ellenkushner

[ellenkushner]

Mermaids for Mermay. Digital (mostly), for some logistical reasons.

[ellenkushner]

Great interview with the author of Born With Teeth! And killer photos of her all over NYC’s East Village.

@lizduffyadams

[ellenkushner]

I think the closest parallel I can draw to my experience of watching Interview With the Vampire is the novel Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner.

The characters are, by any normal definition, absolutely horrible people, but they're so charismatic and compelling that I care about them anyway. The events are fucked up, but stylishly so, and it feels thrilling rather than tawdry; there's a wry intelligence that undergirds everything. The work itself is so beautifully crafted that viewing/reading it is a sensual experience on its own, separate from the content. It's decadent and wicked and delicious.

And gay. Very, very gay.

[ellenkushner]

Our dear friend Liz Duffy Adams’ play is coming to London with the RSC and an all-star cast!!!

They’re rehearsing right now and I think it’s OK for me to tell you that Liz just wrote me “you will no doubt not be surprised to hear that they are going to SLAY”!

Always believe the Writer.

BORN WITH TEETH dir. Daniel Evans (London Wyndham’s Theatre — 13 August to 1 November 2025) ››› Ncuti Gatwa as Christopher Marlowe ››› Edward Bluemel as William Shakespeare

[ellenkushner]

The play "Born With Teeth" by Liz Duffy Adams is coming to London's West End this summer, starting Ncuti Gatwa as Kit Marlow and Edward Bluemel as William Shakespeare.

The moment I saw the extremely gay promotional image, I knew I had to add the lines from the play it's referring to.

ID: Edward Bluemel as William Shakespeare and Ncuti Gatwa as Kit Marlow in a promotional image for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Gatwa stares into the camera with dispassionate power, holding Bluemel to him like a possession with one many-ringed hand. With eyes closed, Bluemel clutches Gatwa hand to his mouth and seductively bites his fingers as if they are a perfect summer peach soon to spoil. Their eyes and Bluemel's mouth peak between the lines.

Caption reads:

Kit: Why do you stop?

Will: I think it would be like petting a leopard. Lovely for a moment, until the teeth flash out.

Kit: What a compliment. Do you think I'd bite you?

Will: I think you would devour me.

End ID.

—

My partner and I saw it at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2024 and it was incredible. Unapologeticly "Blorbos from my dissertation." OSF brings in a lot of student groups, and it was delightful hearing the AO3 girlies in the audience gasp and giggle as the tension heated up. 12/10 stars.

Ncuti Gatwa's masterful performance in "The Importance Of Being Ernest" at the National Theater feels like it will translate perfectly into this role as dangerous, seductive, arrogant, & devilishly smart fuckboi Kit trying to seduce Will to the rockstar lifestyle of a famous Elizabethan playwright.

[ellenkushner]

“You’ve no idea how long life goes on, nor how many changes it brings. Young people seem to imagine that it’s over in a flash, that they do this thing, or that thing, and then die, but I can assure you they are quite wrong.”

— Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Cimate

[ellenkushner]

Horrible news. Diane Duane & Peter Morwood such lovely people, and one of the great couples of all time. We last saw them in Paris, all stupidly happy together.

Peter Morwood

I am so sorry to have to tell you all about this. None of you, I suspect, will ever have any idea how sorry.

I am in utter shock and terrible pain to have to inform everyone that our friend, my dear husband and creative partner of nearly forty years, Peter Morwood, passed away suddenly early this morning after a brief illness that as late as yesterday (when his doctor saw him) had seemed to be on the mend.

I'm not in any position to say much more about this situation now, as you'll understand my current mental state is not up to the task. (I keep expecting to wake up from a bad dream, but it shows no sign of breaking.) I will let people know more about this in coming days.

There will be a postmortem shortly to determine the exact cause of his death. I'll share what details of this are appropriate as they become clear.

Meanwhile in the short term I'm very much going to need assistance with the expenses that in the days that follow will inevitably surround what's happened. For those people who want to assist, please feel free to use the Ko-Fi account here, and simply tag the associated messages, etc, "P expenses".

My love will wait for me, I know, however long it takes. He's never minded waiting. (the saddest smile) My job now is to make sure he's not forgotten while I go on.

Meanwhile, can I just say to all of of you: I thank you all ahead of time for all the support and fondness for Peter that I know so many of you will express. He'd blush over it, I know. (He always did.) Please forgive me for being unable to do much in the way of answering messages, just now, in the wake of having to get to grips with this sudden and awful change in my world.

But also let me say, so urgently: Hug your loved ones now, while you can. Eventually a day will come when, expected or not, your opportunities end.

Thanks, friends.

--DD

[ellenkushner]

I love my British covers. They match!

I got to tell them that the TPOTS hand (and sleeve cuff) should look a lot more feminine.

They did their best.

Swordspoint - The Privilege of the Sword - The Fall of the Kings (Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman)

Very queer fantasy books!

Each can be read more or less as a standalone, while there are recurring characters there's also consequent time skips between each volume (like, decades)

Very atmospheric

No magic until the last book

A lot of swordfighting and duels of all kinds

8/10

[ellenkushner]

I. That kid didn’t belong here. We all knew it from the moment he walked through the door at Rosalie’s, full of nerves and rage. If you belong, you never sport those two together. Everyone in Riverside knows that. It is a wise precaution to assume that anyone angry is also armed. The drinkers stopped …

[ellenkushner]

“The compensation of growing old [is] that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained — at last! — the power which adds the supreme flavour to existence, — the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it around, slowly, in the light.”

— Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

[ellenkushner]

[ellenkushner]

My world today.

With tulips.

[ellenkushner]

When we consider all that our world is going through this week, we can take a quiet break here:

On Holy Ground...

[ellenkushner]

THE MUSIC OF CHAOS Comments & commentaries welcome!

[ellenkushner]

If you've ever felt that our world is a circus, you're not alone... Here is: A Delicate Balance

[ellenkushner]

3 days late but who’s counting?

Swordspoint film announced

CAST TO FEATURE MOSTLY DEAD ACTORS AND CLONES

April 1, 2116, Hollywood, LA

22nd Century Fox has announced green lighting of the property it acquired in 1996, Swordspoint, by public radio personality Ellen Kushner. Casting includes:

Diane, Duchess Tremontaine: Faye Dunaway

Anthony Deverin, Lord Ferris: Basil Rathbone

Asper Lindley, Lord Horn: Peter O’Toole

Michael Godwin: Corin Redgrave

Richard St Vier: Billy Crudup

Alec Campion: My skinny boyfriend with the long red hair who played Cassius in that black box production of Julius Caesar in 1985 on W. 18th St.

Marie: Mae West