Angela Slatter's Blog, page 35

Five Books That Taste Great by Cassandra Khaw

Few things warm my cold, cold heart more than the words “We read your stories in class.”

One of the things that sets said chill heart to “positively toasty” is articles like this by the multi-talented Cassandra Khaw, who’s kindly put my The Girl With No Hands and Other Tales in such excellent company with:

The Breaker Queen by C.S.E. Cooney
Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs
The Least of My Scars by Stephen Graham Jones
The End of the Sentence by Kat Howard & Maria Dahvana Headley

Tastes like tamed and trained hemlock? I’ll take that with glee.

Modern Literary Witches Go Beyond Maiden, Mother, and Crone

Over at Tor.com Natalie Zutter examines breaking out of the Maiden, Mother, Crone Bermuda Triangle!

Partway through Deborah Harkness’ A Discovery of Witches, scholar-turned-witch Diana Bishop encounters a trio of familiar figures: a maiden, a mother, and a crone. These three archetypes are the aspects of the goddess Hecate, appearing as sisters. This triad has resurfaced in everything from Discworld to A Song of Ice and Fire, representing both one woman going through different phases of life and a functional coven of witches, each bringing a different perspective to the magic.

The Hecate Sisters are a useful lens through which to examine the current state of witches in literature—modern takes on a timeless figure, with witches’ conflicts and wants changing with the generations.

In the past few years, the young adult genre has made renewed explorations into witch stories, tapping into themes of feeling set apart from other adolescents as well as growing into your powers. It’s no surprise, then, that Blue Sargent (Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys and the entire Raven Cycle) and Nathan Byrn (Sally Green’s Half Bad) stand in for the maiden—who is also depicted as a huntress, which more matches Nathan’s place in his magical society.

In A Discovery of Witches, Diana Bishop recognizes that she, with her ability to give  supernatural life through her blood, represents the mother figure. Katherine van Wyler, the ancient witch holding a town captive in Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s HEX, met her supernatural fate when her children were taken from her. And while she doesn’t have any children, Patience Gideon is undoubtedly maternal, taking care of the locals of Edda’s Meadow with her herbal remedies—and much more powerful cures—in Angela Slatter’s Of Sorrow and Such.

The rest is here.

 

On Reading

Specifically, on the reading you need to do when you’re a writer.

Reading out loud.

In front of an audience.

This is terrifying enough on its own, but you can manage it. Here are a few hints that I find useful:

Practise your reading before you turn up at the place of the reading.
Practise it more than once. More than twice. Go up to five times (after that you’ll freak yourself out).
Time it – the average reading should go for between 3-5 minutes coz that’s generally all the attention span the audience can bear (unless you’re an awesome storyteller who can hold people’s hearts and minds and ears in the palm of your hand).
Be aware that what’s written on the page, what looks wondrous to the eye, is not necessarily going to do the tongue and ears any favours. When you read aloud in the privacy of your own lounge room, bedroom, kitchen, gazebo, panic room, listen carefully. Are you breathless? More so than nerves can explain? Then that lovely long sentence you slaved over needs to be read differently. Cut in two or three, pauses added so you can breathe and the listener can enjoy your words. That huge passage of description? Do you really need it all? Is some of that already covered by other lines, and you were just making a point in print? Cut it back, or out entirely (NB: be careful not to take out a salient point or something that gives the story meaning.)
This is entirely personal, but my rule is don’t drink before you read. You might think it soothes your nerves, coats your tongue with silver, but a nervous person tends to be a gulper and before you know it, you’ve had two or three, your cheeks are red and you’re laughing uncontrollably, falling over your own feet and impaling yourself on the mic stand (if you’re luck – then you can be carted off to hospital and avoid the reading). Trust me, no one will talk about the awesome reading.

So, to illustrate the flensing technique, here are the first two pages of the story I read at Muse in Canberra last Thursday night before Conflux started. Kaaron Warren, Ellen Datlow and I all went along and chatted to a full house about Alice in Wonderful, and Ellen’s new anthology Mad Hatters and March Hares, in which Kaaron and I both have stories. You can see what I took out and what I left in.

Conflux, The Tallow-Wife and a Dress with Pockets

Greetings from the much neglected blog!

I’m at Conflux this weekend, in our nation’s lovely capital of Canberra!

If you’re here, please come up and say ‘hi’! I look something like this (dress has pockets). Tomorrow I will look different.

Also, if you pre-ordered The Tallow-Wife limited edition novella, feel free to sidle up to me and ask for it nicely – we will make arrangements and assignations. If you’d like to buy one of the remaining copies, the in the 15 mins after my GoH spot on Sunday, Kathleen Jennings and I will be signing and Eleanor will be selling!

Broad Knowledge: 35 Women Up To No Good

White fox by Kathleen Jennings

I’m delighted to be in an anthology with the words “up to no good” in its title!

Upper Rubber Boot is  producing Broad Knowledge: 35 Women Up To No Good, a feminist anthology of dark fiction and darker knowledge, edited by Joanne Merriam. Containing 35 stories of “bad” women, and “good” women who just haven’t been caught yet, it features 35 fearless women writers. It’s the second in the Women Up To No Good series, and is forthcoming in spring 2018.

“The Song of Sighs” is getting an outing here, in an impressive ToC!

