Delia Sherman's Blog, page 20

Helsinki 1

Fairly briefly, because I've been up just about forever--and it hasn't been night yet.

Finland is gorgeous.

We spent 7 hours in the air, between 8 and 9 hours in the plane, but life is like that, and has been ever since I've been traveling.  I used to fly through Helsinki with my parents, when you had to break flights to Europe either in Helsinki or Shannon because you couldn't get to London or Paris with out refueling.  I don't remember what Helsinki airport looked like in 1950-something, but ...

Aqueduct Press Reaches an Important Milestone!

The wonderful and dedicated L. Timmel DuChamp has published, in the course of the 6 years that Aqueduct Press has been in existence, 50 (count 'em--50) books.  Which is a lot of books in a relatively short space of time for any small press.  Aqueduct has published new and reprint work by established luminaries like Ursula K. Leguin, Eleanor Arnason, and Gwyneth Jones as well as poetry, fiction, and criticism by rising stars like Andrea Hairston, Vandana Singh, Rachel Swirsky, and Helen Merric...

Return to NYC

I'm home.  I have been home since Sunday night, but yesterday was a day of sleep and exercise and an afternoon nap and watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, plus all the extras, followed by Becoming Jane, followed by more sleep.

The Clarionites are forbidden to blog about their experience while it happens, so all I'll say is that it was an awesome week, (except for the food, which was HORRIBLE) and it was very hard to tear myself away.

I do love teaching workshops.  The sheer energy generated by a...

San Diego Reading

I will be reading tonight at 7:00pm at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore in San Diego.  Come one, come all to hear me read either "Wizard's Apprentice" from Troll's Eye View or "The Mystery of Cwmlech Manor," which will appear next year in Steampunk!, an anthology edited by Gavin Grant and Kelly Link.  And meet the Clarion Class of 2010, which is what I'm doing here.  But I've promised not to talk about that.

7:00pm.  Mysterious Galaxy.  If you're in the neighborhood, we'd love to see you.

San Diego

It's been a lovely two days.  Our friends live in a wonderful little bungalow with summer-green sycamore trees out front and a sycamore stained-glass window in the living room in autumn colors of rust and gold and a little Jack Russel terrier mix called Olive who slept on my feet all the way through Friday night dinner, which I appreciated because my feet are always cold.  She's the most cat-like dog I've ever met, and she comes from San Miguel del Allende, where our hosts, Yale Strom and his...

The Screwtape Letters (plus, Birthday Dinner)

What with travel and jet-lag and getting ready for the next trip, we haven't been to the theater in, oh, weeks.  However, tonight, in honor of my natal day, Ellen got tickets to The Screwtape Letters.

Which I will tell you all about.  But first, dinner.

A while back, we asked Barry Goldblatt (Agent to the Stars) to recommend a fancy-pants restaurant suitable for a business dinner when somebody else was paying.  He guided us to Aureole, a lovely place on 42nd Street, a couple blocks East of Broa...

On-Line Writing Teachers

Dear Internets:

Today, I got a letter from a young man who wants to be a writer.

In the course of things, I get these from time to time, and usually content myself with a bit of advice and a recommendation to find a local writing course or an on-line workshop.  In this case, I gave the advice (read a lot; write a lot), but I'd also like to do a little more.  He's a dark fantasy/horror enthusiast (he loves H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith), and he's got some learning disabilities.  This is ...

Carl Sagan Sings--Kind of

Kendrick Goss, husband of tgoss , is spending the weekend with us in New York, learning how to do something complicated having to do with lasers and expending shoe-leather exploring various neighborhoods.  Last night, over a dinner of fried whiting and steamed zucchini with vinegar, he told us about a video that used the tone-correcting technology that allows tone-deaf pop stars to sing on key to create a song out of Carl Sagen talking about the universe.  The result is one part wacked-out an...

Farewell to Devon

It was grand.

We walked.  We talked.  We had dinner with (it seemed) half the population of the town.  I made stew with a hunk o' venison freshly provided by the folks at Castle Drogo, the local 19th C. Gothik Extravaganza and a lovely bottle of Cahors wine.  Theo replaced the hinges on the kitchen cabinets and made shelves for the glass-fronted cabinet so we could get all the mugs into it instead of just 6.  Ellen, Holly, and Terri Border-ized all the stories and went over all the copy edits,...

Home Again, Plus How To Open A Bottle Of Wine With A Shoe

My road to you-know-where is well-paved.  I have a couple of posts floating about my head, and really did mean to get them out there, but, well.  Life and work.

Anyway, we're home now, having taken a red-eye out of Heathrow at 9:10 last night, which got us in our door at 1:30 this morning.  And of course I woke up at 6, completely incapable of even thinking of going back to sleep.  Result:  I'm pretty much unpacked, I've made a grocery list, I've downloaded all the photos I took (not nearly en...