Short story: Left of Beng: Pre-emptive Self-Actualisation for Autonomous Systems by Vaira Chandrasekera, from Clarkesworld magazine, April 2017. Recommended.
Poem: Iris by T. D. Walker, from Strange Horizons, April 2017. Recommended.
Essay: Late Style by Vicky Feaver, listened to on the BBC’s The Essay podcast, from April 2017. Recommended.
Short story: When I Had Eyes, I Didn’t See by Anna Yeatts, listened to on the Podcastle podcast, from April 2017. Highly Recommended.
Poem: The Day After We Saved the City by Rose Victor, from Strange Horizons, April 2017. Highly Recommended.
Essay: Why the Only Future Worth Building Includes Everyone by Pope Francis, listened to on the TEDTalks podcast, from April 2017. Recommended.
Short story: I’ve Been Drowned in the Rain by Carrie Vaughn, from Beneath Ceaseless Skies, April 2017. Highly Recommended.
Poem: Last Time by José González Vargas, from Strange Horizons, April 2017. Highly Recommended.
Essay: A Speck of Dust by Jay Owens, listened to on the BBC’s Four Thought podcast, from April 2017. Highly Recommended.
Short story: The Velt by Ray Bradbury, from The Illustrated Man and Other Stories. Highly Recommended.
Poem: Aperture by Jennifer Tongue, listened to on the Poem of the Day podcast, from April 2017. Recommended.
Essay: The Past in the Present by A. L. Kennedy, listened to on the BBC’s A Point of View podcast, from April 2017. Recommended.
Short story: The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, from The Illustrated Man and Other Stories. Highly Recommended.
Poem: Earth’s Answer by William Blake, from Songs of Experience, listened to through Librivox. Highly Recommended.
Essay: Modernist Utopias, listened to on the BBC’s In Our Time podcast, from March 2006. Highly Recommended.
Short story: The Library by Ray Bradbury, from A Pleasure to Burn (2010). Highly Recommended.
Poem: Sitting Outside at the End of Autumn by Charles Wright, listened to on Poem of the Day podcast, from December 2016. Recommended.
Essay: We Need Nuclear Power to Solve Climate Change by Joe Lassiter, listened to on the TEDTalks podcast, from November 2016. Highly Recommended.
I’ve decided to take on the Ray Bradbury Challenge. The Challenge is designed to encourage authors to improve their reading habits and write more short fiction.
Stephen King wrote that if you do not read, you have no business writing. Nothing has taught me more about the craft of telling stories than reading the work of others. My hope is that by committing to the Challenge, I’ll be a better storyteller as a result.
The Ray Bradbury Challenge is as follows:
1) Write a short story a week for 52 weeks.
2) Read a short story, a poem and an essay every day for 1,000 days.
I’m severely visually impaired, so I do my ‘reading’ either in an audio or ebook format. I usually read one or two novels and two or three short stories each week, but seldom read poetry.
To fulfil the essay requirement, I will count listening to podcasts such as TED Talks, seminars by the Long Now Foundation, Skeptoid, BBC World Service’s Witness, BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time, BBC Radio 3’s The Essay and the like.
I will document my progress on this blog and encourage you to join me in this Challenge.
