A common science fiction trope is that aliens would think differently from humans. Larry Niven’s carnivorous Kzinti are curious only about things that interest them, C. J. Cherryh’s T’ca are multi-brained aliens that speak in matrices readable in any direction, and Steven Spielberg’s aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind communicate with music and gesture.

But, even just on the Earth, every human being thinks differently! This tremendous variation is called neurodiversity, and each individual’s distinctive cognitive style is their neurodivergence. Many kinds of neurodivergence are common, including autism, anxiety, synesthesia, and more – sometimes presenting challenges to individuals if society demands a different thinking style.

But could these different thinking styles actually help us understand aliens? Many autistic folks experience hyperfocus on special interests: could they better empathize with Kzinti? Could someone with dissociative personality disorder better understand the multiple-brained T’ca? And could a person with difficulty verbalizing better harmonize with Spielberg’s aliens?

My co-editor Liza Olmsted and I decided to explore whether neurodiversity would help us understand aliens in The Neurodiversiverse: Alien Encounters, a hopeful, empowering science fiction anthology from Thinking Ink Press exploring neurodivergent folks encountering aliens. Over forty contributors shared with us stories, poems and art exploring this theme.

For example, in “The Space Between Stitches” by Minerva Cerridwen, an autistic person’s hyperfocus helps her effortlessly repair an alien’s broken teleporter. In “Where Monolithic Minds Can’t Travel,” Akis Linardos explores whether aliens with multiple minds would resonate with dissociative disorder, unlocking travel to the stars. And in “Music, Not Words” by Ada Hoffmann, aliens that speak in music find harmony with a young woman who has trouble with words.

Many stories in The Neurodiversiverse are told from an authentic #ownvoices perspective, in which authors write stories about characters who share their own distinctive experiences. For example, I struggle with social anxiety disorder, and in my own “Shadows of Titanium Rain,” give those experiences to the character Djina as she struggles to understand solitary aliens.

Liza and I feel #ownvoices are particularly important because they improve the representation of marginalized voices in stories, which is part of the mission of Thinking Ink Press. Sometimes, it can be hard to imagine achieving something if you’ve never seen someone like yourself doing it – and it can be hard to solve a problem if you have no words to describe it.

We’re bringing The Neurodiversiverse to life no matter what, but because we’re a small press, we’re running a Kickstarter to help defray the costs of producing and promoting the book. In particular, we want to pay our authors the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Association (SFWA) “professional rate” of 8 cents a word, and the Kickstarter will help us do that.

Creating The Neurodiversiverse has been a voyage of discovery for us. Recently Thinking Ink Press embraced its identity as a publisher focused on marginalized voices – something we had always done, but not precisely noticed that we were doing; but once we noticed that it was our focus, we decided to lean in on that and do it well.

Exploring the topic of neurodiversity inspired me to propose “The Neurodiversiverse Anthology,” which I shared with our team to ensure we handled it sensitively. Liza was enthusiastic, joining as my coeditor and helping craft the anthology’s explicit focus on hopeful, empowering and #ownvoices stories. And work on the book awakened my understanding of my own struggles with neurodivergence, particularly social anxiety disorder and autism.

The Neurodiversiverse has opened doors for us as not just editors but as people with our own struggles with neurodivergence, and we hope it has a similar impact on everyone who reads it. So please back our Kickstarter (accessible during the campaign via neurodiversiverse.com) where you can not only help us pay our authors, you can get a copy of the book and find out the answer to the question, “Would neurodiversity help in an encounter with aliens?”

You can find the Kickstarter here.

About the author: By day, Anthony Francis teaches robots to learn; by night, he writes science fiction and draws comic books. His “Dakota Frost, Skindancer” urban fantasy series begins in the award-winning FROST MOON and continues in BLOOD ROCK and LIQUID FIRE. His latest novel is JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE. He co-edited the anthology DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME and is the co-editor of the forthcoming anthology THE NEURODIVERSIVERSE: ALIEN ENCOUNTERS; for more information check out neurodiversiverse.com . You can read more about Anthony’s words, art and science on his blog “The Library of Dresan” at dresan.com.

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines. Or if you’re looking for community with fellow fantasy, science fiction, and horror writers, sign up for the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers Critclub!

