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my-lady-knight · 4 years

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Favorite Reads of 2020

I take back everything I said last year about how 2019 was a comparatively bad reading year for me. 2020 was even worse. I only read 48 books, I could barely focus on reading even when I did find a book I liked, and, just like last year, I ended up with fewer favorites than usual. Starting in August I’ve been having trouble reading any written media that isn’t TOG fic. And some of my eagerly awaited releases by favorite authors ended up being disappointments (Deeplight by Frances Hardinge and Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee).

2020—the year that keeps on giving.

I sincerely hope 2021 will be a better year in all respects, including my reading habits, but, as with everything else, who knows.

Regardless, here’s my list of favorite reads of 2020, in chronological order of when I read them:

Network Effect by Martha Wells

I’d read the first four Murderbot Diaries novellas when they first came out and enjoyed them, but I didn’t fall head-over-heels in love with them. Maybe because they were novellas, and too short to get fully invested? Possibly. As it turns out, Network Effect is the novel-length fifth entry in the Murderbot Diaries that turned me into full-on squeeing fan—SecUnit, aka Murderbot, continues to be its delightfully acerbic, antisocial self, SPOILER makes another appearance and oh how I’d missed this character, the supporting cast is fun and endearing, and the novel-length story means there’s time and space for the brand-new corporate espionage/colonization/alien civilization murder mystery to unfold and spread its wings. (Sounds like a Sanctuary Moon plot tbh). SecUnit is possibly my favorite non-human fictional character atm, and I am now fully on-board for every and any new story in the series.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

When I first heard about this book and read the words “time travel romance”, I immediately went, “Nope, not gonna read.” I don’t like reading time travel stories, and honestly, I was imagining it to be something like The Time Traveler’s Wife, which granted I haven’t read but also sounds like it’d be the opposite of my cup of tea.

And then I went to a reading where Amal and Max took turns reading chapters – letters written by Red and Blue, enemy agents who repeatedly taunt and thwart the other’s plans to ensure their side is the one to win the time war and who can’t resist smugly outlining just how they’re staying one step ahead of the other – and the prose was witty and gorgeous and clever and intricate, and Red and Blue were snarky and arrogant and talented and fun. I had to read it. And I ended up loving it, this enemies-to-lovers story that is a meld of fantasy and science fiction such that they’re indistinguishable from the other, where the past is as equally fantastical and alien and imaginary as the future, where Red and Blue’s power play transforms into something different and scarier and more intimate than either of them imagined.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

Becky Chambers has done it again, writing a gentle, hopeful story about humans working together out of a share a love and fascination for scientific exploration and wonder for all the possibilities the entirety of space can hold. With the advent of both space travel and technology that alters human physiology to allow them to survive otherwise inhospitable environments, a team of four astronauts and scientists have embarked on a mission to ecologically survey four distant planets and the life forms that inhabit them, from the microscopic to the multicellular—not to conquer, but to record and to learn and to share the gathered knowledge with the rest of Earth. In the meantime, lightyears away, Earth is going through decades without them, and the four of them must also contend with a planet that may have forgotten their existence—or that’s abandoned the entire space and scientific exploration program.

Reading Becky Chambers is the literary equivalent of sitting down with a warm mug of my favorite tea on a bad day – I always feel better at the end and like I can imagine a future where humanity does all the wonderful things we’re capable of doing.

A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker

I started reading this book right as NYC was gearing up to go into lockdown, which should have made this a terrible choice to continue reading since part of the premise is that a combo of multiple stochastic terror attacks and a brand-new, deadly plague upend the world as everyone knows it by causing the U.S. to pass laws that keep people physically apart in public for their own safety and make concerts, theatre, and any other kind of artistic gathering obsolete.

But that’s largely just the set-up, and the real story is that of Luce Cannon, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter who played the last major concert in the before times who twenty years later performs in illegal underground concerts, and Rosemary, a younger music-lover who’s only lived in the after-times, and who’s taken a new job scouting out talent to add to the premier virtual entertainment company’s roster of simulated concerts.

It’s a love letter to live music and what it feels like to connect and build community via music in unusual and strange and scary times, the energy involved in making music for yourself, for an audience, exploring the world around you, imagining and advocating for a better tomorrow, and embracing the fear, the possibility, and the power of change, both good and bad. This was the book I needed to read at the beginning of the pandemic, and I’m thankful I ended up doing so.

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 edited by John Joseph Adams and Carmen Maria Machado

When I end up loving half of the stories in an anthology and greatly enjoying all but two of the rest, that’s the equivalent of a literary blue moon for me. My favorites included the following;

"Pitcher Plant" by Adam-Troy Castro

"Six Hangings in the Land of Unkillable Women" by Theodore McCombs

"Variations on a Theme from Turandot" by Ada Hoffmann

"Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Memphis Minnie Sing the Stumps Down Good" by LaShawn M. Wanak

"The Kite Maker" by Brenda Peynado

"The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington" by P. Djèlí Clark

"Dead Air" by Nino Cipri

"Skinned" by Lesley Nneka Arimah

"Godmeat" by Martin Cahill

"On the Day You Spend Forever with Your Dog" by Adam R. Shannon

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

No one is more surprised than me that Harrow is on this list, given that I am one of approximately three people in the universe who did not unequivocally love Gideon the Ninth.

And yet the sequel worked for me.

