essays

including short reviews of academic books, originally posted on Goodreads.

in English

Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion, Rosemary Jackson (1981) (review)
Gay YA: A personal retrospective: a short personal essay looking back on five(-ish) years of reading LGBTQ+ young adult fiction.
- this essay was originally posted in 2015 at the now-defunct YA Pride.
The (im)possibilities of Openly Straight: a short personal essay reflecting on the book Openly Straight, by Bill Konigsberg (2013).
- this essay was originally posted in 2015 at the now-defunct YA Pride.
In the Dust of This Planet, Eugene Thacker (2011) (review)
My (mostly) definitive Octavia E. Butler novel ranking: having, as of July 2024, finally read all of Octavia E. Butler’s novels, here is my ranking of them, along with some general reflections on Butler’s work.
Rhetorics of Fantasy, Farah Mendlesohn (2008) (review)
Theory for Celtic studies: Introduction: I posted this essay in June 2020 with the intention of beginning a series of posts on the value and use of “theory” in and for Celtic studies (in the broadest sense); I had also planned to accompany it with suggested introductory reading lists for different bodies of theory. neither of these ambitions has (yet) panned out, but I think the essay stands all right on its own.
Voices of Fire: Reweaving the Literary Lei of Pele and Hiʻiaka, kuʻualoha hoʻomanawanui (2014) (review)