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Bars and Shadows: The Prison Poems of Ralph Chaplin

This book of poetry should have been banned. Its author was serving a 20-year sentence in a federal penitentiary for his opinions, and the poems he wrote in Leavenworth were unrepentant:

“But whether it be yours to fall or kill / You must not pause to question why nor where. / You see the tiny crosses on that hill? / It took all those to make one millionaire.” (From the poem “The Red Feast.”)

Ralph Chaplin opposed the United States entering World War I. Worse than that, he opposed capitalism. As a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and editor of its eastern US publication Solidarity, he made speeches and wrote poems and songs. The best known is “Solidarity Forever,” which became a union anthem.

But, as economist Scott Nearing wrote in the introduction to Bars and Shadows, “When the war broke out in Europe, with millions of working-men flinging death and misery at one another, men like Chaplin, the world over, regarded it as the last straw. Was it not bad enough that these exploited creatures should be used as factory-fodder? Must they be cannon-fodder, too?” In the eyes of the IWW, the war would only serve to increase the economic power of capitalists.

At the same time, the US Espionage Act of 1917 prohibited interference with military operations and recruitment, and any other speech deemed to support the enemy during wartime. Promptly, Chaplin and a hundred other IWW members were rounded up, convicted, and jailed for speaking out against the draft.

The Espionage Act, amended, is still part of US law and is still being invoked, but from the beginning it has had a contested relationship with free speech. During World War I, as recounted in the book Over Here by David M. Kennedy, one man was arrested for calling President Woodrow Wilson a Wall Street tool, and others faced charges for merely discussing the constitutionality of conscription. A man was jailed for saying the war was for J.P. Morgan “and not a war for the people.”

The law was amended in 1918 by the Sedition Act to further forbid “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the government, flag, and military. Expressions of opinions in one part of the country might be acceptable, but in other places, where public officials were dedicated to more vigorous enforcement, those same words by the same speaker were treasonous utterances that could bring jail time.

By 1922, however, when Ralph Chaplin’s book of poetry was published, the war to end all wars had ended, and alarmist lawmakers had moved on to other concerns. Chaplin was released after four years in prison.

I discovered this book in the library of my church, where we take pride in safeguarding banned books. We hold the first edition of Bars and Shadows, and the book is still in print today with many later editions by various publishers, and it’s available free from Project Gutenberg.

Chaplin told Nearing he was not a poet, which he said was an “aesthetic creature” who condescended to workers. He favored making culture “with a rebel note.” The thirty poems in the book adhere to meter and rhyme, and they tell us not to mourn the war dead “but rather mourn the apathetic throng” too cowed to speak. He describes the sound of a bugle playing taps to end the day in prison, and his longing for “the smell of grass and flowers,” and he compares his restless heart to the battle song of a storm. On Christmas day, seven sparrows perch at his barred window — so meagerly is his heart comforted. He misses his wife and son.

But his anger abides.

“The paragon of paltriness / Upraised for all to see […] / The smirking, ass-like multitude / Cringe down at his command […] / Is there not one to share with me / The shame and wrath I own?” (From the poem “Salaam!”)

He exalts when a prisoner escapes from the penitentiary, and he longs for freedom.

These poems express Chaplin’s sharply felt emotions and his grasp of the world that inspired those feelings. Sincere, simple words give the poems strength.

This book came into my hands more than a century after it was printed. Now speech is again being limited in the United States: legally suspect words include gay, women, diversity, equity, pronouns not assigned at birth, Black lives matter, Free Palestine, criticism of Tesla, or merely speaking Spanish in public. Who dares not grovel if you could be next? This little book offers a counterforce.

Let us continue to write poetry.

“If anyone can talk you out of writing, they should.” I think Harlan Ellison said that — at least, it sounds like something curmudgeonly he would say.

Here’s why you shouldn’t be a writer:

You’re not talented enough. Actually, this is a lie. Of course you have talent. We’re all born talented. Children love to make things, and so did you when you were young. Then you may have absorbed the Romantic Era myth of the artist as a hero who effortlessly produces works of staggering genius that are perfect in the first draft. You can’t do that. Neither can I. Neither could they. If you poke into the biographies of the great, heroic writers, you’ll find they studied hard, worked like dogs, and rewrote endlessly.

