Albacon 2010, Oct 8-10

Hey kids! Especially you locals -- we're only weeks away from Albacon, the capitol region's only spec fic con which runs from Friday October 8th until Sunday the 10th, with oodles of fun stuff for you to do and see.

Writer GoH: Allen Steele
Artist GoH: Ron Miller
Fan GoH: Lisa Ashton

Plus we just got news that fan fave Jackie Kessler will be able to attend (which means Jackie Morse Kessler will be there, too!). Check out my interview with Jackie where she reads from Hunger.

Check out our program! Highlights include the ALL DAY writers conference on Friday. Call in sick to attend if you need to do so, but we have pros from many different genres offering practical advice on how to get your writing into its best form and out there and published.

There's a fantasy ball Friday night and a masquerade on Saturday. All day long there are panels on books, comics (including manga),  films (including anime), television shows, science and fandom. Writers include a lot of pals of mine like Stella Price, C. Margery Kempe, Susan Hanniford Crowley, Inanna Arthen and Morven Westfield. Yeah, I will be there, too, and so will Kit Marlowe.

Three days of non-stop fun! Best of all, the discount rate of $50 for the whole shebang has been extended a little bit longer, so get your registration in as soon as possible by Oct 1st.

Seeking Crafty Women

Hey, Vicky tells me we're getting some great submissions for the inaugural issue of the Journal for the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, but we haven't got much in the way of crafty things. There's still plenty of room for lovely photos of your crafty projects: knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, sculpture, food -- the possibilities are endless!

The photo from Cake Wrecks is just to spur you on!

Here's the skinny and the general call once more: do please consider sharing your work with the world!

"Passion. Vision. Daring. Humour. Any alone will be intriguing--but to have them all is to be sublime."

That is the mandate of the new journal for the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, for which I am editor. We seek only work that meets these criteria, the output of creative women who may feel that their vision and passion has been overlooked elsewhere, that their daring has brought only disapproving stares, that their humour has met with stony silence. We delight in work that crosses traditional genres. We do not ask for your credentials, awards or publications. We ask for your heartfelt work.

The inaugural issue will be out for Halloween. The full colour PDF format will be a showcase of talented women.

DEADLINE
September 21, 2010

FORMAT

Writing: fiction, drama, humour or non-fiction up to 5k; poems up to 100 lines total; submit as RTFs (or paste into an email).

Images: scans of paintings, drawings, multimedia, etc. or photos of handicrafts, sculptures, etc. or original digital designs in JPGs (resolution of 300dpi).

Music, Sound and Video: via links to your site or host site (e.g. YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)

And if we select your work for WLoAD, we ask that you wear the badge proudly -- link to our site and your fellow artists, promote the journal assiduously and celebrate this forum (i.e. comment on the issue and your colleagues).

Submissions should be sent to VICTORIASQUID@GMAIL.COM

Be sure to include links to your website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc., in the email with your submission. Thank you!

It Must Be True

Are You Anybody?

I had a rather surprising piece of mail this week, that made my head spin around for a minute and then re-read the message. I've been invited to be a keynote speaker.

Huh? Me?!

Apparently so. It's the eleventh annual Craft Critique Culture Conference at the University of Iowa next April. You can see this year's schedule online and get a feel for it. Here's their description:


Craft Critique Culture is an interdisciplinary conference focusing on the intersections among critical and creative approaches to writing both within and beyond the academy. This year’s conference will explore the dialectical relationship between the periphery and center, specifically questioning the nature, theory, practice or role of the periphery. We invite the submission of critical, theoretical and original creative work in a variety of media and across the humanities, sciences and legal disciplines. In the past, submissions have included not only traditional scholarly papers but also film, video, music, writing, visual art and artists’ books.

So you can see from this description (and as Katie and Sofia, the organisers emphasized), the reason they asked me was for the very thing that most of my mentors suggested I avoid doing: everything! Hee. But it's true. From the time you hit college and even more so in grad school, it's all about specializing. I'm constitutionally incapable: it's natural to me to make connections, even if they're the kind of things that no one else sees. It's quite exciting to have a chance to share that with such a lively group of young scholars and trumpet the positive side of writing across disciplines and the high/low culture divide. Big thanks to my pal Dana who apparently was the one to drop my name in the hat. Several years ago Dana was the brash teen who joined the Horror list; now he's a grad student in Media Studies. How cool is that?

My first thought was that I have to be Vonnegut-worthy in my speech. After the initial euphoria, of course, came the doubt. Then it was Jim Dixon who came to mind, in particular his "Merrie England" speech. All those years ago when I read Lucky Jim for the first time, I had no idea I would become a medievalist. How weird is that? Amis' hero nonetheless resonated with me in part for my (continuing) love/hate relationship with academia.

Then again things turned out all right in the end for Jim: he got the girl of his dreams and a cushy job in London. Could be worse, but I don't think I'll choose "Merrie England" as my topic, although there may be a medieval theme. But no Dutch courage, for sure!

BitchBuzz: The Next Big Thing

My latest column:

Women are Key in Discovering the Next Big Thing

The latest innovation from iTunes launched this week. Ping was supposed to revolutionize the music experience. Reviews, however, were tepid. The "social network for music" as Apple promotion called it turned out to be less social than existing networks and not integrated with them, a rather serious miscalculation. It's possible they rushed the launch to coincide with the iPod re-launch and it will improve, but for the moment, the sizzle just ain't there.
Everybody's trying to find the next big thing (remember Google's Wave and Buzz? Nah, I didn't think so), but the virtual landscape is getting littered with the bones of a whole lot of misguided attempts to be "the next _______" when that's really not what we need.
It's a business kind of outlook (and how well has that served the world lately) that seeks to dislodge a successful product by creating another version of the same with NEW and IMPROVED written across the package.  It's Coke and Pepsi thinking.  While slow moving organizations decide how to cope with the digital revolution that's already here, most people are just looking for fun...

