StellarCon 37 panel schedule is here

I'll be at StellarCon 37 this weekend and my schedule has arrived! I'll also be hanging out around the con and will be at the author meet and greet on Friday. You can find the whole schedule and more information about who, what, where, and when here.

I hope to see you there!

Friday March 1, 2013

4 p.m. - 5 p.m Influences on Writing -- Writers discuss the various things that influence stories and how to make the most of them.

8 p.m. - 9 p.m. Historical Horror: Horror Through the Ages -- A brief retrospective of everything that's terrified man since the dawn of time.

9 p.m. - 10 p.m. Reader Expectations and Stories -- How do authors balance reader expectations and their work, and how should fans manage their own expectations?

Saturday March 2, 2013

10 a.m. - 11 a.m. Hell - How Does It Work? --Authors discuss their favorite fictional depictions of the afterlife and what it might bring.

9 p.m. - 10 p.m. Goat Sacrifice - How Does It Work? -- Authors discuss the dark arts and how to work it into genre fiction.

10 p.m. - 11 p.m. Killing People - How Does It Work? -- Authors discuss the worst things they've ever done to a character.

Sunday March 3, 2013

11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Underutilized Love Story Monsters -- Nobody's done "Twilight" for the Mummy or the Creature from The Black Lagoon.

Q&A on Gender at Fantastical Imaginations

Dominick's Question and Answer series on gender continues at Fantastical Imaginations (apologies to Dominick for not getting a redirect up yesterday--I was a bit under the weather). This is a three-part interview series where I join authors Francis Knight, Elspeth Cooper, Anne Lyle, and Courtney Schafer to talk about gender in SFF.

You will find all the links at Fantastical Imaginations as well, but just in case you've already read one part and not the other, I'm including links to all three: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

gender today, StellarCon this weekend

This morning, I join authors Francis Knight, Elspeth Cooper, Anne Lyle, and Courtney Schafer at Fantastical Imaginations talking about gender. Also, as much as I love that picture of the mighty warrior woman and the eviscerated male at her feet, I must warn you that no one is getting killed. Of course, there haven't been any comments at the time of this post, so that situation could change rapidly.

Moving on ...

I'll be at one of my favorite cons this weekend: StellarCon 37! I'll post my schedule as soon as I have it available. I'm greatly looking forward to meeting new friends and catching up with old friends this weekend. So if you're in the Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem area, I'd love to see you.

picks and pans--Dolorosa

This scene will probably be like my scene with Diago and Miquel in Garden in Umber--the essence of the scene will remain the same, although the context will change as the story matures. Here is a quick peek at Miserere's sequel, Dolorosa.

“Lucian?” Rachael held her candle higher but the feeble light barely illuminated the parlor that she and Lucian shared. Coals shimmered in the hearth and blinked sparks up into the chimney. Across the wide room, the door to Lucian’s bedchamber stood open. On the nightstand beside the empty bed, a lone candle fluttered against the darkness.

The humpbacked shapes of furniture rose from the shadows, but Rachael barely noted them. Lucian stood beside the chamber’s sole window and gazed down into the courtyard, his profile etched in darkness. As her eye adjusted to the gloom, she picked out the soft white of the cotton shirt he wore beneath his robes. He leaned against the casement, his left hand clenched at his side, his cane rested against the wall within easy reach.

She discerned the reflection of his features in the frosty pane and noted the downturn of his full lips, the rigidity of his stance. If he turned his head, she knew his eyes would sparkle with fury.

my bookshelves--the living room collection

I've been busy writing guest posts for other blogs this week, so I'm giving you a little something different today.

Here are pictures of my bookshelves. These don't include the about twenty or so fiction and nonfiction books scattered about my house (my husband swears there are more and that they're breeding under the bed--and they say that I have the imagination). I also maintain bathroom and bedroom collections, but these are not for public viewing--you should really thank me for that.

The shelving units below are arranged in no particular order; that is the summer project that I intend to undertake along with getting rid of that striped wallpaper and repainting my stairwell.

The first unit is often referred to as: that great bunch of books by the stairs. These shelves contain fiction and nonfiction, including a four volume set of The Taoist Classics, a three volume set of The Art of War, a four volume set of The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, and Montague Summers' work Werewolf.

Note the expensive cat toys beneath the sofa but no cat. That's because he is off in another part of the house, busily playing with a piece of paper.

Here is a close-up of the top shelf:

I call the next shelving unit my Santa Muerte shelf for obvious reasons (the Saint Death on the top shelf/left side is a DVD, not a book). Here we have works on paganism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, in addition to some of my favorite books for research: Satan's Rhetoric, The Apocalyptic Imagination, Demons and the Devil, and The Devil.

I found the cross at a flea market and purchased it for displays. As you can tell, my cats also love their scratching post, which they always use ... good kitties.