You’re too scared. This might be true. But what exactly are you afraid of? Making mistakes? Failure? Rejection? There are all kinds of fears. The Writer’s Book of Doubt by Aidan Doyle lists a wide variety of them. I own the book and I’m scared to read it, although the book also explains how fears can be overcome.

You might not know enough about the writing business. As a result, you have unrealistic expectations, whether you want to try traditional publishing or self-publishing. (Writing without the intent to publish is fine, of course, and if that’s your goal, ignore this paragraph.) However, you can learn about the business. The information is freely available, but…

You don’t want to work hard. And it’s going to be very hard work. This might be the most common reason for not writing. I don’t like to work hard, either. It’s lonely, sometimes boring, and, well, hard. There’s always more to learn, and it’s easy to get lost in books and conferences about writing rather than to sit down and write. Or to watch TV or doomscroll rather doing the research, planning, writing, rewriting, more rewriting, and even redrafting. “The first draft of anything is shit,” as Ernest Hemingway probably said.

When I talk to people who aren’t writers, rewriting turns out to be the thing they find impossible to understand. They can’t imagine needing to rewrite a dozen or more times.

When I talk to people who are experienced writers, they whine about how hard the work is, but they’ll rewrite until it’s right, and they’ll do all the other tasks the job involves. They’ve learned how to work hard.

Do you still want to write? Good. I wish you every kind of success, whatever success means to you. If you want more encouragement, I recommend this free comic, Art & Courage: A Guide to Sustaining a Creative Path, created by the Applied Cartooning Lab. It addresses all kinds of art, not just writing or cartooning.

And finally, here’s some writing advice that keeps me going:

“Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.” — Isak Dinessen. That is, you’ll have good days and bad days, sometimes good months and bad months, and letting it affect your self-definition or self-worth will leave you emotionally exhausted. You can’t write if you’re too tired.

For me, writing (and other art) contains within itself a constant source of joy. If you look at the faces of athletes as they enter a stadium or field, many wear big grins. They’re about to do the thing they love the most. They’ll get to work as hard as they can and as smart as they can. They can do their best. You can do that, too, if you choose a creative path, because excellence is always possible. Art lets you bring your whole self to your work.

Science requires imagination. In March 2024, I took part in a day-long workshop at the Chicago Botanic Garden that brought together scientists, students, and university faculty to practice envisioning things far bigger than our everyday lives. At the end of the day, each participant wrote a brief science fiction piece developing an idea that was supported with accurate information.

Here are our short stories. Mine is about how intricate dust comes to life and self-awareness. Other stories explore astronomy, cosmology, biology, ecology, chemistry, physics, and planetary science. Could people age backwards? What if plants sent out space ships? What are we doing to find fossils and create them?

My novelette “Journey to Apollodorus” has just been published at Oxygen Leaks Magazine! Read it here.

In my novel Dual Memory, AIs on Earth are intrigued by a story about robots in Apollodorus Crater on the planet Mercury. In Chapter 36, the Prior Edifice system tells Par Augustus: “I know the true story of Apollodorus. It is based on an old human-created story about an imaginary machine society. The author arbitrarily placed it on Mercury in the same way that certain human stories take place in a land called Oz and include flying monkeys.” Yet Par insists that the story is true.

“Journey to Apollodorus” is the story they’re referring to. There are no flying monkeys in it. Instead, the story focuses on humans who struggle to create and maintain a scientific team when a lander sent to Mercury behaves unexpectedly. Success can be as stressful as failure.

“You ever wish that fireworks were incredibly quiet and also didn’t disappear so quickly and also you could keep them in your home and also you could hold them in your hands? Because if so, I'd love to introduce you to … flowers.”

— Jonny Sun, author and illustrator

***

By the way, here’s a review by Lola Robles of the Spanish edition of Semiosis (in Spanish).

Fantástikas: "Semiosis", de Sue Burke

I’m the fiction judge for the Wisconsin Writer’s Association’s 2025 Jade Ring Contest. The fiction category is open to unpublished stories in English of up to 2000 words. There are also categories for poetry and non-fiction. You can find all the submission guidelines here.

Although I mostly write science fiction, I read and enjoy fiction of all kinds. As the guidelines say, though, the work should be complete and standalone.

I’ve judged contests in the past, so I know I’m going to enjoy this, and I’m hoping for a wide variety of stories. That’s what makes reading all the entries fun.

