Out Now: Rook Chant

Few things make a writer happier than a gorgeous book cover and this one's a beaut, thanks to the ever talented Queen of Everything, S. L. Johnson. You may recognise the image from a photo I took: how rare for a writer to have a hand in the book cover! Rook Chant brings together a wide variety of publications that have appeared in various places.  I've had people asking me to send them pieces that are no longer available or available only in academic journals or otherwise hard to obtain. Everything from Anglo-Saxon witches to Alan Moore, Finnish magic and charms.

Blurb: Collected Writings on Paganism & Witchcraft by award winning author, K. A. Laity. This collection represents a wide range of pieces touching on the breadth of her interests in paganism and witchcraft. It includes everything from short pieces for pagan/spirituality journals like The Seeker Journal, The Beltane Papers, Circle and New Witch, papers delivered at academic conferences or published in academic journals as well as a few reviews and translations of old magical texts.

"Laity is a very remarkable sorceress indeed."
          ~ Elizabeth Hand, author of Waking the Moon

"ROOK CHANT is a delicious in-gathering, a magpie's nest of shiny new things about subjects old, gnarled and powerful. Sit with it, relish it and be bound likewise into a breathing tradition that puts Potter et al to shame. It is a charm well-sung and a talisman."
          ~ H. Byron Ballard, Asheville's Village Witch and author of Staubs and Ditchwater: a Friendly and Useful Introduction to Hillfolks' Hoodoo

Buy it on Amazon -- and of course any help you can give on getting the word out, clicking "like" on Amazon or agreeing with the tags, would be most appreciated. The biggest hurdle writers face these days is to be heard in the cacophony. Thanks! Click the picture for Amazon US:





Or get it at Amazon UK, Amazon De, Amazon Fr, or Amazon It (anyone I missed?).

Converting Monks into Friars in Iowa

So, the trip to Iowa included an unscheduled night in Chicago. A bit irritating to spend all those hours in O'Hare, but the truth is the seasoned traveler needs to be prepared for this kind of inconvenience. I had books to read, things to write and social media at my fingertips where I could complain to my friends. I'd have rather been in Iowa having dinner with folks as planned, but there are worse things than the quiet solitude of an anonymous hotel room. I love hotels. I think it would be terrific to live in a hotel in London with room service and the whole city before me.

More later, but here's the Powerpoint slides from my talk.Consider them an attempt to intrigue you. Forthcoming: the paper with these images embedded and a video of the images with the narration recorded there (assuming it sounds okay). Time's tight: I'm off to PCA in San Antonio on Wednesday. Much to do, so I'm writing this while my students are watching a film. Multi-tasking is the word du jour.

Converting Monks into Friars

Publication: Wild Desire

My essay on Johanna Sinisalo's Troll: A Love Story is up on the new magazine for the Mythic Imagination Institute. "Wild Desire" was originally a conference paper given at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts a few years back.




Here's a snippet:

Wild Desire: Gendering the Other in Sinisalo's Troll: A Love Story
by K. A. Laity

Trolls have long had a firm grip on the Finnish imagination. While written records do not reach far enough back to find its roots, no doubt the traditions of folk religion play a role. As Matti Salo has argued, it "recognized no sharp distinction between the natural and supernatural" and the world was seen to be peopled with a variety of gods, spirits and creatures. Things may not have changed as much in the twenty-first century as you might be tempted to believe. As Johanna Sinisalo writes in her introduction to the Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy, "To this day, Finns live in a very sparsely populated country, surrounded by lakes and large expanses of forest. Every Finn appears to have very close, personal ties to nature. In Finland culture and nature do not struggle against one another, they are not mutually exclusive, they merge and influence one another" (9). That unique creature, the troll, seems to spring from this melding of nature and culture, realism and fantasy. Perhaps the greatest flowering of troll love erupted in the mid-twentieth century, embracing Tove Jansson's Moomin family and their often melancholy young son Moomintroll. While the robust attendance at Moominworld in Naantali would seem to suggest that everyone loves trolls, the realities of that affection have remained entirely fantastical until recently...

Read the rest and explore the wonders of the Mythic Institute.