Read more: http://tech.bitchbuzz.com/women-are-key-in-discovering-the-next-big-thing.html#ixzz0z3yTTQuJ

Insanely busy today but I will have some fun tonight that involves friends and drumming, so hurrah! The program for Albacon is coming together despite my lack of minions (where are my minions!), so a little less stress about that. I do have a piece of rather surprising and good news, but anon -- off to run errands including getting some food so I don't have to be embarrassed by my empty fridge.

Kit Marlowe Visits UnBound

Kit Marlowe is over at the UnBound blog with the Ravenous writers today. She's writing about cant, jargon and slang in her books and in her favorite novels. Join her and the whole crew, who are a fun bunch of folks and our wonderful hostess, the fabulous Dana Fredsti. Here's a snippet:

I love language!

I know, I know: all writers do, but I love the superfluity of language that supplies slang. I think in part it's like knowing a secret handshake or being part of an exclusive club. I specialize in rather obscure languages: for my graduate work I studied Old English, Middle English, Old Norse, Old Irish, Old High German, Middle High German, Modern German, Modern Swedish, Modern Icelandic and Latin (whew!).

But what I really love most are informal vocabularies that define a time or place...

Kit has reason to be cheery: her novella set in Jazz Age London, "The Big Splash," will be released by Noble Romance next month. Wow, barely born and already two publications! That's making a big splash for sure.

I, on the other hand, am still struggling out from under a bunch of tasks I'd hoped to have done by now so I could be back to focusing on writing. Soon, soon!

Shakespeare-a-Go-Go

I set off Sunday for a Shakespeare double-header with my theatre buddy, Ron, and got all the way to Massachusetts to fill up on cheap gas before I discovered that I had left my check card in the cash machine: D'oh!

We got to Shakespeare & Co for the first order of the day: A Winter's Tale. I had seen a production last year at the Old Vic with Sinead Cusack and Simon Russell Beale, part of Sam Mendes' Bridge Project. It's not ever been one of my fave plays: it's got an awkward juxtaposition of tragedy and comedy that I've always found jarring. Shakespeare uses one of his favorite ruses: the capricious monarch. Of course he always gives them good speeches to sell that caprice. Leontes gets a good one here and the staging and Jonathan Epstein make it convincing, and Elizabeth Aspenlieder makes you weep for her. The wacky second half in the wilds of Bohemia were funny and even included a fantastic dance by the horned men in masks. Truly pagan!

We walked the grounds discussing the play afterward and decided to make it a triple-header by attending the free performance at the Rose Footprint Theatre, a pastiche of the Bard and the theories about "the real Shakespeare" performed by the interns in the Training Institute. It was a lot of fun. I had seen many of the same actors in the lively performance of The Comedy of Errors earlier in the season. Much fun and we didn't regret that it left us a very short time for dinner. Fortunately there were still box lunches left so it was possible to have a well-balanced meal before the final play.

Yes, I had seen Richard III before. It had been in previews yet, so I was intrigued to see changes. Wow, it was tighter than ever and John Douglas Thompson just as riveting as before (and my how he can schvitz!). I love how they make the crowd complicit in Richard's elevation. It is glorious fun. While Richard is the center of the story, it's really the women I remembered most, from cursing Margaret (Elizabeth Ingram), mourning Ann (Leia Espericueta, who was hilarious in A Winter's Tale) and the tragic Elizabeth embodied by the amazing Tod Randolph, who goes from casual confidence to beaten weariness by the end. A fantastic production: it was closing day for the summer season, so a lot of the actors were gathering with friends at the end of the day. A celebratory mood: it was certainly earned. Well done, S&Co.

Work beckons: so much to get done. Where's that idleness that my pseudo-sabbatical was supposed to bring? Oh, I did do one useful thing: I got an excerpt of Pelzmantel up on Scribd. Don't know why I didn't think of it before!

Talking Book Trailers at Sia's

Here's Sia's introduction to my piece on what I learned from making book trailers: please stop by and comment, and be sure to check out the many interviews with writers featured on her blog.

PROMOTION AND BOOKTRAILERS

My guest is a favorite of mine, Kate Laity. She's written some wonderfully entertaining stories under various names, including tales of magic, myths, and legends, as K. A. Laity. 

Branding and promotion is something of interest to authors. We talk about both quite a bit and you see resulting conversations on many blogs. Another aspect of promotion is what I call gadgets. Really, they are various promotion tools used to capture the interest of potential readers and can include everything from bookmarks to booktrailers.

Like websites, booktrailers visually solidify your brand as an author. There are professionals out there that will produce both. Many writers choose to make their own. So how does one go about creating a good, eye-catching booktrailer? How much is too much? Not enough?

Kate shares some of what she's learned in the making of booktrailers.  

Thanks, Sia! You're very kind.

A hectic day so far: webmail isn't working so if you've emailed me, you're going to have to be patient. Maybe when I get home I'll be able to download it, but here on campus I keep getting "unknown error" when I try to login. Curse you, Mercury! My "quiet" semester has so far been a non-stop whirl of things that must get done NOW and I am scrambling to get to everything in a timely manner, so I look forward to catching up on things while everyone else is enjoying a long holiday this weekend. I'd like to be able to breathe again! And one of these Fridays I will get back to Forgotten Books; in the mean time, read Todd's and Patti's George's round-up of all the others for the vacationing Patti.

