Angela Slatter's Blog, page 48

Sorcerer to the Crown: Zen Cho

Photo by Jim C. Hines

Zen Cho was born and raised in Malaysia, and lives in London. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Selangor Young Talent Awards and the Pushcart Prize, honour-listed for the Carl Brandon Society Awards, and translated into French, Spanish, Italian and Finnish. Cho was a 2013 nominee for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, joint winner of the Crawford Award for her short story collection Spirits Abroad (Buku Fixi, 2014) and winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer for her debut historical fantasy novel Sorcerer to the Crown (Ace/Macmillan, 2015).

Sorcerer to the Crown was also a Locus Awards finalist for Best First Novel, RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards nominee for Best Fantasy Novel and official nominee for the ALA/YALSA Alex Awards, as well as being longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association Awards and the Tiptree Award. Sorcerer to the Crown has appeared in Best Books of 2015 lists from Library Journal, ALA, Barnes & Noble, NPR, io9, Tor.com, BookRiot and the Seattle Times.

Cho is the editor of anthology Cyberpunk: Malaysia (Buku Fixi, 2015), a Popular-The Star Readers’ Choice Awards 2016 finalist. She was a juror for the Speculative Literature Foundation 2014 Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds grants and serves on the Board of non-profit Con or Bust. She has appeared at festivals and conventions in Malaysia, USA, UK, the Netherlands and Finland, and co-organised UK convention Nine Worlds Geekfest’s first Race & Culture programming track. Cho has spoken on feminism and social justice in genre on Minnesota Public Radio News, BBC Radio 4 and Al Jazeera’s online daily TV show The Stream.

1. First of all, what do new readers need to know about Zen Cho?



I’m a fantasy author from Malaysia who grew up on a diet of Jane Austen, P.G. Wodehouse, Terry Pratchett, Edith Nesbit and Diana Wynne Jones books, and my writing is a mix of these and other influences closer to home. I’ve published a collection of short stories, Spirits Abroad, and a historical fantasy novel, Sorcerer to the Crown, which is about England’s first African Sorcerer Royal.

2. Which book, either fictional or otherwise, would you say taught you the most about writing?



That’s an interesting question! Every book teaches you about writing, if you’re paying attention, but if I had to pick one I guess I’d go for Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Pratchett’s work was what taught me that you can be incredibly funny and deal with the big issues at the same time.

3. What was the inspiration for Sorcerer to the Crown?



Like any novel it came from any number of initial sparks, but its ultimate source was the old-timey British books I grew up reading, and how they often referred to characters as “dark”. This used to puzzle me as a kid because in my world when you said someone was dark, you meant they were dark-skinned – but I knew English storybooks were all about white people. It took me a while to figure out that they simply meant “dark-haired”. But I thought it’d be interesting to write a book in the style of those novels I grew up reading, only about someone who was actually dark-skinned.

4. Do you prefer long form or short form?



Long form gives me tremendous difficulty, but I probably prefer it. You have more space for exploring character, which is what I’m really interested in.

5. How do you balance writer with other day job requirements?



With difficulty! I’m lucky enough to work part-time, which means I’m assured of a set amount of time per week to write, but you still need to be very organised and very protective of that writing time.

6. What’s the story behind The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo?



That was directly inspired by Uncommon Arrangements by Katie Roiphe, a book about the tangled love lives of the Bloomsbury Group. I thought the story of feminist writer Rebecca West and Victorian superstar H. G. Wells made a perfect romcom – they met when West savaged a book by Wells in a review, and had a relationship that went on for years – so I wrote it. But I made the heroine an obscure Malayan Chinese writer living in London to cut down on the need for research.

7. Can you remember the first story you read that made you think “I want to be a writer”?



No. My earliest recorded short story dates from when I was six, so the urge must have begun early!

8. When you’re in the mood to read, who do you choose?



It depends on what I’m in the mood to read … I read a lot of history, particularly of Britain in the Regency period, and Malaysian and Southeast Asian history of any period. With fiction I read across genres a fair bit. I reread more than I probably should. My “guilty pleasure, no effort required” reads are middlebrow fiction by British interwar female writers – the sort of books published by Virago and Persephone Books – and biographies of female writers.

9. You get to invite five fictional characters to dinner: what’s your guest list look like?



(1) Chirrut Imwe, Donnie Yen’s badass warrior monk character from Star Wars: Rogue One, because I just watched it and I love him.

(2) Grace Delarua from Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds, because she’s smart and down-to-earth and could teach us to swear in a dozen space languages.

(3) Stephen Maturin from Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series. He’s canonically bad company at the dinner table but would probably exert himself due to the demands of Regency etiquette, also, he’s one of my two favourite fictional characters of all time.