Reviewed (Two Years Later)

Okay, so the Google search doesn't necessarily catch everything. In looking for something else, I ran across a reference to a review in The Lion and the Unicorn 32.3 by David Russell of Tove Jansson Rediscovered, for which I wrote the essay, "Roses, Beads and Bones: Gender, Borders and Slippage in Tove Jansson's Moomin Comic-Strips":

K. A. Laity’s exploration of Jansson’s cartoon series executed for the London Evening News in 1957 is likewise fairly narrowly focused, but Laity offers insightful commentary on the way Jansson’s personal life affected her art. Specifically, Laity points to Jansson’s lesbianism and how her personal feelings seem to be manifested through the portrayal of the Moomin characters in the comic strip—-her use of unstable borders and the use of sexual ambiguity in her portraitures, for example. Laity’s essay helps lay the groundwork for the theme of the final essays of the collection, which explore Jansson’s writings for adults—-particularly focusing on the impact of Jansson’s lesbianism on her work.

If you have access to Project Muse, you can read the entire review or if you're interested in children's books, check out The Lion and the Unicorn.

Trying to find a cover image to use for this post, I found this other review, that didn't turn up on my standard search for obvious reasons:

Several of the essays address gender issues, homosexuality in particular. Drawing on Judith Butler's and Eve Kosofsky's gender theories, E.A. Laity examines the panel borders in Jansson's Moomin comic strips. In this unique study, Laity shows how Jansson's comic-art narrative technique illustrates that the borders between genders and social status are highly porous, and that Jansson, albeit in a subtle way, questions the very existence of the binary system.

You can read the rest of Virpi Zuck's review at the Free Library. Well, it was a nice surprise to come across some positive reviews that I don't think I'd seen before. Even better yesterday an editor forwarded to me some kind words from an author on the essay I'd written about his book. Yay!

In less interesting 'news' I've been updating my Amazon page and my page at Goodreads as well. Both are set up to get this blog feed, but I have to manually add a lot of the books and now events, too. Promotion is an endless slog.

Review: Bright Star

I headed off to see Jane Campion's latest film, Bright Star, with my intrepid fellow film reviewer, Peg, on Friday. Yes, it was another afternoon matinée, or what we have come to call the blue hair screening. It was also a particularly packed one, so there was nowhere to go to get away from the gentleman next to me emitting rather noisy, um, eruptions, nor to escape the man a row back who suddenly began snoring loudly upon the instant in which one of the characters mentioned needing to sleep (about two thirds of the way through the film).

Named for Keats' poem "Bright Star" the film follows the development of the attachment between Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) and John Keats (Ben Wishaw) in the early nineteenth century. The cast is full of actors you recognize (well, if you watch a lot of small British films) and for the most part excellent and able to slip into their roles with ease. Paul Schneider as Charles Armitage Brown sometimes seems to be powering his Scottish accent with a bellows, nonetheless he has a terrific physical presence that makes much of the intricate intimate relationship between himself, Keats and Brawne. Wishaw brings a vulnerability to the poet, but also a wistful humour. His passionate reactions at times seems to be about to make his limbs fall apart. Cornish brilliantly conveys the awakening interest Brawne develops for this most unlikely man, and her transformation from hard-headed bon vivant to love-sick partner completely captivates.

The film is leisurely and episodic, as you might expect from Campion -- it's also incredibly gorgeous, making the most of both the period costumes and Brawne's fascination with fashion. The color is absolutely breathtaking in some scenes (yes, yes, the bluebells lavender [thanks, Chloë!]) and as enervating as a black hole in others. I can't recall the last time an entire audience stayed spellbound through the closing credits, but in our showing they did -- everyone listening to Wishaw's recital of "Ode to a Nightingale" as the music continued and the credits rolled by. Wonderful.

Curse of the Demon

Day two of the horror class consisted of a full-on run through the 40s and 50s. While I talked about a lot of things, I concentrated on showing two films -- not something I plan to do everyday, but as I was giving short shrift to the time period anyway, it only seemed fair. For me, this meant Val Lewton and his protégé, Jacques Tourneur.

First up was Cat People, the Lewton-produced/Tourneur-directed classic starring Simone Simon as a Serbian woman haunted by her people's past. Because we start out with a reading focusing on the psychological development of "the Other" it's a good one. Well, it's a good film anyway, with Lewton's classic eye for light and shadow. At the center of it Simon's Irena represses her sexuality out of fear that it will unleash a beast in her, foretold by her homeland's folktales. The students had plenty to say about the subtle workings of Lewton's film and picked up on the skillful uses of sound particularly in the stalking scenes.

After a lunch break (which I forgot yesterday, no wonder they looked so wan by the end), I talked about the 50s SF horror films for a bit then started up Night of the Demon (AKA Curse of the Demon). Based on M. R. James' "Casting the Runes" it tells the tale of a Crowley-esque occultist sparring with scientific sceptics via supernatural means.

