The obvious vs the oblique

/ 7 Comments / On Writing, Pimping, Shorts / By

You may have noticed that I’ve been a little quiet lately. Sorry! It’s the whole two-fulltime-jobs thing; doesn’t leave a lot of time for extras. So in the spirit of maximizing efficiency, this is a two-birds-with-one-stone post: I’m going to talk about writing, which I haven’t done here for awhile, and I’m also going to plug a new novel that rocked my socks off. The novel is Genevieve Valentine’s Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, which has already gotten some nice press. It deserves more. When I first started out as a short story writer, I had a rough

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In FRANCE

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Using all caps because it’s FRANCE and holy crap FRANCE I’m in FRANCE how ’bout some FRANCE with those FRENCH fries? (Which for some reason here are called “amusing fries”. I fail to see the joke.) Anyway, am here for the Imaginales festival in a town called Epinal in eastern FRANCE. I’m posting photos and updates on the trip over on my Facebook page for those who can see it (I friend everybody that doesn’t appear to be a spammer, if you’re wondering, so it’s OK if you don’t know me personally). That’s it. Just wanted to let you know

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No Nebula this year

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I didn’t win, alas. That said, if I gotta lose, losing to Connie Willis is the way to go, lemme tell you. And I had a great time at Nebula Weekend, though I was only there for Saturday and Sunday (it started Thursday). I have pictures, but they came out very dark for some reason, so I won’t post them. (If anyone was there and has better pics, please send them to me!) And while I’m aware that “it’s an honor to be nominated” is a cliche, that really is the case here. The other authors in the Best Novel

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…and then it hits me.

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I’ve been nominated or shortlisted for (or won) nine major awards. Nine. Awards. Nine. The Hugo (Nominee) The Tiptree (Shortlist) The Prix Imaginales (Nominee) Gemmell Morningstar Award (Finalist) Locus Awards (Finalist) Nebula Award (Nominee) Goodreads Readers’ Choice Awards (Nominee) Romantic Times Book Reviews Award, Fantasy (Winner!) Crawford Award (Shortlist) ::bogglety:: I kinda don’t know what to think about this. I’m astounded. Awed. Humbled. A little scared. A lot giddy. (And the Virgo in me keeps wanting it to be ten, just to make it a nice round number.) It’s an honor to be nominated for even one of these things,

…and then it hits me. KEEP READING

After

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Just sold another short story! This one has gone to a forthcoming YA dystopian anthology edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, to be called After. As it was described to me, the premise is to focus on the dystopias that might result long after an apocalypse, not the immediate aftermath, and explore what life is like for teenagers in this setting. My own contribution is called “Valedictorian,” and it’s set in the same cybergothy universe of “The Trojan Girl”, which got published earlier this year in Weird Tales. “Valedictorian” is set an undescribed amount of time later, and is

After KEEP READING

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland’s Exotic Locales

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More smart stuff from other people. Rising star of the SFF genre Shweta Narayan posted this hilarious (but also sadmaking) homage to Diana Wynne Jones’ Tough Guide to Fantasyland — the Tough Guide to Fantasyland’s Exotic Locales. She explains, My cold-addled brain has been sort of fixated on context, of late, namely the racist/Orientalist/fetishizing contextual stew that Secondary-world Fantasy inherited from the Romantics, and Regency fantasy and Steampunk implicitly take on as part of their world-view unless it’s explicily undermined; and I’ve been wondering how to talk about it without shifting the focus to individual examples. (Which isn’t to deny

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Futurestates

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I was given a heads-up on this by unusualmusic over at the Racebending blog, and was so wowed by what I saw that I want to share. With everybody. I blog a lot about how frustrated I am by the lack of social realism in SFF. If even half the energy SFF creators expended on getting the science right could be put into getting the people right, I think the genre would be taken more seriously — both by those who are already fans and by those who scorn us. But leaving aside what greater social realism might do for

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Awards Update

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The award nominations keep coming for The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms… wow. I’ve been in a perpetual state of “Huhwha?” for the last few weeks. The new nomination is for the Prix des Imaginales, which I’ll find out about in a few weeks when I go to the Imaginales Festival in France. It’s for Best Translation, which is good because the Francophones I’ve talked to have praised the book’s translation as well as its content, and it’s good to know that’s a consistent view. And an update on an old award: it’s now possible to vote for the Morningstar, the “new

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Cheaper Kingdoms, Better Worlds

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Good news, folks: to celebrate the Nebula and Hugo nominations for The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, Orbit is dropping the ebook price to $2.99! You can find it for that price at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Mother’s Day is coming; if your mom’s the type who might like family drama and mythic intrigue with a weensy bit of sexytimes… hey, I’m just sayin’, not all moms want flowers. ETA: You can also get Mira Grant’s Feed as part of the Hugo deal! Also! I got the chance to participate in another SF Signal Mind Meld. This one’s for the Shared

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Sinners, Saints… Available at Podcastle!

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I mentioned this awhile back, but it got posted yesterday: at Podcastle, my story “Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters” is up. This story was originally published in the UK magazine Postscripts. I’ve only been able to listen to a little of it so far, but I really like the voice they selected. The reader is a black woman, Laurice White, and while she doesn’t specifically speak with a New Orleanian accent, she does such a phenomenal job that these minor differences are just that — minor. There’s character there, which captures both Tookie’s

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