#mary anne mohanraj

[shsenhaji]

📚 The Stars Change - Book Review

Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5933188725

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Science-fiction novella, romance, LGBTQ+ characters and themes, impending war, people deciding to do the right thing despite everything

Just finished listening to The Stars Change by Mary Anne Mohanraj on audible, and it was an incredible and unique listen.

When I was first dipping my toes into audiobooks, and asking people I knew for recommendations, this book was suggested.

It holds a special place in my heart because it's the first time I'd listened to an audiobook sample and felt riveted, hanging onto every word and upset that the sample was now finished. Even if some of its themes - such as erotica being a central part of the story and how it communicated its core messages - weren't my primary interests, I wanted to keep listening; and so I did.

Very heartfelt in many ways, exquisitely written, with various plot threads and characters converging into a satisfying conclusion. I absolutely loved the structure, short yet increasingly interconnected snippets and character/relationship studies.

The novella also explores a lot of themes that are unfortunately still resonant; war and bigotry and intolerance, social divisions, radicalization, overwhelming odds. Its ending message of people from all backgrounds coming together to help and try to make a difference is one I definitely needed to hear.

The Stars Change manages to be funny and profound and grieving and celebratory in 4 hours and 15 minutes. Highly recommend the story, and especially the audiobook version.

[nicolagriffith]

Snippets—Cath Llew, Events, Sales, and Deep Dives

MENEWOOD is out in 15 days (!) so I'm starting to gear up: updating my Events page, writing about research into bynames, taking Deep Dives into immersive prose, and more.

In Hild, Hild acquires four bynames or epithets—like ‘Butcherbird’ and ‘hægtes’. In Menewood (out in just 15 days!) she acquires more, the first of which is ‘Cath Llew’, or lynx. Over on Gemæcce, my research site, I’ve written a juicy post—maps! drawings!—about how and when and why that happened. As Menewood is out soon (15 days!), I’m gearing up for publicity, which includes starting to update…

[queenlua]

i’ve always had a soft spot for “hacker origin stories,” but writer origin stories can be extremely fun & charming too:

5. How did you get started writing sex stories?

The newsgroups back then were these huge topic-sorted bulletin boards, where you could talk on just about any subject in threaded forums. It wasn't like today, where are lots of different places you can go to participate in discussions -- while there were other more private bulletin boards, the newgroups were by far the most well-known and popular. Everyone on-line stopped by there, and people being people, everyone stopped by the sex newsgroups eventually. Just to check them out, you know.

So, like everyone else, I visited alt.sex and learned a lot from the discussions there, like which brand of condoms offered the best combination of sensitivity and reliability, or what happens to the way a man tastes when he eats cucumbers. I visited alt.sex.stories and rec.arts.erotica too (I was an English major, after all, and loved stories), and was just stunned at how bad these stories were. Bad on a level I had never encountered before -- incoherent grammar, impossible spelling, and plots that made no sense at all. I found myself thinking, "I can do better than that!"

It was a very freeing experience -- I had spent so many years reading good stories and great stories and had never encountered truly bad ones. I had thought of writers as almost demigods, with these magical skills. Now I realized that at this level, writing was something I could do. And at least I knew how to spell!

So I wrote a story. A dreadful story, actually, "American Airlines Cockpit." It was just as predictable as it sounds from the title, but at least there was nothing wrong with the grammar. I posted it on the newsgroups and got some enthusiastic e-mail in response. Well, I've always responded well to praise, so I wrote another, "Season of Marriage" (a sweet little arranged marriage love story, which would later become the seed of Bodies in Motion). More raves in e-mail. I wrote more stories. In that first year, I think I wrote about twenty stories (most of them less than 2000 words long) -- probably the most prolific I've ever been. It was a sheer delight, and the wonderful e-mails I got in response were tremendously motivating.

I did try writing a few stories without much sex, and posted them to rec.arts.prose, but nobody seemed to actually read that newsgroup, so they didn't engender any response. I was hooked on those appreciative e-mails, so I kept writing about sex. :-) So in a sense, I really fell into sex writing, almost accidentally. But once there, I found other reasons to stay with it.