Maybe because this time I already knew and was used to the way the world and the Houses worked, and I knew to not take anything I read for granted because I could be guaranteed to have the rug pulled out from under me without even realizing. Maybe Harrow’s countdown/amnesia mystery worked better for me than Gideon’s locked room mystery. Maybe the cast of characters was more manageable and fewer of them were getting murdered left and right before I got a chance to get used to them (and some of them even came back!) Maybe it’s that Harrow blew open the potential and possibilities Gideon hinted at and capitalized on just how fucking weird and mind-blowing the whole premise is in a way that felt incredibly and viscerally satisfying.

Also SPOILER happens three-quarters of the way through. That was pretty fucking awesome.

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

P. Djélí Clark is a master of melding history and fantasy in ways that are in turn imaginative and clever (his fantastical alternate-history, early 20th-century Egyptian novel A Master of Djinn is one of the books I’m most looking forward to in 2021), while also using fantasy to be frank and incisive about the history of American antiblack racism (as in the above linked story in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019). Ring Shout combines the late-nineteenth and early 20th-century history of the rise and normalization of the KKK with Lovecraftian supernatural horror, in which the release of The Birth of a Nation summoned literal monsters (called Ku Kluxes) that became part of the KKK’s ranks. Maryse Boudreaux is a Black woman who’s part of a grassroots organization hunting both the monsters and the human members in order to keep the Klan at bay. However, there’s soon to be another summoning ritual atop Stone Mountain that will unleash even more Ku Kluxes into the world, and Maryse and her friends are running out of time to prevent it from happening.

Maryse is a fantastic character, as are her two friends—brash, unapologetic Sadie and WWI veteran, weapons expert Chef—her mentor and leader of the Ring Shout group Nana Jean, and all the other members of the group who work and fight together as a team and a family. Maryse’s past and the journey she goes on in the book to uncover the truth and stop the summoning is harrowing and heart-stopping, the supernatural elements are both horrific in and of themselves while also undergirding the real-life horror of the KKK and the hatred they engender. It’s smart, it’s fun, it’s eye-opening, and it’s also being turned into a TV show starring KiKi Layne. It’s really, really good.

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

“Stick to the brief.” This is the maxim given to Dietz and all the other soldiers who join the war against Mars, where soldiers are broken down into light to travel to and from their assigned battlefields instantaneously. Only Dietz isn’t experiencing the jumps like everyone else – Dietz, like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five, has become unstuck in time and is experiencing all the battles in the mission briefs out of chronological order, to the point that Dietz starts to build a picture of a war and a reality that’s been sold to Dietz and everyone else on Earth as pure fiction.

I’ve always appreciated Kameron Hurley’s stories, but this is the first book where she fully succeeded at writing the book she set out to write—it’s fast-paced science fiction thriller in the form of a loaded gun that takes brutal aim at late-stage capitalism, modern military warfare and the dehumanization of everyone involved on all sides, the greed of ungovernable governing corporations, nationalistic and military propaganda, the mythology of citizenship and inalienable rights, and it’s viscerally bloody and violent without being grotesque in the way all of Kameron Hurley’s books are. Especially important for me, I loved that Dietz went through the entire book not being gendered in any way, shape, or form (those last five pages didn’t exist, what are you talking about), and I love in general that Kameron Hurley is committed to writing non-male characters who aren’t less violent or fucked-up or morally superior to men just because they’re not men.

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

Middle grade is a hard sell for me these days, as are books in verse, and I wouldn’t have known this book existed if it weren’t for the Ignyte Award nomination list earlier this year. As it turns out, this book, the story of Jude, a pre-teen girl who wants to be an actress who leaves Syria and the encroaching civil war with her mom to go live in the U.S. with her uncle and his white wife and their daughter while her dad and older brother stay behind, is full of beauty, curiosity, humor, confusion, grief, pain, and joy, and the poetic prose is both lyrical, nuanced, and perfectly fitted to Jude’s voice. I devoured this book in one day, which is the quickest amount of time it took me to read any book this year, including novellas.

Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram

The first book Darius the Great Is Not Okay was one of my favorite books in 2018, and I’m ecstatic that the sequel is equally as amazing.

It’s been approximately half a year since Darius went to Iran, met his maternal grandparents in person for the first time, and found his best friend in Sohrab, and in that time he’s come out as gay, joined the soccer team, got an internship at his favorite tea shop, and started dating for the first time. Darius is also working through some things though—when and if he wants to have sex with his boyfriend, his grandfather’s worsening illness, his dad’s recent depressive episode, his emotionally distant paternal grandmothers on his coming for an extended stay, the fact that he’s getting to know and growing closer with one of his teammates who’s best friends with Darius’s years-long bully, and a bunch else.

Darius the Great Deserves Better has the same tender and vulnerable emotional intimacy as the first book, more conversations over tea, new instances involving the mortifying ordeal of being a cis guy with a penis, even more Star Trek metaphors, and so much growth for Darius as he works through a lot of hard situations and feelings, and strengthens his relationships with all of the people in his life he loves and cares about. I can’t think of any other book that’s like these two books, and I love and treasure them dearly.

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

I had zero awareness of this book until a bunch of SFF authors started praising it on Twitter a couple months before the release date, and I was intrigued enough to get a copy from the library. I loved this book. I happened to be reading it right at the time of the presidential election, and it phenomenally served the purpose of desperately-needed distraction from the agony of waiting out the ballot counts.

