess that means my work is nominated too! AO3 is finalist for Best Related Work! I haven't read much of the short fiction but I'm looking forward to checking it out. And the Lodestar has name. Still not tried of seeing it in official communications. And the finalist for the list looks pretty good.

Fansplanning is doing a survey on shipping. Its open to everyone one -- they would really like to reach people out side of transformative works fandom so please take the survey and pass it along to your friends. I just took it and it was pretty quick.

Marissa Lingen has new essay up at Uncanny: "That Never Happened: Misplaced Skepticism and the Mechanisms of Suspension of Disbelief"

First Quarter Reading Goals Check In

It’s been a mixed reading year for me so far. This winter I was tired and sick a lot and didn’t have great focus. So I ended up reading a lot comics and manga since I find that easier to read. So by the numbers I have read a lot of books already this year: 67 total. 49 of those are some kind of sequential art -- and reading lots sequential art has been pretty great. I finally finished reading Fruits Basket which I started but never finished year and years ago. I read the first two volumes of Fence, and Lucy Knisley’s new graphic memoir. I tried a bunch of new to me manga series, some of which I really enjoyed.

Well the 1st quarter of 2019 is complete so it's time to do a check in with my reading. After I didn’t do very well on my reading goals for 2018 I decided to set relatively few simple goals for this year. So when with two goals. Let see how I’m doing with both of them

Goal 1: Read 30 books by non-white authors. stretch goal 40

So far I’ve read 39 books by non-white authors in 2019. So I’ve already succeeded at my base goal and have almost met my stretch goal! As mentioned above


Goal 2: Read 15 non-fiction books

So far I’ve read 6, mostly comics, and also one prose book which was mostly read in 2018. But I did just finish a prose nonfiction book. So I guess I’m on track for this goal too.

Anyways I deliberately set myself easy goals and I’m doing pretty well one them. So for now I’m going to just keep reading fun things that strike my fancy. I’m looking forward to reading more manga and I’ve got a copy of The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie to read when I’m feeling focused enough for a whole novel.

How is your reading going so far this year? If you set yourself reading goals are you happy with your progress on them? Read any really awesome things?