between the rock and the cold, cold sea

It is out. I am on it, for "Sleeps With Monsters" at Tor.com.

Along with a whole lot of shiny people.

You know how people say it's an honour just to be nominated? It is an amazing honour just to see my name on that list. But I owe a great number of people for making it possible to write that column.

I couldn't write the "Sleeps With Monsters" column without building on the work and support of a hell of a lot of other people: people like Bridget McGovern, at Tor.com, who first invited me to contribute the thing that between "Sleeps With Monsters," and like Irene Gallo, Tor.com's publisher, both of whom have been incredibly supportive when it comes to my work for them. People like Elizabeth Bear and Amanda Downum and Jaime Lee Moyer and Leah Bobet, who have been friends to me for a good long time; people like the community of people I have encountered through Livejournal and Twitter, like Jenny Kristine Thurman and Fade Manley and Alex Dally MacFarlane and many countless others, too many to name, who've challenged me to think harder, more thoroughly, and more deeply, about genre, gender, and intersectionality. And I'm indebted to all the writers who've allowed me to interview them, to share their perspectives on science fiction and fantasy.

I fail a lot. I fall short of consistently producing the kind of work, and the kind of thinking, I'd like to produce. But it's been a privilege to be able to contribute to the conversation, and it's an immense honour that the BSFA's membership has chosen to recognise my work by shortlisting for the award. It's an honour I'll do my best to see my work lives up to, in the future.

Congratulations to the other shortlistees, especially Kameron Hurley and Ann Leckie, whose works deserve to be on the Best Novel shortlist if anyone's does.

It seems I'm not to be permitted to write my final-year thesis on Isis at Philae and Aswan and connections to Nubia and the Red Sea in the Ptolemaic period after all.

(I spoke with the three people in my tiny department who supervise historical/archaeological stuffs. Phrases such as, "That seems more like a PhD topic!" and "We're concerned about the availability of material for an undergraduate" came up. I bowed to learned wisdom.)

Instead, I'm now looking at and for material on the cult of Isis in Ptolemaic and/or Roman Greece. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some.

Also, these final year courses? They appear to demand much more work than anything I've encountered before. Is scary. But also kind of cool.