Emily Strand, with whom I co-edited Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away and Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier (both from Vernon Press in 2023), is a cosplayer and costumer extraordinaire. Check out her latest essay!
A Defense of Dressing Like a Bad Guy
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Dark Academia novel: The Ravens by Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige (2020)
From the cover:
These sorority girls are real witches.
Quote:
That was when she noticed the single tarot card positioned nearly at the head of her bare mattress, as if placed there by a careful hand.
It was the Death card her mother had given her.
The skeleton leered up at her with a gruesome smile, and for a moment, it almost looked like the eyes glowed red. Vivi shivered, despite knowing that it was a trick of the light. I told you. Westerly isn’t a safe place, not for people like you…
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Star Wars Book Community Podcast: Special - Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away on Apple Podcasts
It was such a treat to talk with the wonderful Star Wars Book Community Podcast about our new anthology STAR WARS: ESSAYS EXPLORING A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY!
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My latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment is the first of a two-part review of the anthology AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines, edited by Stephen Cave, Kanta Dihal, and Sarah Dillon, published by Oxford University Press in 2020. It’s now up on the new episode of the StarShipSofa podcast.
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StarShipSofa 718 Lincoln Michel | StarShipSofa
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Dark Academia novel: The Good Girls by Claire Eliza Bartlett (2020)
From the cover:
secrets and lies, then somebody dies
Quote:
The end of my life starts here.
A rainy, sodden autumn has turned the river below into a roaring monster. Rocks jut out like jagged teeth, jet black against frothy white. My blood sings as the weathered wood sags behind me—someone has followed me onto the tiny bridge over Anna’s Run….
Legends say Anna’s Run takes one unlucky sacrifice every year. The wind wraps around my neck like a cord.
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I’m delighted to share that both of my co-edited academic anthologies with Vernon Press are now available: STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER and STAR WARS: ESSAYS EXPLORING A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY.
They are both available at major bookstores and can be requested via libraries in hardcover or ebook formats. The coupon code CFC10822213C4 provides a 24% “new release!” discount for both at the Vernon Press website.
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Vernon Press - Authors
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I’m delighted to say I’ll be giving two presentations this autumn on Dark Academia topics at academic conferences. Both events have online options, and I hope to see some of you there!
I’ll be giving the talk “A Vanished Student Leaves a Haunted Space: An Unsolved Mystery and the Gothic Imagination on the Dark Academia Campus” at Perilous Realms and Haunted Spaces: New England Moot 2023 sponsored by Signum University in October.
I’ll be presenting the paper “Consumed by the Campus: Dark Academia, the Gothic Imagination, and the Missing Student" at the Consuming the Gothic Conference sponsored by Sheffield Gothic in November.
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Dark Academia novel: A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid (2023)
Quote:
And Effy had walked right into the center of it, into this sinking house at the edge of the world…. When Effy was able to move her numb legs again, she ran down the stairs and hurled herself out the door, into the blackness of the night, heart pounding like church bells. She was not afraid of the ghost. But she was horribly, wretchedly afraid of whatever had killed the woman it had once been.
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I’m delighted to share that I’ll be giving a paper at the upcoming Realizing Resistance Episode III: The Expanding Universe conference on Star Wars.
My talk will be “‘They Walked without Speaking’: GUARDIANS OF THE WHILLS, ANDOR, and Local Resistance.
More on the conference is here: dcsco-op.org/rriii/
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Book Review - Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier
Thanks to Jarrah Hodge and Women at Warp for this in-depth review of our new book Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier!
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It’s time for my periodic “Thank you!” to those in the Star Trek and Science Fiction communities who have helped us get the word out about our new anthology, Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier, thus far.
More details about our book (including the table of contents, reviews, etc.) are here on the Vernon Press website. (Note: The coupon code CFC10822213C4 provides a 24% “new release!” discount at the Vernon Press website. In addition, the book is also available from all major booksellers and for request via libraries as an ebook or hardcover. Library requests help us a great deal!)
If you work with a periodical, podcast, blog, or website and might be interested in reviewing our book or talking to us or our contributors, please get in contact with me. I may be able to arrange a digital review copy for you! The easiest way to reach me is through this contact form on my website.
Many thanks to @ashleywritesstuff and Mike Slamer of We Are Starfleet (hear the episode here), Brandi Jackola of Boldly Go (hear the episode here), Jarrah Hodge of Women At Warp (read the review here), and The Honorable Kavura of StarPodLog (read the review here) for their wonderful conversations, reviews, and support!
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Dark Academia novel: The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew (2022)
Quote:
She’d heard of Godbole. Everyone had. It was a highly prestigious yet controversial program, a magnet for those who dabbled in the occult.
… And so, on a bluebird day in September, she packed up her things and she went. To conquer the world, and maybe some others. To prove that she could.
She took a breath and she took a step.
And the shadows followed.
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I am very happy to report that I will be presenting my paper “Missing Students and Their Fictional Afterlives: True Crime, Crime Fiction, and Dark Academia” at the Guilty Pleasures: Examining Crime in Popular Culture conference (May 2-3, 2024) sponsored by the Popular Culture Research Network. This talk is related to my current work-in-progress book project. I’m looking forward to it!
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We had a great time celebrating our new Star Trek and Star Wars books at events this past weekend — so much so that Mr. Spock seemed to join me, old-school Victorian spirit photography style! ?
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I was delighted to talk Star Trek and Star Wars with Michael Boyce on the latest episode of the Geek4 podcast.
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Geek4 — Michael W. Boyce, PhD
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Dark Academia novel: The Cloisters by Katy Hays (2022)
Quote:
Death always visited me in August. A slow and delicious month we turned into something swift and brutal. The change, quick as a card trick.
I should have seen it coming. The way the body would be laid out on the library floor, the way the gardens would be torn apart by the search. The way our jealousy, greed, and ambition were waiting to devour us all, like a snake eating its own tail. The ouroboros.
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Dark Academia novel: The Sea of Lost Girls by Carol Goodman (2020)
Quote:
Every year the coast guard holds an assembly about the dangers of crossing the causeway that only seems to increase its appeal.
When I get out of the car I can hear the dense pines that stand sentinel over the peninsula creaking in the salt-laced wind… and something else.
A sound like a girl crying.
I freeze and listen. It could just be the wind in the trees or the mournful sigh of the tide retreating over the rocks below the coastal path, but then, peering through the fog, I catch a glimpse of something white that looks like a girl running… I remember the ghosts who are said to haunt these woods.
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I had a fantastic time talking with brilliant hosts Ashley Thomas and Mike Slamer of the WE ARE STARFLEET podcast about the new anthology STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER, which I co-edited with Emily Strand. Thanks so much for a wonderful chat! ?
Listen to the episode here.
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On my “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the latest episode of the StarShipSofa podcast, I discuss the anniversary of the science fiction series Blake’s 7.
StarShipSofa 704 Ramez Yoakeim | StarShipSofa
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