So what's on your bookshelves?

picks and pans--In Midnight's Silence

I spent this weekend writing and editing. I'm still working through the opening of Dolorosa and attempting to achieve the overall mood of the piece. Meanwhile, I polished an opening scene in the Garden's sequel, In Midnight's Silence. Just a snippet for today:

Diago

The voices of the Nephilim who died in the Garden murmur songs of sorrow in my dreams. I try to sing with them, but I can no longer recall the lyrics. I have forgotten my own song, and a Nephil without a song is but a ghost.

Or so said Ashmedai the Daimon King.

I do not remember my first-born life as Asaph; although Guillermo insists that my power was once almost as great as his. He swears that we both possessed the ability to prophecy through our dreams. He says that in the days of our first-born lives, we would compare our dreams to better understand the meanings.

I don’t doubt him; perhaps in my first-born life I dreamed and prophesied with him. I also trusted him as my friend and my king. In my first-born life, I swore my undying fealty to him. I did as he commanded, even when it meant my death.

Those oaths died with Asaph.

Now I am Diago.

I have no song, only whispers that follow me in the rain.

it's a cop-out, but ...

I was away this past weekend and did not have time to compose a lengthy blog post. Instead, I have (after about twenty false starts) achieved the opening of Dolorosa. This is the keeper version, and rather than break the rhythm, I thought I'd roll with the novel in lieu of a blog post. Then I was overcome by intense guilt for having no blog post--okay, that's a lie, I just like the attention.

As a compromise, I thought I'd share a little news in the making and give you a list of non-fiction books that I'm reading for research purposes.

Look ... it was this, or a picture of my cat.

Okay, the news first:

I've been hanging out with a group of real shady characters who have enticed me to join them for a new collective blog called BookSworn. So far, Mark Lawrence, Mazarkis Williams, Courtney Schafer, Anne Lyle, Helen Lowe, Elspeth Cooper, Bradley P. Beaulieu, Doug Hulick, Stina Leicht, Jeff Salyards, Zachary Jernigan, Kameron Hurley, and Betsy Dornbusch have signed the pact in blood and ink and bytes. We are hammering out the details and the secret handshake now. Of course, as soon as everything goes live, I'll send you an update along with a link. Meanwhile, follow @BookSworn on Twitter so you don't get left out.

I'm working on two guest posts and doing a bit of research, so that means non-fiction books. During my research for In Midnight's Silence, I found two items of interest:

Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources (2nd ed.) edited by Olivia Remie Constable (Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012).

An interesting tidbit from "Administration of an Urban Militia" taken from Fuero de Cuenca (ca 1190) and translated from the Latin by James F. Powers. From section XXX.I. The government of the military expedition and the guarding of the city:

Before taking a military expedition against a foe, the council is required to appoint watchmen to keep an eye on the city. The watchmen's responsibilities were clearly stated:

"After sunset, if the guards find anyone walking in the streets without carrying a light, they should seize all his belongings and put him in confinement until the following morning. In the morning, he should be brought before the [acting] council, and if he was a citizen or a son of a citizen, he should be absolved; but if he was a stranger, let him be hurled from the city cliffs."

Rough town.

Next up is Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, edited by Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson (Durham : Duke University Press, 1999).

I had to get this one from a used bookstore, but it was well worth the price. I'm about a quarter of the way through it and enjoying it immensely.

Favorite quote thus far is from "Queer Representation in the Arcipreste de Talavera, or The Maldezir de mugeres Is a Drag" by Catherine Brown:

"He [the Archpriest] presents them [the Beghards], that is to say, as figures of the Hypocrite, whom Gregory the Great defined thus: 'Hypocrita, qui latina lingua dicitur simulator, iustus esse non appetit, sed uideri' (Moralia in Iob 18.7) [The hypocrite, who in Latin is called a simulator, does not want to be just, but rather to appear so]."

That has to be the best definition of a hypocrite that I've ever read.

I'm also doing research for Dolorosa with Codes, Ciphers, and Other Cryptic and Clandestine Communication: Making and Breaking Secret Messages from Hieroglyphs to the Internet, by Fred B. Wrixon (New York : Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers : Distributed by Workman Pub., 1998).

Thus far, my favorite code is ... well, that would be telling, now wouldn't it?

Check them out if you have a minute, and don't forget to follow @BookSworn for more updates of our dastardly doings as we soar through the interwebz seeking redemption, glory, words, and chocolate ... something ... something ... something ... until next week ... write on ...

ebook only formats?

I've hesitated writing about this subject, primarily because I don't have hard numbers on how many people in my area own computers. However, I cringe when I hear some authors advocate ebooks to the exclusion of print (the fabled "death of print"), and a few publishers who are toying with the idea of moving toward an ebook only format for some of their titles.