Galaxies by Barry N. Malzberg

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m not sure I can recommend this book to other readers. It’s like recommending cilantro or anchovies. Some people love them, others can’t stand them. I liked this novel, but, but it’s a niche piece, and you very reasonably might not.

The book is actually notes for a novel, not a novel, as Malzberg says right at the beginning. We learn a lot about the struggles of the author, who ponders what to include and what not, and how to approach various tropes and expectations. The book addresses issues like sex and death from a nervous 1970s perspective, returning to these issues from several angles. The science, however, which involves a black hole, was squishy even for its time.

Here is an example of the text:
“We are upon the conclusion and that conclusion, obviously, is open-ended. Cunningly it has been built into the construct from the very outset. It is a characteristic of a certain kind of well-structured fiction that it will lead toward a resolution which in retrospect may appear inevitable...”

Despite all these caveats, I found the conclusion satisfying. I’m glad I read this book. Maybe I found it interesting because I am a writer, and it dealt with many writerly concerns, handling them with wit. However, you may prefer a more conventional book, and I won’t blame you.

View all my reviews

***

By the way, here’s a review of my novel Usurpation at Hidden Sci-Fi and Semiosis and Interference at C Gockel Writes.

Here’s a little exercise to explore a character, possibly someone from a piece you’re working on.

Premise:

Your character is driving a car, waiting for the stoplight to change at a busy crossroads.

Your character looks in the rear-view mirror and sees a car speeding up the road behind them that will crash into them in three seconds.

What would this person think and do in those three seconds? Remember that stress slows down time, so there might be a whole lot of time.

The intent of this exercise is to get as deep into this person’s point of view as possible. How can you immerse the reader in this character’s feelings and reactions? Remember to be direct and to live out the story in the character’s head and body with all the emotional intensity and emotional range that you can.

What result did you get from this exercise? If you want, you can try it again with other characters from the same piece and see how they would differ.

How would you react?

Venus is the Roman goddess of love, beauty, desire, and lust, among other things, and today is Valentine’s Day, so that makes this post somewhat well-timed.

The Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) is a plant that eats insects. Its leaves have red toothed lobes with a hinge at the midrib to snap shut around prey. But why is it called a Venus flytrap? Well, it’s named for the goddess, not the planet. (The planet is also named for the goddess, but that’s a different story.)

The plant, native to North and South Carolina, was first documented by European settlers in 1759 in a letter by the British colonial governor for North Carolina, Arthur Dobbs. Word of the discovery reached John Bartram, royal botanist to King George III for the North American Colonies. He was the first to send a specimen to England, calling it “tipitiwitchet” or “Tippity Twitchet” as slang for its supposed resemblance to female genitalia. Apparently he thought that was quite funny and made lots of jokes about it.

A less obviously crude-minded naturalist named John Ellis gave it the scientific name Dionaea muscipula. This translates from neo-Latin into English as “Daughter of Dione mousetrap.” (The daughter of the Greek goddess Dione was Aphrodite, whom the Romans called Venus.) Both the scientific name and the common name, it seems, are mere euphemisms for low-brow humor.

Anyway, happy Valentine’s Day. Bugs are good food for carnivorous plants, but for us humans, I recommend celebrating with chocolate.

***

Photo: Mosaic of Venus at the Makthar Museum in Tunisia.

The Wright Brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Paper airplanes began to be made only several years afterwards.

And yet, any child can make a paper airplane. The Chinese invented paper 2000 years ago and had kites. Birds have been flying since dinosaur times, and humanity has dreamed of flying since the stone age. Paper models of sailing ships, hot air balloons, and dirigibles were available before 1903. Japanese origami had already reached wonderful sophistication. Nothing was stopping anyone from making a paper airplane.

Except one thing: no one knew what an airplane looked like or how it would work. No one could imagine it. Orville and Wilbur had to develop an accurate understanding of how wing shape affected air pressure and created lift in order to make a real airplane, and by 1899 they had built intricate gliders and harnessed wind power. Their discoveries would eventually be transferred to a simplified three-dimensional paper model. The rest is history.

This leaves me sitting here staring at a sheet of paper, wondering what unprecedented things it could do, things that would delight any child, if we could only imagine them.

Alex Kingsley has interviewed me about the Semiosis trilogy for Interstellar Flight Magazine. You can read the interview here.

