Rachel Swirsky's Blog, page 21

Nebula Awards 2016

Originally published at Rachel Swirsky. You can comment here or there.

Got back from the Nebula Awards last night. Had a lovely time — quite tired now. Jeremiah Tolbert said he hadn’t seen people so tired after a Nebulas in a long time. I think it may be because the programming was amazing, courtesy of Mary Robinette Kowal. From the user end, it’s the best experience I’ve ever had as a speaker.

Quick summaries of the programming I spoke on/attended:

Thanks to the new mentorship program, I was able to meet several new writers, and try to help them out. Hopefully I did, but even if I didn’t, I’m glad they have access to me as a resource in the future.

At the Ask an Expert village, no one came to my session on short stories (it was announced late, and was scheduled early, so I wasn’t surprised; it was fine). That gave me time to bug the experts who were there. I talked to representatives from indepedent publishing concerns, ACX, and Patreon, all of whom were able to give me great advice and information on how to move forward.

I spoke at three panels. The first one, on the reprint life of short stories, was relatively straight-forward, although Sarah Pinsker had good advice on how to sell foreign reprint rights. Think smart about where to spend your online reprint dollar; you may only get one chance per story. Doubly so if you are a very slow writer as I am.

The second–medicine at the end of the world–traversed many types of disability, from the obvious and severe, to the invisible and insidious. Most, though not all, of us on the panel had invisible disabilities. Someone in the audience pointed out we were all white, which did keep us from poking at some of the more complicated intersections. Something else I found interesting is that several years ago when I was attending a panel on apocalypses, someone said that writers and readers imagine themselves as the survivors. I don’t. My life is, as I said on the panel, a delicate balance of the technology we currently have available. Remove it, and I die. This gives me a slightly different perspective on the question of medicine in a post-apocalyptic scenario than some of the other folks seemed to have.

After that, I spoke on a panel about redefining aliens, moving from alien-as-metaphor-for-race to something that is — hopefully — more nuanced. I recommended a zillion writers, including Gwendolyn Clare, Will MicIntosh, Derek Kunsken… and of course the brilliant Octavia Butler. One of the other panelists pointed to James Tiptree as well. I think my ultiamte conclusion is that while weirder aliens have existed in SF texts a long time, and while alien-as-race still exists, the trend has been positive to favor the former rather than the latter. Also, I was surprised by how many people gasped and seemed shocked that I said the Ferengi were a stand-in for Jews. Do people really not notice that? I hope to put some of my notes from the panel online because it was really interesting.

I attended panels on dramaturgy, acting, and medieval warfare. I’d summarize those, too, but I’m getting to the limit of the time I allotted for this, so I may have to do that another time.

At the mass autographing, I was honored to meet lots of folks. It was very well organized, and it was a delight to sit next to an author I’d never met before. I came away with a copy of his book and hope to read it soon. (I’m still only partway through Jane Eyre at the moment.) I didn’t get any signatures, although in retrospect, I’m a bit sad I didn’t go over to talk to John Hodgeman. Sometimes when the world seems to be crushing, humor like his is the only balm.

The banquet itself was lovely, giving me a chance to catch up with Joe Monti and Ken Liu, as well as meet some folks and hang out with some other friends who I’d had a change to meet with over the cource of the weekend. I usually roam the room saying hi to people, but stayed still this time except for a quick jaunt to say hello to Scalzi.

There were several dazzling fashion displays, including Alyssa Wong’s glittery and spectacular black dress which used netting and negative space to create really interesting (and sparkly) effects. If she had not won the Nebula, I would have to give her one for knocking it out of the park. Tamara (forgive me for not looking up your last name; I am starting to migraine) wore a long silver gown with sparkly laces crossing over the back. Mary Robinette Kowal and Lynne Thomas wore dazzling necklaces — Mary’s in tones of amber, Lynne’s in dazzling cobalt that picked up the highlights of labradorite beads. Nnedi Okorafor slammed best hair, matched by her daughter. C. S. E. Cooney wore a long pink gown with fabric flowers which was delicate and feminine and made my inner rose-lover happy. I am doubtlessly forgetting people, but the point is, gorgeous.

