New Job

I mentioned it before on my Ad Astra post, but I thought I'd talk about it again. Cause I want to. I am now a part of a new website called Hardcore Nerdity which launches on Thursday, and I have to say it's already been a huge learning experience.

For those who may not remember the synopsis:



Hardcore Nerdity is the pet project of Mr. Jonathan Llyr. Some of you may know John in his former role as an on air personality for the Space Network. He's since moved on from the channel but now he and several colleagues are starting this amazing website. Contributors include the incredible Rob Salem (if you are Canadian you will have seen his articles in the Toronto Star and, well, everywhere), the effervescent Simon Evans (another Space veteran and former MuchMusic producer/presenter), myself, the lovely Lesley, my good friend Casey Hudecki (fight chick extraordinaire), along with the friendly folks over at angryrobot.ca: Nadine, Toku and D. If you have any nerdish leanings this will be the site to check out. John has serious nerd connections. The site will feature a weekly podcast, articles, interviews and original comics. This week's podcast is awesome, beginning with a seriously lively and hilarious chat between John, Rob and Simon, and featuring an interview with the amazing David Hayter, screenwriter for X Men and X Men 2, about his working on the screenplay for Watchmen.


Okay, back to me and my learning experience.

First of all I am interviewing people. I mentioned my fear of this before, but it is something I have never really done before. It's weird, because a lot of my friends work in television and are extremely proficient at the interviewing, but it's a world I know very little about. I've always found interviewing a terrifying prospect. Not so much the interacting with other people, but the responsibility that comes with the role. Here you are, one chance to talk to someone of note in an industry you find interesting, and if you ask them the wrong question or forget to ask them something important, that's it, you blew your chance. I am a fan of the "re-do". There really isn't such a thing with interviews.

At the same time, I find interviewing very exciting. I love doing the research about a person ahead of time, learning all this interesting stuff about them, really getting to know someone. I also like the actual interview, the conversation. So I think I'm totally into this interviewing thing, even if it still scares me a little.

I'm also writing articles for the site, and that is something new as well. Now I like to post to this blog at least twice a week, and that has given me a good sense of how to handle deadlines, but it's interesting writing articles within a certain framework. In this case the SF/Fantasy genre. I feel like I am writing essays again, much like my post on Magical Realism. I am quoting people, and having a thesis, and it's been ages since I've really written anything like that. It's been a challenge definitely, but fun.

So it's been an interesting new job, and the site hasn't even launched yet!

With that in mind, I wanted to ask my loyal readers, for their help. I am posting an article twice a week at Hardcore Nerdity, all in the SF/Fantasy realm - books, tv, film, comics, gaming, whatever - does anyone have any article suggestions? Anything they would like me to investigate, or write about? I already have an article on Battlestar Galactica and Watchmen, and I am sure I can come up with more considering I have opinions on everything, but it would be cool to see what kind of stuff you guys would think would be cool!