Alex asked: In Usurpation, there’s a pandemic. Was this pandemic inspired by our real-life pandemic? How did COVID-19 affect your portrayal?

I answered: In the 1980s, I was covering HIV as a journalist, and one day before a meeting, I was chatting with the Wisconsin state epidemiologist. He explained that while AIDs was awful — and as a gay man, he knew exactly how terrifying and destructive it was — a different new disease could be a lot worse. He described the many ways in which it could be easier to transmit, harder to detect, more resistant to treatment, and more deadly. COVID wasn’t my first pandemic, it wasn’t the worst, and it wasn’t at all inspiring.

From February 5 to 7, Barnes and Noble is offering discounts to B&N members and Premium members for pre-orders for all forthcoming print, ebook, and audio titles. This includes the paperback edition of Usurpation, coming October 21, 2025!

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/usurpation-sue-burke/1144473234?ean=9781250809179

I’ll be at the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club at Linda Sokol Francis Public Library in Brookfield, Illinois, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, February 5. We’ll discuss the novel Dual Memory.

New participants are welcome!

***

More news: I translated the short story “Bodyhoppers” by Rocío Vega for the February 2025 issue of Clarkesworld Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine. Read it here.

***

The story I translated for Clarkesworld Magazine last year, “The Coffee Machine” by Celia Corral-Vázquez, is a finalist for Best Short Story of 2024. More information is here.

The novel Usurpation discusses drop bears a lot: voracious carnivores originally from Cygni, a distant star system.

“Those definitely should not have been let loose on Earth because they didn’t just eat small animals, they’d attack human toddlers. I had friends who hunted drop bears, and I didn’t want to kill robots, but it was different for drop bears.” (Chapter 2)

“Foehn contacts Boreas and me. ‘I see a drop bear! You know what the fippokats are going to do!’” (Chapter 5)

Here’s the joke, per Drop bear - Wikipedia:

“The drop bear (sometimes dropbear) is a hoax in contemporary Australian folklore featuring a predatory, carnivorous version of the koala. This imaginary animal is commonly spoken about in tall tales designed to scare tourists. While koalas are typically docile herbivores (and are not bears), drop bears are described as unusually large and vicious marsupials that inhabit treetops and attack unsuspecting people (or other prey) that walk beneath them by dropping onto their heads from above.”

Learn more about the drop bear at CNN and at the Australian Museum.

The alien fauna mentioned in Usurpation also includes the tree octopus.

Sometimes I get bored and find ways to quietly entertain myself as I write. No apologies.

From anime to video games, science fiction to Dungeons & Dragons, and mainstream comic book movies, we live in the age of the geek. Capricon 45 will celebrate dorks, nerds, and geeks with the theme “Let your geek flag fly” at the Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk hotel from February 6 to 9, 2025.

Capricon is a four-day science fiction convention held annually in the Chicagoland area since 1981. It celebrates science fiction and fantasy with a focus on literature. As part of the world-wide fannish community, diversity is encouraged and all are welcome. The convention is created and run entirely by volunteers, so this is a non-commercial gathering of about a thousand friends and friends-to-be.

During the day, members attend programming on a variety of topics: books, movies, television, anime, space exploration, and science. There’s a special children’s track and a teen lounge. Say hello to the mascot, Capricious the goat. Visit the dealer’s room, see the art show and auction, get into gaming, filk, or party all night long. You can still register to attend.

Here’s where you can find me:

Speculative Literature Foundation Deep Dish Reading — Bridgeport Room, Friday 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Scheduled readers will be followed by an open mic. Moderator Mary Anne Mohanraj; Shaun Duke, Sue Burke, Richard Chwedyk, K.M. Herkes, Angeli Primlani, Llewella Forgie.

What’s Hot in Speculative Poetry? — Bridgeport Room, Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Speculative Poetry is having a moment. Former Capricon guest of honor Brandon O’Brien writes spec-po. At this year’s Worldcon in Seattle, he is behind a Special Hugo Award category for Speculative Poetry. Where should you start exploring this genre? Moderator Brandon O’Brien; Mary Turzillo, Sue Burke, Brian U. Garrison.

Geeky Gardening — Bridgeport Room, Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. How to grow weird, wonderful plants for the backyard, balcony, or windowsill. Moderator K.M. Herkes; Kim Kofmel, Sue Burke.