My friend Henry Lien led a dance and singing routine which was odd and interesting and fun. Hodgeman hosted with aplomb and acute funniness.

Also, I spent lots of time with other folks. It was a long but excellent weekend.

And we flew Virgin America instead of United so the travel was even okay!

Friday read! “Searching for Save Leia” by Sandra McDonald

Originally published at Rachel Swirsky. You can comment here or there.

Sandra McDonald is one of my favorite working short story writers. Her humor is often both warm *and* sly, her satires sharp but empathetic. She has some amazing funny and irreverant stories about drag queen astronauts and sexy robot cowboys, but one of her other favorite topics to lampoon is Hollywood.

“Searching for Slave Leia”–as you might expect–is one of the latter. Sandra McDonald hits a perfect point where humor and metafiction let her really dig into human emotion. Also, Star Wars.

“Searching for Save Leia” by Sandra McDonald:

 A slip, slide, falling through icy coldness, white noise like TV static. A breeze of hot buttery popcorn. Giddy laughter, sweaty bodies, fanfare music over the intercom, and what’s this? A ten-foot-wide movie poster of young, pale, undernourished Carrie Fisher, posed seductively in a gold metal bikini with a collar and chain around her neck.

You’d bet she didn’t have her period the day they took that picture. No Kotex pad safety-pinned to her underwear, no feeling bloated and yucky down there. You wish you’d taken more aspirin this morning. You hope you don’t stain your shorts in front of the hundreds of fangeeks jammed in the lobby of the Charles Cinema here in the middle of Boston. This is 1983, that is Slave Leia, and through some supernatural stroke of luck you have become a time traveler, because last you checked it was 2013 and you were perimenopausal and you were having a fight with Trevor, again, on the set of your latest series.

Your best friend Karen sloshes her soda against your arm and says, “Shit, hell, sorry!”

You look down at your white knee socks, cut-off shorts, and baby blue Empire Strikes Backt-shirt. It’s amazing the fashion police ever let you out of your house. Karen’s wearing a yellow Han Solo shirt and white shorts and wooden sandals, the kind that are supposed to tone your calves. Her hair is teased up two inches. You have a mullet.

“Sheila?” she asks, face creasing. “You okay?”

“Yes, fine,” you say, because the first rule of suddenly displaced time travelers is to fake it until you figure out what happened. It worked for Scott Bakula in every episode ofQuantum Leap except the mental hospital episode—always one of your favorites; speaking of which, there’s an awful possibility: maybe you’re in the psych ward. Goosebumps ripple under your white bra, the one that always chafes your back. After twenty years of working together, Trevor has finally driven you into a complete nervous breakdown.

Read here.

Princess Leia cosplay photograph marked for reuse from Wikipedia.

Silly Interview with Na’amen Tilahun, Aspiring Prince Impersonator

Originally published at Rachel Swirsky. You can comment here or there.

Na’amen Tilahun has been around the science fiction scene for a long time — as a fan, a convention attendee, and a bookstore clerk. And now as a novelist! His debut novel, The Root, is coming out in June. I blurbed it:

“Na‘amen Tilahun‘s novel will make readers searching for variety in their SFF diets squeal with delight. The detailed world-building is strange and wondrous.”

Because we are both obsessed with the television show RuPaul’s Drag Race (or at least, he watches it and I’m obsessed), I asked him a ton of questions about drag queening. If you’d rather read a discussion of literature and toasters, just scroll down. We get to it.

RS: Who is your favorite contestant from RuPaul’s Drag Race ever?

NT: This is a hard one. There are queens from each and every year that I adore and follow on social media long after the season is over. I love fashion queens, pageant queens, comedy queens, every kind of drag queen. Most of all though I love a queen that can make me laugh so Pandora Boxx, Latrice Royale, Bianca DelRio, Jujubee, Willam, Alaska Thunderfuck 5000 and Shangela all rank very highly with me.

Favorite of all time, though? Probably Adore Delano, she makes me laugh whether it’s on purpose or not, I love her give no fucks attitude and her music is amazing. I love a messy queen most of all.

RS: Which Queen should never have been allowed on the race? Keep it 100.

