Delia Sherman's Blog, page 21

Busy, Busy

Over the past two days, there's been a great deal of talking and writing and reading going on in our little Devon retreat.  Ellen and Holly and Terri spent yesterday cloistered in the studio, reading Bordertown stories and figuring out all the geography and the Shared World details.  Every once in a while, someone (mostly Ellen) would come in to get another pot of tea or take out a tray of cheese and bread, but basically, they were there from 10:30 am to nearly 7:00 pm, with one big break for...

Rainy Day in Devon

This morning, I awoke to a murder of crows vociferating outside the bedroom window.  When I drew the curtains to see what in tarnation was going on, I saw maybe 20 crows perching on rooftops and trees and power lines, including a large and terrifying hoodie crow.  I'd never seen one in the flesh and feathers before, not close enough to understand why they're called hoodie crows.  They have this slightly paler band of feathers, see, mantling their shoulders and head behind the eyes, which make...

It's a Beautiful Day in Devon

It's just gone 10pm here and the sky is that very deep purple-y-blue it turns just before real night descends.  Only 30 hours in Devon, and already it feels like home.  We've unpacked, staked out our territory, run into a friend on the way to the square, had Sunday dinner in a pub with a group of artists and writers, bought the fixings for dinner, cooked it, had some cider, taken three walks.  We've talked a great deal, worked a bit, and borrowed two sets of Wellies in case it really does rai...

Women Writers of SF/F

Here I am, packed, ready, and waiting for the car to pick me up at 5:30.  So I'm going to do something I never do (what, never?  Well, hardly ever.) and give you a meme, gakked from  maryrobinette .

Lordy, this list brings back memories. I've been in this business a while.  I remember writing a short story called "The Feathery Bride," a Texas tall-tale, and sending it to Ardath Mayhar to check over for dialect clunkers what.  I think Sharon Lee and Steve Miller were up for the Campbell the same ...

Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson

First of all:  I handed the book in.  Tuesday, about 10 minutes before it was time to leave the house to have dinner at a lovely soba restaurant in the East Village justinelavaworm  introduced us last week, called Soba-ya.  I ended up not hating my book hardly at all, which is a good thing, since there will inevitably be tweaks.  But it was a long, hard slog.  I want to write about why (other than just the fact that writing a novel is, by definition, a long, hard slog), but not now.  I'd much ...

Moonshine Trailer!

The beautiful and multi-talented Alaya Dawn Johnson has written a wonderful 1920's vampire mystery/romance/social commentary/noir called Moonshine.  She gave a wonderful pub party, where we all dressed up in flapper dresses, rouged our knees, put feathers/bandeaux in our hair, drank gloriously-named cocktails, and Charlestoned until we dropped. 

And now there's a trailer which includes scenes of the party and a very charming faux-1920's radio-news soundtrack.  I love it almost as much as I lo...

Russians and Frenchmen and Dancers, Oh, My!

This is a brief twofer, because (as everybody who has been following my whingeing knows), I'm UNDER DEADLINE and it's COMING FOR ME!

OK, I got that out of my system.

Because we get the bends if we don't go to the theatre from time to time, and because The Forest was probably leaving town before too long, and because the New York City ballet almost never shows up on TDF, I dragged myself away from the endlessly fascinating contemplation of my navel novel to accompany Ellen to the Classic Theatre...

Boop-boop-di-animation

This is for anyone who loves comics, animation, and slightly surrealistic experiences.  It is not for anyone who has motion-triggered headaches or vertigo or is likely to be bothered by swiftly-morphing images.  frostokovich  steered me to it, and I'm so very glad.