Living in Space — Sheraton III Ballroom, Saturday 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. So you want to live in space. Permanently. Raise your kids there and eventually age and die there. Never see a gravity well again. What will it be like? How will your habitat generate centrifugal gravity? Or would it be better to float free, with no gravity at all? What about trade with other habitats, asteroids, and planets? What will your society and government be like? The possibilities are endless! Moderator Sue Burke; Henry Spencer, Thomas Barclay, Jeffrey Liss.

Putting the “Science” in Science Fiction — Columbus Room, Saturday 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Some authors have technical knowledge, others do not. Learn from science fiction authors as they talk about what to research, how to research, and what, if anything, you can fudge for the sake of story. Moderator Sue Burke; Brian U. Garrison, Jonathan Brazee, Geoffrey A. Landis, K.V. Peck.

Generation Ship Economics — Gold Coast Room, Sunday 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. What does a generation ship need to keep its humans alive? Who’s going to pay for everything at the beginning, and what economic systems may develop onboard and at their destination? Moderator Sue Burke; Geoffrey A. Landis, Jeffrey Liss, Thomas Barclay.

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I received an advance copy of this novel with an invitation to write a quote for its release. I love Tchaikovsky’s work, so of course I said yes.

I knew from the description that the story would involve an encounter with the dominant life-form living on a moon named Shroud — weird, wonderful life. Because that’s what Tchaikovsky is good at, right?

But as I read, I kept feeling doubt in a good way. How could life possibly exist on such an utterly inhospitable planet? How was Tchaikovsky going to pull this off? Well, he found a way.

Tchaikovsky explores worlds where no one else would dare to go, and he makes the unimaginable become believable with characters who grow to meet their challenges. As the story develops, survival becomes more desperate and necessary. This is hard-edged science fiction that never loses its soul.

And the ending of the novel is breathtaking

View all my Goodreads reviews

In other news, Jo Walton at Reactor Magazine had kind things to say about Usurpation:

“Third in the Semiosis series, don’t start here. Well, I suppose you could, it would probably stand alone reasonably well, but you should do yourself the favour of reading the first two because they’re terrific. All three books are very good, and I really liked this one. Sentient trees from another planet are on future Earth and are trying to deal with Earth’s problems, while still being alien trees. The alien POV is excellent. The future Earth is pretty grim, but overall this is a hopeful book with a lot of fascinating things going on at many levels. Sue Burke is doing really interesting things.”

The FanFiAddict website is back with TBRCon2025, an all-virtual sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention that will livestream from January 19 to 26. More than 150 authors, podcasters, bloggers, and booktubers will appear on the virtual stage for 25 livestream panels, 5 live podcasts and 2 RPG sessions.

TBRCon2025 is free to watch, available on YouTube, Bluesky, X, and Threads during convention week — or to re-watch on YouTube at your convenience.

I’ll be on the panel “Is Science Catching Up to What Was Once Sci-fi?” on Wednesday, January 22, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. CST, with Mary Robinette Kowal, Malka Older, and Wick Welker, moderated by Neil Williams. A lot has changed in recent years when it comes to technology. But are we at full sci-fi tech level yet?

You can watch it live on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/live/YRybNHh-YfM?si=fjIOlo_z76v96HNt

Some other panels I want to see: What Makes a Great Prologue? – Artificial Intelligence in Sci-Fi Over the Years – Space Horror: Monsters in Zero Gravity – How Book Illustrations Come to Life – What Is the Future of Dystopian Sci-Fi? – What Writing Advice Do You Take and What Do You Leave Behind? – Sci-Fi Tropes That Need an Update – How to Market Through Email Newsletters: Do’s and Don’ts.

Written by award-winning author Cristina Jurado, ChloroPhilia tells the story of Kirmen. He’s different from the other inhabitants of the Cloister, whose walls protect them all from the endless storm ravaging Earth. As a result of the Doctor’s cruel experiments, his physical form is gradually evolving into something better fit for survival in the world outside. This singular coming-of-age story addresses life after an environmental disaster and collective madness, and ends with surprising triumph.