NT: Oooh this is mean. I could go safe and just name one of the girls who exited first or second in one of the seasons but you said to keep it 100 so: Tammie Brown. I love vintage and I love kooky but I just do not get her, ever. But you know I acknowledge that a lot of the queens that I love, love her. Her jokes just make no goddamn sense to me.

RS: If you were on the race, what would you wear, what name would you use, and who would you play on the Snatch game?

NT: I think I would rock a lot of superhero inspired bodysuits. I would probably be a combination cosplayer/drag queen like Dax ExclaimationPoint…but better. I’d enter the workroom in a whole Manhunter (Kate Spencer) inspired look.

My name would be Hateretha Kitt.

I think in Snatch Game I would try to follow in the footsteps of Kennedy Davenport and push the envelope by doing a man, in this case Prince.

RS: I guess I should ask you something that isn’t about drag race. Tell me about your young adult book.

NT: Well my novel The Root features two main characters. There’s Erik, a former child star who left the business after a scandal and now lives in San Francisco and has just discovered he isn’t completely human. And there’s Lil who is basically a magic-wielding assistant librarian in another world that is slowly being devoured. There are a lot of other characters that get into the mix – mentors, parents, rivals. The novel jumps between our San Francisco and the alternate world and there are secret societies, shady dealings, betrayal, revenge, all that good stuff.

RS: You’ve been an advocate for diversity in SF, particularly in regard to race and sexuality. How did that work affect what you wanted to write about?

NT: I think it’s always subconsciously in my writing. The reason I’m such an advocate for diversity is because it’s the world I live in, it’s the people I see on the street and interact with at work and for fun. I’ve never lived in a city where I only knew white people or straight people. I always have had a diverse group of folks in my life and in my circle of friends. So when I write a book it’s natural to me that the characters I write about resemble the people I know. I also didn’t want to write an issue book where the story centered around a crisis of identity or coming out. Don’t get me wrong those books can be done really well but I always love the books where the characters are just queer or brown or disabled and while it’s part of the story because that’s their life it’s not the focus of the story. I want action and adventure for people who look like me and my friends.

I’m also confused by people who build homogeneous worlds, where everyone looks the same, feels the same, and has the same kind of relationships. Especially in speculative fiction which arguably is more about wish fulfillment than any other genre, why is this the world that you imagine? There are authors who are willing to imagine what our society will look like in thousands of years but they won’t look at their own assumptions and write a world were people are brown or queer or disabled or marginalized in any way. That’s ridiculous to me, we’ve always been here and always will be here.

Then again maybe they have thought about it and that’s the world they want to build, that’s fine, I’m just not interested. It’s especially astonishing when the work is set in a hugely diverse city like Los Angeles or the Bay Area or New York or London but the cast of characters never includes diversity.

RS: For many years, you worked at Borderlands, the San Francisco bookstore that specializes in science fiction and fantasy. What are some of the best experiences you’ve had there?

NT: Yes, I love them and still do some freelance stuff with them. I think the best experience was cultivating relationships with readers who shared my reading sensibilities. There were certain customers who I just had an instant rapport with and for most part knew immediately what book I wanted to recommend to them. These were customers who knew if I suggested a book they weren’t going to find it dripping with rape culture or racism or sexism. Borderlands has been my bookstore since I moved to the Bay Area and they’re a great supportive community.

RS: And since you’ve worked in a bookstore–Who should we be reading who we aren’t reading? 

NT: Well I love Martha Wells her Books of the Raksura series is my favorite fantasy series of the last few years and her novel Wheel of The Infinite is one of my go-to re-reads.

Nalo Hopkinson has such a gorgeous way with language, her sentences are beautiful and her novels deal with trauma without making it entertainment. Love, love, love Sister Mine.

Larissa Lai wrote Salt Fish Girl which I think is a criminally underrated novel, moving in time from the ancient past to the far future it’s a beautiful novel about family and identity.

Oh and in that vein The Fortunate Fall by Raphael Carter which was really popular when it came out but a lot of people seem to have forgotten it – that novel is one of my Cyberpunk holy trinity (the other two are Melissa Scott’s brilliant Trouble & Her Friends and When Gravity Falls by George Alec Effinger).