BitchBuzz: The Anti-Chick Flick

My latest column:

Winter's Bone: The Anti Chick Flick

Debra Granik's film of the novel by Daniel Woodrell offers a bleak world and an engaging 17-year-old heroine, Ree Dolly. She's not fighting (or kissing) vampires, she's not wondering what boys think of her and she's not shopping. Ree (played with finesse and grace by the amazing Jennifer Lawrence) takes care of her younger siblings and her mentally ill mother, dreams of joining the Army as a solution to her problems and needs to find her missing ne'er-do-well father really badly.

The film is full of women and there's not a Manolo to be seen. The women aren't made up and airbrushed. They come in all shapes and sizes—and personalities. While each one is memorable and distinct (how many mainstream films can you say that about?), perhaps the most striking character of all is the matriarch Merab, played with terrifying realism by Dale Dickey. The interactions between Ree and Merab are shot so full of tension that you could hear the audience not breathing in the theatre. Winter's Bone was the first movie in eons that I had no idea where it would go, but I couldn't wait to find out...

Read more: http://culture.bitchbuzz.com/winters-bone-the-anti-chic-flick.html#ixzz0yOBqbl81

I also saw Coco & Igor yesterday with Peg. If I get a chance, I'll write that up, too. This first week of classes is a bit hectic despite the not teaching, mostly because there's a whole lot of other things going on as well (of course), some of which I'll share with you very soon. Let me give you a head's up that tomorrow I'm guest blogging over at Sia McKye's, talking about making book trailers and what I've learned. Drop by and comment.


I got a new phone :-) Never took to the last one: it didn't help that it dropped calls all the time. I sprang for unlimited data as well, sigh. Now I can tweet without wifi.

Pseudo-Sabbatical

As some of you may remember, I am enjoying my pseudo-sabbatical this semester. I was somewhat put out to find that while it was possible to jump the line to get tenure (which I did :-) it was not possible to bend time in order to get a sabbatical. You have to be at the college six years.

Pooh.

But I really need a break, so I applied for and received a reassigned time grant, added it to the one I get for coordinating Women's and Gender Studies and then taught my remaining course as a completely on-line one. So I don't get to use my disapproving teacher look very much except in the mirror, which is hardly satisfying.

So let me look disapprovingly here. Now don't you feel chastised?

I do have meetings to attend, but it's amazing how much less onerous they are when they don't come after teaching two classes back to back. But it's a bit disconcerting not to see my students: well, that's not entirely true. Blackboard has a photo for each student on my roster. Much as I'm relieved not to have all the classroom time -- because after all, I'm going to get lots of writing done! -- I miss that interaction. But I'll be back in the classroom before long, so I better enjoy this brief respite.

With Buzz and Bertie at the Veep's

What dog doesn't love having gutted soft toys balanced on his head?

If Buzz didn't like ripping their guts out so much, he'd have more to chew on...

Robert relaxes by the pool: sort of.

As close as I get to "sunbathing"

Despite this look, he made me some very fine meals including marinated steaks on the Vice President's grill (one of two--oooh, luxury) -- yum! At night we could hear the music from the Duchess County Fair (oh boy, Foreigner!). Alas, my idleness is over: classes (and departmental meetings) start tomorrow. The autumn arrives with a shock every year.

Publications: The Last Ant and High Plains Lazarus

Good news of late: two rather difficult to place items both found homes.  "The Last Ant" is a short humor piece than amused me to no end, but apparently bemused a number of editors who turned it down flat.  I am an acquired taste, as always. It will be appearing in a future issue of the lit mag Wild Violet; you may remember Alyce Wilson's publication as the home also of the pieces "Corrections to the Rules of Fimble Fowl (for 3 players or 4)" and "Me and Margery Kempe" -- clearly Alyce is someone who has acquired a taste for my oddness.

"High Plains Lazarus" is a zombie western set in the 19th century plains. This tale once had a home: it was going to be in an anthology. I was pleased that I had found a publication interested in taking it with surprising speed, because it's quite long story (10k).  Then came the waiting -- and more waiting -- and promises of publication and entreaties for patience -- and finally silence.  The publisher disappeared. Pity. Although zombies have become big business, I found it very difficult to locate a publication that would take a story that long. The majority capped acceptable word count at 5k (many at 4k). It's the kind of thing you should consider while working on a story, but this particular tale had a mind of its own and just kept growing. It keeps whispering in my ear that it would really like to be a novel, please.

Like so many parents, I say, "we'll see."

The story will be appearing in a zombie anthology from Pill Hill Press. Ironically, I began writing the story on a whim just before Trinoc*coN one year, when I decided that I was bored with everything I had ever written and needed something new to read at the con.  I only got it half done, but that was just the right length for my reading. My audience threatened to beat me senseless for leaving them hanging, heh heh. They also gave me some good factual corrections (thanks, Mildred -- I know so little about guns) and feedback.  Mostly they enjoyed the gruesome humor as well as the voice of the narrator, Finn.  Fun stuff.

UPDATE: I forgot to add that my flash fiction piece, "Rothko Red," will be appearing in the anthology Exposure which will be out this fall from Cinnamon Press in Wales. I got the page proofs today and was amused to find that my story had written me: "K. A. Laity by Rothko Red" -- hee!

