Sarah Guan
Editor
Erewhon Books
Works in the book trade: publisher & 2x Hugo Award-nominated editor of speculative fiction @erewhonbooks . @Stanford š, New Yorker, Earth citizen. (she/her)
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Samira Ahmed @sam_aye_ahm
I want to write some Marie Kondo-inspired fanfic where it's just me smacking xenophobic/culturally insensitive/racist critics in the back of the head with unwanted books, which transfers so much joy into said books, they're lovingly re-homed instantly.#MSWL! I donāt know what genre this would be, and I frankly donāt care.
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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
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Paola Crespo @_PaolaCrespo
I STILL havenāt found my badass Latinx character leading an SFF novel (if you know of any HIT YOUR GIRL UP PLEASE!).#MSWL. It would make me AND the awesome Paola Crespo really happy. š
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Sarah Guan @Sarah_Guan
All this chatter about a vampire (and werewolf) comeback. I have thoughts...I like my supernatural, human-but-not characters. But Iād love some new takesānot the resurrecting of classics that worked the last time around. Letās see new perspectives get a bite at that apple.
After a fantastic chat with @hroot, @tayhaggerty, and the Orbit editorial team this afternoon, Iāve realized that one of my evergreen #MSWL items is āsprawling, deeply messed up, magical families who both love and hate each other, and maybe change the world sometimes.ā
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After Trumpās bizarre statement about exchanging love letters w/ Kim Jong Un, I canāt help thinking itād 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
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Sarah Guan @Sarah_Guan
#MSWL: feminist #SFFI donāt mean āstrong heroine succeeds in a sexist society.ā That exists, and much of it isnāt feminist in a way that reflects the intellectual underpinnings of the concept.
I want āstrong heroines work togetherāintersectionallyāto dismantle the patriarchy.ā
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#MSWL: secondary world SFF political systems based on historical governments that werenāt quasi-absolute monarchiesāe.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
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#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.
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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 invadersābut at the end of the day, you know theyāre doing it to save each other as much as to āsave the world.ā
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#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 doesnāt happen in a vacuum; itās intensely political and intimately tied to military & economic realities.
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Charlie Jane Anders, Our Opinions Are Correct @charliejane
Can't wait for the spinoff, Crazy Witch AsiansYES, PLEASE. Witch aunties. Ghosts of your disapproving ancestors. Food for dayyyyyssssss. #MSWL
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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 shortEditor
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!
Iām imagining one of these exorcists getting caught up in some epic political struggle, and the others admonishing, āDonāt be such a drama queen! Our family sticks to lesser demons and dead commoners for a reason! Stop meddling with dead emperors!ā