(from Mary Anne Mohanraj)

[thoughtportal]

What does it mean to be a creator at a time when creativity is completely commodified? In this episode, we talk about the status of the author, and how audiences have idealized artists while also celebrating the so-called death of the author and rise of the reader. Plus: how AI converts our minds into apps, and why the intentional fallacy blew up the literary world in the 1940s! Later we’re joined by Mary Anne Mohanraj, an author and professor of literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who tells us about using AI in the college classroom.

[yourdailyqueer]

Hey, I hope you're doing well! Any chance you can find some people from Sri Lanka?

Just a few:

Rajiv Surendra - Gay

Sherman de Rose - Gay

Dil Wickremasinghe - Lesbian

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha - Non binary (she/they)

Niluka Ekanayake - Trans woman

Geoffrey Bawa - Gay

Bevis Bawa - Gay

David Paynter - Gay

Mary Anne Mohanraj - Bisexual

Rosanna Flamer-Caldera - Lesbian

Mangala Samaraweera - Gay

Shyam Selvadurai - Gay

Loui Sand - Trans man

Sonali Deraniyagala - Bisexual

D’Lo Srijaerajah - Trans man

[victormilanbooks]

Three Kings (Wild Cards, #28)

Published May 14th 2020 by Harper Voyager Original Title Three Kings

by George R.R. Martin, Peter Newman, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Peadar O. Guillin, Caroline Spector, Mary Anne Mohanraj, John Jos. Miller, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Carrie Vaughn, Marko Kloos, Emma Newman, an amazing mosaic novel of great adventure and captured super-heroic powers. As a mosaic novel with various authors its the characters I will remark on, not only their unique powers but the precedence they bring to the world of wild cards. Roger (green man ) Barnes, is a remarkable new creation by author Peter Newman, is as wonderful in his character arch as his phenomenal power. I bow to the well known Wild card Noel, with so much of his real story detailed in this story. Ever remarkable Anya (Badb) McNulty is the spider of orchestration of the events of the book, not only bringing the desperate constitutes together but allowing heroic sacrifice, and retribution to happen with in the story. Constance (seamstress) Russell by Caroline Spector is the heart of the story, her tender advice, protection and providence. With out Alan (enimga) Turning Mary anne Mohanraj would not have had the history to give depth to the story. I love the pull of three kings, showing the various nature of humans. The selfish, and the diabolical, to the miss construed Chads of the world. George R R Martin knows how to make the well known dream of kings in Arthur (Bobbin) Hugesson and his story of his rise to the throne of England.

[theresabookreviews]

Three Kings (Wild Cards, #28)

Published May 14th 2020 by Harper Voyager Original Title Three Kings

by George R.R. Martin, Peter Newman, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Peadar O. Guillin, Caroline Spector, Mary Anne Mohanraj, John Jos. Miller, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Carrie Vaughn, Marko Kloos, Emma Newman, an amazing mosaic novel of great adventure and captured super-heroic powers. As a mosaic novel with various authors its the characters I will remark on, not only their unique powers but the precedence they bring to the world of wild cards. Roger (green man ) Barnes, is a remarkable new creation by author Peter Newman, is as wonderful in his character arch as his phenomenal power. I bow to the well known Wild card Noel, with so much of his real story detailed in this story. Ever remarkable Anya (Badb) McNulty is the spider of orchestration of the events of the book, not only bringing the desperate constitutes together but allowing heroic sacrifice, and retribution to happen with in the story. Constance (seamstress) Russell by Caroline Spector is the heart of the story, her tender advice, protection and providence. With out Alan (enimga) Turning Mary anne Mohanraj would not have had the history to give depth to the story. I love the pull of three kings, showing the various nature of humans. The selfish, and the diabolical, to the miss construed Chads of the world. George R R Martin knows how to make the well known dream of kings in Arthur (Bobbin) Hugesson and his story of his rise to the throne of England.