BitchBuzz: Sugarbabes

Tip o' the pen to my pal Saranna in  this week's column:

Holly Hill and "Sugarbabes" as Surrogate Wives

Sometimes it's all I can do not to turn into Little Bunny Foo Foo and hop through this world bopping people on the head. No, not about the mosque—though that issue has exposed the ignorance of people too stupid to live (one would think) and the machinations of the corporations who manipulate their easily frenzied minds—no, this time I'm going to stick with sex.

A simple issue, eh?

Alert and sexy author Saranna DeWylde pointed me to a little news story on a Australian psychologist Holly Hill's book, Sugarbabe. The subtitle, The Controversial, Real Story of a Woman in Search of a Sugardaddy, just makes you want to sigh with discouragement.  This "naughty feminist" tells the folks at Lemondrop that 'Couples who want to stay together should try out "negotiated infidelity," with a "sugarbabe" who acts as what we can best describe as a surrogate wife meets Hooters waitress. And who, by the way, is paid for ministering to your man.' Hill writes about her own time as a "sugarbabe" so she knows whereof she speaks.

Well, sort of...

Read more: http://news.bitchbuzz.com/holly-hill-and-sugarbabes-as-surrogate-wives.html#ixzz0xl8KjY00

Just kind of makes you shake your head, doesn't it?

My week has been busy with meetings on campus, getting the online class designed, and trying to work out the programming schedule for Albacon. The latter is a real puzzle turning vague general topics people have mentioned into snappy titled sessions -- that don't overlap too much, yet fit a wide variety of interests and offer something new and give all the participants something to do but not too much to do and make everyone happy. Okay, the last is never going to happen.

Good news to mention tomorrow, but I have to look over the contract first.

Interview with a Broad

I am interviewed by Jane Hunter over the Broad Universe blog on LiveJournal. Here's a little snippet:

What one book would you save from a burning fire, and why?

The original Beowulf manuscript. The book changed my life and opened up my head and vastly improved my writing . I cried when I got to see it for the first time in the British Library. Studying medieval literature taught me so much, especially the absurdity of obsessing about “originality”: every story has been told before, every story. But no one can tell my version of a story except me.

Read the rest over at the Broad blog as well as many other terrific writers' interviews or listen to the Broad podcast.

Somehow the week before classes is far more hectic and crazy than the week they actually begin. I shouldn't complain: I'm only teaching one course this semester. I have course releases so I can do some writing this semester (as close as I can get to a sabbatical because I jumped the line for tenure--that's me, always in a rush). At the moment, however, I'm overwhelmed by administrative tasks and other duties. More's the pity. You know how much I love rules and regulations.

Another Experiment: Not Waving

The internet offers all kinds of ways to distribute writing. I've already put up free copies of this novel I wrote way back when I lived in Los Angeles. This is the one that an agent called "too relentlessly dark". Feh! Just because its title comes from a Stevie Smith poem about someone drowning -- ah well, some people don't respond well to mordant humor. The cover photo I took in New Orleans, when Wendy and I were wandering around. Hee -- still love that picture.

We'll see. I've put it up for sale as an ebook on Scribd. Just curious. I did try to make it more attractive than the freebie version at Feedbooks; I actually did some copyediting, added a cover and wrote an afterword about looking back at that time that seems so long ago. I gave it the modest price of $2.99, out of which Scribd takes a 20% commission + 25¢ for processing.  I may put up a few other things, eventually. It doesn't cost anything to try except the time spent preparing documents and yesterday seemed like a day to edit rather than write.

Not Waving

Mystery at Pi-Con

I made a quick jaunt to Pi-Con yesterday to join in a Broad Universe Rapid-fire Reading. The reading went well, but there weren't too many sales at the book party after despite the chili (thanks, Aradia!) and the trifle (Kaynak, did you make that?). Nonetheless it was fun to see folks again and the reading went well. Morven took pictures, so when she gets them up, I'll post a link.

In the parking near the dumpster was this semi-circle of chairs. There were some papers on the seats, but I didn't go up and look at them. I suppose I preferred to imagine the reasons they were arranged thus.

What's your guess?

Reviewed: PELZMANTEL

The Pagan and The Pen has reviewed Pelzmantel. I'm pleased they liked it enough to give it four tarot cards, too. I recommended my editor send a copy there because I know their sensibilities are in sync with mine and they gave such a nice review of Unikirja, too. From their review:

K. A. Laity is a wonderful storyteller. She does a great job of immersing the reader into the world that she has built. I truly enjoyed losing myself in the lives of these characters making me feel like a young child again listening to the fantastical bedtime Fairy tales of witches and castles and dreaming of being a Princess myself...

Read the rest on their site -- and consider leaving a comment. Reviewers like to know their work is being read, too.

I'm off to Pi-Con today; I'm doing a rapid-fire reading with the Broads of Broad Universe. We're doing a book signing party afterward, too. If you're anywhere near Enfield, CT stop in and say hi!

Publications: Encyclopedia of the Vampire

Where are my minions? Surely they would have reminded me that I had forgotten about the two essays I have written for the Encyclopedia of the Vampire, which apparently comes out this November (which I hope means I will finally get paid for writing them :-)





Doubtless this is going to be one of those expensive library tomes (though not as expensive as some of the encyclopedias for which I've written), which means you might suggest your library get it, so you can check it out and read my essays on The Gilda Stories and the "Vampire Lifestyle" -- and of course all the other fabulous essays. The collection was edited by S. T. Joshi, so if you've enjoyed his other such collections, doubtless you will enjoy this one as well.