It’s book about the power behind borders, citizenship, exploitation, and imperialism, set in a late-late-stage capitalist future, in which a prodigy invented the means to access and travel to slightly divergent parallel universes to grab resources and data – but only if the other universe’s version of “you” isn’t there. It’s the story of a woman named Cara – poor, brown, born in the wastelands outside the shelter, security, and citizenship privileges of Wiley City – who’s comfortably employed to travel to all the parallel worlds no one else can visit, because all her counterparts in those worlds are dead from one of the myriad ways Cara herself could have died growing up. It’s the story of Cara traversing the muddied boundaries between her old life and her new one, the similarities and differences between her own life and that of her counterparts, as well as the figures of power who defined and shaped her and her counterparts’ existences, and solving a mystery involving the unexplained deaths of several of her counterparts and the man who invented multiverse technology.

It’s a story of the permeability of selfhood and self-determination, and complexity of power dynamics of all kinds – interpersonal, familial, collegial, intimate – and the interplay between violence and stability and identity, and how one can be both powerful and powerless in the same dynamic. It’s a story with literary sensibilities that is unequivocally science fiction, written with laser-precise prose that flays Cara open and puts her back together again.

I worry this description makes this book sound dry and removed when reading this book made me feel like I was coming alive every time I delved back into it. This is a book I cannot wait to reread again to experience the brilliance and skill and thoughtfulness and emotion of Micaiah Johnson’s writing. I have no clue what, if anything, she’s writing next, but I have a new favorite author.

Honorable Mentions

Catfishing on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Stormsong by C. L. Polk

The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin

Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (I feel bad putting it here and not in the first list – it is undeniably a modern classic and a brilliantly crafted book! But I had zero interest in any of the Italy chapters, and I found the way he finally figured out how to access fairy magic by essentially making himself mad to be both disappointing and narratively unsatisfying.)

War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi

For my yearly stats on books written by POC authors, in 2020 I read a total of 24 books (one of which was co-authored by a white author), which is fewer than last year (30). However, because I also read fewer books this year overall, this is the first year ever that I achieved exactly 50-50 parity between books written by POC and white authors. I honestly wasn’t expecting this to happen, as I stopped paying deliberate attention somewhere around April or May. Looking over my Goodreads, the month of September ended up doing a lot of heavy lifting, since that’s when I read several books by POC authors in a row for the Ignyte Award nomination period. But also, it does look like the five or so years of purposefully aiming for 50-50 parity have materially affected my reading habits, by which I mean even when I’m not keeping my year’s count in mind, I’m still more likely to pick up a book by a POC author than I was five years ago when I had never kept track at all. My goal for next year is to once again achieve 50-50 parity and to not backslide.

#long post #book recommendations #book recs #favorite books of 2020

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anamsaorreads · 7 years

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2017 so Far - Part Two: Irish Authors (and More)

Welcome to Part Two of my 2017 Mid-Year Review. I've been trying to read more Irish* authors over the past few years, and while I've only read three books by Irish authors so far this year, the've been some of the more enjoyable ones! I'm throwing Virginia Woolf in here too because she's the only other female writer I've read as yet this year (which is terrible! Recommendations welcome!).

I didn't think I was going to read The Wonder by Emma Donoghue, let alone love it! I'd seen it in the best bookshop in the world, Charlie Byrne's in Galway, read the blurb, and although the premise did seem interesting, I wasn't sure it could live up to Room. But then I saw the beautiful paperback edition (the hardback is really pretty too, to be fair), and I couldn't resist!

Set in 1850s Ireland, not long after the Great Famine, an English Nightingale nurse, Lib, is hired to help conduct a watch as part of an investigation into the mysterious fasting of an eleven-year-old girl in the Irish midlands. The girl, Anna, has allegedly not taken any food for four months, yet is apparently perfectly healthy. However, all is not as it seems in the small country household.

Donoghue has such a talent for crafting character voices, that, not only does the narrator's character ring true in all she says, describes and does, and builds up in authenticity as the story progresses, but the independent voices of the other characters also come through just as clearly and beautifully, even through the lens of the skeptical narrator.

She deftly paces the story, from this skepticism, through professional concern, to a deep personal fear for the young girl's life, which Donoghue not only portrays in her narrator, but evokes in the reader. I found myself unable to put this book down, while neither wanting the story to end, nor wanting to experience any more of the stress and worry that builds throughout the narrative to a final, long crescendo resulting in, frankly, a lot of sustained crying on my part.

I picked up Sebastian Barry's Days Without End because I saw it had won the 2016 Costa Book of the Year (and was shortlisted for the Man Booker) and a few Booktubers I was watching at the beginning of the year had mentioned it (it's been 6 months so I can't remember which booktuber I heard about it from but I do remember that they had mentioned that they heard good things from SavidgeReads).

Narrated by an Irish immigrant in America around the time of the Civil war, Days Without End documents his life in the army, reflects on his adolescent and revived career as a performer, and honestly portrays his relationship with his same sex partner. Although forced to hide the true nature of their relationship, the actions, affection, love, and family life they make and manage for themselves is pure and good and true.

While it described some harrowing trials, the narrator remained hopeful and the book was heartwarming over all. I did however find the prose somewhat stilted, the western-American-come-west-of-Ireland accent, while interesting, interrupted the flow of the narrative somewhat for me. Maybe I just need to read more Westerns so I can become accustomed to it.

I heard an interview with Donal Ryan on the radio promoting his latest book, All We Shall Know, and it sounded intriguing, so I did the unthinkable and picked it up from the most poorly managed book section in any supermarket in the universe.