I would also add N.K. Jemisin & Ann Leckie to the list but I can’t imagine there are many people who haven’t read them – I feel sorry for those people if they exist.

In terms of just released or upcoming release Mishell Baker’s Borderline blew me away and Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart A Doorway literally made me cry in spots.

I’ll stop here because I could go on and on.

RS: DRAG RACE DRAG RACE DRAG RACE

NT: My top three this season are definitely – Bob the Drag Queen, Kim Chi and Chi Chi

The ones I just wish would go away are – Acid Betty, Robbie Turner and Derrick Barry

RS: If the old Ellen joke is true, and you get a toaster every time you convert someone to being gay, where are all the toasters?

NT: I’ve been hoarding my own and intercepting everyone elses so that one day, one day, I can make a giant toaster Mecha that will not only allow me to take over the world but have the best mobile breakfast diner ever. I shall call it Papa Waffles and we will serve every breakfast food but waffles. Mwahahahahahaha! I shall rule all I see through a vast empire of toasted bread!

RS: This space left blank for you to say whatever you want about upcoming projects, things you’re excited about, which drag race contestants are going to win, how to raise Octavia Butler from the dead, roller derby, River Song, or whatever other topic you’d like to bring up.

NT: The main problem with trying to resurrect Octavia Butler is the question of consent. Does she want to be raised from the dead, maybe she’s happier not dealing with all these fools. We don’t want to fall into a Buffy situation. Although if we could get consent, whoo boy! The stories that woman wrote, the stories that were still inside her? There are few authors who can make me read trauma so deeply and still make the book exciting and almost fun. She had a skill for portraying life as it is, a series of intense ups and downs.

As for upcoming projects, I’m working on relaunching my podcast with my friend Chris Chinn The *New* Adventures of Yellow Peril & Magical Negro soon where we talk geek shit from a POC perspective. I also have a podcast called The Worst Queers with another friend that I’m working on getting up and running. After that’s done I’d love to work on a webcomic – I’ve had a couple pretty specific ideas for a few years now that I would love to see turned into a comic.

Also I’m in the midst of trying to invent a working Time-Turner so that I can have time to do all the projects I want to. Either that or becomes extremely rich so I don’t have to work full-time. Whichever comes first.

Star-Studded Chicago — Come Visit Me & Other Authors at the Nebula Awards, May 12-15

Originally published at Rachel Swirsky. You can comment here or there.

I will be at the Nebula Awards this weekend in Chicago, from May 12-15.

If you don’t know what the Nebula awards are:

“The Nebula Awards ® are voted on, and presented by, active members of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc… Our conference will also feature the prestigious 50th Annual Nebula Awards hosted by comedian John Hodgman and banquet along with exciting tours of the City Winery and Northern Illinois University. Receptions honoring SFWA’s newest Grand Master, C.J. Cherryh and the Nebula Award nominees will take place throughout the weekend along with a mass autographing session.”

The Nebulas are introducing a new feature this year (which sounds fun!) — Ask an Expert. Here’s the description from the site: “In the Ask an Expert Village, you can sit down for a one-on-one with an expert. Bring your questions. Sign up for these 10 minute sessions at the registration desk.” I really like this idea; I hope it catches on elsewhere, too.

Thursday, 4pm-5pm: Come visit me to discuss short stories: “Brainstorm a problem area, or ask questions about writing short fiction.”

I’m also on three panels:

Friday, 1pm: The Second Life of Stories: handling backlist and reprints. Panelists: Sarah Pinsker, Rachel Swirsky, Colleen Barr, Marco Palmieri, John Joseph Adams, Don Slater

Friday, 4pm: Medicine after the End of the World: managing chronic conditions and serious illness after the apocalypse. Panelists: Annallee Flower Home, Nick Kanas, Daniel Potter, Rachel Swirsky, Michael Damien Thomas, Fran Wilde

Saturday, 4pm: Redefining the Aliens of the Future. Panelists: Juliette Wade, Charles Ganon, Nick Kanas, Fonda Lee, PJ Schnyder, Rachel Swirsky.

I’m also participating in the mass autographing, Friday, 8-9pm. 