Bopping through the Biltmore

The Relax and How to Get It

Squeak shows us how it's done: just kick back and let your troubles find their own way home. We've had a hard weekend of watching movies, eating, drinking and talking. Today we're off to the Biltmore; should be interesting.

Now, everybody canteloupe dance!

Carolina with the Cats

Only missing Squeak: in order, this is Hemi, Stinky, Spike and Cassidy.

BitchBuzz: The Whiteboard Meme

My latest column on this week's internet wildfire:

Why the "White Board Girl" Meme Was So Popular

By K.A. Laity

The link that launched a million laughs has, perhaps predictably, been exposed as a hoax. The Gawker gleefully "exposed" the pranksters and a lot of #HOPA tweets were predictably misogynist in their tone as they slapped down a woman who was presumably too ready to declare herself attractive (how dare she!).

This focus on the pranking and suckering misses the point: why it spread like wildfire across the world. It spread so fast that traditional social media trend watchers were way behind the dozens of women (repeated globally) who all sent it to each other...

Read the rest: http://news.bitchbuzz.com/why-the-white-board-girl-meme-was-so-popular.html#ixzz0wQKXyKNm

I'm off to North Carolina tomorrow morning for some r-n-r with Susan and Mildred -- and Ron and Birdie and all the kitties. Well, not quite all the kitties: Susan lost Chelsea this week. She was nearly nineteen. Her health had just became too frail. I think many of you know the pain of losing these little friends who are such a big part of our lives. I will miss her. My heart goes out to Susan.

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.

Thank You, Boojums!

It doesn't take much to make me smile. Just a thoughtful little thing like this:

Yep, it's a lovely congratulatory post card of a Polly Thayer painting from my pals and affixed to the back? A ticket stub from a performance of Good Evening with my idol, Peter Cook and (my almost idol) Dudley Moore. As you can see from the note, it was found in a library book (I love how so many of my friends work in libraries) about Russian icons (?!).

Little stub, big smile. Thank you, Boojums.

ADDENDUM per T'joey Zone:

Do mention Loree B found it...Cheryl said to post it...

i stuck it

Unikirja Book Trailer

Here's my new video, featuring the beautiful music of Ulla Suokko, whom I'll be celebrating this week over at The Women's League of Ale Drinkers, part of the month long festival of creative women. I'm trying to focus the rhetoric of these trailers on opening up the sometimes obscure titles of my books to give a sense of the flavor of the stories. You can tell me whether I'm succeeding.

I've kind of had the feeling lately of needing a dump truck to unload my head, so it's been good to work on a few things that use a different part of my brain. Some days just need to be without words.

Cover Me

With stunning speed, here's the cover already for my as-yet-unedited novel The Mangrove Legacy, forthcoming from Tease Publishing in November or December:

Thanks to the fabulous Stella Price, who is not only the art director for Tease, but was also the person who encouraged me to try submitting something to them. I love the background photo of the Gothic folly and the woman on the sofa kind of picks up on the theme of dreams. I loved writing all the surreal dream sequences. It's hard to capture all the aspects of this odd little tome, so I'm glad the cover included the tag line as well in order to convey the humour [or humor, Todd]. Now to update the web page, although that might have to wait as I have a large pile of neglected work in my office on campus that I really must get to...

BitchBuzz: Hate Cute

My latest column:

Mainstream Media Realize RomComs Hate Women

Suddenly everyone in the media seems to have noticed what women have been talking about for years: how rom-coms seem to really hate on women.

 The high profile story is Maureen Dowd's back-and-froth with social historian Sam Wasson about "Why romantic comedies now reek." It's a fairly entertaining exchange with highlights like Wasson saying, "Every time I see Jennifer Aniston’s or Jennifer Garner’s face I wince. Basically, every time I see someone named Jennifer." But they also get a few good points across, such as Dowd's suggestion that more female-run studios ought to have resulted in more female-positive films. Wasson laughs:

“Even the studios that are run by women aren’t run by women. They’re run by corporations, which are run by franchises. Unfortunately for us, Jennifer Aniston is a franchise. So is Katherine Heigl and Gerard Whatever-His-Name-Is, and even when their movies bomb, their franchise potential isn’t compromised because overseas markets, DVD sales and cable earn all the studio’s money back...The worst part of it is, from Hollywood’s point of view, it ain’t broke."

Read more: http://culture.bitchbuzz.com/mainstream-media-realize-romcoms-hate-women.html#ixzz0vmT9ndaW

There's a reason people still love and adore films like His Girl Friday, Philadelphia Story, The Lady Eve and Holiday: they're fun and funny. I guess writing romcoms that don't insult women is going to have to go on my list of things to do. What's your fave?

Contracted: The Mangrove Legacy

Good news! I sent off the contract this morning: Tease Publishing will be releasing The Mangrove Legacy in November or December of this year. Initially, it will be an ebook, but if sales are brisk enough, it may see print in 2011. Now I can reveal that the "author" of the book will be Kit Marlowe. Thanks again to the fabulous Stephanie Johnson for designing Kit's portrait, based on a photo of me and a very cool hat I found trawling the internet. Very Georgette Heyer, eh?

One of the immediate things this means is that I will have to refrain from posting the final chapters of the serial online. For those dedicated readers who have been with me the whole long haul, I will be happy to send you those chapters: just email me.  Your support all this time has meant so much to me. It's hard to believe I started this as a kind of lark almost four years ago! I was so afraid that I would not find time for fiction writing while I was frantically trying to publish as much academic work as possible to get out of Texas; a foolish fear (as so many are).  Writing about 500 words a week was painless; the story was light and fun. I just wanted to be amusing, playing with the Gothic narratives I enjoy and throwing in as many obscure references as I could get away with. I adore the characters. And four years later -- without considerable effort -- it's a 100,000 word novel.