You may know it as the source of the line, "It's in the trees! It's coming!" in Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love". My students, I fear, will always know it as the dvd that suddenly stopped playing ONE MINUTE before the end of the film. Howls of disappointment. I did find a link to a YouTube video that shows the very end, so I emailed that to them, but --

Ah, teaching!

Women's Month Interviews: Carolyn Coulson-Grigsby

How do we know each other?
We met in graduate school at the University of Connecticut Medieval Studies program.

How would you describe yourself?
Strong, determined, funny (I hope), creative educator.

In what part of the world are you located?
Northern Virginia - recently moved and very happy to be here.

Where can we find you on the web?
Facebook

What don't people know about you that they ought to know?
My first self-identity was as a dancer, and I still take dance classes (ballet, tap). I'm both a creative artist and an academic.

What's the most common mistake people make about you?
People think i'm organized and have it 'all together'

What are you most proud of having accomplished so far?
Hmm, most proud of... I'm proud of having finished my PhD, having three kids and a job I love, and I'm particularly proud of two shows I've directed - Pippin and Midsummer Night's Dream.

What ambitions do you have ahead of you?
Small ones - mounting a play for the Chester Cycle at University of Toronto 2010; actually putting up pictures in our house!

What's the best compliment you've ever received?
Students telling me that I'm a role model for them, as both a teacher and a mother

If something great happens to you, how do you celebrate?
Have a nice meal with people I love

What's your best method for coping with stress?
Teaching and/or playing with Pippa

What makes you laugh?
Pippa! hence the stress coping thing.

What makes you cry?
Seeing students or children excel at something for the first time (it's a good cry!)

What do you love?
Directing Shakespeare.

What do you loathe?
Miserable people.

What's sexy?
Talent, brains and confidence.

What's the best advice you were ever given?
Be a rainbow in somebody's clouds. (Maya Angelou - I'm misquoting, but it's along those lines)

How should people be spending their money?
Support the arts! support education!!

Which woman/women have inspired you?
Virginia Woolf, Jane Goodall, Maya Angelou (saw her speak in the fall - wow - see 'best advice' question)

If I gave you a million dollars, what would you do?
I'd still work at my same job, but I'd pay off lots of debt (two mortgages!), put it away for my kids college education, and pay off some family members' mortgages.

Thank you so much for being part of this celebration: you are an amazing woman!

Albacon & Reading

There have been changes in the Albacon schedule, most notably the loss of a GOH, but the show must go on. Here's my revised schedule:

In A Flash: The challenges and rewards of telling a story in under 1,000 words. Mead, Schwabach, Laity, Strock(M)
Fri 6:00 PM Beverwyck

Why write? It pays badly, you have to deal with constant rejection, and you spend your life typing. Why do you do it?
Laity(M), SGrotta, Spoor, Frederick, Flint, Hunt
Sat 5:00 PM Beverwyck

Implying other languages:
How do you make it seem like aliens are speaking other languages. Other than sprinkling in apostrophes, how do you make it seem like characters are speaking other languages? What tricks of syntax and grammar can be used to make aliens sound alien?
Rothman, Schoen(M), Laity, Mead, Sklar
Sun 11:00 AM Ballroom C/D

Saving science fiction from academia:
Nowadays science fiction Is being taught as literature and prediction, surely destroying joy and misinformaing readers. What can we to save SF from being studied to boredom?
finder, Halasz, Kannenberg, Miller, Laity(M)
Sun 1:00 PM Beverwyck

British SF Television – Why Are They So Good? What is it about British science fiction television shows that make them so appealing?
Fludd, Price(M), Laity, Lay
Sun 3:00 PM Schuyler

Reading: Don't forget to mark October 18th on your calendar. I will be reading from my new collection Unikirja at East Line Books. Maybe I'll bring one of the kanteles, too (or all of them!). Now that the heat's come on, I'll probably have a good bit of re-tuning to do, however.

Leeching

There's a somewhat ridiculous scholar in Tom Stoppard's India Ink who says, "This is why God made writers, so the rest of us can publish." I love that quote because it speaks to an uncomfortable tendency in my academic field (and in many others, too) to feel like a kind of leech. We loot the work of others, digging into its richness and extracting the gems we find. It can seem like grave robbing at times, I suppose. I guess I'm less inclined to feel that impulse because I create as well as loot, but scholars are often afraid of feeling like vultures noshing at a corpse. It leads to a kind of tentativeness on the part of scholars -- and a great deal of mistrust on the part of writers, even ones like Stoppard who should be confident enough to survive the scrutiny.

