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A lack of live sports has been tough on fans, and looking through YouTube for old footage doesn’t satisfy most of us for long. The Last Dance on ESPN helped for a few weeks, but that’s over now, and nothing like it appears to be on the horizon. Fortunately, there’s an abundance of literature about sports to keep us going in the coming weeks and months as we wait to see how and if our beloved contests will return. 

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This year I’ll be involved in my 16th summer reading at the library. There’s your bona fides.

The library and summer reading go together like John Carpenter and synthesizers. Wait, that’s too cool. Not that I think summer reading is uncool, but c’mon, there's a limit. 

The library and summer reading go together like glasses and retainers. There, that feels about right.

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Photo courtesy of the author

In 2013, when I attended a prestigious writing conference, my workshop instructor’s reaction to my pages was a resounding “meh.” Not one to mince words, he told me the chapter I’d submitted wasn’t going anywhere—indeed, was going around in circles—and that the journey I’d imagined for my protagonist wasn’t an interesting journey at all. I had about a hundred pages of this novel back at home, and I came away from the conference convinced I should burn the whole manuscript.

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Header and author photo via Wikipedia

Dashiell Hammett, the hard-drinking ex-detective credited with helping found and popularize the crime genre known as “hardboiled,” would likely be celebrating his 126th birthday this May 27 with a shot if he was still around.

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Another drumroll, please — the Nebula Awards are almost upon us!

Alongside the Hugo Awards, the Nebulas are one of the biggest deals in the SFF world: they’re basically equivalent to the genre’s Academy Awards, as members of the SFWA themselves vote for the winners.