Also, this site is a cool addition to the Nebula proceedings. You can sign in to peruse speakers, events, and participants, so you can look at events in a traditional program style (by day and time), or else look at what panels an author you’re interested in is doing. Mary Robinette Kowal and the other members of the programming team are doing a really stylish job this year.

Hope to see you there!

Silly Interview with Spencer Ellsworth Whose Bedpost Notches Are Real People

Originally published at Rachel Swirsky. You can comment here or there.

Spencer Ellsworth had been publishing short stories since 2009, and has work in PodCastle, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, F&SF and a number of other places. You can find his short story “Clockwork of Sorrow” in the anthology Ghost in the Cogs: Steam-Powered Ghost Stories (the cover of which you can see here).

Every time I see Spencer, I always ask the same question. You see, several years ago when Ann Leckie was running Giganotosaurus, I sometimes did first-round reading for her. And while Ann and I have very similar taste, we don’t have identical taste. So once in a while we’d come up against a story that I was jazzed about, but that didn’t quite cross her threshold. So every time I see Spencer, I ask about that one story that got away.

[Note: We conducted the interview a while ago, just after the Nebula ballot was released.]

RS: Haaave you sold the cool story about the alien kites yet? If not, perhaps we can leave a summary here to tempt an editor into opening their door.

I HAVE. IT SOLD. IT’LL BE UP AT TOR.COM… SOMETIME THIS YEAR HOPEFULLY OR MAYBE NEXT WHO KNOWS. THAT WAS A LITTLE ANTICLIMACTIC BUT WE’RE STILL KEEPING CAPS LOCK ON.

It’s called “When Stars Are Scattered,” and it tells the travails of a doctor on a homesteading planet, an atheist caught between Muslim missionaries, who have converted the quirky indigenous aliens, and homesteaders mostly of a Baptist stripe, who do not see the aliens as sentient, intelligent beings.

This story, man. I originally wrote a draft in 2006, scrapped it and rewrote in 2007, and that went everywhere and got nice notes from everyone, including you at GigaNotoSaurus. I took it to Viable Paradise in 2010, where it collected some nice comments and an invite to submit from Patrick Nielsen Hayden, then I took it home and sweated over the rewrites for four years, then finally sent it in and… they bought it.

WHEW

Ten long years ago, when I conceived the story, I was really pushing myself to tackle some bigger issues in storytelling. My favorite writer is Octavia Butler, partially because I could never predict, or even start to predict, how her stories would end. They were always about these terrible moral dilemmas and vicious relationships. So I decided to write one of the real world’s unpredictable conflicts, about faith and land and morality, and put some aliens in it.

RS: Conan the Barbarian. It sounds like you both love it, and know it has problems. What do you see as today’s cultural heirs to the tradition?

You refer to “The Child Support of Cromdor The Condemned,” which was a very well-received piece on Podcastle, and AHEMAHEM made the Nebula recommended reading list.

I wrote that story about the terrible male role models presented to me as a young man. James Bond, Conan, The Man With No Name, etc–all those taciturn, violent guys who have a girl of the week, conveniently gone the next week. It was difficult for me to reconcile such role models, whom society held up as the paragons of “manliness,” with my dad, who relied on peace and compassion to solve problems, and (gasp) treated women like actual human beings.

I got fan mail for that one. I quote “All the notches on Cromdor’s bedposts get to be real people in your story, even when they’re not directly onscreen.” I was proud of that, especially considering there aren’t that many women onscreen in the story. It’s very distinctly a story about the women who have been left offscreen, and humanizing both Conan and Conan’s wenches.

RS: You recently sold a short story that you wrote in an hour. Is that normal for you? How was it different–if it was–from your normal writing process?

“About The Bear” was based on a true story, and that really fueled it. Writing all comes from unconscious processing, I think, but occasionally you hit a rich lode near the surface, and a real-life experience becomes great fiction. I really did know a guy who wrestled a bear and came out okay, although, as I learned upon pressing him, it was an adolescent bear. I plugged our conversation into my fantasy world, and boom: I had a flash piece that all came together, about one of my favorite themes: how stories change us.

RS: When you are teaching English, what’s the most basic thing you want to make sure all students leave knowing?