The story is not my usual fare - A woman in an unhappy marriage has an affair with a younger man and falls pregnant by him. However, the man is a 17 year old member of the Irish Travelling Community whom she is teaching to read and write. I was interested to see how the author treated the topic of the Travelling Community, as they are a marginalised group, their distinct ethnicity having only recently been recognised by the Irish State. Ryan seems to have handled the topic with due care and respect, however, I don't have the knowledge, time or space right now to comment further with any great confidence (more information on the Irish Travelling Community can be found on the Pavee Point and Irish Traveller Movement websites).

I enjoyed it, and would recommend it to anyone interested in life in a small Irish town (for Travellers and settled people alike), and anyone interested in the implications of a crisis pregnancy for a marriage, and in mental health issues. I did find however, that the voice of the narrator didn't quite ring true. I'm not sure if it was that it felt like it was the author "putting on" the narrator's persona, rather than embodying it, or if it was supposed feel like the narrator was quite disassociated from the events and emotions she was writing down. Either way, it didn't fully draw me in, though I did tear up a small bit by the end.

It's not really a book, but I read Oscar Wilde's short play Salomé while I was between novels. This one-act play is a retelling of the account told in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke) of the death of John the Baptist and the presentation of his head on a plate to Herod Antipas' stepdaughter Salomé. I thought it was pretty fun. (Is that weird, given the, eh, tragic end?) I really like pieces retelling Biblical stories, and set in antiquity. I don't read that much of them (more so into movie/TV retellings), but maybe I should make an effort to read more! The translation into English, by Lord Alfred Douglas, has been criticised as being a bit sloppy, but not having read the French I can't really comment on that. If you have an hour to spare, read it, or watch it; I'm sure it would be great to see it performed.

I also read Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, from which I noted down a mass of quotes (which I have yet to look back through), so obviously I thought it was great. Framing her essay on the challenges, historic and contemporary, of being a female writer in a description of a day or so spent on the campus of "Oxbridge" University, she highlights the continuing disparity between opportunities and supports offered to men, and those available to women. While she rightfully praises those women who came before her, like Sappho, Austen, and Eliot, writing in secret, on portable desks in cramped drawing rooms, and/or forced to disguise their true gender under male noms-de-plume, she laments the continued inequity. I obviously cannot do Woolf's words and nuances justice, so I strongly suggest you read this essay, if you haven't already, whatever your gender!

All of these works deserve much more space, thought, and effort than I can give to them now, so I'd love to come back and revisit some of these topics or books in more depth sometime... More research is needed!

(*I'm counting Emma Donoghue as Irish - Canada stole her, like they stole half of Ireland's graduates since 2008...)

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limejuicer1862 · 5 years

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Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Wendy Klein

Born in New York and brought up in California, Wendy Klein left the U.S. in 1964 to live in Sweden and later, France and Germany. She came to England in 1971 and has lived here most of her adult life. Failed actress and retired psychotherapist, she began to write poetry seriously in 2002 after completing an undergraduate diploma in creative writing at Oxford University, Continuing Education, Kellogg College. She has been mightily helped to hone her skills by two spells at The Writing School in Sheffield, run by Ann and Peter Sansom of Poetry Business fame. Winner of a variety of prizes (Ware, Buxton, Cinnamon Press Single Poem. She is published in many magazines and anthologies. She has two collections from Cinnamon Press: Cuba in the Blood, (2009) and Anything in Turquoise, (2013), and a third ‘Mood Indigo’ from Oversteps Books. Her writing has been influenced by early family upheaval resulting from her mother’s early death when Wendy was nine months old, her own nomadic years as a young mother, her mixed heritage (Russian secular Jewish immigrants and East Coast artsy-literary Bohemian) and subsequent travel. Brought up in a left-wing family (father a member of the Communist Party during the 1930s), her family experienced terrible stress during the McCarthy witch-hunt, and she never felt comfortable in the U.S. She renounced her U.S. citizenship a few years ago, only to find herself back in the midst of a resurgence of ring-wing populism. Nowhere to hide!

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

Poetry has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. My cousin and I used to compete with one another memorising poems and reciting them from almost as early as we could read. Rudyard Kipling and Lewis Carroll were our original favourites, before we moved on to Dorothy Parker and Edna St Vincent Millay. It wasn’t long before I tried my hand at writing, but I have always been rubbish at end-rhyming, so my early efforts were filed in the wastepaper basket before they saw the light of day. My mother, who died when I was 9 months old, was a playwright who had had two plays produced on Broadway, so I wasn’t about to try to follow in her footsteps. My stepmother and my father both wrote short stories, so I tried my hand at fiction first, but they were both such stern critics that I almost gave up writing altogether, though the odd maudlin adolescent angst began to appear from time-to-time in my sporadic journal writing. Eventually I began to excel at book reports and, at university, essays, but writing fiction was my first choice until I attended the first-ever under-graduate poetry certificate group at Oxford University, Continuing Education, Kellogg College. The course was broad-based, and we were required to complete assignments in writing plays, writing prose fiction and writing poetry. As I was working on a semi- autobiographical novel centred on the first two decades of my life, I chose prose fiction for my first assignment. My efforts were demolished in my first tutorial with the prose tutor, Angela Hassell. I was determined not to spend another hour in a room alone with her, so after that I began to choose poetry assignments, starting with a theme-linked sonnet sequence. I had never written a sonnet, or wanted to, but it didn’t turn out too badly, and I didn’t have to face Ms. Hassell again very soon, so I turned my face towards verse.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Well, I guess that’s a toss-up between my grandfather who bellowed Kipling’s ‘If’ at me when I was a naughty nine-year-old and bought me the entire works of Shakespeare in single Modern Library editions, bound in red, when I was 12, and my father, who bombarded me with poems from the time I enjoyed having words read aloud to me. He had memorised a lot of canon poetry from Shakespeare, Keats, Tennyson to Dylan Thomas and would hold forth on any occasion when he had an audience from one (me), or twenty plus at birthdays, New Year’s Eve parties, picnics, hikes – anywhere, and a poem for anytime. He was a high school English teacher, and when he was teaching, I was treated to whatever was on the syllabus. He wrote quite a lot of poetry himself, which I realised later was not all that good. In the latter part of his teaching career, he began to teach adults and to read more modern and contemporary poetry. It was then I was presented with his favourites: Carl Sandberg, Robinson Jeffers, Robert Frost, Denise Levertov, and subtly steered away from the likes of Marge Piercy!

