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Aug 12, 2015

What I'm reading right now

Ghost stories, lots of them. For Halloween this year. Collections put together and contributed to by Audrey Niffenegger (Time Traveller's Wife) and John Connolly (Charlie Parker). Ghostly tales by Poe, MR James, Niffenegger herself, Neil Gaiman and many, many more, guaranteed to send a shiver down your spine. Both these collections, Ghostly and Night Music Nocturnes Vol II will be out just in time for Halloween. Boo!

I don't normally read bios, but

Browsing through the arcs the other day I came across, You're Never Weird on the Internet by Felicia Day. Yes, that Felicia Day, the internet phenom. This is a great bio to give any kid who feels they haven't found their niche in life. Newsflash, you can create your own niche, that's what Felicia has done and in her quirky voice she tells you all about it. Imagine having coffee with your quirky best friend and you'll get the tone of this bio, it came out yesterday go pick one up.

Here is the review;

Felicia Day is a homeschooled, self admitted odd duck she credits not having her weirdness 'schooled' out of her as one of the reasons for her success.

Day is smart, super smart (she holds degrees in Physics and Maths, she got into UT on a music scholarship) but she never felt she fitted in anywhere. Day discovered computer games when you still had to type in commands and your gender wasn't an issue.

In 2006, as a jobbing actress  she wrote, financed, helped film and starred in web series 'The Guild'
(at the time, Kickstarter was still on the drawing board and all did Netflix was rent discs by mail). The Guild ran for six seasons, not bad for something that started on a shoestring budget.

Felicia's stories about being recognized on the street (or not and she's okay with that), being caught tweeting during a Comic Con panel for Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog (she was on the panel not in the audience!), her addiction to World of Warcraft and how when  the whole 'success' thing hit it almost buried her. Felicia is a great example of what you can do if you don't follow the rules and ignore the people who tell you that you can't do something because it doesn't fit the system or their established ideas of 'how things are done'.