Ooh! Good question! And yet, I don’t really want them to “know” something, so much as I want them to love learning. A lot of students come into my classes at Northwest Indian College having had bad experiences in school. They were frustrated, stereotyped, endured racist microaggression either within or without the community, and their parents often went through the same or worse, especially if a residential school was involved. Many never received early intervention for dyslexia or farsightedness. They are turned off by academic learning, though most of them are very adept at learning and sharing traditional teachings.

I want them to leave with a love of books, a discovery that academic learning can be fun and empowering. When a student finds a body of knowledge that inspires them, that’s the best part of my job. A couple of cool experiences I’ve had lately: a student stayed up all night finishing the memoir of an American Indian Movement activist, a student shared with me his ideas for science fiction stories and we discussed creative writing for a while, and several students told me they loved my Developmental Reading class, which is not, in my mind, a Number One Fun Time Class. Oh, and we read “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love,” in that class, and had a spirited discussion about subtext and genre. They liked the story, all the more so for discovering the subtext. BE PROUD RACHEL. YOU ARE MIGHTY IN READING 091

RS: Tell me about Pawnbroker.

Quality used musicians! Prices negotiable. Pawnbroker is my band and we try to marry the 90s and the 60s, our favorite musical decades. Try us out for free.

I’ve always played music along with writing–I find the intuitive, experiential nature of playing music live makes a good companion to the more structured, studied creativity in writing and revising. The band has actually been on a little hiatus, though I’m sure we’ll make it work again one of these days. In the meantime, I’m working on a solo project that is like unto Nick Cave or Elliott Smith, which is my way of saying I can’t really sing but the songs will one day be covered by Scarlett Johanssen for a vanity project. PROMISE

RS: Projects? Notes? Please put them here!

Projects:

I’m currently working on a book called The Red Walker, which is SO MUCH COOL FUN TO WRITE. It’s about a girl whose brother dies halfway through his Epic Chosen One quest, so the little sister has to take up the quest, with the help/hindrance of a rogue sorcerer who is, um, a lot like Omar Little from The Wire.  As in, if Omar lived in an epic fantasy novel, this would be him.

Everyone say it with me: “Oh, indeed?”

Notes:

I recently read Six of Crows, Bigfootloose & Fancy Free, Seriously Wicked, and The Shards of Heaven and loved them all. You should too.

Our Lady Of The Open Road was one of my favorite stories of last year, aaaaand it’s on the Nebula ballot.

You can put just about anything in chocolate and it makes it better! This stuff is amazing. Vote it for the Nebula in Best Chocolate. And this stuff in the Vegan Cheese Nebulas.

Why isn’t drywall reusable? That is so wasteful. Amiright?

Stop adding “punk” to things, writers! Cyberpunk IS punk; it’s an angry critique of materialist culture! Steampunk/dieselpunk/silkpunk/drywallpunk/bicyclepunk/godzillapunk/blerrrrghhfrpunk are killing the word “punk” and (all together now) PUNK’S NOT DEAD.

Bears, man.

Thanks very much for this opportunity to rant and share some answers to excellent questions, Rachel. As I’ve said many times, if you were a dinosaur, you’d be this one.

In which my migraine reveals itself as duplicitous

Originally published at Rachel Swirsky. You can comment here or there.

My intention to catch up on work this weekend was scuttled by a migraine.

ME: I’m going to catch up on work.

MIGRAINE: Okay, that sounds fine. I’ve been on break for a few days anyway; I’ll just go grab drinks at the pool bar.

ME: Cool.

ME: Okay, it’s Saturday, so I’m going to start working on–

MIGRAINE: MUAHAHAHAHA!!!! PSYCH!

(On the Hyperbole and a Half pain chart, it was really only a 6 or 7, which pain meds got down to a 3 or 4. I appreciate the pain help, but it’s still hard to work through.)

So, yeah. Quick update:

“If You Were a Butt, My Butt” is at $259! That means a prose version and an audio version. (If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, try the link.)

At $300, I will add $100 of my own to go to Lyon-Martin’s LGBTQ health services. If people don’t know why Lyon-Martin was my choice, it’s because this year’s Hugo ballot is being used to harass both me (along with other individuals) and the LGBTQ community at large, with a subtle lemon twist of transphobia. Supporting L-M seems like a fitting response to hate.

