Dinara Tengri

Last Thursday, I went to a science fiction tea party. It was hosted by Malmö City Library  and it featured two women who work at the local SF book store. They did a Power Point presentation on the subject of science fiction in literature . More specifically, futuristic science fiction.  I went there both as a book blogger (completely incognito, should the question arise) and as a rabid fan of SF literature and hot beverages.  The presentation was short- about forty minutes, minus the following Q&A, but the book store ladies still managed to cover most of the themes that are typically found in futuristic SF. The bulk of the presentation was space, and what it represents in the SF. Space is the final frontier of discovery and exploration. But space is also big (unfathomably big), and thus it functions as the perfect backdrop for discussing and exploring themes like diversity and xenophobia, war and peace, and cultural identity. Space is basically a playground for...

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and it was founded by Chris Baty in 1999 (check out this link for full history of NaNo) The term "national" is a bit misleading, since the project is very much international with volunteers and participants from many different countries around the world. Each country is divided into different regions. My home region is called "Europe-Sweden-Elsewhere", where the "Elsewhere" stands for any region that is not Stockholm or Gothenburg. Every region has its own Municipal Liaisons, and these are the volunteers who help run the show and make the whole NaNo experience easier and more fun for the rest of us. They are in charge of organising the so-called write-ins, where people from the same region gather to write and converse about... well, writing. Although, anybody can organise a write-in, provided there's enough interest and time.  I did NaNo two times before. I never won, but I still had a blast...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish .  For this week's top ten list, I decided to take a road less travelled and focus on something else other than books and popular culture. So for all of you who study full-time and also have secret blogger identities, here come ten survival tips.   *Author's note: this is a humorous article and is not to be taken too seriously. The author of this article is not responsible if this advice will prove unsuccessful.  1. Get plenty of sleep. Because you cannot study and manage a somewhat functioning online enterprise  if you're running high on too much caffeine. Taping your eyelids to your forehead may work too, but it's not good for your skin. 2. Study first, blog later.  Because the nagging little voice in your head will eat you alive if you're writing another trivial top ten list, and you still haven't started on this week's case study.  3. Always have...

Hello again, my fellow book lovers! Have you noticed anything different about this page? Of course, you have. How can you not notice the new menu bar when it sticks out of the background like a cheap romance novel in a classic sci fi bookshelf? It's weird, it's awkward and it looks like it's been put there by accident. You may also have noticed that I keep my blog design very simple. I have a very basic template and no art work. And that is because when it comes to the technical side of blogging - to all the behind-the-scenes stuff - I have a few... let's call them "challenges". I have never been good at things like HTML, CSS or even Photoshop.   Claiming technical ignorance, however, is not an excuse to avoid doing the technical tasks that come with running your own blog. And if the truth is to come out, I have been avoiding it. HTML and CSS don't looks so difficult to learn, and surely, I can at least learn how to tweak p...

  Musing Mondays is a weekly meme created by Jenn @ A Daily Rhythm     This week's question: Are you going to participate in the Goodreads Reading Challenge next year?   What better way to add unnecessary stress and anxiety to your everyday life than to take part in a reading challenge? And yet, the promise of personal satisfaction and new-found friendship with other participants is tempting.     I have been participating in the Goodreads Reading Challenge for two years now. In 2014, I set a goal to fifty books. I think it was in November that it became evident, that I wouldn't win. So, what does a person do when faced with such a "devastating" defeat? Well, I don't know what others would do, but I simply went in and changed my goal to forty books, instead of fifty. And I "won".   When 2015 happened, I was feeling uncharacteristically optimistic, and set my goal to one hundred books. I don't...