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I don’t think I ever experienced a dominating presence of older poets. By the time I started writing poetry I was already an older poet myself. I was daunted by the talent of much younger poets and peer poets who had been writing longer than I, and I had huge admiration for the likes of Michael Longley, Seamus Heaney, and Sharon Olds, who is only a little bit older than I. No, no dominating presence, though perhaps I was naïve. I wrote a lot of prose before I began to poetry, and when I did begin, poetry seemed like more fun, and I thought I had nothing to prove. I soon learned that the poetry world was just as competitive as the world of short-story writers and rookie novelists, and that I really didn’t know very much at all.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I have drifted away from having a very regular routine. I keep a notebook, of course, which gets more and more haphazard, and I usually have a poem on the go that I am picking away at. Revising an earlier piece will sometimes start me in the direction of something new – a germ of an idea in the notebook. I have a few exercises which I have used to stimulate writing, but more recently this has felt a bit like cheating to me. Poems that stem from exercises like these tend to feel forced, so I have pretty much stopped ‘chasing’ poems and am more inclined to wait until they find me. It is perhaps easier to say what is NOT part of my writing routine. I do not ‘journal’ daily at home, though I have kept travel journals over time which have yielded up a lot of useful material. At home at my own desk, I can get bored trying to think of things to say. or gloomy going over past difficulties, conflicts, relationships, etc. Equally I have never found free-writing exercises particularly useful, though I have taken part in them during writing workshops before I became inhibited about reading back first drafts. Before I was retired, fitting in time to write was difficult. If I was writing, I was neglecting something else I needed to do, whether it was to do with paid work, house work, tasks relating to offspring, etc. The fact that I was neglecting something I ‘should’ be doing made writing seem a little naughty and subversive – something I had to sneak away to do and hide afterward. Once I was retired, I had too much time and found I tended to squander it. Initially I began to try to shape a writing routine by taking weekly poetry writing classes, which involved having prompts/assignments which were ‘due’ once a week. That challenge made it necessary to produce at least one poem a week, which I could manage quite easily. I had a marvellous tutor in the poet, Susan Utting, and her feedback and peer feedback was so useful. As I began to get some approval from tutors and fellow students, I began to send things out, so part of the time I spent writing was devoted to putting together submissions. This latter task always takes me way too long, and I get grumpy when I use up my writing time putting together submissions. Taking time to read the work of other contemporary poets is an essential part of my daily routine, too, and going back to long-term favourites.

5. What motivates you to write?

That’s simple; I don’t know how not to write. Every job I have ever had I have managed to turn into a vehicle for writing. As a social worker, my secretaries vied with one another to type up my case notes because they were so interesting – like stories. They were not meant to be, and I fell foul of my managers. When I became a psychotherapist, I adopted the ‘narrative’ practice of the Milan group of systemic therapists and the Australian therapist, Michael White, and wrote letters to my clients between meetings reminding them of our ‘conversations’ and slipping in ‘interventions’. I feel uncomfortable when I am not working on something – a poem, or a poetry project, though I try to forgive myself when it is just not happening for all the wide varieties of reasons daily life demands.

6. What is your work ethic?

What? I actually had to look this up, a definition that worked. I fail to see how to make it relate to poetry. I have just about enough discipline to keep going, and I am dedicated to making my poems as good as I can make them. I try to behave in a sensible and cooperative manner with other poets even when I feel they may be completely off the planet in what they are trying to achieve. I enjoy reading and critiquing the work of others, but don’t ask me unless you want on honest opinion.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

I think the greatest single influence from my reading when I was young was Emily Dickinson. She showed me the whole underbody of what a poem is. Looking at her short pieces full of her characteristic dashes for the first time was startling, a little bewildering, then finding the sting of her truths, uncovering ideas before I was old enough to realise how subversive they were. I am always concerned that my work is too ‘obvious’. Dickinson reminds me that it is a good thing to challenge readers enough to make them think, but not so much they become irritated and close the book. I try not to care too much about simply pleasing readers, to care more about stimulating thought and engaging. If poems do not engender thought or entertain, on some level, why would anyone be interested in reading them? Why bother? Poetry is a great form of communication; surely it is the poet’s responsibility to make that communication possible.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

I still admire Sharon Olds, and more and more as we get older. Her T.S. Eliot winner ‘Stag’s Leap’ was a tour de force in her particular skill: a hardcore candour that hunts down details and does not spare them. I know she is loved and hated equally for this quality. I love her. I also admire the audacious Kim Addonizio, another U.S. poet: poems that sizzle with energy, fearless politics, and plenty of ironic undertones. For a poet who almost always uses form and end-rhymes skilfully and thereby gets away with it, I think you can’t beat Alison Brackenbury. I love Mark Doty, too. He gives me permission to write poems about dogs, but for his self-deprecating humour that, in the words of one reviewer ‘reconciles trauma with grace’. And oh, the late-lamented Tony Hoagland who says he came to poetry out of a thirst for truth-telling! Oh and Anne-Marie Fyfe for her rare mixture of clarity and mystery. This is only a very short list with room for Anne Carson – her sheer daring weirdness!

9. Why do you write?

Because I cannot not write. Much as some days I wish I could stop writing poems, in particular, I know that I don’t really know how to do that.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I think I would ask them first why they wanted to become a writer. It’s so damned hard, frustrating and brutally lonely. If they seemed determined, I would say ‘just write and write and write and show it all to peer writers and more established writers and listen to their feedback and use it, even if at first you don’t believe it; treat it as an experiment and see where it takes you. Once you are under way, find a critical group or a mentor you trust.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I have been in the process of moving house, or trying to, for nearly two years, and I am very involved with the care of my two youngest grandchildren: 1 and nearly 3, so I never have enough time to write as much as I think I would like to. On the other hand, maybe that’s just an excuse for not generating much new material at present. I have three short pamphlets recently finished, which I am trying to place, individually or as a three-section collection if I can unify it under a ‘Three-of’ title. I am working on a ‘Selected’ for High Window Press, but not entirely convinced that it isn’t too soon after my last collection ‘Mood Indigo’ (2016). that’s enough to be going on with for the time being, I believe.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Wendy Klein Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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nightmareonfilmstreet · 7 years

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5 Horror Authors (Not Named King) To Scare Away Your Winter Blues

New Post has been published on https://nofspodcast.com/5-horror-authors-not-named-king-scare-away-winter-blues/

5 Horror Authors (Not Named King) To Scare Away Your Winter Blues

Quick, name one of your favorite horror authors.

I’ll Wait…

Did you say Stephen King?

You did. I’m pretty good at knowing stuff. In fact, 104% of you answered with some variation of Stephen King. I, like many members of the horror community, got my start in the genre through the Master of Horror himself. To fans and non-fans alike, he is synonymous with the term “horror author”. Other authors may be more poetic, others may be more prolific, but none have meant as much to horror fans as King. The film and television adaptations of his works account for many of our first nightmares. Because of this, we all owe him our gratitude.

Nothing will ever take away our love and admiration for The King. The problem that I have with his books, if I had to pick one, is that there isn’t an infinite supply of them. Horror fans all over the world have rows and rows of his books on their home library shelves, many times displaying multiple editions of the same book. So where does someone turn when they have read and re-read everything in King’s canon? I’m glad you asked! Here are five horror authors that will expand your horizons and keep your bedroom lights on throughout these long winter months.

Paul Tremblay

Book You Have To Read: A Head Full of Ghosts

Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for best horror novel of 2015, A Head Full of Ghosts tells the story of a family going through tough financial times as told through the eyes of an eight year old girl named Merry. Your father has lost his job and has turned to the church for solace. Your mom is breaking under the weight of being the sole breadwinner for the family. They fight and argue constantly, and just when you think things couldn’t get any worse, your sister starts to act… very peculiar.

What is a family to do when faced with a mountain of bills and a possibly possessed daughter? They do what is only natural in today’s world and turn to a reality TV producer. To stay afloat, they sign on the dotted line and invite the world in to see their struggle unfold. Is the troubled sister Marjorie really possessed, or is she merely pretending for the camera, as she claims? Isn’t that exactly what a demon would want you to think? This fantastic novel is fast paced and hard to put down. Marjorie’s behavior made me slam the book shut and yell “NOPE” more than a few times, and the ending is absolutely perfect.

Grady Hendrix

Book You Have To Read: My Best Friend’s Exorcism

Abby is a poor high school girl surrounded by wealth. The year is 1988 and she is attending a prestigious school on scholarship. Luckily for her, she has Gretchen, her beautiful best friend to serve as a bridge into the world of the rich and powerful. One night, Abby and her friends decide to drop LSD and see what happens. Most of the night is filled with boredom, until Gretchen goes missing into the woods, that is. Gretchen returns a few hours later, naked and unaware of where she is. She claims that nothing happened to her in those dark woods, but her behavior begins to tell a different story. Abby must find a way to save her best friend from the monster living inside of her before she is lost forever.

Hendrix is the best at dancing that fine line between comedy and horror. You can go from laughter to cold sweats in the span of a single paragraph. His books are a master-class in marketing and product design, but it’s anything but a gimmick. Packed into this novel is humor, terror and nostalgia for the days when being someone’s best friend actually meant something.

Nick Cutter

Book You Have To Read: The Deep

The human race is in being decimated by a terrible plague known as the ‘Gets. It causes its victims to forget things on a progressively severe slope. Innocent things are the first to go, like forgetting where you parked your car or your dog’s name. Unfortunately, it escalates quickly from there, until you forget how to breathe or how to circulate your own blood. There is no cure and little hope for survival, until a substance is found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench that behaves like a universal healer. A state of the art lab is built at the bottom of the world and a few brave scientists descend to try to cultivate this substance and create a cure for the ‘Gets. What they find in the darkness, however, is an evil far greater than the world has ever seen.

