K.A. Laity's Blog, page 162

New Ink

I realise I posted this on Facebook and Twitter but not here (multiple media streams is the key to success for writers, they tell me). So here it is and here's a bit about the image of Akka. I bought the brooch at the National Museum in Helsinki. It's just above the bruising on my ankle that's still there from the torn ligaments. Yeah, still there. Got a new piercing, too.

Happy Yule, Jane Quiet, Elena & Providence

The solstice is upon us and it pays to remember that the longest night also means it's time for the return of the light. Here's my perennial offering on Anglo-Saxon Yule that ended up online without my putting it there. At least they credited me as author.



I've got another piece up at Polite Company Magazine: a humorous account of a medieval saint.



Waking up at Elena's can be an interesting experience. I am glad not to have been in the room with the evil clown lately. Instead I get the knitted giraffe...





And of course, pin up boy, Gunnar Hansen...





As well as the Spider-man bedding and if lucky, a puppy. Shaq certainly enjoyed the Spider-man comforter (or perhaps just the belly rubs). The three pups are a lot of fun and of course, as Elena always says, "I'm a mom!" so visitors are very well taken care of. It's nice. Thanks so much for all the food and fun!





Yesterday, once we could tear ourselves away from the pups, we headed off to Providence and the John Hay Library. We needed some visual references for Jane Quiet and to fill in some of her back story. I'm excited that Elena is ready to work on it again -- the story we have in mind is a knock-out! Here's Hay himself with a jaunty holiday bow. Seems that students rub him on the nose for good luck on exams, which makes it shiny. There was a terrific exhibit on Hispaniola in the gallery. We chatted with a librarian who was very helpful and gave me the card for the librarian who's the primary curator for the occult and magic collections -- a good resource. We'll be going back soon with specific volumes to look through (may that Danse Macabre bound in human skin!) Elena snapped some photos for reference. They had a copy of the Audubon book on display. Huge!





Next to the library is the little memorial for H. P. Lovecraft, a Providence legend and influential horror writer. I always refer to the "Lovecraft effect" in that city, which seems to mean it's impossible not to get lost. We had GPS and we still got lost (turns out there's two different Prospect Streets in Providence).





So we had a great Indian lunch and snooped around the bookstore (though a drama section that has neither Beckett nor Stoppard doesn't speak highly of their selection process). Re-energized by the trip and all the ideas we bounced around on the drive, we decided to work on storyboarding the new adventure we'd plotted out. So here's Elena sketching away while I was writing dialogue. She's a wonder -- I so admire her skill and how she can capture emotions. I'm so excited about this story -- all I can tell you is Egypt...





Home again to a crying cat, good things in the mail and a boatload of email to wade through. So little time, so much to do!

At Elena's

Pictures to come but I've only got the iPod with me. Puppies! Elena cooking! Appletinis! Providence today: Lovecraft and Jane Quiet and hopefully catching up with some friends.

My Birthday / Your Present

I don't have a scanner so this will have to do for now. A photo of a photo on a camera with no view finder. I think this must be the house on Clark Road just after it was finished, because my grandparents house next door (where we had been living) has an alcove by the front door. I'm not yet two according to the Kodacolor date on the back.



So, yes, it's my birthday and a rather intimidating number of them have added up so I will not think about that and instead I'm going to give away a copy of The Mangrove Legacy to someone at random who comments on this post.



Surely someone will want to wish me a happy birthday, right? Well, I shall be off gallivanting. I hope to check in now and then. The definite plans include lunch with Bertie and drinkies with the gang at The Point at the traditional cocktail hour -- there are rumours of cake and the possibility of a ritual from last year being repeated. We shall see.



I must choose the right hat...

BitchBuzz and a Contest

Yes, up to my usual anti-social behavior in my column this week:

No Ho-Ho Holiday Films!By K.A. Laity When you've seen too many cheery reindeer, children singing and hearts growing three sizes, it's time to strike back.



I know there are many who can't wait to pull out that pile of Christmas DVDs every year and spend days laughing and crying with Charlie Brown and Lucy or Rudolph and Hermie or find out what Bedford Falls would have been like without George Bailey.



The rest of us need a break from all the sappy sentiment and I will warn you if you dare get out Love Actually it will come to fisticuffs. So if like me you spend the holidays dreading the next turn of that roulette wheel in the DVD player, here are some films you can suggest that meet the criteria of "holiday" themes but aren't the same old schmaltz... Find out what I recommend here: http://culture.bitchbuzz.com/no-ho-ho-holiday-films.html#ixzz18IQLauVJ I'm not really a Grinch: I just get overloaded on schmaltz like everyone, considering some places start playing Xmas music in October. My pal Karen has come up with a list of sf/fantasy recommendations for holiday films: check out her blog.