Wow.

That's why I emphasize those wonderful words of Octavia Butler in "Furor scribendi" where she says the key concept is "persist": she was so right. I am capable of marathon sessions where I churn out thousands of words in a day, but that's not necessary. Baby steps will get you there, too.

So why the nom de plume? In the last year I've been doing a lot of research into the romance genre, thanks to a bunch of friends who work in that area. While it is the most reviled of genres, there's a lot good in it -- like the money! Yes, there are conventions -- there are conventions in academic writing, too and very strong conventions in the literary genres (disaffected suburbanite agonizes over relationships, doubts self, then has minor epiphany which may or may not change anything) -- but there's also a wide range possibilities. Just take a quick glance at all the different categories Harlequin has; the 'paranormal romance' field is little different from 'urban fantasy' these days. The lines are getting blurred. The only constant for romance is that happily ever after (HEA) or, increasingly, the happy for now (HFN) ending. We're so cynical these days. We'll accept all kinds of fantasy elements -- werewolves, vampires, steampunk Victorians -- but not a happy resolution! Oh no, never that. Well, except for the millions and millions of romance readers (and no, they're not all women).

So my nom de plume signals "this book is a romance": to a genre reader, it means "everything will turn out okay in the end." For my regular readers it still means it's the quirky stuff I write and if everything turns out all right in the end, it will nonetheless be a fun trip getting there. I'm still working on adapting my style to the genre; so far, I'm still erring too far on the side of quirky to get my foot in the very lucrative Harlequin/Mills & Boon door, but I will endeavour. Why? Because I would like the freedom of living off my writing and I am exploring many avenues to achieve that end.

And why this particular pseudonym? The original Kit Marlowe was of course the playwright who would have outshone Shakespeare had he lived (being far more daring and audacious). Less well known is Bette Davis' character from the movie Old Acquaintance -- a big fave of mine, based on the play by John Van Druten (of Bell, Book and Candle fame). Of course, Kit Marlowe is the "arty" writer while Miriam Hopkins' Millie Drake is the popular romance writer. What can I say? I'm perverse that way. One of the gratifying things is that the friendship between Kit and Millie outlasts rivalry and men. In fact, you can easily read the film as a coded lesbian narrative, with a lot of elements coming across as far campier to a modern audience than they would have done to most contemporary viewers, I suspect. Just look at the masculine way they dress Davis at the start in contrast to Hopkins' flounces and frills. The film was remade as Rich and Famous in 1981. It was George Cukor's last film and starred Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen. I also have a fondness for that film, though it's not as good. I do love the way Bergen, upon having her work called "trash" by her increasingly estranged husband, snarls to correct him that it's "successful trash!" Here's to success, however trashy.

More Jane Quiet!

Drop by the Jane Quiet site to see the new developments -- gotta get back to work on that script! Elena's catching up to me.

New Journal!

I'm really pleased to announce that the Women's League of Ale Drinkers has decided to start a journal to share with the world the fabulous women who support the League.  You can see the details over at the League's site, but here's a precis:

And that is the mandate of the new journal for the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, for which Vicky will serve as editor. We seek only work that meets these criteria, the output of creative women who may feel that their vision and passion has been overlooked elsewhere, that their daring has brought only disapproving stares, that their humour has met with stony silence. We delight in work that crosses traditional genres.

We do not ask for your credentials, awards or publications. We ask for your heartfelt work -- writing in RTF files, art in JPGs, music and video via links. We ask that you tell us why the piece embodies your reason to live, to breathe -- what the work means to you, even why you think it may not have received an audience before...


 Read the rest over at the League, where you can also enjoy a celebration of the fabulous Stephanie Johnson, featuring her fabulous designs for Smoking Ants Records.

I have some good news to pass along but I will wait until I have signed the contract. Of course, I was already celebrating because I got the Fulbright application done (whew!). Of course it will be months before I know anything, but it's in and I gave it my best shot. That's all you can do, eh?

Advertisements for Myself

I'm beginning to doubt their usefulness and they seem to cause nothing but headaches in the making, yet here I go again: a general book trailer using my new "branding" concept, as developed in conversation on this blog: hard to spell, easy to read!








The music is courtesy of my friend Gerry Luoma Henkel, who built my first kantele, Louhi. Gerry makes amazing instruments and beautiful music; not surprisingly, he tells me some of his music is going to be be featured in a play as well as in a movie being made in Australia. I'm lucky to have so many talented people around me. When I ordered my kantele from Gerry, he even included a videotape that he had made to show me the basics and how to tune it. It was a big help! Kanteles are easy to play and have a gorgeous and soothing sound. Everyone should have one!

Today I will be heading off to MassMOCA for the Bang on Can marathon. After having my head down over work all week, it will be a nice change to empty my head of words and just listen to the music. And not thinking about things I wish I had done...

BitchBuzz: Joan Rivers

My latest column:

Still making the rounds slowly is the documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Do yourself a favour and check it out. Yeah, I know what you're thinking: argh, the red carpet embarrassments! Criminy, Celebrity Apprentice?! And yikes, the plastic surgery.

True enough; no argument here. But if you have any inkling of what a tough gig comedy is and triply so for a female, you will march yourself and all your friends to the theatre to see what that really means. You'll come away with a very different attitude.

You see, Rivers knows exactly what she's doing and she knows what you think, too. She just doesn't care. Her work is her focus, or rather "the career" which her daughter Melissa says, she one day recognized as her "sibling" in the family that they all took care of....

