K.A. Laity's Blog, page 170

Bopping through the Biltmore

The Relax and How to Get It

Squeak shows us how it's done: just kick back and let your troubles find their own way home. We've had a hard weekend of watching movies, eating, drinking and talking. Today we're off to the Biltmore; should be interesting.



Now, everybody canteloupe dance!

Carolina with the Cats

Only missing Squeak: in order, this is Hemi, Stinky, Spike and Cassidy.

BitchBuzz: The Whiteboard Meme

My latest column on this week's internet wildfire:



Why the "White Board Girl" Meme Was So PopularBy K.A. Laity The link that launched a million laughs has, perhaps predictably, been exposed as a hoax. The Gawker gleefully "exposed" the pranksters and a lot of #HOPA tweets were predictably misogynist in their tone as they slapped down a woman who was presumably too ready to declare herself attractive (how dare she!).



This focus on the pranking and suckering...

Publication: Wild Desire

My essay on Johanna Sinisalo's Troll: A Love Story is up on the new magazine for the Mythic Imagination Institute. "Wild Desire" was originally a conference paper given at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts a few years back.









Here's a snippet:



Wild Desire: Gendering the Other in Sinisalo's Troll: A Love Story

by K. A. Laity



Trolls have long had a firm grip on the Finnish imagination. While written records do not reach far enough back to find its roots, no doubt the...

Thank You, Boojums!

It doesn't take much to make me smile. Just a thoughtful little thing like this:





Yep, it's a lovely congratulatory post card of a Polly Thayer painting from my pals and affixed to the back? A ticket stub from a performance of Good Evening with my idol, Peter Cook and (my almost idol) Dudley Moore. As you can see from the note, it was found in a library book (I love how so many of my friends work in libraries) about Russian icons (?!).



Little stub, big smile. Thank you, Boojums.



ADDENDUM p...

Unikirja Book Trailer

Here's my new video, featuring the beautiful music of Ulla Suokko, whom I'll be celebrating this week over at The Women's League of Ale Drinkers, part of the month long festival of creative women. I'm trying to focus the rhetoric of these trailers on opening up the sometimes obscure titles of my books to give a sense of the flavor of the stories. You can tell me whether I'm succeeding.





I've kind of had the feeling lately of needing a dump truck to unload my head, so it's been good to work o...

Cover Me

With stunning speed, here's the cover already for my as-yet-unedited novel The Mangrove Legacy, forthcoming from Tease Publishing in November or December:





Thanks to the fabulous Stella Price, who is not only the art director for Tease, but was also the person who encouraged me to try submitting something to them. I love the background photo of the Gothic folly and the woman on the sofa kind of picks up on the theme of dreams. I loved writing all the surreal dream sequences. It's hard to cap...

BitchBuzz: Hate Cute

My latest column:

Mainstream Media Realize RomComs Hate Women Suddenly everyone in the media seems to have noticed what women have been talking about for years: how rom-coms seem to really hate on women.



 The high profile story is Maureen Dowd's back-and-froth with social historian Sam Wasson about "Why romantic comedies now reek." It's a fairly entertaining exchange with highlights like Wasson saying, "Every time I see Jennifer Aniston's or Jennifer Garner's face I wince...

Contracted: The Mangrove Legacy

Good news! I sent off the contract this morning: Tease Publishing will be releasing The Mangrove Legacy in November or December of this year. Initially, it will be an ebook, but if sales are brisk enough, it may see print in 2011. Now I can reveal that the "author" of the book will be Kit Marlowe. Thanks again to the fabulous Stephanie Johnson for designing Kit's portrait, based on a photo of me and a very cool hat I found trawling the internet. Very Georgette Heyer, eh?



One of the immediate...