I’m excited by all the books by African writers that have come out in recent years, we need more of that. I would love to see more work drawing on African story forms and indigenous knowledge systems, especially from southern African countries.

loved the idea of a civilization that deliberately nurtured a singularity for the short-term gain of clean energy, knowing they were handing an inescapable nightmare scenario down to their descendants.

I was thinking about dragons and capitalism (as one does) and wondering why dragons—at least European dragons—are always depicted as greedy and hoarders of treasure. They can’t use it, after all, no matter how shiny.

As drivers, Bruce is always flooring the accelerator to beat the next light while I try to keep the passengers alive. There was a bit of tug-of-war over the steering wheel, and some questions about when the story was finished, but we eventually arrived at a mutually agreeable destination.

I love bugs. The first species I really fell in love with were European honeybees, but after staring at bees for hours and hours every day to collect data, I realized most bugs aren’t so bad (see, I used to be afraid of them). Wasps are particularly unfairly maligned.