Our email and voicemail inboxes runneth over with listeners voicing their opinion on just some of the topics we’ve covered in the last few episodes.
Item no. 1: This year, we aired our first-annual NOTscars episode — a special show dedicated to everything we thought was UNDERrepresented at the Oscars. And along with the hosts of the podcast “Another Round,” we lamented the fact that, when it comes to people of color appearing in sci-fi films… the list is pretty short.
But John in D.C. wrote in to say the same doesn’t necessarily go for sci-fi literature. He provided a few authors in his letter to us. Check it out below:
- Samuel R. Delany
- Steven Barnes
- Octavia E. Butler
- Nalo Hopkinson
- Tananarive Due
- N.K. Jemison
- Sofia Samatar
- Ken Liu
- Henry Lien
- Haris A. Durrani
Both Buzzfeed and The Mary Sue offer up excellent lists of sci-fi women writers of color. And if you want to branch out and include fantasy and magic realism as well as sci-fi, GoodReads has giant list of speculative fiction books written by authors of color.
Up next: Our small talk story centered on Peter Sagan, the bad-boy champion of the bicycle-racing world who caused a huge scandal… by NOT shaving his legs before a race. On the show, we noted cyclists traditionally shave their legs to cut down on wind resistance. But a veritable peloton of listeners wrote in to say there’s more to it than that. Including Lara, from Seattle, who explained that it makes treating road rash easier.
Lastly: On a recent etiquette segment, Brendan and writer Heather Havrilesky came down vehemently against forcing guests to remove their shoes before entering your home. This prompted a listener named Adam in Los Angeles to write in and say that this attitude is culturally insensitive.
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