Read more the rest at BBHQ.

Sorry I've not been more voluble this week; some deadlines are killing me and a few other things hanging over my head that I need to deal with somehow. All shall be well (keep repeating that).

Theatre Round-Up

I've been lucky enough to have some great theatre outings in the last few weeks, but I've been short on time to talk about them. I slipped off to Massachusetts to visit Shakespeare & Co and catch both The Comedy of Errors and Richard III. The former was in the Bernstein Theatre with the troupe of interns. They had a circus theme which fit the wacky mix-ups well. I always find it fascinating to see the creative ways companies adjust to small spaces and small casts. They even employed a dressmaker's dummy for one of the characters because the actor had to play two parts in the climactic scene. Great fun.

Richard III was still in previews, so the director reminded us that things were still in flux. I had a seat up on the side hanging over the stage (yes, already a hot ticket in previews) and so I ended up having to move aside during the scene where Richard pretends to eschew the crown a few times before 'reluctantly' accepting it. He and his entourage leaned over the balcony to the crowd below.  They whipped up the audience response so we were all cheering for Richard, thus complicit in the events. A good technique.  John Douglas Thompson made for an energetic villain, but one of the things that really came out of this production was a clear image of the women who were ignored and pushed aside by these nakedly ambitious men. The first scene with Anne really makes or breaks the play -- we have to believe that this monster can charm -- and it came off beautifully. Terrific cast and much glorious mayhem.

One of the things that helps me miss London a little less is the wonderful NT Live broadcasts. This time around it was London Assurance, which I hadn't managed to see while I was there. The broadcasts give you the feeling of being in the theatre, but also the close interaction zooming cameras allow. I am soooo grateful The Spectrum is participating in the project. The play is a HOOT. I knew nothing about Dion Boucicault, the 19th century Irish playwright, but this was a terrifically funny farce. Stars Simon Russell Beale and Fiona Shaw were just loving every minute of their over-the-top roles; the entire cast was superb, even when the part wasn't enormous, like Nick Sampson as the gentleman's valet Cool. And what a delight to see Richard Briers! The performance was sold out, so they broadcast the play outside the NT on the "grass" (the astroturfed area where the giant furniture usually sits in the summer time) and the cast ran out to take a bow there at the end as well. Sheer delight.

Then the other day was a quick trip up to Saratoga Springs for Shakespeare in the Park. My theatre buddy Ron and I were looking forward to Hamlet, but I was also looking forward to some barbecue at PJ's as it had been ages since I'd had any -- yum! Oh, their ribs and all the sauces. Mmmmm. And the play was much fun, too. It took me a little while to warm up to the Hamlet (who sounded more like he was a lost Belushi brother than a Dane) but most of the rest of the cast was good and there were some interesting choices in staging, like having the ghost return at the end to help Claudius meet his end. Timing was good, too; the play finished just as the mosquitoes began to make themselves known. It was a slimmed down production, but the cuts didn't feel too drastic (unsurprisingly, no Fortinbras at the end).

I'm crazy busy with some expected and unexpected deadlines this week, but I'm already trying to figure out when I can make it back to Shakespeare & Co for The Winter's Tale. They're doing some Stoppard this fall, too, so hurrah.

Imagining the Worst

Rather Predictable That

Friday's Forgotten Books: You Can't Do Both

I read this novel in England this summer; I've been on a bit of an Amis kick, filling in missing volumes while I mull over the overall effect of this pursuit. Projects tends to develop this way; I get obsessed about something, immerse myself in it, then when the time is right, chuck it all away and write. I'm also knee-deep in Angela Carter, so I can't really explain how they intertwine (could two people be less likely to intertwine?).

You Can't Do Both tells the story of Robin Davies, who lives in a south London suburb, winds up going to Oxford and then the Second World War and eventually into the adventure that is marriage, though not on purpose.  Davies' father is a weird amalgamation of strident atheism and puritanical control. His mother offers a sometime refuge against his father's rigidity, but without much substantial help. When at last he's freed of his stifling suburban home, he tries to live up to his fevered sexual dreams but encounters the realities of women who are likewise a bundle of eagerness, confusion and contradictions.

Amis plays this for some wonderful laughs, no surprise. But he also carefully details the way that the misogynist tendencies develop from these encounters. Women are denying him the one thing he must have. As Richard Bradford suggests in Lucky Him, this novel comes much closer to the truth of Amis' life than his memoirs, a highly fanciful selection of events and memories. There is a sensitive and moving depiction of a friend of Robin's who turns out to be gay which makes plain the costs and dangers of that identity in the not so distant past. You'll also find an evocation of what the Oxford days with Larkin might have been like and the awkward development of his first marriage, grown out of an uncertain alliance that quickly developed into habit because of the sexual connection, then threatened by pregnancy.

Davies never ends up being likeable exactly; by the end, he's distinctly unlikeable. But the dissection is fascinating and if not really an apology, it does seem to offer a bit of an explanation for how Amis became what he was. And at his best, that was a lot.

Now to get hold of a copy of Colonel Sun...

See the round-up of other neglected tomes over at Patti Abbott's blog.

eBooks: No longer the future

They're the PRESENT!

Yeah, Mashable has a story about how Kindle books are outselling hardcovers on Amazon and the L. A. Times has a long article on how ebooks are transforming the reading experience. Even most authors are prepared for the need to push the various electronic editions, but we're still figuring out the best ways to do that -- how do you promote without a physical object? That intangibility gives a lot of people discomfort.