Contest: Yesterday on Facebook, Kit Marlowe gave away a copy of her novel The Mangrove Legacy. I've decided I'm going to give one away here for my birthday :-) Come back tomorrow and comment on the post to have a chance to win. I'll choose a winner at random from among the commenters. I do have the hope that some of these freebies will result in reviews, too [she adds with a hopeful look].

The Mangrove Legacy ON SALE NOW!

Kit Marlowe's novel The Mangrove Legacy is out!



For sale now at All Romance eBooks -- just $5.99.



Two English girls, pirates, kidnappers, orphans, disguises, a ghost, interesting facts about insects, cheese, the King of Naples and at least one improving book:





This ain't your mama's Gothic!



Yes, very pleased to have this out. Thanks for everyone who was there for the rather prolonged composition process. Give yourselves a pat on the back for helping me. Cheers!



You can win a copy over at Kit's Facebook page.



UPDATE: I'm also the featured Wednesday writer over at UnBound. Thanks, Adele. Join me to talk about zombies!

Bits and Bobs

Over at Patti Abbott's blog, you can read the final installment of La Ronde, the round robin story in which I took part. The fun of these things is that they take a lot of unexpected twists and that's certainly the case here. Vastly entertaining.



Perhaps the strangest news story regarding wombats ever...



It's possible Amelia Erhart has been found.



Tomorrow, of course, The Mangrove Legacy comes out. You can win a copy over at Kit Marlowe's Facebook page.Don't forget to take a look at the trailer. I'll put up a buy link tomorrow assuming all goes as it should (given the loopiness of anything computer-based lately, I am always adding caveats). Have you been reading the new serial? How do you think it's going?



I get the final papers of my one course tomorrow. I hope to finish grading quickly so I can enjoy my birthday without thought of work waiting. I have more reviews to post, too, but we'll see how the week goes. So little time, so much to do!

Review: Tamara Drewe

How can you go wrong with Posy Simmonds as your source (and Thomas Hardy as hers), a script by Moira Buffini and a stellar cast guided by Stephen Frears? Well, you can't go far wrong at all, it turns out.  Tamara Drewe is great fun, lots of laughs and a few tear-worthy moments. Admittedly, I'm a sucker for any film about writers and writing, but this one's quite enjoyable.



The story begins in what seems to be the idyllic writers retreat "far from the madding crowd" in Dorset. Tamsin Grieg (made to look much older than she is) and Roger Allam own the farm; she's the careful tender of the animals and writers, he's the successful mystery writer who's a little too full of himself. It's not giving anything away to say he's also a philandering jerk, too -- almost from the start of the film we know this and much of the story revolves around this, and not a small amount of the humor. The writers in residence provide a lot of the humor, too: "The hat is on!" one vehemently tells another, indicating that no one should speak to him. Central to the narrative is the American writer Glen (Bill Camp, who looks like Warren Zevon's nebbishy brother), the unexpected lynchpin as the blocked academic trying to write about Hardy.



What breaks everything apart is the arrival -- or rather, return -- of the native daughter, Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton). Her former love, the golden handyman, Andy (Luke Evans) still longs for her but her eye's been drawn to seriously sexy boy band drummer Ben (Dominic Cooper :-), whose arrival draws the attention of two bored village teens, Jody and Casey, who are die hard fans of Ben's band.



Even if you know your Hardy, there are plenty of twists and modernisations to keep you guessing. I love the way the story captures the aimless boredom of the teens' life in an "idyllic" country village, which for them means there's nothing to do. There's extra fun for writers and readers, of course, but I think all kinds of folks will have a good time with Tamara.

Review: Tamara Drew

How can you go wrong with Posy Simmonds as your source (and Thomas Hardy as hers), a script by Moira Buffini and a stellar cast guided by Stephen Frears? Well, you can't go far wrong at all, it turns out.  Tamara Drew is great fun, lots of laughs and a few tear-worthy moments. Admittedly, I'm a sucker for any film about writers and writing, but this one's quite enjoyable.



