Sarah Guan

A Valentine’s Day #MSWL: grand, complex, diverse, epic science fiction and fantasy—with a fraught central romance that has lasting consequences for the world.

YESSSSS #MSWL

#MSWL! I don’t know what genre this would be, and I frankly don’t care.

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

#MSWL!!! @tashadrinkstea knows what I like. 😂

A type of primary relationship I’d love to see more in #SFF: comrades-in-arms—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

#MSWL. It would make me AND the awesome Paola Crespo really happy. 😇

After a fantastic chat with @hroot, @tayhaggerty, and the Orbit editorial team this afternoon, I’ve realized that one of my evergreen #MSWL items is “sprawling, deeply messed up, magical families who both love and hate each other, and maybe change the world sometimes.”

After Trump’s bizarre statement about exchanging love letters w/ Kim Jong Un, I can’t help thinking it‘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

Given today's events, refreshing this #MSWL. Are you writing #SFF about misogynists getting their comeuppance and women tearing down the patriarchy with their bare hands? Tell your agent to send it to me.

#MSWL: secondary world SFF political systems based on historical governments that weren’t quasi-absolute monarchies—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

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

#MSWL: adult #SFF where the real enemy isn’t one malicious individual or group—it’s a system, but the toppling of said system would inflict massive collateral damage on unsuspecting innocents. And then, if the revolution succeeds—what happens next?

#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.

#MSWL: feminist #SFF

I don’t mean “strong heroine succeeds in a sexist society.” That exists, and much of it isn’t feminist in a way that reflects the intellectual underpinnings of the concept.

I want “strong heroines work together—intersectionally—to dismantle the patriarchy.”

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 invaders—but at the end of the day, you know they’re doing it to save each other as much as to “save the world.”

#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 doesn’t happen in a vacuum; it’s intensely political and intimately tied to military & economic realities.

YES, PLEASE. Witch aunties. Ghosts of your disapproving ancestors. Food for dayyyyyssssss. #MSWL

YESSSS #mswl

YES, THIS. #MSWL

I’m a multilingual person who often translates for loved ones whose first language isn’t English. It’s a whole set of social interactions and levels of access to systemic power that shape communities and conflicts.

I’d love to see this examined in #SFF.