I hope people will help put it over the edge and force me to pony up!

 

Friday read! “Hwang’s Billion Brilliant Daughters” by Alice Sola Kim

Originally published at Rachel Swirsky. You can comment here or there.

One man watches the world evolve as he passes, sleep by sleep, into the future, trailing after his generations of descendants.

I really like this story and its strange futures. It isn’t taking itself seriously as a prognosticator. Rather, it’s talking about emotion, identity, and human experience, with a meta-textual tongue-in-cheek. Charles Yu’s How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe played with the same ideas around the same time. Kim’s story is more accessible, with a lighter touch and humor.

You should check out more of Alice Sola Kim‘s work, too.

 

“Hwang’s Bilion Brilliant Daughters” by Alice Sola Kim:

When Hwang finds a time that he likes, he tries to stay awake. The longest he has ever stayed awake is three days. The longest someone has ever stayed awake is eleven days. If Hwang sleeps enough times, he will eventually reach a time in which people do not have to sleep. Unfortunately, this can only come about through expensive gene therapy that has to be done long before one is born. Thus, it is the rich who do not have to sleep. They stay awake all night and bound across their useless beds, shedding crumbs and drops of sauce as they eat everyone else’s food.

Whenever Hwang goes to sleep, he jumps forward in time. This is a problem. This is not a problem that is going to solve itself.

Read here.

Silly Interview with Mary Robinette Kowal, intermittenty teal storyteller

Originally published at Rachel Swirsky. You can comment here or there.

© 2012 Rod Searcey

Mary Robinette Kowal is a woman of incredible multiple talents — a professional puppeteer who sews regency dresses and narrates audio books — and wins Hugo Awards. Her first novel series, the Glamourist Histories — fantasy novels about Austen’s regency period — recently concluded. I even drew some fan art about it. She also teaches writing online — oh, just visit her website.

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RS: A lot of novelists let short stories lapse when they embark on their novelling careers. You keep publishing strong short fiction, like last year’s “Midnight Hour” in Uncanny Magazine. How do you make time for short stories, and what do you get from them that you don’t get from longer fiction?

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MRK: Honestly, these days I start a lot of the short stories while I’m teaching my Short Story Intensive. Part of the process is that I write along with the students in order to demonstrate how to start from a story seed and then develop it into a story. I often have a market in mind when I’m doing these, so the demonstration does double duty. The thing that I love about short fiction as a writer is that I get to experiment with a lot of different styles and ideas without the huge time investment of a novel. Plus, as a reader, I find that a short story can often deliver more of a sucker punch to the emotions and I kinda like that.


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RS: You have one of the coolest career histories of any working writer I know, having been a professional puppeteer. In fact, I am going to take this opportunity to link to your audition video for the Henson workshop because it is amazing. (insert vid) How would you go about presenting yourself in puppet-form? Feel free to be practical, metaphorical, or to alternate.
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MRK: Well… as it happens, I have been doing these videos recently in which a puppet answers questions about writing. In puppet form, I curse a lot more than I do in real life. And I’m teal. [RS: You can see one of her episodes here.]
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RS: You sew absolutely beautiful regency dresses which have served as award gowns, bridal dresses, and icons for Scalzi fundraisers. When and how did you start sewing? And if you’d like to share any pictures of your dresses, I would not object.


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MRK: My mom taught me to sew when I was in elementary school, and then the puppetry career refined those skills because you can’t buy an off-the-rack pattern for puppet clothing. The Regency gowns began as “research” but I keep making them because they are simple and fun.

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RS: Your glamourist histories are, in part, an hommage to Austen. Perhaps you would indulge me in some silly alternate history. Imagine Jane Austen living today, not as her historical self reincarnated, but just as a person who happens to be alive now. How might you imagine her life? 
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MRK: Her choices would not be as constrained today as they were then. I like to think that she and Cassandra would have a nice flat together and that Jane would continue writing. She’d attend conventions, like RT, and have a circle of friends that she snarked with on Twitter. If you’ve ever read any of her letters, you know that she was the queen of the cutting comment and would OWN Twitter. She would probably have to have a day job but would have picked something that she felt a connection to, not just something that made her life easier so perhaps social work or maybe an anthropologist — no. Wait. I’ve just remembered her childhood histories. I bet she would have gotten a PhD in history.