As a translator, I faced a particular challenge with the prologue and the closing section. I’ve translated Cristina before, and she writes beautifully. She poured her talent into prose soaring toward poetry that needed to be equally compelling in English. I did my best:

And behind it all was the roar of the swarm that was its body, millions of shrieks drowning in the fleshy throats of minute beings, a beautiful song made from the spark that lit their lives and that, doused forever, wove the music of the dead.

You can read an interview with the author at The Madrid Review: New Book From The Queen Of Spanish Sci Fi in English.

The novela was reviewed by the Fantasy-Hive as “a remarkable, powerful and disturbing novella that confirms Jurado as a key creative voice in speculative fiction.”

ChloroPhilia is on sale here or at your favorite bookseller.

If you or someone you know can nominate or vote for writing awards, please consider these works by me that were published last year:

Usurpation: final novel in a trilogy (novel or series) Semiosis. The first novel in the series, Semiosis, is one of the top ten genre books of the first quarter of the millennium, according to Joe Walton.

AI is fueling a science fiction scam: magazine article (related work)

“The Coffee Machine”: translation from Spanish of a work by Celia Corral-Vázquez (short story or translation)

When Star-Stuff Tells Stories: essay about first contact (related work)

Eligible in Spain:

Semiosis: novela extranjera

¿Quién ganó la batalla de Arsia Mons?: novela corta extranjera

Not eligible for a prize, but you might enjoy it:

“Life from the Sky”: republished novelette

New Year, New You: A Speculative Anthology of Reinvention by Elizabeth Bear

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Short stories are one of my favorite art forms, but some readers don’t seem to like them. Perhaps, in school, all the short stories they read were old, depressing, pedantic, and hard to parse. (But new, uplifting, entertaining, unperplexing short stories are written all the time.) Or perhaps, some readers don’t like them because unlike novels, short stories are too fast, too intense, and send readers back into the world a little breathless. (Is that a bad thing?) Or perhaps, readers just don’t hear about them as much as novels.
Now hear this: New Year, New You: A Speculative Anthology of Reinvention is a great way to start your 2025 reading. It offers two dozen science fiction and fantasy short stories united by the idea of personal change. Themes include time travel, Greek myth, fairy tales, foreseen death, odd dystopias, programmed memory loss, and manufactured life. Many are quite short, and the tone varies from playful to horrific.
I enjoyed them all, like eating a box of chocolates or bento box, and was sometimes left a little breathless. The anthology was published by the Viable Paradise writing workshop 2023 cohort as a Kickstarter that was funded in less than 12 hours.

View all my reviews

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Page Summary

This book should have been banned
Let me talk you out of writing
Imagining Science: some stories
“Journey to Apollodorus” at Oxygen Leaks Magazine
Quiet fireworks to hold
I’m a Jade Ring judge
Goodreads review: ‘Galaxies’ by Barry N. Malzberg
Three-second writing exercise
The crude story of how the Venus flytrap got its name
Paper into Planes
“Sentient Plants, Artificial Intelligence, and Fippokats”
B&N Usurpation paperback preorder special
I’ll be at the Brookfield Library on Wednesday - and some translation news
No one seems to have noticed the drop bear joke
I’ll be at Capricon 45
My Goodreads review of 'Shroud' by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I’ll be on a TBRCon panel Jan. 22: Is Science Catching Up to What Was Once SciFi?
A book I translated, now on sale: ChloroPhilia
My works eligible for awards for 2024
Goodreads Review: New Year, New You: A Speculative Anthology of Reinvention

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Mount Orégano

Sue Burke

Recent Entries

This book should have been banned

Let me talk you out of writing

Imagining Science: some stories

“Journey to Apollodorus” at Oxygen Leaks Magazine

Quiet fireworks to hold

I’m a Jade Ring judge

Goodreads review: ‘Galaxies’ by Barry N. Malzberg

Three-second writing exercise

The crude story of how the Venus flytrap got its name

Paper into Planes

“Sentient Plants, Artificial Intelligence, and Fippokats”

B&N Usurpation paperback preorder special

I’ll be at the Brookfield Library on Wednesday - and some translation news

No one seems to have noticed the drop bear joke

I’ll be at Capricon 45

My Goodreads review of 'Shroud' by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I’ll be on a TBRCon panel Jan. 22: Is Science Catching Up to What Was Once SciFi?

A book I translated, now on sale: ChloroPhilia

My works eligible for awards for 2024

Goodreads Review: New Year, New You: A Speculative Anthology of Reinvention