Sue Burke's Blog, page 66
September 17, 2014
Go Ahead — Write This Story: Change, Part II
When characters change, what can they change? Remember, no one likes to change and when forced, we change as little as possible. The easiest thing to change is our environment, like changing jobs or housing. Behavior and capabilities are a little harder, such as acquiring new habits, strategies, skills, or motives. Opinions and beliefs, like voting for a political party, are often emotionally based and are hard to change. Values, our core ideas about what matters in life, such as religious faith, are even harder to change. Finally, self-image or identity, who we are and what our purpose in life is, is the hardest of all to change.
If you want to write about attempts at change, here are a few ideas:
• This is a story about a father who will abandon his family in two weeks and move to another country because he thinks they will be happier and safer without him.
• This is an outdoors adventure novel in which a werewolf is accidentally captured during a Yellowstone wolf relocation program, and the incident is documented by a Smithsonian Magazine photographer.
• This is a cyberpunk story about a young woman who sells her identity and must recreate herself from zero.
— Sue Burke
September 10, 2014
Overseas Americans: Request your ballot
All American citizens can vote, regardless of where they live. This year, turnout is likely to be low, so every vote matters.
But if you live overseas like me, you must register and request your ballot every year. You do this with a Federal Post Card Application (really a sheet of paper), but each state has its own rules and deadlines, so the application process can get complex.
There's a simple solution: Vote From Abroad
https://www.votefromabroad.org/
This website will ask you a few questions and create the proper application ready to be printed out, signed, and mailed. It also provides the address you should send it to.
If you don't get your ballot in time, the site can also provide an emergency write-in ballot.
Full disclosure: This site is provided by Democrats Abroad as a public service. By law its service must be non-partisan, and it discards the personal data you enter as soon as your forms are produced. The only goal – the obsession, in fact – is to help as many people vote as possible.
The website answers frequently asked questions about voting: https://www.votefromabroad.org/faq-page
It also has a list of deadlines for requesting a ballot and returning the ballot:
https://www.votefromabroad.org/deadlines
Where on Earth will you vote in 2014?
— Sue Burke
September 3, 2014
To burke or not to burke
The surname “Burke” came to England and Ireland with the Normans and soon became common.
That’s why I can find a lot of other people with my name. I searched for “Sue Burke” at Facebook and gave up counting after 300. (A while back, at random, I became Facebook friends with two other Sue Burkes just because – delightful women, and very different from me and each other.)
“Sue” is also the largest, most complete, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex ever discovered, now on display at the Field Museum in Chicago. I am Sue, fear me.
“Burke” is a verb, too: 1. to murder in such a way as to leave no marks on the body, usually by suffocation; 2. to get rid of, silence, or suppress.
That meaning comes from William Burke, who, with his partner William Hare sold bodies to a medical school for anatomical dissection. To get those bodies, they killed 16 people, usually by suffocation, before they were discovered. Hare turned state’s evidence, and Burke was hanged in 1829.
I don’t believe we’re related, which is a relief.
I’m also not related to Edmund Burke (1729-1797), which is too bad. He was the Irish orator, statesman, and philosopher famous for saying, among other things:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
“It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.”
“Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.”
“Education is the cheap defense of nations.”
No one I know had anything to do with the television show Burke’s Law , although the series was popular in our household. On the air from 1963 to 1966, it featured Gene Barry, who won the 1965 Golden Globe for his role as Amos Burke, a millionaire chief of detectives in Los Angeles who often declared his own rules during an investigation:
“Never ask a question unless you already know the answer. Burke’s Law.”
“Never confuse the improbable with the impossible: Burke’s Law.”
“If you must swim in dangerous waters, don't invite the sharks to lunch: Burke’s Law.”
“You never grow up, you grow old: Burke’s Law.”
— Sue Burke
Also posted at my professional website,
August 27, 2014
Go Ahead — Write This Story: Change, Part 1
People hate change. Consider how people howl when Facebook or LiveJournal make even a minor change in their user interface. Now think of the people you know who should shape up: drink less, eat better, dump a bad job or spouse, abandon ridiculous political opinions, or get anger management therapy. Will they? Not until they have no other choice. Fictional characters are like that, too. They fear and hate change in their environment and themselves and will resist as hard and as long as they can.