Personally, I think this is a short-sighted approach that panders to a niche market. In the long run, an entire demographic of potential readers are shut away from books.

For the record: I work in a community college library. I also live in a very rural area. Our population is roughly 93,643 for the entire county (this number comes from the 2010 census). Compare this with neighboring Guilford County which has a population of roughly 488,406 people.

Out of this population, Rockingham County has approximately 14,396 people living below the poverty level. These 14,396 people, in all probability, are not going to own an ereader or a computer. So if you choose to publish exclusively in ebooks, you are going to miss approximately 14,396 potential readers.

Let's look at neighboring Guilford County with its much higher population of 488,406, and of that number, 73,375 people are living under the poverty level. Are we excluding these 73,375 people from the opportunity to read for pleasure?

Should we gravitate toward exclusively using the ebook format for certain titles, we can add 14,396 to 73,375 and get a total of 87,771 people who will have missed an opportunity to read those titles.

When publishers and authors talk about ebooks, I don't think about cool gadgets and the wonderous cabilities of ebooks. I think about people who live under the poverty level. Having been there myself, I can attest as to where my money went: food, rent, insurance, etc. I didn't have extra money to spend on ereaders and computers. I didn't subscribe to cable because of the cost, and though cell phones weren't prevalent at that time, I can tell you now that those, as well, would have been a superfluous cost that would have been eliminated. I used the library to borrow books and when the library had a booksale, I purchased books from them. Second-hand bookstores were my favorite places to shop.

I look at studies that show how reading-comprehension can lead people out of poverty and I wonder what are we doing to ourselves when we limit certain titles exclusively to ebooks? Are we saying that the only people who get the opportunity to read are those wealthy enough to own ereaders and computers? Has the online community become so disconnected from reality that we believe that everyone, everywhere has electricty and computers?

Really?

Ebooks are wonderful for those who can afford both the equipment and the means by which to keep that equipment up-to-date; however, I think we also need to remember the people who rely on print as their only connection with reading. Otherwise, we limit them to a cycle of poverty, not just of money, but of the mind.

But!--some wit will surely propose--the people living under the poverty level are buying used books.

Yes, but those readers often remain loyal to the genres and authors they discover through second-hand books. When their circumstances change--and sometimes they do--they don't forget what it was like to have the opportunity to read books that other people discarded.

I never have.

Linkage: Interview with GDT, 2 movies, and a book

This week, all I have is a quick list of links and recommendations for you:

In a scene of passion, some DNA is left behind. --Guillermo del Toro

Over the weekend, I stumbled upon and read an epic five part interview with Guillermo del Toro. The interview was an act of passion and del Toro left his DNA all over the screen. He talked about movies and creativity and just about everything. Anything I write would be redundant, so just go read the interview.

I watched two movies: Timecrimes [Spanish title: Los Cronocrímenes] and Let the Right One In [Swedish title: Låt den rätte komma in]. I talk very briefly about Timecrimes here, because it is a hard movie to discuss without giving away some of the best parts.

Let the Right One In is one of the best vampire movies that I've seen since Near Dark, which is one of my all-time favorite vampire movies.

I put off watching Let the Right One In for a long time, because I thought it might be too young adultish for my tastes, but the movie surprised and pleased me. Let the Right One In is that magic combination of plot, characterization, and mood that makes the perfect horror movie. What you don't see is far more frightening than what you do see.

So if you're looking to get away from the latest Hollywood remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 58 in 3-D with real blood ... something ... something ... something ... watch Let the Right One In.

I have a nonfiction book recommendation for you, in case you're looking for a brand new take on the Crusades, check out The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf. It reads like a novel and gives you an entirely different perspective on the Crusades.

From the blurb:

European and Arab versions of the Crusades have little in common. What the West remembers as an epic effort to reconquer the Holy Land is portrayed here as a brutal, destructive, unprovoked invasion by barbarian hordes.

When, under Saladin, a powerful Muslim army--inspired by prophets and poets--defeated the Crusaders, it was the greatest victory ever won by a non-European society against the West. The Arab version of the Crusades is a heroic story of how the Muslims overcame their rivalries and united long enough to win a holy war.

And I know all this makes it look like I'm slacking, but the good news is that I'm almost 9,000 words into In Midnight's Silence and the story is trotting along nicely.

So there.

What are you up to?

Timecrimes [Los Cronocrímenes]

Um ... if you're like me and really enjoy a book or movie that gives you a nice little mind-fuck, watch Timecrimes [Spanish title: Los Cronocrímenes].

The plot and characterizations reminded me of the old Twilight Zone series. You know, the really good ones that left you staring at the screen in a mild state of wonder as the end credits rolled?

Yeah that.

Timecrimes was just ... yum.