Locus, that nice magazine that just gave me a big shiny award, also does other cool things. Who knew? Like, they have a series called Roundtables, in which they ask a bunch of writers, reviewers, and other literary folk to chat about a particular work or topic. And — starting before the award, actually — they decided to talk about me.
Disclosure: I’m on the Roundtable list, but I obviously bowed out of this conversation. So a couple of the folks there have met me in real life, one (Rachel Swirsky) knows me quite well, and the rest I only know online — but I do know. Regardless, they didn’t stint at applying a critical eye to my stuff, though they also praised what they liked. They even introduced me to some ideas I hadn’t considered (like a New York fantasy novel… hmm…). It feels kind of like being in a writing group of people who’re critting not just a single book, but everything I’ve ever written.
For. Six. Pages.
::stares at monitor for a moment::
::comes out of catatonia::
…Anyway, go read it. It’s good stuff.
What a cool link. The participants seemed like good, incisive, insightful readers, to me. Did any of them point out anything you hadn’t noticed in your own work?
Ms. Speller’s comment “…there was an extra space in there somewhere that I couldn’t quite account for, perhaps Jemisin watching over her own shoulder as she wrote” was especially interesting to me. I didn’t get that sense myself, though I can’t in any way claim a pro reader’s eye.