K.A. Laity's Blog, page 174

BitchBuzz: Women Beware Women

My latest column for BitchBuzz is another theatre review:



"Men buy their slaves, but women buy their masters." – Isabella



Shakespeare gets all the love when it comes to Elizabethan theatre, but that's because people tend to forget that the stage was the television of its time, cheap and plentiful, aiming only to get bums on benches and crowds in the yard. They were up against bear baiting and the groundlings cried for more jokes and more violence. One of...

Review: After the Dance + NT backstage tour

I love the NT! What could it be? Their wide variety of programming? Plays old and new? More female directors in this single building than on the whole of Broadway? So many reasons!



I found yet another reason when I took their backstage tour. Yes, I am so enamoured of theatre life that it was bound to be fun. Plus I got previews of the two productions I was going to see this week. Although it was the dinner break for most of the crew, there were a few people around including some of the actor...

Publications: "Touched by an Angel" & 21st Century Gothic

I just received a copy of the cover of the new collection 21st Century Gothic which features my essay on Graham Joyce's [AKA William Heaney's:] Memoirs of a Master Forger. It was one of those projects that comes out of the blue and then -- typical for me anyway -- I forget all about it and am pleasantly surprised to be reminded again. I had actually overlooked the deadline in the midst of all the tenure folderol and was tempted to beg off the project, but Danel convinced me to give it a go and...

Review: The Real Thing

[image error] Wednesday I caught The Old Vic production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, as I mentioned in a recent post.  Most of you know how I am enamoured of Stoppard's work and I had heard good things about this production. The bar was set high by the most recent production of his Arcadia, which was one of the most compelling productions I have seen despite an unbelievably hot theatre.



The cast included the wonderful Toby Stephens, Hattie Morahan, Fenella Woolgar and Barnaby Kay.  It's a surprisingl...

Pelzmantel: Cover Complete

Interviewed at UnBound / BitchBuzz

The wonderful Adele over at the fabulous book review (and more) blog, UnBound has interviewed me and wormed many secrets out of me :-) and that's me laughing at the noodle restaurant the week before. It was such a pleasure getting to know in real life someone I had got to know over the 'net. I love the internet! So many friends and opportunities I would not have had but for it.



Yesterday I dawdled along the Thames near Millbank mudlarking. There was the usual assortment of glass and pottery ...

Publication: Lachrymae Draconis

[image error] I have a new publication out in the latest issue of Realms. It's a kind of medieval mystery with a dragon called "Lachrymae Draconis" which you'll quickly figure out is Latin for "dragon tears" -- an entirely fake commodity that young Colburga has been dealing in with the help of the dragon she's got hidden away in a cave. No, the dragon doesn't cry. Colburga knows that's not possible -- but the dragon has other skills that help sell what they label "tears" and Colburga's knowledge of healthf...

Magus: The Alan Moore Conference (Day Two)

Here's another one of Adele's photos: just out of shot to Alan's left is me holding Melinda's glass. One of these days, I'm going to remember to take a picture with them. But don't they look sweet together? More on that later. I left London on the same train as I had the day before, but bank holiday weekend engineering works made sure that I was late. The cab dropped me off just after the time slated for panels to begin; fortunately, things were running slightly late, so Andrés was just...

Magus: The Alan Moore Conference (Day One)

Here's a lovely photo of me and Marc Singer snapped by the wonderful Adele, who already has her write-up of the Magus conference up over at her book blog, UnBound, and has pictures up as well. I was looking forward to this conference despite not quite having my paper done before I headed off to the UK. So many weird things happened while I was working on the paper that I decided to make that journey part of the paper, too.  I think I'll put the Powerpoint presentation on line with the paper a...

BitchBuzz: Relax!

My latest column features something I know a bit about these days: relaxing!



The other night I joined my intrepid editor for the launch of Starbucks's new Discoveries drinks, who partnered with  Mills & Boon for the evening. 



The publishing giant apparently conducted a study that demonstrated that most women found it difficult to carve out time for themselves on a daily basis. I'm sure this comes as a surprise to few of us over-achieving, workaholic, multi-taskers. 



The importance...