Sarah Guan

Editor

Erewhon Books

Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)

Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips
Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips
Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips

New year, new (evergreen) #MSWL:
Smash the patriarchy.

Give me men who are gentle, with soft, artistic souls & loved ones to care for

Give me women who are ruthless & sharp-edged w/o being ground to dust for it

Give me NB heroes who are any & all of these, who live their truth

Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips
Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips

A type of primary relationship Iā€™d love to see more in #SFF: comrades-in-armsā€”not only warrior/soldier siblings-in-battle, but also people fighting for common causes in politics, in the workplace, in civil society, &c. who believe viscerally in their purpose & in each other #MSWL

Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips
Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips
Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips

After Trumpā€™s bizarre statement about exchanging love letters w/ Kim Jong Un, I canā€™t help thinking itā€˜d be an interesting SFF novel idea: 2 unstable dictators w/ huge egos inherit world-ending arsenals & a fraught standoff, begin a diplomatic correspondence, & fall in love
#MSWL

Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips
Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips

#MSWL: secondary world SFF political systems based on historical governments that werenā€™t quasi-absolute monarchiesā€”e.g. the Japanese shogunate, the Iroquois Confederacy, the Ancient Greek polis, the elected Khans of the Mongol Empire, the city-states of the Aztec Triple Alliance

Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips

#MSWL: anti-colonialist adult #SFF thatā€™s not just about throwing off the hegemonā€™s rule, but also the complexities of economic independence, recovering lost cultural heritage, & constituting a government that doesnā€™t replicate oppressive structures put in place by the colonizer.

Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips

#MSWL: adult #SFF where the real enemy isnā€™t one malicious individual or groupā€”itā€™s a system, but the toppling of said system would inflict massive collateral damage on unsuspecting innocents. And then, if the revolution succeedsā€”what happens next?

Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips

#MSWL: fairytale and mythology retellings, especially in unusual or unexpected settings, and especially if reimagined to give agency to the marginalized. No damsels, no white knights, all underdogs.

Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips

#MSWL: feminist #SFF

I donā€™t mean ā€œstrong heroine succeeds in a sexist society.ā€ That exists, and much of it isnā€™t feminist in a way that reflects the intellectual underpinnings of the concept.

I want ā€œstrong heroines work togetherā€”intersectionallyā€”to dismantle the patriarchy.ā€

Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips

Is it still #MSWL day?

Someone send me an adult SFF novel centering a messy, diverse found family who have to overthrow the empire, or uncover a plot, or fight off invadersā€”but at the end of the day, you know theyā€™re doing it to save each other as much as to ā€œsave the world.ā€

Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips

#MSWL: thorny, political space opera that revels in the nuts and bolts of science and engineering. Tech that not only facilitates the action, but also precipitates it.

R&D doesnā€™t happen in a vacuum; itā€™s intensely political and intimately tied to military & economic realities.

Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips
Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips
Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips

Lindsey Hall @LindseyHall17

#MSWL fantasy w/ a translator protag. There's so much power in language-- how they translate for a ruler effects a whole kingdom, eg. I want to see the nuances & consequences of deciding how & what to translate, word play between languages, times when translation falls short

YES, THIS. #MSWL

Iā€™m a multilingual person who often translates for loved ones whose first language isnā€™t English. Itā€™s a whole set of social interactions and levels of access to systemic power that shape communities and conflicts.

Iā€™d love to see this examined in #SFF.

Sarah Guan
@Sarah_Guan
Editor
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford šŸŽ“, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
159 MSWL
5 AskAgent
2 Tips

Philip Boyes @PhilipJBoyes

Just a reminder: there's an Old Babylonian tablet that mentions a family of exorcists who live together in a house. Which is, I think you'll agree, one of the great sitcom ideas of the ancient world.

#MSWL!

Iā€™m imagining one of these exorcists getting caught up in some epic political struggle, and the others admonishing, ā€œDonā€™t be such a drama queen! Our family sticks to lesser demons and dead commoners for a reason! Stop meddling with dead emperors!ā€