(4) Temeraire from Naomi Novik’s Temeraire novels. We’d have to cater a whole cow or two just for him, but he’d tell us about draconic rights and Chinese literature!

(5) Kuchiki Rukia from Kubo Tite’s Bleach series, the other of my two favourite fictional characters of all time. She’s dead but she likes cucumbers and rice dumplings so she’d be easy to feed.

10. What’s next for Zen Cho?

I’m working on the follow-up to Sorcerer to the Crown, which will hopefully be out some time in 2018.

A Belated Christmas Blog

Why yes, I do look like crap, but I haz a crown.

Well, 2016 was for me (as well as a lot of other people) quite challenging. Professionally, it went really, really well – Vigil launched in July and is still going strong, I published two short story collections, four new short stories, and had three stories reprinted. I handed in Corpselight and am now plotting Restoration to finish off the Verity Fassbinder series. I wrote a further eight short stories for publication in 2017 and 2018. I had a lovely book tour of the UK (and yes, I know I still need to finish off that blog series), and was the Established Writer-in-Residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre in Perth.

Personally, however, it was poop. The less said about it, the better, but highlights include several family deaths and illnesses, the breakup of my eight year relationship, having to move house, and the stuffing up of both my old lady knees. It got to the point where I started to look at the sky, slightly fearful that a safe or a grand piano was going to fall on my head.

But I got through it. I got through it and there was one thing I was holding out for as a proper full stop on the Year of Brown Stuff. What I really looked forward to at the end of 2016 was the annual Trivial Pursuit contest with my mother and sister.

Every Christmas, my sister and nephew and I head to our parents’ place in order to do the Christmas thing.

In Australia, the Christmas thing for a chunk of the population generally seems to involve pretending we’re somehow in the UK or Europe, and my lot were no exception for many years. Despite the heat, the legions of flies and mosquitoes big enough to saddle, despite six generations of living in the Sunburnt Country, we still somehow thought that the Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English, German, French, Danish and Portuguese blood we’ve accidentally ended up with meant we were obliged to cook and eat a hot feast. To turn the ovens on and up, up, up whilst outside the sun tried to jokingly bake us in forty degree Celsius temperatures.

Fortunately, in recent years cooler heads and meals have prevailed. There’s invariably a moment for most Australians with Western backgrounds when they realise the heat emanating from the roasting turkey, chicken, duck, potatoes and pig, is enough to give a small outback town radiation burns. If you by some horrible, horrible mistake end up outside during the day – say, after 8.30am or before 6pm – you’re a goner. If you’ve got hot food inside you you’re basically spontaneous human combustion waiting to happen.  Do not get me started on Christmas pudding.

Of course, in many homes some idiot filled with bonhomie and beer will suggest a friendly game of Christmas cricket – cricket, a game meant to be played in a balmy British summer, not under a sun that is trying to kill you and everyone you love. This person should always be knocked unconscious and left under the Christmas tree for his husband or wife to find – tying a red bow around some body part is optional, but freaking hilarious.

Fortunately, no one suggests cricket chez nous nowadays. Those with an interest in such pastimes know the best way to participate is by sitting in a recliner-rocker in air-conditioned comfort with drinks and leftover pavlova easily accessible. That’s my dad taken care of. The nephew has all manner of electronic devices to keep him happy and no interest in cricket, bless him.

My mother, sister and I have another holiday pursuit entirely.

Trivial Pursuit, in fact.

It’s highly competitive. It has been known to be played until two in the morning, when considerable sledging occurs – something we’d never normally consider passable behaviour, but when it comes to Triv (yes, said exactly like The Young Ones’ Rick-with-a-silent-p) all bets are off. Three otherwise delight, intelligent women turn into Trivial Pursuit Hooligans. It is possible we might have invented full contact Trivial Pursuit. Anything’s possible. Getting one of the piece of pie questions right results in shouts of “Pie me!” ringing out at ungodly hours of the night and/or early morn.

Keep in mind this particular edition of Triv was purchased in the Eighties. It’s almost an antique. We’ve answered these questions so many times, it’s amazing we get any wrong ? that’s where the aging process and only playing once a year work in our favour. It all seems new and exciting every year (the goldfish effect, I guess). I remember enough to be able to float the answer “Albert Schweitzer” mostly at the right time, but my Achilles Heel, as Mum and Sis well know, is the area of sport. On more than one occasion my victory lap around the kitchen wearing the crown of superiority has been delayed for a couple of hours by the careful and cunning deployment of a question about Olympic fencing or soccer players or how many points a particular part of the dartboard gets you. Apparently neither “I don’t care! Nobody cares!” nor  “Albert Schweitzer” is the correct answer.

Did I mention there’s a crown for the winner?

There’s totally a crown for the winner.

