Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 33
October 18, 2012
Tomorrow Night! Philadelphia Science Fiction Society
The October speaker will be unable to make it to the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society’s meeting this Friday night (October 19), so I was asked if I could substitute. You can read more here. My portion of the program begins at 9:00 pm.
October 15, 2012
Roundup of Recent Guest Posts
More book-preview posts. I’ve been introduced to a lot of new authors this way!
Angel With A Bullet by M.C. Grant. A lighthearted noir mystery. Yes, I meant to use both adjectives!
Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan. A Young Adult take on the Gothic novel, with humor.
Luther: the Calling by Neil Cross. A tie-in to the tv series, by the series creator.
Bleeding Through by Sandra Parshall, fifth in the Rachel Goddard mystery series.
Hanging by a Thread by Sophie Littlefield. A paranormal Young Adul...
October 10, 2012
My Capclave 2012 Schedule
I’ll be at Capclave this weekend! Here’s my schedule. Full schedule here.
The Future of YA
Saturday, 12:00 pm, Rockville/Potomac
Warren Buff, Victoria Janssen, Sherin Nicole, Diana Peterfreund
What is the next big trend in YA now that Vampires and Dystopias have had their big hits? Will the audience for YA continue to build or has it overexpanded? As YA books get longer and more sophisticated, is there really a need for a separate YA label?
Romancing the Paranormal
Saturday, 3:00 pm, Salons A...
October 8, 2012
October 7, 2012
“To My Brother,” Siegfried Sassoon
To My Brother
Give me your hand, my brother, search my face;
Look in these eyes lest I should think of shame;
For we have made an end of all things base.
We are returning by the road we came.
Your lot is with the ghosts of soldiers dead,
And I am in the field where men must fight.
But in the gloom I see your laurell’d head
And through your victory I shall win the light.
–Siegfried Sassoon
The Old Huntsman and Other Poems, 1918.
October 1, 2012
Mini-Review: “9 p.m. Victoria Coach Station” by Kate Pearce
Morning, Noon and Night: Erotica for Couples, edited by Alison Tyler, is out November 13, 2012 from Cleis Press. It’s an anthology with a nifty concept: one story for each hour of the day (plus one more for lagniappe). My story is the 8:00 pm one, and I was really pleased that the story immediately following mine was by Kate Pearce.
Kate and I have actually met, you see, and we chat a bit online. Though many of the other authors with whom I share anthology pages are familiar to me from th...
September 30, 2012
“The Dragon and the Undying,” Siegfried Sassoon
The Dragon and the Undying
All night the flares go up; the Dragon sings
And beats upon the dark with furious wings;
And, stung to rage by his own darting fires,
Reaches with grappling coils from town to town;
He lusts to break the loveliness of spires,
And hurls their martyred music toppling down.
Yet, though the slain are homeless as the breeze,
Vocal are they, like storm-bewilder’d seas.
Their faces are the fair, unshrouded night,
And planets are their eyes, their ageless dreams.
Tenderly stoopi...
September 24, 2012
I’m Going to Capclave!
I’ll be at Capclave next month. Here’s my schedule as it currently stands – I do not plan to do a reading or a signing, but if you happen to have something of mine you really want signed, find me and I will happily oblige, so long as I’m not, you know, in a bathroom stall at the time. Full draft programming schedule here.
The Future of YA
Saturday, 12:00 pm, Rockville/Potomac
Warren Buff, Victoria Janssen, Sherin Nicole, Diana Peterfreund
What is the next big trend in YA now that Vampires an...
September 23, 2012
“Absolution,” Siegfried Sassoon
Absolution
The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes
Till beauty shines in all that we can see.
War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise,
And, fighting for our freedom, we are free.
Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,
And loss of things desired; all these must pass.
We are the happy legion, for we know
Time’s but a golden wind that shakes the grass.
There was an hour when we were loth to part
From life we longed to share no less than others.
Now, having claimed this heritage of heart,
What...
September 17, 2012
“Crimean Fairy Tale” e-release
In my quest to make my short stories available for e-readers, I’ve recently put “Crimean Fairy Tale” up for sale, for Kindle and Nook.
The story is erotic romance, approximately 7000 words long, and is set, as you can probably guess from the title, during the Crimean War.
I knew very little about the Crimean War before I wrote it, so I read two entire books, plus skimmed another, and dug around online for Victorian slang, with the idea that I might eventually write more set in this period...