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RS: Like many writers, your artistic talents abound in many creative fields. What drew you to and kept you writing?
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MRK: I was one of those kids who wanted to do everything, and they all seem to revolve around forms of storytelling. What I like about writing is that there are no limits. I don’t have to worry about gravity or physics or a budget when I’m planning a story, or at least not in the ways I have to worry about them when I’m creating a puppet show.
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RS: I read an interview in which you said you dread the “what are your upcoming projects” question, and yet, I fear, such things are inevitable since interviewers have to give us a way to promote what we’re up to. You suggested the question “What are you excited about?” instead, which I’ve used myself. But this wouldn’t be a silly interview if I did something practical like listen to what you want to be asked. So, instead: if your next/current project was an adorable animal, what kind of adorable animal would it be?
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RK: A three-legged German Shepherd. Okay… I know, that doesn’t sound very adorable, but let me tell you about this German Shepherd. Her name is Ghost Talkers. She was a service dog in the war, and lost a leg saving the life of her human partner. She’s back home and healed now, and is so delighted and happy and enthusiastic, but can also very serious, because she’s a veteran. When she walks, it is a bouncing uneven gait that’s kind of funny, but when she runs you can’t tell that she was wounded. And if you let her, she would totally serve again because she’s kind and loyal and will save your life, then cover you with kisses.

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Quick “Making Lemons into Jokes” campaign note: At $155, “If You Were a Butt, My Butt” is close to having an audio version!
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If you want to support the Butts and send some money to Lyon-Martin health services (LGBTQ health care, offered regardless of the patient’s ability to pay), subscribe to my Patreon. You can stay in it for the long-haul, or just pay in for a single month so all your contributions go to L-M.
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Making Lemons into Jokes: “If You Were a Butt, My Butt”

Originally published at Rachel Swirsky. You can comment here or there.

If you’ve been following events in online science fictiondom, you probably know the last few weeks have been tumultuous. If you are *not* following events in the online science fictiondom, then honestly, I’m kind of jealous.

In my family, humor has always been a way of putting crap into perspective. When life hands you lemons, make jokes. And then possibly lemonade, too. It is coming up on summer.

In that spirit, I’m trying a self-publishing experiment. And that experiment’s name is “If You Were a Butt, My Butt.”

If my Patreon reaches $100 by the end of the month, I will write and send “If You Were a Butt, My Butt” to everyone who subscribes. If things go well, I’ve got some stretch goals, too, like an audio version.

I will be donating the first month’s Patreon funds to Lyon-Martin health services. Lyon-Martin is one of the only providers that focuses on caring for the Quiltbag community, especially low-income lesbian, bisexual, and trans people. They provide services regardless of the patient’s ability to pay.

My Patreon is a subscription monthly service, so if you choose to join and then unsubscribe after a month, then all the money you pay in will go to Lyon-Martin. My subscribers also get one free piece of flash fiction or poetry each month, so you’ll receive that, too. (And anything else you sign up for.)

Humor can turn anything ridiculous. That’s its healing power. When that’s the aim, being mean-spirited or nasty defeats the point. I can’t promise I won’t make any metafictional jokes, but I’m not going to focus on it. The rare times I do, it will be silly.

Given the circumstances, a bit of erotica is unavoidable. It also won’t be the focus, will be in good humor, and will be marked so you can skip.

Really, I’m just farting around.

So if you want to get behind butting into the conversation with something cheeky, then scoot your derriere to my Patreon. We can do it.

(If you want to skip all that jazz, I also have a newsletter. It doesn’t come with free fiction, but it does come with updates about my writing and teaching.

Obligatory footnote: I reserve the right to limit harassment.)

The coveted triple cat lap

Originally published at Rachel Swirsky. You can comment here or there.

I was going to make an announcement today, but I need to spend a little more time on prep work. So instead, have the coveted triple cat lap:

More common: Five Cats on One Couch

Rarer: the possibly impossible quintuple cat lap.