Category Archives: TV and Film

Willow heads homeward on the #BuffyRewatch on @tordotcom

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slayerThis week’s essay is Willow’s homecoming episode: “Same Time, Same Place.”

If you’re local and want a chance to connect, I’ll be appearing at SF Contario this weekend. My tentative panel schedule:

Gardenview Sun. 2:00 PM Writing as an Evolving Process

Writing as an Evolving Process: As with any other art, writing requires practice, and a writer’s skill can improve over time. Writers discuss the things they have learned as they have evolved and ways in which they have gained a new level of expertise. How can you tell when you’re improving? How can you judge your own progress as a writer?

Solarium Sat. 11:00 AM Great First Lines

Great First Lines: “Call me Ishmael”, “’It was the day my grandmother exploded”, “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel”; There is nothing like an unforgettable first line for hooking a reader in. What are your favorites? Can you force a good first line, or do they just happen?

Courtyard Sun. 1:00 PM The Heroine`s Quest

The Heroine’s Quest: How do three letters change the way we view the sword-bearer? Should there be different rules, spells, or goals for the female adventurer?

Where does all the awesome come from? Jack Womack and the #BuffyRewatch

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fangirlTor.com has a new feature called That Was Awesome: Writers on Writing. The inaugural post is one by me, on Jack Womack’s uber-fantastic coming of age diary, Random Acts of Senseless Violence
. The essay is called: Surprise, Fear, and an almost Fanatical Devotion to the Womack.

This essay–and there will be others–owes a debt to Favorite Thing Ever, where I got to go squee about Veronica Mars and Tana French and many other wonderful things.

Meanwhile in Sunnydale, season seven needed a catchy refrain, and has chosen blogs/2013/11/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-rewatch-did-you-turn-this-ladys-ex-into-a-giant-worm-monster”>From Beneath You, It Devours.” Won’t that make a great theme for Dawn’s first prom?

The #BuffyRewatch also got to review #Hild this week on @tordotcom

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keep readingI have two new essays up on Tor this week. The Buffy rewatch is up to “Lessons.” (Meanwhile, I have only just finished submitting the essay on “Help,” and I see I gave them very similar titles. Sigh.)

I also had the great good fortune to get an advance peek at Nicola Griffith’s fantastic new novel Hild, and to write the following review.

Hild’s story begins when she is three and her father is poisoned. Her mother, Breguswith, moves their household to Edwin’s court for safety. Mom immediately begins some high-end scheming. She has already laid the groundwork for Hild to have a very special place within the court, because when she was pregnant, she revealed a vision that predicted Hild would be “the light of the world.”

Hild is out now and I can’t recommend it enough. If you buy one book in hardcover this week, let it be this one. Go! Read! Enjoy!

Xander is Heroic! Hey, #Buffyrewatch, that’s not news…

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slayerI have reached the end of Season 6 on the Buffy Rewatch, so this week’s write-up is all about Evil Veiny Willow versus her friends.

I am a few weeks ahead of these essays, which means I’ve just watched the third ep of S7, “Same Time, Same Place.” This means I’ve got something like 18 episodes left: eighteen weeks, which seems at once a very long and a very short period of time.

People have asked over at Tor, so I should say it here too: I have no plans to jump into an Angel rewatch, or to do the comic seasons that follow “Chosen.” In some ways I do find the idea appealing, but I didn’t love Angel enough to do it justice, and the people who regularly read and comment on the column have convinced me I’ll be happier with Buffy, as a story which I’ve consumed and loved, if I stay far far away from Seasons 7 and 8.

Feel free to go there and have a go at changing my mind–you’ve got four months! But if you know me, you probably also know that once I make a decision I cling to it like something very clingy. A barnacle?