Brit Mandelo has made the official announcement of the table of contents for Beyond Binary here, and I’m in it! This looks like such an awesome collection of stories: “Sea of Cortez” by Sandra McDonald“Eye of the Storm” by Kelley Eskridge“Fisherman” by Nalo Hopkinson“Pirate Solutions” by Katie Sparrow“‘A Wild and a Wicked Youth’” by Ellen Kushner“Prosperine When it Sizzles” by Tansy Rayner Roberts“The Fairy Cony-Catcher” by Delia Sherman“Palimpsest” by Catherynne M. Valente“Another Coming” by Sonya Taaffe“Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All-Female Production of Waiting for Godot” by Claire Humphrey“The Ghost Party” by Richard Larson“Bonehouse” by Keffy R. M. Kehrli“Sex with Ghosts” by Sarah Kanning“Spoiling Veena” by Keyan Bowes“The Metamorphosis Bud” by Liu Wen Zhuang“Schrodinger’s Pussy” by Terra LeMay Beyond Binary will be coming out in May from Lethe Press. […]
In which I have a new story
It’s tentatively called “The Root of the Root” and it has been in the world for almost an hour now while I dicked around with poetry books until I decided not to call it any of the things I’d been thinking about. It may change again before I call it done. Pretty things: Solveig’s cardigan; a puppy; a whole lot of cats, all of whom are based on actual cats I know (because you can do that with cats, although it’s kind of inappropriate to do it with people) Horrible things: carbonaceous sputum; 24-hour WalMart; sad unused baby shower presents Soundtrack: Olinka’s “Puss in Boots” mixtape; Fleetwood Mac, of all the damned things; Fever Ray Sustenance: Aleve and gunpowder tea. Fetishes: decade-old Lululemon hoodie. I’ve worn it so much that the cuffs have torn. There is nothing else in my closet so comforting. This story is a happy story. It is also a story written by me, so the happy takes a while to kick in. I will look forward to seeing if it sells quicker or slower than my less-happy stories. […]
In which I digress for a moment to talk about food
Since I’m a fiction writer, not a food writer, someone else is welcome to this idea: “How a Thin Person Eats”. It would be kind of a diet book, but instead of focusing on how heavy people lose weight, it would focus on how lighter people maintain their lighter weight. I have my doubts about the current thinking around weight. There’s a lot of judging and shame around fatness, which I hate. I don’t think everyone should have to be thin. I would like people to feel good about themselves at whatever size they’re at, and choose their foods and exercises based on what they love. For people who have fat they want to shed, I think there’s too much focus on restrictive, uncomfortable diets that might get results in the short term but are horribly hard to translate into long-term habits. I am a thin person, and my body composition is very healthy (plenty of muscle, sturdy bones). I have never dieted or restricted my food choices. Depending on what you believe about diet science, this could mean I have a wickedly high metabolism, or I get tons of exercise, or it could mean I have accidentally hit on […]
In which there is a podcast!
The mellifluous Julia Rios reads my story “Who in Mortal Chains” at PodCastle. I’ve never been recorded before. Let me just say: it rocks. […]
In which I cannot hear my new Handsome Furs due to the air show
It’s even worse than a balloon party around here: I have to sit, stiffly cringing, awaiting a horribly loud noise, which I know beyond a doubt is coming, only I don’t know when. And every time it does, it’s going to make me flinch visibly, spill coffee, and overuse italics. Also, the cats. They don’t have italics, or coffee, but they have the visible flinching. […]
In which the bell tolls
It actually does. Not for me, I assume. It’s somewhere up the block, and it’s probably one of those knife-sharpening people, rare these days but still to be found on occasion here in Little Portugal. Sunday morning, cloudy. Wasps in the rose briars and butterflies in the tall grass. Neighbours strolling to the laundromat. Silence in my part of town. My friends, it is a good day to write. […]
In which it’s always better on holiday
I saw this destroyer in Boston, on a precious day off following a business trip. I was impressed with how much depth it has below the waterline. You can only see this depth in drydock, or if you’re a good diver. On my return I discovered that two of the magazines to which I’ve submitted are undergoing editorial changes. Catherynne M. Valente is stepping down from Apex, and Ann VanderMeer will no longer be editing Weird Tales. These situations aren’t identical: as far as I can tell, Valente is stepping down to give herself more time to write, which is laudable, while VanderMeer has been let go by Marvin Kaye, who has bought the magazine with the intention of editing it himself. I am not a prolific writer, and when I have something to sell, I want to place it with a market where it’s a really good fit, both for the audience and for the editor. I chose to submit to Apex because I love Valente’s writing, and to Weird Tales because I love VanderMeer’s editorial taste. My good impression of VanderMeer was further borne out by a fantastic note she sent me on my first submission–she didn’t buy […]
In which I play with Babelfish
Here’s a paragraph from the middle of the story I’m working on. I used Babelfish to translate it into Mandarin and back again. …It was a bit clearer in the original. “The new cat, the starting, strolls by to smell the decision in mine face. His student opened in the shadow width. He invested his nose to me, and his whisker has itched my cheek.” Here’s something from the first scene: “In the air, contains the fat wool one kind of sickness warm smell or the cotton material: I imagined a rug merchant to try from any clean 50 year stain once was jewelry bright kilim.” In slightly less random news, I am officially a member of SFWA, as of today. Also, I recently sold a story to PodCastle, and this will be my first audio publication. […]
In which it is Story Day!
My latest work: “Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All-Female Production of Waiting for Godot”. I had a lot of trepidation about this story, and I’m so glad the wonderful editors at Strange Horizons gave it a home. My high school actually did perform this play with an all-female cast. I can’t remember who they were, sadly–and none of them were Ginevra–but they did a wonderful and very memorable job. Ladies, if any of you ever happen to read this, thanks for absolutely laying waste to my little teenage mind, in the best possible way. […]
In which I wonder where the last month has gone
On submissions, some of it. You see, I’ve decided to sell some poems. I wrote them, after all. I’m a writer–a professional writer, even, technically. Ergo the things I write should be good for something other than sitting in files. We’ll see if the poetry markets agree. Also, on productive things such as my bike race, and a fair bit of work-work, and also on less productive but mandatory awesomeness such as Pride. What hasn’t really been happening, though, is Words On Page. I wouldn’t say I’ve ever had that thing called writers’ block, but it does occasionally occur that I just don’t really do it. Or I do some, but not enough, or I do a lot, but nothing good. June was one of those months. July, luckily for me, is proving better so far. Today’s excellent work: hauling “Houdini” back on track, by main force and the application of some Elvis Costello. This story will probably have nothing to do with Houdini by the time it’s done, but it will have to do with a woman I saw weeping on the downtown 6 between Bleecker Street and Astor Place, and with Puss in Boots, and with a pair […]