If you need a story about change – or aversion to it – here are a few ideas:
• This is a comedy about a family that lives in a haunted house and refuses to believe in ghosts.
• This is a ripped-from-the-headlines story about a medical team that cannot ethically flee an epidemic.
• This is thriller about an employee of a technology company that begins to operate in increasingly illegal activities, but the change is so slow and the money is so good that one of the engineers can’t afford to quit.
— Sue Burke
August 11, 2014
For your reading pleasure
Since April, I’ve been publishing weekly articles Las dos Castillas, a literary e-zine of literature and other fine arts. Most its the content is in Spanish, but the Handwriting section, which includes me, is in English.
Here’s what’s been published so far – for your reading pleasure:
Billions and billions of people. What a changed world looks like.
Dark skies. Eight lessons about looking up.
Dinosaurs in the hallways. The fossils I walk on every day.
Haiku cut: kireji. It’s more than just counting syllables.
How to read. It keeps getting easier.
If I were a plant. Chlorophyll means power.
Judo way of life. Five lessons on how to fight – and to go about daily life.
Lies, Gold, and Poverty. Sunken treasure in Lake Michigan.
Madrid Is Ripe for Conquest. A silly poem about dog poop.
Paper into planes. Paper airplanes took too long to be invented.
Teaching and acting. They have a lot in common.
The trophy, close up. The World Cup trophy, that is.
Translating poetry: thorny problems. Translation is more than words.
Who Loved Their Babies More. A three-paragraph short story.
Why not “normal”? A lesson I learned from a “special” high school student.
Why you have a future. You have a future because you forgot your past.
Write like Hemingway. He wasn’t that tough away from the keyboard.
— Sue Burke
July 30, 2014
My panels at Loncon 3
Translating Genre
Friday, 11:00 to 12:00, Capital Suite 8
Translations of SF/F books from one language to another offer a snapshot of the global SF/F scene, and in recent years it seems there has been an uptick in translated material available in the English-language market. But how representative is the sample of books translated into English? What factors determine which books get translated, and which don't? Who initiates a translation: does the translator work on spec, or are they commissioned by overseas publishers? How are translated books marketed to their new audiences? And why are so many SF and fantasy works by English-language authors translated into other languages, year after year, while so few from the rest of the world make their way into English?
With a panel that brings experience and expertise: Gili Bar-Hillel, Tom Clegg, Elisabeth Vonarburg, Marian Womack.
The World at Worldcon: SF/F in Spain
Saturday 18:00 - 19:00, London Suite 3
“Fantastic fiction” has deep roots in Spain. After a setback during the Franco dictatorship, it recovered in the 1980s and had an authentic boom in the 1990s. Today, it hosts fifty specialized publishers and a healthy scene of blogs, conventions, festivals, online magazines, and podcasts – plus anthologies, some recently translated into English, and more still to come. This panel of Spanish writers and readers will discuss the scene. Who are the key science fiction, fantasy and horror authors working in Spain at the moment? Where is Spanish fiction being reviewed, and what debates are going on in Spanish fan circles?
With some of the most important people in Spanish fandom today: Susana Arroyo, Miquel Codony Bodas, Elías Combarro, Leticia Lara, Cristina Jurado.
— Sue Burke
July 23, 2014
Untranslatable poem? I don't think so...
rua
torta
lua
morta
tua
porta.
Futility Closet does a good job of explaining what the poem means and why it’s supposedly untranslatable. The explanation isn’t long, and I’d rather send you there than repeat it:
http://www.futilitycloset.com/2014/07/17/an-untranslatable-poem/
As it says, would be hard in Spanish, which is similar to Portuguese, to create a close, literal translation that preserves the tight rhyming scheme, and impossible in English. But translations don’t have to be close and literal. They can be idiomizing and even free. For a difficult translation, rather than word for word, a good technique can be to aim for equivalence, which means the translation would have the same effect on the reader as the original, although it may vary quite a bit from the original.
