Category: battlestar galactica

Roundup! A book event, a cool podcast, gardening tips, TV and fiction recs and much more!

Hello! I hope you are doing OK and taking care of yourself. That’s a pretty tall order at the moment and if you are taking on even more — i.e., trying to help others and your communities — I’m grateful to you.

I’ve got a roster of good or potentially interesting things I want to mention, but before I get to that, I want to say this: If you are going to be protesting this weekend or at any other time, I’d strongly urge you to turn off biometric access to your phone (if you bring a smartphone at all, that is), and also check out this list of other tips from EFF and from veteran organizers. 

So, here are 10 good or potentially interesting things: 

1. On Saturday, June 14 at 3 p.m. in Chicago, I’ll talk with Kevin Smokler, author of the excellent new book Break the Frame, an array of conversations with female directors. I can’t wait to talk to Kevin about his book, about the entertainment industry in general, and about my book Burn It Down (which this month celebrates its two-year book birthday, and I must once again thank everyone who supported my book in any way). Huge thanks to Jarvis Square Books, which will be hosting the event in an outdoor spot near the store in Rogers Park. If you want to register in advance, that’ll help the organizers get an idea of the head count. 

2. I went on the Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays podcast to talk about the excellent Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode Ad Astra Per Aspera. I love chatting with Tilly and Susan Bridges, and the conversation about this episode in particular was meaningful on so many fronts. It’s a three-part podcast, and the final installment comes out next week. Thanks for having me on, Tilly and Susan! You continue to be the best, and our chats are always a wonderful experience. (Side note: ST: SNW, which I enjoy a lot, returns on Paramount+ July 17, and I highly recommend watching the Season 2 finale before diving into the new season.)

3. There aren’t a ton of new scripted shows this month, aside from the BritBox offering Outrageous, a six-episode saga of the Mitford family in the 1930s. Six episodes, of course, isn’t nearly enough to convey everything there is to know about the infamous Mitfords, but it’s a start! And I’ve now seen the first two episodes of Outrageous, a smartly paced, intriguing drama that definitely has an outrageously good cast. I dug into Mitford lore and interviewed the star and writer of Outrageous for Vanity Fair last fall, and a lot of the ideas in the show — and in those conversations — are still very relevant. Side notes: BritBox TV has a lot of very good films and TV programs (including my beloved Line of Duty and the Agatha Christie adaptation Towards Zero). Other TV I’ve enjoyed lately: Lots of shows on this list, plus Dept. Q, Andor and my first watch of OG Roswell, which is bringing me face to face with a lot of semi-traumatizing late ‘90s/early aughts fashion trends. 

4. Would you like soothing fare that celebrates kindness and creativity in front of your eyeballs? Probably yes?? Great news, then: The Great Canadian Baking Show — which is so, so good — and a couple of later seasons of the Great Pottery Throw Down are coming to the Roku Channel. Hooray! Longtime readers will know of my deep love for GCBS and will be familiar with my assertion that the Great Pottery Throw Down is even better than its pastry-driven peers (and the first couple seasons of GPTD should still be on HBO Max, or whatever they decide to call it next month). 

5. A couple of notable new books I want to mention: Megan Greenwell’s Bad Company, a chronicle of the destruction wreaked by private equity, which is evil. I’m so glad the super-smart Greenwell took on this important topic. And Maris Kreizman’s essay collection I Want to Burn This Place Down (great book title for this tome, which is out July 1). Both of these excellent authors are doing tours, and Maris’ newsletter The Maris Review is gold if you want to keep up with things worth reading. (Speaking of this topic, Bookshop now has a way to buy ebooks! An excellent development.)  

6. I read a LOT and I always get stuck trying to make lists of recommendations, because it’s easy for them to end up way too long! But I will mention a few books that I really loved lately: Prom Mom by Laura Lippman (I simply think you cannot go wrong with anything by Lippman, Denise Mina or Tana French in this particular realm of fiction); Cue the Sun! by Emily Nussbaum; Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell (she’s got two books set in the same universe, but they’re not sequential and I’d read this one first); Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky was typically fascinating (though my faves by him are the Final Architecture and Children of Time series); Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite; the Mossa and Pleiti mysteries by Malka Older; The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal, the latest in her Lady Astronaut series (which is super great); and I’m a bit late to this, but I positively devoured The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. History buff? For the moment we’re living through, I highly recommend every book by Adam Hochschild, and also the one-volume version of Emma Goldman’s autobiography, Living My Life. 

7. Just a reminder that there’s going to be another Battlestar Galactica convention in September, most of the cast and creative team is going to be there again, and I personally can’t wait for this Creation event. I’ll be hosting and moderating again, and last year’s con was truly life affirming in the best possible ways. 

