Living in the (Virtual) Future

By Rae Lori


I’m so excited to join popculturedivas with such a great group of ladies. I figured for my first post I’d chat a little about the future and introduce myself.

I’m an author, artist, dreamer, reader and avid visual lover (my shortcut term for a movie and TV addict ;-)). I grew up on the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genres so the speculative catches my eye pretty easily. I loved all the awesome inventions that imagined what a cool future would have. Flying cars, vast cities with everything at your fingertips, advancements in artificial intelligence to make our lives easier. Much of this is already available considering how much stuff we can get on cell phones and how easy it is to order almost anything from our computers. Not to mention communication which is just a click away.

With all these advancements in every day life, it got me thinking about how it’ll integrate into publishing, reading and new authors sharing their work. We can already attend book discussion groups via forums, share snippets of books to check out before we buy and now book tours can be conducted in the comfort of one’s own home. Not blog tours, but actual book tours.

The virtual world of Second Life hasn’t quite caught on as mainstream as other social networks but there’s a growing community for readers, writers and other creative types in-world. I hold a weekly class for aspiring novelists and I’m also a part of the many writing communities who share their work and talk about other books in various discussions. I just received a newsletter the other day from an author whose reading I attended a few months ago. She’s holding an in-world salon where she’ll spotlight an author per event. The author will then come in and read some excerpts then answer questions from the audience. As a lover of audio books, I really enjoyed this. Shortly before attending that I went to an October bash where one sim (simulator world, that is) had a hostess who read Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and it was great. There used to be a wonderful sim called October Country (inspired by Ray Bradbury’s story of the same name) which featured Science Fiction, Fantasy and horror audio dramas on constant rotation.





I wish I had all the time in the world to go everywhere in Second Life but between writing, catching up on the towering TBR pile and family life, the time just zips by.

At least there’s the weekly creative writing class meetings and the big events that occur monthly. And NaNoWriMo SL is just around the corner…

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Rae writes in multiple genres including science fiction, fantasy, romance and suspense, sometimes all meshed together in one story. Currently she is at work writing short speculative stories as a break from her larger works. Recently she has contributed to the world-building chapter for the upcoming The Complete Guide to Writing Paranormal, to be released this fall from Dragon Moon Press and is gearing up for the release of her futuristic A Feast of Shadows from Eirelander Publishing in March 2010.

Check out more of her work at her website where you can sign up for her newsletter, check out her blog and see what’s coming up for new releases and free reads.


Photos taken on location in Second Life