Actually it’s a party hat shaped like a cat, but it’s a crown if we say it is.

I have worn it more times than anyone else.

Am I a gracious winner?

No.

Am I a gracious loser?

I was robbed! Who are you calling a loser? You mother—

Err, no. No I am not.

Trivia is in my wheelhouse, people. I look forward to it every Christmas, I think Mum and Sis do too even if I do occasionally catch strains of peasant’ish rebellious rumblings. But this is the one time all year that my years of collecting useless, wedgie-attracting, nerdalicious knowledge finally pays off at the annual Slatter Ladies’ Triv Tourney.

And I am once again reigning champion. But my family love me anyway. Or they say they do, at least. *looks up to check for falling safes and/or grand pianos*

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2017

Huzzah! The lovely Paula Guran has released the ToC for The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2017 (Prime Books). Most excellent company to be in! My story “The Red Forest” (the new story from my reprint horror collection Winter Children and Other Chilling Tales) is in there too.

“Lullaby for a Lost World,” Aliette de Bodard (Tor.com 06/16)

“Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies,” Brooke Bolander (Uncanny #13)

“Wish You Were Here,” Nadia Bulkin (Nightmare # 49)

“A Dying of the Light,” Rachel Caine (The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft)

“Season of Glass and Iron,” Amal El-Mohtar (The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales)

“Grave Goods,” Gemma Files (Autumn Cthulhu)

“The Blameless,”Jeffrey Ford (The Natural History of Hell)

“As Cymbals Clash,” Cate Gardner (The Dark #19)

“The Iron Man,” Max Gladstone (Grimm Future)

“Surfacing,” Lisa L. Hannett (Postscripts 36/37: The Dragons of the Night)

“Mommy’s Little Man,” Brian Hodge (DarkFuse, October)

“The Sound of Salt and Sea,” Kat Howard (Uncanny #10)

“Red Dirt Witch,” N. K. Jemisin (Fantasy #60)

“Birdfather,” Stephen Graham Jones (Black Static #51)

“The Games We Play,” Cassandra Khaw (Clockwork Phoenix 5)

“The Line Between the Devil’s Teeth (Murder Ballad No. Ten),” Caitlin Kiernan (Sirenia Digest #130)

“Postcards from Natalie,” Carrie Laben (The Dark #14)

“The Finest, Fullest Flowering,” Marc Laidlaw (Nightmare #45)

The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle (Tor.com)

“Meet Me at the Frost Fair,” Alison Littlewood (A Midwinter Entertainment)

“Bright Crown of Joy,” Livia Llewellyn (Children of Lovecraft)

“The Jaws That Bite, The Claws That Catch,” Seanan McGuire (Lightspeed #72)

“My Body, Herself,” Carmen Maria Machado (Uncanny #12)

“Spinning Silver,” Naomi Novik (The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales)

“Whose Drowned Face Sleeps,” An Owomoyela & Rachael Swirsky (Nightmare # 46/What the #@&% Is That?)

“Grave Goods,” Priya Sharma (Albedo One #6)

“The Rime of the Cosmic Mariner,” John Shirley (Lovecraft Alive!)

“The Red Forest,” Angela Slatter (Winter Children and Other Chilling Tales)

“Photograph,” Steve Rasnic Tem (Out of the Dark)

“The Future is Blue,” Catherynne M. Valente (Drowned Worlds)

‘‘October Film Haunt: Under the House’’, Michael Wehunt (Greener Pastures)

“Only Their Shining Beauty Was Left,” Fran Wilde (Shimmer 13)

“When the Stitches Come Undone,” A.C. Wise (Children of Lovecraft)

“A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers,” Alyssa Wong (Tor.com 03/16)

“An Ocean the Color of Bruises,” Isabel Yap (Uncanny #11)

“Fairy Tales are for White People,” Melissa Yuan-Innes (Fireside Magazine Issue 30)

“Braid of Days and Nights,” E. Lily Yu (F&SF, Jan-Feb)

The Mammoth Book of the Mummy: 19 Tales of the Immortal Dead

Well, the UK edition of The Mammoth Book of the Mummy: 19 Tales of the Immortal Dead edited by Paula Guran will be out in January 2017!

Time to pre-order your copy, peeps – read it and do your research before the Tom Cruise remake of The Mummy comes out.

The US edition will be out a month or two later, details to follow!