8. I came across this Star Wars intro/crawl generator and this was a very, very fun way to waste some time. 

A hawk moth extends its long thin probiscus to a white flower in a garden with greenery in the background.
A hawk moth in our garden. They do really look like something out of Star Wars!

9. I’m on the board of the survivor advocacy organization Callisto, which I wrote about here. Things are more stable financially than they were last fall, which is great (but nonprofits like Callisto can always use money, of course, if you know of anyone with some spare cash. Side note: Thanks to everyone who participated in my eBay charity auction this spring, which partly benefited Callisto — I’m so grateful!). The organization is looking for board members, and if that sounds like something you’d be interested in, there’s more information here. 

10. Earlier this year, I had the good fortune to go on the JoCo Cruise and meet a bunch of great people and participate in some talks and generally engage in delightful activities. They asked me if I wanted to talk about something other than books or journalism or the entertainment industry as we JoCo-ed, and I said heck yeah! I love, love, love gardening, and I wrote this Google doc with a few tips and ideas (I post pics of my garden on Instagram main and stories, if that’s of any interest). What I had to say really involves — I hope — demystifying gardening for newbies, but the document also might be of use to folks who already garden. It’s not a comprehensive array of advice, of course; it’s just meant as some ideas or questions to think about, with a few bits of well-intentioned input from yours truly. Hope you dig it! 

An arrangement of colorful flowers in a clear vase on white steps.

And finally: Fuck ICE. Abolish it. 

Two ways to help great charities and a Battlestar Galactica return

Hello, everyone. Just a few things I wanted to share with you. 

First up, a professional announcement: I will once again be the emcee, host and moderator at the three-day Battlestar Galactica convention that Creation has put together. The first one, as I wrote in this post, was a blast. I am hoping you can come to the next one, in New Jersey in September, to hang out with us. Once again, many members of the cast and creative team will be there, and as you can see from this reel, the first Creation BSG con was simply one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had in recent memory. So say we all! 

A woman on a stage lifts her hands up at a musical event, with other people in the background.
This year is A LOT but I was blessed to have a great thing happen also: Going on the JoCo Cruise in March was a sensational experience. Here’s a photo of me just after doing karaoke for the first time on the cruise, in front of hundreds of strangers (song: Blister in the Sun by Violent Femmes). It was one of the best nights of my life. Photo by Beth Gordon.

Here is some fairly recent Vanity Fair work: I contributed to this list of the best shows of 2025 so far; I wrote about the new BritBox drama about the Mitford family, Outrageous (coming this summer); I interviewed Anjelica Huston and Matthew Rhys about their new project, the Agatha Christie adaptation Towards Zero (also starring many other faves); and finally, the long gaps between TV seasons… can we not? But if we’re going to have to keep enduring this, I’ve got suggestions on how to address the issue. Oh, and one mo’ thing: The best TV of 2024 (a list I also contributed to).

Next up: This month is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and I’m on the board of Callisto, a nonprofit that assists survivors of assault and helps catch serial perpetrators. I wrote here in more depth about what Callisto does, and I’ll just repeat here that the organization helps gives agency back to survivors (outside of formal reporting systems), and all the support and help it gives to the 21 million folks with access to Callisto is done for free. 

Last fall, Callisto had severe financial issues, as I mentioned then. I’m glad to say that Callisto was able to re-open its Vault a few months ago, but as is the case with so many worthy organizations at the moment, Callisto could always use more financial help. I’ve got a page here if you’d like to give to the Callisto fundraising drive in my name. Here’s another giving page and the organization’s main informational page. A very cool thing: Thanks to the Wild Giving Foundation, all donations are doubled this month. Anyone who can give or has given — thank you! 

There’s another way to potentially help Callisto and other organizations: Buying fun stuff on eBay! 

As I have in the past, I’m once again auctioning off rare entertainment industry memorabilia and other cool stuff for charity. Items from Star Wars, Mr. Robot (including a very rare Mr. Robot book), Better Call Saul, The X-Files, Reservation Dogs, Game of Thrones, The Bear, Star Trek, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Farscape, Spartacus and other programs are represented, along with some rare designer handbags that I’m auctioning off. Orla Kiely hive, now is your time!

Shipping is free on most items (only within the US; sorry about that, but eBay and international shipping are match made in hell). A wide array of nonprofits will benefit from this whole endeavor, including the California Fire Foundation, several food banks, the Entertainment Community Fund, The Transgender Law Center, Trans Lifeline, and the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center.

But get on this soon — the auction will end around April 21 (but my Callisto donation page will be around for much longer.) 

OK, that’s it for now, aside from this observation. Thanks for reading this, and take care, friends. 

Photo above from this collection of JoCo performers (there are more great JoCo pix here). This photo was by Beth Gordon (thanks Beth!). Yes, it’s true, I’m wearing a very cool T-shirt in that photo.