I am starting to put some of my work out there, and we will see what comes of it.  The writing community at critters.org has been helpful and supportive, and many thanks to all the exceptional people who I have been working with there.

People's Choice Award

I am so excited I want to dance!  I created a Utopian concept for my final project in English Literature: Modern Utopian Lit, and my story won a People's Choice Award for Best Form from the class.  It will be in an anthology of Utopian papers this fall.
 
I have a new Facebook community page I have created for Utopian thoughts and interests.  Feel free to take a look and post anything relevant (and in good taste.)

Brightest Blessing, Everyone!

http://www.facebook.com/MyUtopianImpulses

So hard to find good help

So I am interested in a large project that involves language creation and teaching environmental concepts through science fiction stories, but reactions are mixed.  Hasn't this been part of the genre for decades?  What could we do right and what could we do wrong?  It's been at the heart of science fiction even since the early 1900s.

I have had amazingly positive feedback on analysis of science fiction and its relationship to technological innovation, but little enthusiasm for my genre writing.  How do I move past that and expand my ideas?  Where do I find help with realistic linguistics?  What technologies are on the brink of our imaginations in this advanced information age?

Environment and Culture

I wrote the following for the class I am taking on the Environment, Culture and Place in the Changing North:

Studying Environmental Sciences is learning about the varied ways everything is interconnected.  I think the readings brought that across well.  Our studies will not be limited to a specific field or even group of fields, but will be wide open.  Biology, Geography, Ecology, Physics, Tectonics, Meteorology, Oceanography, Sociology... they all play a part in defining our world and they all relate to each other.  The more we know about our world, the more we can predict how our actions will affect the present and the future.

Juneau, Alaska is a unique location for a symposium of this kind, on the coastal waterways in a temperate rainforest and bordered by glacial mountains so close guests can take a tour walking on the Mendenhall Glacier.  We have a unique collection of ecosystems here and a unique way of life.  Tiered levels of buildings seam to clime the steep hillsides downtown.  Drainage allowances compensate for the high annual rainfall.  Indigenous people study their culture and languages while adapting to the changing modern world with agility and ingenuity.

We are not living in a pastoral paradise, but neither are we living in an apocalyptic nightmare.  Times are changing and we are adapting to those changes, altering our own actions as we gain more wisdom as well as knowledge.  The more we share with each other, the farther we will be from the frightening conclusions of images like those brought forth in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) or in Waterworld (1995 film).