K.A. Laity's Blog, page 166

If it's Tuesday, this must be...

So this is how the whole of September has felt: me as Durga with at least eighteen arms and too much to do and people standing in my way who need a good poke with a sharp stick.



Where's my lion? Or tiger! I will take either.



Part of it is the normal start to the semester: the first week of classes hits like a steam engine out of nowhere even though I know exactly when it will arrive. Somehow I always seem to find myself standing on the tracks. While this is supposed to be my "pseudo-sabbatical," administrative tasks for myself and for others (writing tenure letters for two folks today) have taken up an awful lot of time. The hope is that October and November will actually be writing intensive times for the non-fiction project, but argh! So far there's been no progress on that.



Not that I haven't got writing done: just not what I planned. And there's editing to do, too. Fortunately, the editing for Kit Marlowe's first publication -- the novella "The Big Splash" -- went swiftly. My editor had few changes and a couple of questions re: period slang (it takes place in 1929 London) -- she also said it was "hilarious" which made my day! The big editing job is getting to The Mangrove Legacy, Kit's next publication. I haven't had much time to work on that comic Gothic novel, but I have to make it a priority now.



I do have a new publication, though it will be of interest to fewer of you: a review of Women and Medieval Epic: Gender, Genre and the Limits of Epic Masculinity in the latest issue of The Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures. Oh, and Stephanie wrote nice things about me over at WLoAD: the journal looks like it will be fabulous!



All right: back to work!

Publication: The Last Ant

My short humour piece "The Last Ant" is up at Wild Violet, the literary magazine that also published the even more esoteric piece "Corrections to the Rules of Fimble Fowl (for 3 players or 4)," the semi-true/semi-autobiographical piece "Me and Margery Kempe" and the MLA-inspired flash fiction story "Wixey." Alert readers who are also Peter Cook fans may notice a theme throughout my pseudo-journalistic essay on the now extinct sub-species of ant.



I had a fabulous time yesterday in Northampton...

BitchBuzz: Good Witch/Bad Witch

My latest column engages with an old topic:



Christine O'Donnell: Good or Bad Witch? If you were living under a rock you might have missed the fact that television personality and part-time poker of hot topics, Bill Maher, resurrected footage from a decade or so ago showcasing rabid right-wing American Senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell, darling of the Tea Party and self-confessed non-masturbator, as she admitted to hanging around with questionable young men and "dabbling...

Hanging with the Rom Writers

You've already seen the tiara; that was just one perk of Authors After Dark. My roomie Susan and I were both attending for the first time. We had planned to attend with our pal Debi, who knows everybody and is a real bon vivant, so we had some trepidation, being natural introverts. But Stella and Jackie made sure that everyone felt included and kept things rolling along wonderfully. There were panels on every topic both for readers and for writers; there was a great vendor room; there was a t...

Speaking of Ale

My mug came in! At Mahar's you get your very own mug once you have tried 125 different beers from around the world. Oh sure, it took me four years to get here, but way cool :-) Etched into the glass is the logo designed by the fabulous Queen of Everything, Stephanie Johnson, for the Women's League of Ale Drinkers.



Yes, I'll be writing up my weekend with the romance writers, with luck tomorrow, but it's been an insanely busy week already and whew! Not sure when I can find a moment to breathe....

Reminder: WLoAD needs women!

Call for Submissions "Passion. Vision. Daring. Humour. Any alone will be intriguing--but to have them all is to be sublime."



That is the mandate of the new journal for the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, for which I am editor. We seek only work that meets these criteria, the output of creative women who may feel that their vision and passion has been overlooked elsewhere, that their daring has brought only disapproving stares, that their humour has met with stony silence. We deligh...

Authors After Dark

All authors must wear a tiara: shouldn't this be true every day, everywhere?

Moonlight, Lace and Mayhem -- and Me!

I'm guest blogger over at Moonlight, Lace and Mayhem today. Stop by and say hi and read what I have to say about...



football?!



Yep, it's true (and why there's a picture of Mesut Özil here). No, I didn't have a choice, it was just their theme for the month. While I'm not much of a football fan, I tried to be a good sport (heh) and at least be funny when I couldn't offer too much in the way of knowledge about the game. It did remind me of all the fun this summer in London, with all the people...

Albacon 2010, Oct 8-10

Hey kids! Especially you locals -- we're only weeks away from Albacon, the capitol region's only spec fic con which runs from Friday October 8th until Sunday the 10th, with oodles of fun stuff for you to do and see.



Writer GoH: Allen Steele

Artist GoH: Ron Miller

Fan GoH: Lisa Ashton



Plus we just got news that fan fave Jackie Kessler will be able to attend (which means Jackie Morse Kessler will be there, too!). Check out my interview with Jackie where she reads from Hunger.



Check out our p...

Seeking Crafty Women

Hey, Vicky tells me we're getting some great submissions for the inaugural issue of the Journal for the Women's League of Ale Drinkers, but we haven't got much in the way of crafty things. There's still plenty of room for lovely photos of your crafty projects: knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, sculpture, food -- the possibilities are endless!



The photo from Cake Wrecks is just to spur you on!



Here's the skinny and the general call once more: do please consider sharing your work with the wo...