The ToC:

Kage Baker, “The Queen in Yellow”
Gail Carriger, “The Curious Case of the Werewolf That Wasn’t, the Mummy That Was, and the Cat in the Jar”
Paul Cornell, “Ramesses on the Frontier”
Terry Dowling, “The Shaddowes Box”
Carole Nelson Douglas, “Fruit of the Tomb”
Steve Duffy, “The Night Comes On”
Karen Joy Fowler, “Private Grave 9”
Will Hill, “Three Memories of Death”
Stephen Graham Jones, “American Mummy” (original to this collection)
John Langan, “On Skua Island”
Joe R. Lansdale, “Bubba-Ho-Tep”
Helen Marshall, “The Embalmer” (original to this collection)
Kim Newman, “Egyptian Avenue”
Norman Partridge, “The Mummy’s Heart”
Adam Roberts, “Tollund”
Robert Sharp, “The Good Shabti”
Angela Slatter, “Egyptian Revival” (original to this collection)
Keith Taylor, “The Emerald Scarab”
Lois Tilton & Noreen Doyle, “The Chapter of Coming Forth by Night”

The Mammoth Book of the Mummy : 19 Tales of the Immortal Dead

Well, the UK edition of The Mammoth Book of the Mummy : 19 Tales of the Immortal Dead edited by Paula Guran will be out in January 2017!

Time to pre-order your copy, peeps – read it and do your research before the Tom Cruise remake of The Mummy comes out.

The US edition will be out a month or two later, details to follow!

The ToC:

Kage Baker, “The Queen in Yellow”
Gail Carriger, “The Curious Case of the Werewolf That Wasn’t, the Mummy That Was, and the Cat in the Jar”
Paul Cornell, “Ramesses on the Frontier”
Terry Dowling, “The Shaddowes Box”
Carole Nelson Douglas, “Fruit of the Tomb”
Steve Duffy, “The Night Comes On”
Karen Joy Fowler, “Private Grave 9”
Will Hill, “Three Memories of Death”
Stephen Graham Jones, “American Mummy” (original to this collection)
John Langan, “On Skua Island”
Joe R. Lansdale, “Bubba-Ho-Tep”
Helen Marshall, “The Embalmer” (original to this collection)
Kim Newman, “Egyptian Avenue”
Norman Partridge, “The Mummy’s Heart”
Adam Roberts, “Tollund”
Robert Sharp, “The Good Shabti”
Angela Slatter, “Egyptian Revival” (original to this collection)
Keith Taylor, “The Emerald Scarab”
Lois Tilton & Noreen Doyle, “The Chapter of Coming Forth by Night”

Over at The Wheeler Centre …

… I talk about working with words.

What’s the best (or worst) advice you’ve received about writing?

‘Write every day’. It’s a bit of advice about building a habit of writing, but it doesn’t always work because some days you are just empty creatively. Trying to write then is like grinding gears with no oil in the reserve. You need sometimes just to not write, but to go off and refill the well ? not keep pushing stuff out, but pull it in ? the stuff that inspires you, makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you think. Like binge-watching Midnight Sun or The Expanse, or sitting down with a book and not doing anything for a day but reading, or going for walks or lying in the pool for a few hours. Sometimes there’s action in that which appears actionless.

The rest is here.

Patreon art update

Oooooh, in colour now!

Mad Hatters and March Hares

John Tennial’s wonderful Alice

Huzzah! A new anthology from Ellen Datlow, Mad Hatters and March Hares, will be published by Tor next year.

I’m very excited to have a story in this (representing with Kaaron Warren), along with these amazing authors:

Gentle Alice – Kris Dikeman  (poem)

My Own Invention – Delia Sherman

Lily-White & The Thief of Lesser Night – C.S.E. Cooney

Conjoined – Jane Yolen                              

Mercury – Priya Sharma                          

Some Kind of Wonderland – Richard Bowes

Alis – Stephen Graham Jones          

All the King’s Men – Jeffrey Ford

Run, Rabbit – Angela Slatter                         

In Memory of a Summer’s Day – Matthew Kressel

Sentence Like a Saturday – Seanan McGuire

Worrity, Worrity – Andy Duncan

Eating the Alice Cake – Kaaron Warren

The Queen of Hats – Ysabeau Wilce

A Comfort, One Way – Genevieve Valentine

The Flame After the Candle – Catherynne M. Valente

Moon, Memory, Muchness – Katherine Vaz

Run, Rabbit, Run – Jane Yolen (poem)           

 

A Shout-out to Be. Bangles

I ordered a couple of gifts from the lovely Be. Bangles for Christmas – imagine my delight to find a lovely little message when they arrived! So, go and throw them some love and money (although not in a manner that will offend morality laws); not only are they awesome, the business helps push some good things back out into the world, like education for girls. As with all shopping experiences, check the sizing guide before you order!

Patreon peeks

So, one of the things I’m working on (in between all the other end of the year deadlines) is a Patreon account.

One of the reward levels will get you a scroll once a month with some sort of story-related artefact on it. Kathleen Jennings is doing the art for me.

Exhibit A is A Brief History of the Hind-Girls: