Dr Amanda Dillon
@oddityofwings
SFF, gothic, time&gender&history, Victoriana. Time travelling women historians are my jam. UEA History, sometimes UEA LDC. FHEA, Expat PA/VA. Wrangler of academics, books, & words. Sometime flutist. #wiasn Views own; she/her.
Smartest thing I’ve done all year was book out an air conditioned uni room for today. It’s actually a tad chilly.
I’ve had flu, so I missed it yesterday, but! 28 December was my book’s OFFICIAL birthday. Metafiction and Narrative Worlds in Science Fiction: Prism, Mirror, Lens (‘PML’ for short) was a labour of love, and is published by @livunipress.bsky.social . Available wherever you buy your books.
I intend to do a full-on photo shoot with these when I have some free time, but for now, this will do - author copies of my first book, Metafiction and Narratice Worlds in Science Fiction ( @livunipress.bsky.social ) have arrived! Over the moon, and can highly recommend LUP as publishers.
Quote skeet with a picture of the airplane you'll accept as a bribe
History (and the interdisciplinary institute of humanities) bringing it today. (Pebble is tired of this shit.) #saveuea
UEA HIS (and other wonderful colleagues and friends!) on the picket today! @uea-ucu.bsky.social @ueahistory.bsky.social
Solidari-bee on the @uea-ucu.bsky.social pickets this morning. When even nature is joining in (workers of all species unite), I feel like that means something…
Save jobs - save the doggos! (Treatos are pricey.) @uea-ucu.bsky.social #saveuea (Talulah, Lottie, Frankie Peaches, and Pebble showing their solidarity at Cow Drive today.)
Some good news from home - deep red Lancaster Co had an election and went dem. First time since the 1980s.
UEA HIS @ueahistory.bsky.social represent on the picket this morning.
Some lovely times on the picket for @uea-ucu.bsky.social this morning! Gurning from yours truly and @conorbollins.bsky.social .
Picket biscuits for Wednesday. There’s another Tupperware of them, too. Bring your own jam/ham/filling, @uea-ucu.bsky.social !
Number 1*: music. I love it - listening, performing, just noodling around on an instrument. I’m a classically trained flutist with 23+2 years under my belt (took a break for academia and now back). I also sing and pretend piano. Can’t dance, tho. *how the frick do you pick just one?!
Just posted my ballot in the UEA dispute. @uea-ucu.bsky.social vote vote vote!
Number 1: Moniquill Blackgoose’s To Shape a Dragon’s Breath. This has been #1 since I read it in January. It is what SFF should be; it is what historical fiction should be; it is what alt hist should be: relentless and raw and hypnotic. I immediately put it on my hist fic module. Sequel now, pls.
Number 2: Debra Magpie Earling’s The Lost Journals of Sacajawea. Impressionistic in the best possible way, devastating and necessary. Marches through the sanitised version of the history of Sacajawea’s life with righteous fire. Read it.
Number 3: Ashley Poston’s The Seven Year Slip. I make no bones about being a massive romance fan, and I love all sorts (yes, even THOSE sorts). Poston’s novels are consistent and use the form in fresh and fun ways, and SYS is a delightful and thoughtful spin on the time travel romance.
Number 4: Sophie K Rosa’s Radical Intimacy. In a nutshell: capitalism makes us unable to truly love and it undermines every single one of our emotional and psychological needs. I may be the choir it’s preaching to, but I needed to read someone else put all of this into words.
Number 5: Emily Habeck’s Shark Heart: A Love Story. An utterly sublime meditation on chronic/terminal illness but also what makes us human - and animal, and just how blurred the border is. And it is a love story.
Job one: think about fake pasts based on truefax. Job two: move words around.
For your anger-making today, from the Bird Site. To put ito perspective, £97k = my salary for 5 years.
Bringing some culture to this very silly place. (Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, for those who don’t recognise it.)
Late to the party, but this is STUNNINGLY GOOD. I don’t read political SF much but I genuinely have to persuade myself to stop and turn off the light at night - it’s just enthralling.