The story begins in what seems to be the idyllic writers retreat "far from the madding crowd" in Dorset. Tamsin Grieg (made to look much older than she is) and Roger Allam own the farm; she's the careful tender of the animals and writers, he's the successful mystery writer who's a little too full of himself. It's not giving anything away to say he's also a philandering jerk, too -- almost from the start of the film we know this and much of the story revolves around this, and not a small amount of the humor. The writers in residence provide a lot of the humor, too: "The hat is on!" one vehemently tells another, indicating that no one should speak to him. Central to the narrative is the American writer Glen (Bill Camp, who looks like Warren Zevon's nebbishy brother), the unexpected lynchpin as the blocked academic trying to write about Hardy.



What breaks everything apart is the arrival -- or rather, return -- of the native daughter, Tamara Drew (Gemma Arterton). Her former love, the golden handyman, Andy (Luke Evans) still longs for her but her eye's been drawn to seriously sexy boy band drummer Ben (Dominic Cooper :-), whose arrival draws the attention of two bored village teens, Jody and Casey, who are die hard fans of Ben's band.



Even if you know your Hardy, there are plenty of twists and modernisations to keep you guessing. I love the way the story captures the aimless boredom of the teens' life in an "idyllic" country village, which for them means there's nothing to do. There's extra fun for writers and readers, of course, but I think all kinds of folks will have a good time with Tamara.

Friday's Forgotten Books: Kleinzeit

I find it amazing that Russell Hoban's singular book Kleinzeit seems to be out of print. Amazon lists the version on the left as the most recent one (2002) but he doesn't seem to have the same popularity here as he does in Britain (where he lives, no surprise). Most of you probably know the Frances books and I've certainly gone on at length about my love for Riddley Walker on various occasions, but I hadn't read Kleinzeit until recently.



While reading it in November, I decided to recommend it to everyone who was doing NaNoWriMo as the perfect inspiration for the difficult task of writing, especially for the first time. It mashes up a sort of Pynchon-esque mystery of coincidences and misheard words with a delightful surrealism: the titular character ends up in the hospital for trouble with his hypotenuse. His troubles begin on the most mundane sort of day when he begins to experience a sudden pain. But then something else happens:



Kleinzeit got out of the train, poured into the morning rush in the corridor. Among the feet he saw a sheet of yellow paper, A4 size, on the floor, unstepped-on. He picked it up. Clean on both sides. He put it in his attaché case. He rode up on the escalator, looking up the skirt of the girl nine steps above him. Bottom of the morning, he said to himself.



Little does he know that yellow sheet of A4 will take over his life: he loses his job, he's admitted to the hospital, he takes up the glockenspiel and he takes up with Sister, he meets a red-bearded man who lives in the Underground. And everything seems conspired either to kill him or turn him into a writer. It's not surprising that Hoban has said that this novel is where he found his voice.



One of my favourite passages comes when Kleinziet, reads from Thucydides' The Pelopennesian War as he contemplates Athenians and the blank page of yellow A4:



I promise, said Kleinzeit to his dead mother, I'll be, I'll make, I'll do. You'll be proud of me.

Suppose [the Athenians] fail in some undertaking; they make good the loss immediately by setting their hopes in some other direction. Of them alone it may be said that they possess a thing almost as soon as they have begun to desire it, so quickly with them does action follow upon decision. And so they go on working away in hardship and danger all the days of their lives, seldom enjoying their possessions because they are always adding to them. Their view of a holiday is to do what needs doing; they prefer hardship and activity to peace and quiet. In a word, they are by nature incapable of either living a quiet life themselves or of allowing anyone else to do so.

Right, said Kleinzeit. Enough, He opened the door of the yellow paper's cage, and it sprang upon him, Over and over they rolled together, bloody and roaring, Doesn't matter what the title is to start with, he said, anything will do. HERO, I'll call it. Chapter I. He wrote the first line while the yellow paper clawed his guts, the pain was blinding. It'll kill me, said Kleinzeit, there's no surviving this. He wrote the second line, the third, completed the first paragraph. The roaring and the blood stopped, the yellow paper rubbed purring against his leg, the first paragraph danced and sang, leaped and played on the green grass in the dawn.



Up the Athenians, said Kleinzeit, and went to sleep.



It delights me to no end that Hoban fans go around on February 4th leaving sheets of yellow A4 in the tube and other public places with quotes from the author. I can't imagine a more wonderful tradition to have connected with one's books. This novel is quite wonderful and I recommend it highly -- and then go get Riddley Walker and the rest of his books! I love Hoban because his stories all make their own singular way, ignoring genres and rules and convention. What better way to write?



See more "forgotten" books at Patti Abbot's blog where you'll doubtless find friends like Todd.