Storytelling Ourselves Out of Paralysis

by Christina De La Rocha and Ariel Kroon

One of the best things about science fiction is that it lets us try futures on for size. Do you look good in dystopia, finding the hero within while you rise from the wreckage of civilization, raging through the thrills of a dangerous world? Or do you look better invading the spaces that technology is about to open up for us, stumbling into unintended consequences hilarious, heart-wrenching, and severe?  

The growing solarpunk movement thinks you’d look best in a near future of the sort we’d actually like to live in. The cheerful color scheme complements every complexion. The hope here is that by narrating ourselves into a future where things have turned out well, we can increasingly believe that such a future is possible. Then, armed with that vision of what we could accomplish, we might wake up and start working on it instead of keep sleepwalking into the perfect storm of man-made misfortunes bearing down upon us.  

Because we really are sleepwalking right now. To take it a metaphor further, we, the people of Earth, are the deer staring paralyzed into the headlights of global warming, decimated ecosystems, accelerating economic inequality, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, failing states, refugees, wars, the pandemic, misinformation and propaganda, totalitarianism, hatred, and division. The here and now could easily turn out to be the prologue of a dystopia that only the most savage will enjoy and it’s hard to imagine there will be much in the way of heroes.  

In fact, we’re doing worse than sleepwalking. Those of us who have been shouting about greenhouse gas emissions and the state of the environment for decades are baffled that the collective response of humanity has been to drive its car faster toward the brick wall.  

But at the individual level, it’s almost understandable. We are worried but overwhelmed, thinking, how could I possibly do anything about every single issue we’re facing? How could any action I take make any difference at all? So what if we’re on track for having to deal with catastrophic climate change and ecological collapse at the same time that the maximum number of human beings that will have ever simultaneously existed on Earth will all be needing to eat, live somewhere, and have a job. What can I do about that (except move to Montana and start stockpiling guns, ammo, and freeze-dried food)?  

But, honestly, enough of that narrative, says solarpunk. What a horrible, self-fulfilling prophecy. Better to decide that we can do something about these problems. That we can create a positive future for ourselves, especially if we start solving problems together. After all, problem solving and cooperation are things our species excels at.  

Would it help get us moving if we started weaving ourselves into narratives in which we have acted to make the future a better place to be? Why don’t we try it? Let’s start creating visions of ourselves having dramatic episodes in fabulous yet feasible futures.  

That can mean setting stories”’full of human dreams, passions, conflicts, and conundrums”’in a world where we have changed the way we do everything, having gone green, clean, friendly, fair, just, inclusive, and supportive of as many people as possible. It can also mean telling tales set amongst the conflicts that will arise as we ditch fossil fuels for renewables (hopefully) in time to avert global warming disaster. Other stories might involve our attempts to engage safely in sun-shading or carbon sequestration to dial global warming down before we trip over climate tipping points of no return. In these stories, characters could romp through cities that we have revamped into working better for people or through lushly rewilding landscapes made possible by our overhaul of agriculture and our abandonment of overconsumption. Some tales could even be fables woven through with the warmth of cultures that have backed away from today’s every person for themselves attitude in favor of community, belonging, and collective problem solving.  

But how could stories showing us thriving in the midst of or on the other side of the remaking we need to do to our societies, methods of energy production, and infrastructure help us take action?  

Well… what if they stoked our enthusiasm for the revolution we are about to undergo that will be as disruptive as the Industrial Revolution that dragged us toward modernity and didn’t rest until it had set the stage for world wars, the collapse of a couple of empires, and the covering of so much of the planet in roads, cars, concrete, and a whole lot more people? Then we would no longer be paralyzed by our fear of such a great set of changes.  

But even if these stories just normalize little things, like driving electric cars, living near wind farms, having solar panels and heat pumps, or availing ourselves of the extensive and convenient public transportation networks that we deserve to have, they could still help us shake that fear of the future that has been paralyzing us.  

It is, at any rate, worth a shot, and it’s a shot that Solarpunk Magazine is taking.  

You probably haven’t met Solarpunk Magazine yet, as it’s the new kid on the block who hasn’t actually moved in yet. Our first issue will burst upon the scene in January 2022. We already have some great stories, pleasing poems, and fabulous non-fiction lined up for you.  

