Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 141

Lady With an Ermine

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Out of infinity she looms, more alive than the living.  She will not meet our eyes, this silent daughter of time, but gazes away, toward something worthy of her regard.  Nor will she share her thoughts.  Come Judgment Day we will know no more of them than we do now.

In the lady's arms is an ermine, which she touches affectionately, but does not seek to control.  She and it have freely chosen each other's company.

Her face holds the faintest of smiles.

Not for us.


And this morning . . . 

I saw Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine.  I hope your day was happy too.

Krakow After Dark

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The world is turning on its hinges, all the leaves have fallen, and darkness falls in the afternoon.  If you're in Poland, anyway.  Your autumn may well differ.

A day mainly occupied with crossing the nation by train, deposited me at the heart of this lovely city, only a couple of blocks from the oldest part of town.   I've only spent a few hours wandering about, but already I can safely say that:

1. Hotel Maltanski is a lovely place to stay.  I'd recommend it to anyone physically capable of climbing one flight of stairs. (There is no elevator.)

2.  The city is full of great restaurants.  Well... I've only looked at the menus of a dozen or two and eaten at one, but they all looked good and the one tasted great, so statistically, it seems a good bet.  Foodie Tip:  When in Poland, order Polish food.  What are the odds you're going to find better elsewhere?

3.  The pierogies here are terrific.  (See item 2)

4.  There's a lot of amber for sale here.  I mean, cubic vulgarwordloads of it.  Shop after shop and, in the Cloth Hall, stand after stand, of amber in every plausible shade from deepest burgundy to palest yellow.  Some of it small, most of it pretty damn big, and a significant percentage simply ridiculous.  If you have too much money and like your jewelry LARGE, you're a fool to be living anywhere but here.

5.  I'm really, really tired, and even more looking forward to tomorrow.

'Night, all.

Above:  no image tonight becauseI'm having troubles uploading images.  I'll try again here tomorrow.

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On To Krakow!

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"Oh, Krakow is so beautiful."

"You have to see Krakow!"

"Yes!  Krakow!  I'm so glad you'll see it."

These are the kind of things people say about Krakow in Warsaw!  So I expect we'll have a great time there.  Right now, though, we have to finish breakfast, pack, check out, take the train, check into a new hotel, and wander about, looking at things.  So it will be a while before today's update.

Eight hours, maybe?  See you then!
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Lisc

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Warsaw at Night

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Last night I was wandering through Warsaw's Old City after dark.  It was a profound and moving experience because the Old City was destroyed, along with most of the rest of Poland after the Warsaw Uprising in WWII.  The beautiful medieval square, with its happy tourists and (last night, anyway) hurdy-gurdy player, is a reproduction.  Here and there in the surrounding streets are markers noting the locations where groups of Poles were murdered by the Nazis.

To make the evening even more extraordinary, it was November 11, National Independence Day, so great masses of joyous people were coursing through the streets, and there were musicians and buskers and balloon vendors and and happy, weary children everywhere.

So I am happy.  More soon, I hope.




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Not Quite A Con Report

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I've been in Poland for several days now.  Most of which I spent at Falkon, where I met David Weber and Marek Huberath, hung out with Konrad Walewski, had a terrific time, and was gobsmacked by the sight of a science fiction convention with an attendance of almost seven thousand people most of them young.Obviously, Polish fandom is doing something right.

But I also got to wander around Lublin, admire the Old City, stop for coffee and conversation in a rather swell store crammed with books I could not read, pass through the Jewish Gate and climb to the castle (a misnomer, for the castle was torn down and replaced by a prison where, during WWII, too many thousands of people murdered) wherein is preserved the Devil's handprint, from when he slammed a hand down on a table during the Middle Ages, in an incident I hope someday to write about.

I also climbed the hill above Kazimiersk Dolny, wandered among its Renaissance buildings, got a private art show, ate wonderful food and met yet more wonderful people.

Alas, I don't have the time or energy to go into any of that in detail.  But I wanted you to know that I'm well, and enjoying myself immensely.


And meanwhile back in the States . . .

The World Fantasy Awards have been announced and while of course, yes, congratulations to everyone, I should give a shout out to those winners who are particular pals of mine.

First of all to Ellen Datlow, editor extraordinaire, for Lifetime Achievement, one of the least controversial awards ever.  Then to Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages who were, respectively, Clarion West and Clarion South students of mine, and difficult ones, too, for "Wakulla Springs," named Best Novella.  Props to my problem children!  Also to Gardner Dozois and George R. R. Martin, who won Best Anthology for Dangerous Women.  I'm proud to say that I knew them back when I was unpublished and they were both ten feet tall.  And to Best Artist Charles Vess, who once upon a time made me ridiculously happy by creating the single best drawing ever based on Hope Mirrlees' Lud-in-theMist.

I must also acknowledge some professional colleagues:  Irene Gallo, who won Special Award: Professinal for art direction at Tor.com and, not absolutely incidentally, assigned some very fine artists to stories I published there; William K. Schaeffer, also Special Award: Professional (it was a tie) for Subterranean Press, my occasional publisher; and Neile Clarke, Kate Baker, and Sam Wallace for Clarkesworld, which published my tale of life among the annelids, "Passage of Earth."

You can read the entire list here.

Above:  The Jewish Gate, Lublin.  I'll post it as soon as I get a better connection than mu hotel affords.
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Road Trips, American and Otherwise

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Some time back, a writer interviewed me for a series of short films he was making for the Copyright Alliance,  a group dedicated to preserving common-sense property rights for writers.  Long story short, there are a lot of politicians out there who don't know the difference between copyright and trademark and are under pressure to rewrite the copyright laws anyway.  So the Alliance works to make them aware that a few ill-chosen words could bankrupt a lot of hardworking word-based small businesses such as yours truly.

The writer, Patrick Ross, was journeying across the country, interviewing creative people and while he was at it making his version of the Great American Road Trip.  Most writers feel the urge to do this at least once in their lifetimes, and if they can find a good enough premise for a book a certain percentage of them do so.

I was not, therefore, surprised to learn that Ross had written up his journey and published it as Committed: A Memoir of the Artist's Road .   Nor that he was on an intensely personal, it would be fair to say spiritual, journey in search of resolution for certain difficult aspects of his life and a way forward for his own writing.  Not that he seemed anything other than a pleasant and intelligent man when I met him.  But with age one comes to appreciate the unseen depths of those one meets, and to anticipate the unexpected.

I received a copy of the book today and of course immediately read the short chapter involving myself.  And in it I say at least one thing that is worth a new writer or other creator hearing.  So I am content.  I've dipped into it in a couple of places, and it looks interesting.  I expect to enjoy it.

Ordinarily, I would finish the entire book before posting anything about it.  But I leave for Lublin tomorrow (see below) and won't be back for two weeks.  So, early attention being important to all new books, I thought I'd mention its existence today.  I am, as I said, enjoying it so far.  And it seems like the sort of book a lot of you out there would be interested in.

You can find Patrick Ross's blog, The Artist's Road , with lots of writing advice, here.  You can find his page about the book, with lots of links, here.  And a radio interview here.


And as always . . .

I'm on the road again!  To Lublin, Poland, this time for the Falkon Festival of the Fantastic.  After which, I plan to stay for a bit to explore Warsaw and Krakow.  I'll do my best to keep this blog updated on the usual schedule.  But if there's one thing travel teaches you, it's to make as few unequivocal promises as possible.

So I expect you'll be able to follow my adventures here -- the Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise.


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Dinosaur Channel TV!

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Over on Kickstarter, my pals Robert Walters and Tess Kissinger of the Walters and Kissinger Studio are gathering backing for a Web channel of dinosaur-related programming.  This is, God knows, a worthy thing to do and something that's going to keep them stressed and sleepless for years to come.  But they are passionate about the need to educate both children and adults about the wonders of the deep past.

You can find the Dinosaur Channel TV Kickstarter campaign here.  Please consider donating.  Because the world needs more dinosaurs.


And as always . . .

I'm going on the road again.  For most of the next two weeks I'll be in Poland.  I'm a guest at Falkon this coming weekend, which I expect to be a (forgive me) fantastic experience.   After which, Marianne and I will stay over to explore a small fraction of that amazing country.

I'll do my best to keep you all posted.  With photos, I hope!  My son, Sean, gave me a quick seminar on how to work around the limitations of my iPad.

You can find Falkon's website here.


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In the Midst of Death...

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This is my time of year, so much so that the neighborhood kids refer to Halloween as "Michael's Holiday."

But with great pleasure goes great responsibility.  The Man Who Turned Into a Radioactive Spider said that.  So I spent the morning at Gorgas Park, stamping leaves with the words AUTUMN and DEATH.  Just to remind everyone exactly what we celebrate tonight.

The photo above shows some of my handiwork.

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Fran Wilde -- GEEK of the WEEK!

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One of the advantages of living in Philadelphia is that your chances of becoming Geekadelphia's Geek of the Week go way up.  In the past, this august honor has gone to (among many others) me, Gardner Dozois, Gregory Frost, and Tom Purdom.

Now it's our friend Fran Wilde's turn.  Here's a brief excerpt from her interview:

Will you still be writing short stories now that you’ve been working on novels? Is there something special about the form that you enjoy?

I don’t think I can quit short stories. I love their constraints – the brevity, the framing. It’s also really important for me to shake up the pace now and then.

Which is a sweet answer, if not entirely true.  I've seen any number of terrific short story writers quit the form.  They get into writing novels, which are profitable, and set aside short fiction, which is not.  Possibly they think they'll return to it someday -- I've never asked.  Because the ability to write short fiction well is like being young and beautiful, or witty, or well-liked.  Once you give it up, you're not likely to get it back.

Everything else Fran says is true, however.  Short fiction is a great way to shake things up, to try out something new, to keep your longer work from growing stale and predictable.  I'm glad she doesn't think it's possible to quit writing it.  I hope that, many novels from now, when it's all too easy to let it slide away, she stays in the game.

You can find the entire interview here.

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