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8,253 books
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24,501 voters
“In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.”
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“I was a young black man, light-skinned enough so that four out of five people who met me, of whatever race, assumed I was white.... I was a homosexual who now knew he could function heterosexually.
And I was a young writer whose early attempts had already gotten him a handful of prizes....
So, I thought, you are neither black nor white.
You are neither male nor female.
And you are that most ambiguous of citizens, the writer.
There was something at once very satisfying and very sad, placing myself at this pivotal suspension. It seemed, in the park at dawn, a kind of revelation--a kind of center, formed of a play of ambiguities, from which I might move in any direction. ”
― The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village
And I was a young writer whose early attempts had already gotten him a handful of prizes....
So, I thought, you are neither black nor white.
You are neither male nor female.
And you are that most ambiguous of citizens, the writer.
There was something at once very satisfying and very sad, placing myself at this pivotal suspension. It seemed, in the park at dawn, a kind of revelation--a kind of center, formed of a play of ambiguities, from which I might move in any direction. ”
― The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village
“You guys know about vampires? … You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist?" And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.”
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Erik’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Erik’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
574 books
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3,021 friends
79 books
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442 friends
142 books
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590 friends
7 books
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39 friends
582 books
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2,759 friends
47 books
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65 friends
5 books
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305 friends
2 books
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9 friends
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