But paying contributors professional rates takes funding and, in his day and age, that means a Kickstarter campaign. Check out ours, which will run until October 30, 2021. For $5, you can secure your copy of our inaugural issue. $10 gets you the first two issues. $25 scores you the whole first year (which is six issues). Plenty of other goodies are on offer as well!  

Every $4K that rolls in funds one issue. As of October 11^th, we’ve secured enough funding for the first four issues, and we’re hopeful about getting enough funding for the entire first year. So come pitch in and help us storytell a wonderful future into existence.  

Speaking of which, you can also support Solarpunk Magazine by writing. We need your solarpunk stories, poems, essays, interviews, and articles. Our first ever window for submissions will be open from Nov 1-14, 2021 and we are looking forward to reading your visions of a future we could happily inhabit together in peace, prosperity, and greenery.

BIOS: Ariel Kroon and Christina De La Rocha are non-fiction editors at Solarpunk Magazine.

Ariel (she/her) is a recent PhD in English Literature, specifically in the field of Canadian post-apocalyptic science fiction published between 1948 and 1989. In addition to academic interests in feminist posthumanism and affect theory, she enjoys and pursues speculative futures with an environmental bent, queer optimism, radical hope, and garden dirt. She is an ancient Tumblrkid and hugely appreciative of solarpunk and hopepunk communities. You can find some of her talks on YouTube or read her personal webpage.  

Christina, a recovering biogeochemist and oceanographer raised in Los Angeles, California, has washed up on the shores of northern Germany and lives in a settlement with notably more chickens, cows, and alpacas in it than people. She has published a pop sci book or two, has had a few stories and articles published in Analog, tries to be entertaining on Twitter (@xtinadlr), and occasionally updates her website.

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines. Or if you’re looking for community from other F&SF writers, sign up for the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers Critclub!

#sfwapro

When I first started to take my writing seriously, I went to see Ray Bradbury at a UCLA event. I loved Bradbury’s work, my favorite short story being “The Veldt.” You can imagine my dismay when he stood on that stage and announced that women could NOT write horror fiction. I remember sitting there and asking myself, “Did he just say that?”

Later, when I became a television writer, I heard the same sentiment, only now it included science fiction and edgy drama. This is why I ended up writing for Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman; Touched by an Angel; and Murder, She Wrote (although I did get to write the vampire episode of the latter).

When I started my comic book company Kymera Press, I was told, “You can’t use all women artists. You have to have some men, or you’ll never sell your books.” That is why the company slogan is: We’re not asking for permission.

Kymera Press does use all women artists and writers, and we don’t have a problem selling our books. One of our titles, Ivory Ghosts, is in the Smithsonian National Natural History Museum’s gift shop in Washington DC.

I’ve been hearing women can’t for a long time. Though history has tried to hide it, women have been doing all kinds of things they’re not able to do. Hedy Lamarr, an actress during MGM’s golden age, co-invented a radio signaling device that changed radio frequencies to prevent the decoding of military messages. The system was a steppingstone to guaranteeing the security of communications and cellular phones.

You probably heard of Anne Easley, since the movie Hidden Figures was made about her and four other African American women who did significant work at NASA. Easley was considered a human computer in a time when there were no “machine” computers. When computers were born, she taught herself programming languages and worked as a programmer for NASA’s Centaur rocket project. This was the first technological stage for the space shuttle. Do you drive a hybrid car? Her work led the way to its development.

These are just two women who did what women supposedly couldn’t do. Women have been breaking barriers set for them for centuries. And this includes the field of writing.

Not convinced? When you think of Victorian writers, who comes to mind? Charles Dickens? Lewis Carroll? Bram Stoker? These men were famous in their time and ours. But what about Elizabeth Gaskell? Amelia Edwards? Margaret Strickland? These women were as renowned as the gentlemen above, but have you heard of them? An English major may answer yes, but the rest of us? Probably not.

Nancy Holder is a contemporary horror writer who has won 5 Bram Stoker Awards for her horror fiction. I am the owner of Kymera Press, a comic book publisher. The two of us teamed up to resurrect the stories of these amazing women by adapting them into a comic book series entitled Mary Shelley Presents. Mary Shelley and Frankenstein’s monster introduce the stories of Elizabeth Gaskell (“The Old Nurse’s Story”), Edith Nesbit (“Man-size in Marble”), Margaret Strickland (“The Case of Sir Alister Moeran”) and Amelia Edwards (“Monsieur Maurice”). Nancy writes the adaptations and artists Amelia Woo, Dearbhla Kelly, and Saida Temofonte bring the comic books to life. The text of each original story is printed after the conclusion of the adaptation.