I'm thinking about this because at present I'm working on revising a paper I gave at Oxford earlier this year and the process reminds me just how creative scholarship really is -- something even we who practice it tend to forget. It's all about solving puzzles, grappling with mountains of evidence and trying to find the best way to build that little castle of persuasion. We're often less conscious of that deliberate process when it comes to creative works, although the novel I just finished relied on research, on a knowledge of previous works from which I was borrowing stealing (usually inaccurately, but on purpose) and on a very calculated sense of persuasion. Writing is always a Scheherazadean task of seducing your reader to continue, whether it's to the next line of a poem, the next page of a novel or the next step in your argument.

Well, it's a holiday weekend for many of us -- I will be working, but that's not unusual. I've been putting off the tedious task of transferring files from the old computer to the new one. Maybe it will finally get done.

Buy this book!

It's says "essential" in the title! You know you need it (and if you use the above link, Gene actually gets paid). Will your favorite make the list (hint: is it in print and in English)? The suspense must be killing you -- buy it now!

Big Interview with Uncle Alan

Check out the five part interview with Alan Moore at the Sardinian Connection. It covers a lot of material, much of it focusing on Lost Girls. That's advantageous for me as I'm trying to work up a proposal on the book for an Angela Carter conference next June in Northampton (yes, yes, there's a connection beyond the location, trust me). Next week they have an interview with Melinda Gebbie as well, so whoo hoo. Check back for that.

Have you seen the Watchmen movie posters? Dig that Betty Page, er, Sally Jupiter one.

Moore and Gebbie photo by José Villarrubia.

Thursday Already?

My, how time flies!

Tuesday night went well -- we had a nice chat over an early dinner at the Pearl, then rushed over to the library amid a sudden downpour and an amazing rainbow (okay, the picture to the left is *not* the rainbow from that day, but one of myriad lovely images from Missouri Skies). There was a small crowd, but we were out-numbered which is good enough. Jan, Pam, Kelly (who needs a webpage!) and I had a good time chatting about Tolkien, the books and the films, and more importantly (for me anyway), about his sources, cool stuff like Njal's Saga and Beowulf. Yes, I did manage to declaim some Old English verses (you're not surprised are you?).

Tonight, of course, I'm excited to be going to see Jonathan Miller at Skidmore (thanks again, Crispinus, for the tip off). An original member of Beyond the Fringe, polymath, raconteur and director (including perhaps my favorite film version of Alice in Wonderland -- and no, not just because it has Peter Cook), Miller will no doubt be a lively and illuminating speaker.

I can't decide whether to have any interest in Forbidden Kingdom -- on the one hand, Jet Li and Jackie Chan! and a lot of nods to great wǔxiá films like The Bride with White Hair, but -- it's also got some bland American twenty-something actor, clearly for Hollywood reasoning ("Ya gotta have an Amurrican in it! That's what audiences want to see!"). Bleh.

Talk of the Town

Or at least the Town Library: I'm part of a panel on the World of Tolkien at the Colonie Town Library. Here's the skinny:

6:30 PM: The World of Tolkien- A panel discussion on the works of Tolkien and the films made (and to be made) from them. There will be insight into the roots of Tolkien's mythology and the languages both real and imaginary associated with Tolkien and his works. We expect the audience will bring additional insights into the works of JRR Tolkien. The panel will consist of K. A. Laity, The College of Saint Rose; Kelly O'Connor-Salomon, Sage College; and jan howard finder, long-time fan.

We have since dragged Pam Clements of Siena College along for the ride. Jan put the panel together; I think it will be a lot of fun. A lot of you know I'm not that fond of Tolkien's fiction (he's a good scholar though), but I love the same texts that he drew inspiration from and can speak about the Old Norse, Old English and Finnish tales that inspired him. There are the films, too, so I suspect we'll have a lively discussion with a lot of audience input.

Another Plug!

Christopher over at What is Witchcraft?, a terrific blog on current as well as historical charges of witchcraft (like this one on a "demon headmaster"), has a nice post up on Jane Quiet with the cover. Thanks a bunch!

He also mentioned the big sale at Spilled Candy Books, publisher of my novel Pelzmantel, which is now going out of print. How does it work? It's all luck:

For $5.00 for shipping and handling expenses, you get a book from the local warehouse we're closing (explained below). Which book? That'll be a surprise.

Kazoo in the Chronicle

This week's issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education has the story on the Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo. Perilous Cheryl tells me that there are, alas, no pictures of me or Miss Wendy, but it should be interesting to see the write up. She's also kindly offered to send me the article as we have only the (lagging a week or so behind, picture-free Lexis-Nexus) electronic version at Saint Rose.

There is, however, an audio story about the dance! And here's somebody's brief YouTube video at the dance. Medievalists rock!