Canadian author Craig Davidson has released four novels writing as Nick Cutter, and it was difficult to select which title to include in this list. All are amazing in their own way, but none of them scared me quite like The Deep. It reads like a cross between John Carpenter’s The Thing and Sphere, combining paranoia and body horror to create a dread that you can taste in the back of your throat.

Adam Nevill

Book You Have to Read: Last Days

I have already written about Adam Nevill and even had the chance to ask him a few questions about his novel The Ritual. I’ve admitted many times that Nevill is my favorite horror author, and The Ritual was the first book of his that I read. Although that book has since been adapted into a film starring Rafe Spall, I believe that the book of his that every horror fan should read is Last Days. It follows a guerrilla filmmaker named Kyle as he makes a documentary about the Temple of the Last Days, a cult that was rumored to be involved in the occult and was at the center of a massacre in the mid seventies. Kyle decides to tell the story of the cult and its leader by going to the locations where it once thrived and by interviewing the surviving members. During filming, the members of cult begin to die in horrific ways, and something seems to be coming for Kyle and his crew-mate.

Many cults throughout history have tried to peek through the veil and into the world of the dead. What would happen if one of them actually succeeded, only instead of taking a peek, they managed to create a door? A former member of said cult hires a documentary crew to try to find out if the door can be closed, but what happens when these “old friends” start to come through? I won’t spoil it for you, just know that you will be sleeping with the lights on after this one.

John Langan

Book You Have To Read: The Fisherman

Winner of the 2016 Bram Stoker Award, John Langan’s The Fisherman is probably the most beautiful novel on this list. It follows a widower named Abe who has found peace on the banks of a river with a reel in hand. He becomes obsessed with the hobby, and invites along a coworker who just lost his whole family in a horrific car crash. They become fishing buddies and start to work their way through their grief in their own ways. That is, until they hear about a new stretch of fishing ground not found on any map called Dutchman’s Creek. While on their way there, there hear a story about the creek that is too good to be true. Could the rushing waters of Dutchman’s Creek possibly bring back the things that they have lost? Or is it just another fisherman’s tale?

With a unique story structure and truly beautiful prose, this tale will take you places you never thought imaginable. A combination of gargantuan monster story and folklore, The Fisherman is all about losing the things we love, and what we would do to get them back. This novel is a great bridge for those who don’t normally read horror fiction, for its scares are hidden between the perfect storytelling and heart wrenching descriptions of grief. The scares are there, though, and when they come at you they are beyond the scale of human understanding.

We all owe our fandom to The King, but these five horror authors are the heirs to the throne. Do yourself a favor and go to your favorite bookstore and pick up a few of these titles. You, and your local power company, will thank me. Hit us up on Twitter or in our Facebook Group and join the discussion. Who are your favorite horror authors right now? If you have read one of these titles, what did you think? I look forward to hearing from you and getting some new recommendations for myself.

#adam nevill #best horror authors #gary hendrix #horror #horror authors #horror books #horror novels #horror writers #john langan #nick cutter #paul tremblay #scary stories #sphere #Stephen King #the thing

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wakingwriter · 7 years

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When and why did you begin writing?

My first story was in third grade, where Mario, Link, and Zelda had to stop an evil wizard. Sadly, I never finished it. As a teenager, I wrote a narrative/humorous diary of a few family vacations. Then I started on a novel, which was terrible, put it down, picked it up again in college, put it down again, and started seriously writing after I had been working a couple years. After reading so much science fiction and fantasy growing up, I needed a way to process what I had read, which turned into novels of my own.

What are some day jobs you have held?

For my day job, I’m a mechanical engineer working at a large construction company doing performance engineering. I also teach karate. I studied Wado-Ryu Karate in college, and now teach a group of about 16-18 students. The elements of my other interests influence my writing. You can usually find some cool physics or martial arts in what I write! In my spare time, I play video and board games. My wife and I cosplay at a few cons each year and also force our pets to cosplay for the annual Christmas card.

What have you written so far?

I have two novellas out Tuning the Symphony and Merchants and Maji both in the same universe.

The Dissolutionverse is a society of ten planets connected by music-based magic instead of space flight. Merchants step from one planet to another to sell their goods. Alien cultures and languages spill from one world to another. Members of all ten species gather inside the Nether, the center of the society, to debate trade, law, and the economy of the Great Assembly. Only the maji can make the portals that link the planets together, and so the maji are central to keeping the economy going. Some of the stories focus on the maji, some on regular folks.

Remember that first terrible novel I wrote? After about 20 years and 4 or 5 complete rewrites, the ideas behind that original story have become “The Seeds of Dissolution.” After so many rewrites (and a lot of great alpha and beta reader feedback), I think it’s good enough to publish, and I’m running a Kickstarter from August 15th to September 16th to raise funds for adding more art, maps, and better editing. You can read the first two chapters here, and the Kickstarter is here.

I also have a couple works of flash fiction and I’ve written a couple (unpublished) YA books. One is about a boy whose father is killed, and he and his mother decide to change history to get him back, with his father’s time machine. The other I bill as “X-Men Evolution meets High School Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”

I’ve completed an epic fantasy, which I’m currently subbing to agents, where magic comes from eating seasonal fruit. The story uses Babylonian names and architecture, and in it two sisters escape slavery with a box marked by the gods. They work to discover the secret of a fifth godfruit where there should only be four when each fruit is blessed by the god of the corresponding season.

Tell us more about your main character. What makes him or her unique?

The main character for Seeds of Dissolution is Sam van Oen, who comes from Earth, and is accidentally thrust into the society of the Dissolutionverse. As such, he’s unfamiliar with it, which means he can learn along with the reader.