Kymera Press, however, isn’t the only one resurrecting these women’s voices. Weird Women is an anthology that presents “Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers 1852-1923.” It was edited by Leslie S. Klinger and Lisa Morton. This anthology contains 21 short stories by women who wrote horror during the Victorian era. It includes “The Old Nurses’ Tale” by Elizabeth Gaskell and a different story by Edith Nesbit. It’s a fantastic anthology edited by two people who are well-known in both the academic and the horror fields.

You can help resurrect these women’s voices by buying a copy of Weird Women and supporting a Kickstarter for Kymera Press, launching on February 12, 2020. We want to collect the first four issues of Mary Shelley Presents into a trade paperback with an amazing stretch goal of a hardback.  Libraries and teachers prefer trade paperbacks, or even better, hardbacks, when stocking their shelves or using them in classrooms.

Perhaps, with the work being done to bring these women’s voices back to life, we won’t have to hear people who pass by the Kymera Press table say, “I didn’t know a woman wrote Frankenstein.” It’s time for people to know that yes, women can write horror. Women can do anything and everything. And we’re not asking for permission.

BIO: Debbie Lynn Smith Daughetee has spent most of her career writing and producing such television shows as Murder, She Wrote; Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman; and Touched by an Angel. She has published short stories in magazines and anthologies, including the Bram Stoker award-winning Dark Delicacies. In addition, she has also written audio dramas set in the world of the 60’s classic television show, Dark Shadows, including her Scribe award nominated, The Lost Girl. Most recently, Debbie created Kymera Press, a comic book publishing company that supports women in comics. She writes the comic series Gates of Midnight which was winner of the 2019 Irwin Award. She travels the country with her husband Paul attending comic book conventions where they sell their titles. You can also buy Kymera Press Comics at KymeraPress.com.

Probably the most interesting thing about Debbie is that she is a double lung transplant. Please become an organ donor. It saves lives. Like hers.

Twitter: @kymerapress

Instagram: Kymerapress

Facebook: Kymerapress, D. Lynn Smith

Kickstarter: Mary Shelly Presents

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines. Or if you’re looking for community from other F&SF writers, sign up for the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers Critclub!

Assembling an itinerary for a blog tour? Promoting a book, game, or other creative effort that’s related to fantasy, horror, or science fiction and want to write a guest post for me? Alas, I cannot pay, but if that does not dissuade you, here’s the guidelines. Guest posts are publicized on Twitter, several Facebook pages and groups, my newsletter, and in my weekly link round-ups; you are welcome to link to your site, social media, and other related material.

Send a 2-3 sentence description of the proposed piece along with relevant dates (if, for example, you want to time things with a book release) to cat AT kittywumpus.net. If it sounds good, I’ll let you know.

I prefer essays fall into one of the following areas but I’m open to interesting pitches:

• Interesting and not much explored areas of writing
• Writers or other individuals you have been inspired by
• Your favorite kitchen and a recipe to cook in it
• A recipe or description of a meal from your upcoming book
• Women, PoC, LGBT, or otherwise disadvantaged creators in the history of speculative fiction, ranging from very early figures such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Wollstonecraft up to the present day.
• Women, PoC, LGBT, or other wise disadvantaged creators in the history of gaming, ranging from very early times up to the present day.
• F&SF volunteer efforts you work with

Length is 500 words on up, but if you’ve got something stretching beyond 1500 words, you might consider splitting it up into a series.

When submitting the approved piece, please paste the text of the piece into the email. Please include 1-3 images, including a headshot or other representation of you, that can be used with the piece and a 100-150 word bio that includes a pointer to your website and social media presences. (You’re welcome to include other related links.)

Or, if video is more your thing, let me know if you’d like to do a 10-15 minute videochat for my YouTube channel. I’m happy to handle filming and adding subtitles, so if you want a video without that hassle, this is a reasonable way to get one created. 🙂 Send 2-3 possible topics along with information about what you’re promoting and its timeline.