I was supposed to be interviewed on the topic today, but the video interview became a telephone interview because of "breaking news" (I was relieved: haven't had a haircut since leaving for England) and now it seems to have been put off at least until tomorrow if not indefinitely. So I'll share my idea for a good quote:  I'm sure when Gutenberg printed his first bibles, there were doubtless people who said, "Well that's interesting, but I'm never going to give up my vellum.  It's painstakingly created by monks over months and sometimes year, with great attention to detail. Each one is individually written in the hand of the scribe and decorated with charming marginalia."

True enough, Gutenberg probably said. However, you can have this one right away. All of you. And for much less money.

Sure, there will continue to be printed books for a very long time. There will even continue to be handmade books for a long time. The digital revolution, though, has already happened. Jump on the wave to ride it or let it wash over you for now. But the wave is here. Like digital downloads of music, kids already born will consider it the norm. That's change.

UPDATE: I talked to the reporter today, although the story had already been recorded (which aired today; it's the second video that cycles up).  We chatted for a bit and she was intrigued by a number of things I brought up about my experiences teaching New Media and having both print and ebooks to promote. My BitchBuzz column this week is an expansion of this topic.

Necon is: Mini-Golf

I got my best ever score: 43! It was only one point off the winning score, although there were I think four people who all got 42, so I probably won't win a medal. But we sure had some fun! Phil and Anya were entertaining, as always.










Tonight, the traditional game show and the traditional talent show have been mashed together. No one's quite sure what will happen. Afterward, we'll have the roast. As usual, not a peep about who might be the victim -- erm, honoree.

Review of UNIKIRJA

I don't think I remembered to post this before. My review from the Finnish North American Literature Association (FinNALA) by Beth Virtanen:

K. A. Laity’s Unikirja, Dream Book, is written in a pastiche of genres on a single theme, Finnishness and daily life. Laity uses poetry, prose and drama to capture Finnishness in mythic and modern contexts. In doing so, she draws on folklore, the Kalevala, the Kanteletar, and even traveling in Finland as inspiration for these wonderful stories. 

In the section focusing on the Mythic, Laity draws on Runos 3 to 5 of the Kalevala for a short story titled “Aino” in which she draws on the epic tale to focus on “women’s experiences of the world—an aspect so often missing from the original Kalevala stories’, she says. From the theme of incoming Christianity, Laity reimagines the killing of Bishop Henry as committed by Lalli and not his wife. She retells the story from the wife’s perspective as she has “to live with her husband’s crime and her own silence about the truth.” In this retelling, Laity broaches a subject central to issues of women, that of silence. In this section she also “indulges,” as she says, the Gothic as well.

The mythic is as present in the Modern tales as it is in those of the previous section, but here the settings are modern, thus allowing for a different emphasis and turn of events. In the modern section, she deals with the myth of werewolves in “Vironsusi,” asking what it would be like to be one. She explores themes of magic from the Kalevala as she creates a modern’ hiker’s response to Vipunen, the giant turned to a mountain, in the story of the same name. The invigoration of women’s allure and sensuality through a sauna ritual  is the focal point of “Raising Lempi,” and Vainämöinen’s bad luck with women the theme addressed in “Kantele.”  This section closes with a play, “Lumottu,” which means Enchanted, that places an immigrant family in the heart of myth and magic.

In this book, K. A. Laity’s efforts make Finnish mythology and folklore relevant today in ways that resonate with the modern reader. She mates myth and womanhood exquisitely. In short, her work is fabulous. The text is by Aino Press of New York. Find it at www.aino-press.com. Buy it.  

Nice, eh? Be sure to stop by and see all the wonders they have at FinNALA and their literary magazine KIPPIS! (yes, I'm in one issue). I'm off at Necon, which I hope means I'm having fun.

BitchBuzz: Old Spice

[yes, I am up this early -- again]

Doing Online the Right Way: Old Spice

By K.A. Laity

We're so accustomed to ill-conceived ad campaigns that make us wince, it's a genuine pleasure to find one that not only proves successful, but give plenty of laughs as well.

I'm sure many of you remember the Old Spice commercials featuring the hunky Isaiah Mustafa. The initial commercial caused as much controversy as delight, striking many viewers as a little too over the top, and subsequent adverts employed more subtle attempts to pitch Mustafa's glistening torso as both appealing to women and more gently raising the bar for the men.
Old Spice has its own YouTube channel, but more importantly, it's got its own Twitter feed as well. In recent days their inventive use of the two social media streams has exploded across the net.

Old Spice's tweets vary from encouragement to those who fail to live up to the ideal ("Mr. @caseyayers, do not get discouraged. You're swan dive will come with time.") and friendly banter ("Hello @Rushton2. Your tweet reminded me of the summer I spent off the stormy coast of Tibet."), but by far the most effective tweets have been those that led to videos made for other tweeters
("Are you a baby with muscle-structure of a man @MrBabyMan?")...

Read more: http://tech.bitchbuzz.com/doing-online-the-right-way-old-spice.html#ixzz0tkJjYKG6 and see all the videos I've linked to, including (sob!) his farewell. Silver fish hand catch!

I'm off to Necon this afternoon; it's the 30th anniversary year, so not sure who might show up. Looking forward to seeing a few friends I only see there. And as usual, I'm using the trip to stop by and see folks in Connecticut: lunching with the fabulous QoE and stopping by the Steier homestead. Don't know if there's wifi. If there is, doubtless I'll use it. If not, see you Monday.

Wet Cat

And again, I have more reasons to curse the squirrels. They're back -- and they've brought fleas. Argh.