What makes Sam unique is that he has anxiety issues with crowds and new places, so showing up in the Nether is really freaking him out. There aren’t a lot of SFF main characters I’ve found that not only have anxiety issues but have to cope with them, rather than something magicking them away. I specifically show that magic can’t just cure him, and if it’s used to help, there are side effects, just like any medication.

In addition, Sam is bisexual (or pansexual, as this book contains species with multiple gender norms). I try not to make a big point of him deciding whether he “is” or “is not” bisexual. It’s a part of his character, and it comes out in the people he meets and the friends he makes. In the rare case of a bisexual main character, I’ve read of only a few males, and their sexual orientation is usually a main point of the book. I prefer it to be just one part of the experience of reading, like when you meet someone in real life.

What is your next project?

Most likely, one or two Dissolutionverse novellas, and after that, the next full novel. I have several novella ideas, ranging from a Sherlock Holmes-type mystery to a heist story, to a romance, or a Jules Verne-like adventure story.

Non-Dissolutionverse, I have two other novels outlined, one about colonists who land on a planet completely occupied by a sentient fungus, and the other about a society based on Incan culture, where body kinesthetics (like martial arts) create magic.

What are some ways in which you promote your work?

I’m slowly working through all the ways I can find!

I have a website, Facebook page, and Twitter feed. I may have driven a couple sales from Twitter, but I’m not sure. I also belong to a few indie author groups, and when a bunch of authors put together a group event, that gets the most attention and sales by far. Paid services will promote books, but I’ve never actually made money on a promo. Generally, they’re good for attention and a few sales, but probably not worth the price. I’ve also run ads on Goodreads and Amazon. Both generate clicks, but only a couple books sales. Finally, I go to various cons, both to sell books at a booth, and to be on panels. The con booths actually make some money.

Finally, there’s Kickstarter! For my latest novel, I’m attempting to offset the printing cost, and hopefully pay for some cool additions to the book while also giving some extras to the backers, like a new short story, wallpapers, buttons, maps, and even original artwork. If this is successful, I’ll likely do the same for my future self-published works.

As an independent publisher, it’s important to try a lot of methods, however, it’s also important to realize that any work you do on marketing is taking away from time you could be writing.

Do you work to an outline or plot sketch, or do you prefer to let a general idea guide your writing?

When I start a new full-length story, I’ll take a few days to type out connected thoughts about the story. When I hit an interesting thread, I start a bulleted list of events. I usually end up with 9-12 pages in the overall outline.

While writing, I paste sections of my outline below to guide how I write. So far I have not written a story that followed my original outline all the way, because I end up writing something that works so much better. Somewhere in the middle, I will stop to readjust the path of the story to reflect that and keep going.

Usually, I have several major changes to the story during the first edit, and less during the 2nd and 3rd.

How do you feel about indie/alternative vs. conventional publishing?

Self-publishing means you control everything about your book. It also means you have to do everything for your book. It takes a lot of work, and you won’t sell as many copies as a traditional publishing house, but you keep a lot more of the profit.

I’m not yet published traditionally, but I am still submitting and one day hope to be. Having books available by both methods means you can develop your brand in different ways. Your traditionally published books can boost your name further, whereas with self-publishing, you have the opportunity to write experimental stories and subject matter or genres that are not considered “marketable.” More and more traditionally published authors are using indie publishing as a way to make a little extra on the side and to give their readers something more for being loyal.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Keep writing. I’ve heard, at least for self-published authors, that you need about five books out before they start to really get noticed. When my second novella came out, I sold more of my first novella than my second, though that sounds contrary. Of course, if you land a deal with a publisher, they take care of a lot of the marketing work, but that’s why they also get a cut of the profit!

Who are some of your favorite authors that you feel were influential in your work?

I started out with Tolkien, C.S.Lewis, and Moorcock, and worked through Piers Anthony, Terry Pratchett, Robert Jordan, and David Eddings. These inspired me to start writing and to branch out in my reading.

Some of my current favorite authors are N.K.Jemisin and Brandon Sanderson, for their sheer imagination and worldbuilding. Lois McMaster Bujold and Mary Robinette Kowal have awesome characters, Jim Butcher has incredible plotting and sense of timing, and folks like Larry Niven, Neal Stephenson, Charles Stross, and James S.A. Corey obviously put a lot of research into showing how real science fiction can be.

If it’s not clear by now, I try to learn a little from each book I read, whether in style, art, or prose, and apply that to my own writing.

How can you learn more about William and his work?

Book Links:

Tuning the Symphony | Merchants and Maji

William C. Tracy, author of Tuning the Symphony @wctracy When and why did you begin writing? My first story was in third grade, where Mario, Link, and Zelda had to stop an evil wizard.

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nightmareonfilmstreet · 7 years

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5 Horror Authors (Not Named King) To Scare Away Your Winter Blues

New Post has been published on https://nofspodcast.com/5-horror-authors-not-named-king-scare-away-winter-blues/

5 Horror Authors (Not Named King) To Scare Away Your Winter Blues

Quick, name one of your favorite horror authors.

I’ll Wait…

Did you say Stephen King?

Paul Tremblay

Book You Have To Read: A Head Full of Ghosts

Grady Hendrix

Book You Have To Read: My Best Friend’s Exorcism

Nick Cutter

Book You Have To Read: The Deep

Adam Nevill

Book You Have to Read: Last Days

John Langan

Book You Have To Read: The Fisherman

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