[djotaku]

Review: Lightspeed Magazine, April 2018

Lightspeed Magazine, April 2018 by John Joseph AdamsMy rating: 4 of 5 starsSCIENCE FICTIONWhat is Eve? (Will McIntosh) – Will does a great job with the story. The reader can probably guess the general direction of the story, but it’s the details that make it shine. I think he also does a good job with the voice of a middle school kid.Webs (Mary Anne Mohanraj) – Starts off with what seems like a…

[otherdeb]

Review: Vegan Serendib: Recipes from Sri Lanka, by Mary Anne Mohanraj

Review: Vegan Serendib: Recipes from Sri Lanka, by Mary Anne Mohanraj

I’m not sure I’ve ever reviewed a cookbook before, so please bear with me. Also, I should note that while Ms. Mohanraj and I have not met in person, we have had several interesting conversations on Facebook Messenger when I had questions about recipes from her blog. I was also a supporter of both this book, Vegan Serendib: Recipes from Sri Lanka, and her first cookbook, A Feast of Serendib on…

[desbianherstory]

His father said: he saw two men kissing in the street, and it made him angry.

I was eighteen the first time I spent the night with another girl, walked back to campus with her the next morning, wanting to hold her hand, afraid to.

This is what I was afraid of: that my parents would somehow hear, that they would stop speaking to me would cut me off.  That my sisters, friends, would turn away, repulsed by thoughts of what two girls might do.

There were incidents on campus. Gay-bashing, injuries. We wore pink triangles in solidarity, passed them out on campus, asked our straight professors – please.  Stand with us.  Many did.

Matthew Shepard, a student, was tortured and murdered a few years later, in 1998.

I didn’t think anything would happen to me.  I reached out and took her hand or maybe she reached out to me.  Kissed her goodbye, knowing already that it was over, not regretting anything.

Later, my friends and I went to the gay nightclubs and danced, the straight girls glad to be able to dance as freely and sexually as they wanted, without fear of harassment.  I danced on a table, hoping the gay boys knew, somehow, that I was one of them.

Twenty years ago; now I’m a wife and mother – husband, two kids, a dog, and a house in the suburbs.  Still bi, and poly too, but living as safe a life as one might wish for, as parents might hope for their children.

The death toll rises, now up to fifty dead, the worst mass shooting in American history the worst mass murder of gay people in America since 1973, Upstairs Lounge, thirty-two burned.

I took her hand, and later, madly in love, I kissed my girlfriend in the street, knowing always that it might make someone passing by angry.  In love and defiant, knowing enough to worry.

I didn’t know we’d have to worry about this.

Mary Anne Mohanraj, “After Pulse”

[shsenhaji]

✒️ September and October Writing Round-Up 🖋

So, things are actually somewhat happening on the writing front! It's a very nice feeling, honestly.

I wrote two book review; one in September - Gallant by VE Schwab - and one in October - The Stars Change by Mary Anne Mohanraj.

I've also been very inspired with regards to my own writing. I came back to my dragon rider YA fantasy WIP after almost a year of not working on it, and wrote some new chapters as well as ideas for the rest of the story. I've been also writing down story ideas, snippets, etc. The other day, I also finished a new short story - a fantasy monologue.

Finally, I have signed up for NaNoWriMo 2023! In October, I got so inspired to revisit one of my older unfinished stories - an adult sci-fi that's a cross between a war story, a police procedural, and a rebuilding story - and I'm hoping to use the upcoming month to work on that.

I also have a book review that I'm hoping to finish in November, for a book I'm very excited to read.

[thegoblincourtier]

Review | The Stars Change by Mary Anne Mohanraj

Review | The Stars Change by Mary Anne Mohanraj

The Stars Change by Mary Anne Mohanraj

My Rating:

On the brink of interstellar war, life (and sex) continues. Humans, aliens, and modified humans gather at the University of All Worlds in search of knowledge… and self-knowledge… but the first bomb has fallen and the fate of this multicultural, multispecies mecca is in question. A thought-provoking work on sexuality and the connections between…

[upperrubberboot]

[yourdailyqueer]

Mary Anne Mohanraj

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Bisexual

DOB: 26 July 1971

Ethnicity: Sri Lankan - Tamil

Occupation: Writer, editor, professor

[victormilanbooks]

https://www.wildcardsworld.com/qa/mary-anne-mohanraj/

[danielleurbansblog]

Review: A Feast of Serendib

Review: A Feast of Serendib

Synopsis:

“Mohanraj does a superb job of combining easily sourced ingredients with clear, instructive guidance and menu recommendations for all manner of events…a terrific survey of an overlooked cuisine.” – Publisher’s Weekly

Dark roasted curry powder, a fine attention to the balance of salty-sour-sweet, wholesome red rice and toasted curry leaves, plenty of coconut milk and chili heat. These…