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I have a beef with “show, don’t tell,” and it’s not just that I have a beef with pat advice about something as complex as writing fiction. “Show, don’t tell” is supposedly “good” writing’s admonition to avoid exposition. Yes, the dreaded “infodump” is seen as a hallmark of bad writing, but it’s faulty logic to […]
When I was a teenager, I was a magician. Not the Owl-Delivery-slash-Mildly-Disturbing-Boarding-School kind of Magician but the sort that did… well… magic. I was taught how to thread balloons onto string, make glasses of milk disappear, and make dice pass through solid metal plates. I learned two important lessons. First, never EVER use the word […]
My so-called qualifications: I’ve been a community organizer for fifteen years. I’ve helped organize hundreds of direct actions, ranging from tame sidewalk rallies to occupations of government office building lobbies to tent cities on vacant bank-owned properties. I’ve gotten arrested in Central Park at a midnight protest; I’ve been illegally barred from public legislative hearings; […]
“I couldn’t go to the rallies,” my mother says, “because you were too small.” This is how it starts, with a mother telling her eight-year-old about the revolution that freed a country from a tyrant. I was born in December of 1985; two months later, the people rose up in the People Power Revolution of […]
When will my letter come? It’s something so many of us think in one form or another. We stare out the window and we look for an owl. We look into the ocean, hoping a bottle will bob to the surface. We scan a fistful of envelopes fresh from the mailbox, and even though we […]
Uncanny Magazine would like to thank the following people for supporting us on Patreon. This magazine would not be possible without their support. Space Unicorn Ranger Corps COMMANDERS Adam Leff, Avery Flinders, Bliss Ehrlich, Christian Valencia-Neihart, Claire Rousseau, Dain Unicorn, Daniel Sales, David Mackie, Devin & Stephanie Ganger, Didi Chanoch, Edmund Schweppe, Hisham El-Far, Jayme Lundeen, Kate O’Conner, Kevin […]
I was born at the cusp of the dictatorship in Rosario, Argentina at the end of the seventies. Rosario, the cradle of Ernesto Che Guevara, revolutionary icon. Rosario, the birthplace of Leo Messi, fútbol god. Fútbol has been in our blood since English sailors brought a soccer ball in their ships to the coasts of […]
In the fall of 2009 I became a liberal local politician in a rural Wisconsin county and the following spring I was elected as a county commissioner.* It wasn’t something I set out to do, and it’s outside both my main area of expertise as a science fiction and fantasy author and my comfort zone. […]
When I was thirteen or maybe fourteen, I went to Korea with my family. I had been before, but was now newly a teenager and finally aware of all the expectations that weighed on me as a gyopo—a Korean raised overseas. I understood the obligation I had to the aunts and uncles who stayed behind […]
Once there was a girl who couldn’t say what she wanted to say. Whenever she talked, her words were so heavy they fell to the floor without reaching the intended ears of those who needed to listen. People stumbled over her words, not seeing them, or completely ignored them, kicking them under the carpet. The […]
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