Charlotte Ashley, “She Falls”
R. S. Benedict, “Clara Vox”
Megan Chaudhuri, “First mouse model of Innsmouth Fish-man Syndrome draft 2 USE THIS VERSION – edits by MK.doc”
Autumn Christian, “Flowers for Dogman”
Vida Cruz, “Blushing Blue”
Christina Dalcher, “Vox”
Sarina Dorie, “The Visitations of Seraphim by Biblical Scholar Father Anthony Maguire”
L. Timmel Duchamp, “The Forbidden Words of Margaret A.”
A. T. Greenblatt, “Five Meters Ahead, Two Centuries Away”
Claudine Griggs, “The Cold Waters of Europa”
Audrey R. Hollis, “Your Life Will Look Perfect From Afar”
Joanna Michal Hoyt, “Taking It Back”
Rebecca Jones-Howe, “Election Season”
Ezzy G. Languzzi, “Viva La Muñeca”
Maggie Maxwell, “Like I Need a Hole in the Head”
Rati Mehrotra, “Make Pretty”
Teresa P. Mira de Echeverría, “Liquid Glass” (trans. Lawrence Schimel)
Premee Mohamed, “Below the Kirk, Below the Hill”
Wendy Nikel, “Maidens of the Sea”
Julie Nováková, “Frankenstein Sonata”
Aimee Ogden, “Matched Set”
Therese Pieczynski, “Three Days, Two Nights”
Laura E. Price, “Mary in the Looking Glass”
Clarice Radrick, “The Red”
Estíbaliz Espinosa, “:: 23 commuter line chromosomes ::”
Tabitha Sin, “The Donor”
Angela Slatter, “The Song of Sighs”
D.A. Xiaolin Spires, “Sunbasker”
Priya Sridhar, “Tidal Bloom”
Julie Steinbacher, “Blood Sausage”
Sonya Taaffe, “Like Milkweed”
Liz Ulin, “Profanity”
Marie Vibbert, “Infinite Boyfriends”
Mingzhao Xu, “Think, Baby Turtle”
Xin Niu Zhang, “The Ladies in the Moon”

Muse Canberra: Mad Hatters and March Hares

So the night before Conflux, Muse will be hosting myself, Kaaron Warren and Ellen Datlow to talk about the new anthology Ellen’s edited, Mad Hatters and March Hares.

Both Kaaren and I have stories in there, and we’ll be doing readings as well as chatting about the influence of the Alice tales … and how easily they might be turned to the purposes of horror.

Booking details are here.

Suspended in Dusk II

For horror aficionados comes Suspended in Dusk II, edited by Simon Dewar and published by Grey Matter Press.

Oh, and with an Introduction by me.

Coming soon for pre-order here.

ToC:

Introduction – Angela Slatter

Love is a Cavity I Can’t Stop Touching – Stephen Graham Jones

The Sundowners – Damien Angelica Walters

Crying Demon – Alan Baxter

Still Life with Natalie – Sarah Read

That Damned Cat – Nerine Dorman

The Immortal Dead – JC Michael

Mother of Shadows – Benjamin Knox

There’s No Light Between Floors – Paul Tremblay

Another World – Ramsey Campbell

The Mournful Cry of Owls – Christopher Golden

Riptide – Dan Rabarts

Dealing in Shadows – Annie Neugebauer

Angeline – Karen Runge

The Hopeless People in the Uninhabitable Places – Letitia Trent

Wants and Needs – Paul Michael Anderson

An Elegy to Childhood Monsters – Gwendolyn Kiste

Lying in the Sun on a Fairytale Day – Bracken MacLeod

Most excellent cover by Dean Samed.

 

Australia Council announcement

I’m delighted and grateful and humbled and relieved to say that I was fortunate enough to be awarded an Australia Council for the Arts grant for next year.

This in no way represents ‘free money’. What it represents for me, and others, is that we are able to keep going for another year. I was at the end of my tether, I must admit, and about to go back to an office job. Writing careers proceed in fits and starts, there are peaks and troughs; grants like these help us keep going.

My project will be an Australian gothic novel called Blackwater.

The writers and literary organisations list contains quite a few friends and colleagues – including Claire Corbett, Nicole Hayes, Cass Moriarty, Michele Seminara, Omar Sakr and Ellen van Neerven – which is heartening indeed.

Adelaide Festival of Children’s Books
(Peter) James Boyce
Jessie Cole
Claire Corbett
Tricia Dearborn
Nicole Hayes
Abdul Hekmat
Lisa Hills
Zoe Holman
Daniel Keene
Michelle Leber
Bella Li
Cass Moriarty
Liam Pieper
Christine Piper
Omar Sakr
Michele Seminara
Angela Slatter
The Garret Podcast (Astrid Edwards and Nic Brasch)
Ellen van Neerven

Another eight groups received arts projects organisations grants.

Cordite Press
Giramondo Publishing Company
Melbourne University Publishing
NSW Writers’ Centre
Puncher & Wattmann
Spineless Wonders
The Stella Prize
TLB Society

Five projects were awarded development grants for individuals and groups.

Jesse Blackadder
Michael Fikaris
Amanda Murray
Stephanie Van Schilt and Jess O’Callaghan
Ariella Van Luyn

The full list of recipients in all art forms is here.

Proper cover!

This is how The Tallow-Wife novella’s cover will look for the limited edition hardback for Conflux!

I should mention that if you love it and want it (and you KNOW you do), then you need to pre-order. It *is* a limited edition; a few will be available at Conflux, but after that it will be gone, like dust in the wind.

 

Sharp Things

So I’m generally not allowed near sharp objects but in the interests of research I was today given training with several swords.

I needed to get some good info for Restoration, the final Verity book, so I contacted my fave swordswoman, Lois Spangler, about some instruction.

Conversation over breakfast with her and Peter M. Ball started out with the words “How many swords do you have in your car right now?” and never dipped below awesome.

Answer: three.

I like to think of them as emergency swords, but they are in fact practice swords.

Also: new t-shirt.

And yes, Verity Fassbinder gets a sword.