For example, fairy stories in Spanish end “y fueron felices y comieron perdices,” which literally means “and they were happy and ate partridges.” The equivalent in English is “and they lived happily every after.” The literal translation makes no sense, and the equivalent translation would be the correct translation.
Here’s my equivalent translation of “Succinct Serenade”:
blue
tune
new
moon
you
soon.
— Sue Burke
July 21, 2014
And the nominations for the Ignotus Awards are…
The Spanish Association for Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror (Associación Española de Fantasía, Ciencia Ficción y Terror, AEFCFT) has announced the nominees for the 2014 Ignotus Awards, which are the national version of the Hugo Awards. The awards originated in 1991, and each year they honor the best works of Spanish speculative fiction and translations from other languages. The winners of the 2014 Ignotus Awards will be announced at Hispacon/MIRcon, Spain’s 2014 national science fiction and fantasy convention, which will take place from December 6 to 8 in Montcada i Reixac, a suburb of Barcelona.
After the first round of voting for the 2014 Ignotus Award, the candidates for each category are:
Translated Novel
2312, by Kim Stanley Robinson (Minotauro)
El vacío de la evolución [The Evolutionary Void], by Peter F. Hamilton (La Factoría de Ideas)
Embassytown, by China Miéville (Fantascy)
La casa de hojas [House of Leaves], by Mark Z. Danielewski (Alpha Decay)
El ladrón cuántico [The Quantum Thief], by Hannu Rajaniemi (Alamut)
Las luminosas [The Shining Girls], by Lauren Beukes (RBA)
Tierras rojas [Red Country], by Joe Abercrombie (Alianza)
Translated Short Story
“26 monos, además del abismo” [“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”], by Kij Johnson (Cuentos para Algernon Vol I)
“Araña, la artista” [“Spider, the Artist”], by Nnedi Okorafor (Terra Nova Vol 2. Fantascy)
“El hombre que puso fin a la Historia: documental” [“The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary”], by Ken Liu (Terra Nova Vol 2. Fantascy)
“Las manos de su marido” [“Her Husband’s Hands”], by Adam-Troy Castro (Terra Nova Vol 2. Fantascy)
“Separados por las aguas del Río Celeste” [“Scattered Along the River of Heaven”], by Aliette de Bodard (Terra Nova Vol 2. Fantascy)
“Sueños imposibles” [“Impossible Dreams”], by Tim Pratt (Hic sunt dracones. Fata Libelli)
Novel
Esta noche arderá el cielo [The Sky Will Burn Tonight], by Emilio Bueso (Salto de Página)
Gente muerta [Dead People], by J. G. Mesa (aContracorriente)
La canción secreta del mundo [The World’s Secret Song], by José Antonio Cotrina (Hidra)
Los nombres muertos [Dead Names], by Jesús Cañadas (Fantascy)
Memoria de tinieblas [Memory of Darkness], by Eduardo Vaquerizo (Sportula)
Novella
“En el filo” [“On the Edge”], by Ramón Muñoz (Terra Nova Vol. 2. Fantascy)
“La edad del vuelo” [“The Age of Flight”], by Alberto Moreno Pérez (Zaibatsu / La edad del vuelo. Juan José Aroz, Espiral)
“La montaña” [“The Mountain”], by Juan González Mesa (Bizarro)
“La penúltima danza del Griwll [“The Second-Last Dance of the Griwll”], by Ramón Merino Collado (De monstruos y Trincheras. Juan José Aroz, Espiral)
“Rafentshalf,” [“Rafentschalf”] by Jesús Fernández Lozano (Reyes de aire y agua. Cápside)
Short Story
“Dariya” [“Dariya”], by Nieves Delgado (Ellos son el futuro / Web Ficción Científica / Revista Terbi nº 7)
“El aeropuerto del fin del mundo” [“The Airport at the End of the World”], by Tamara Romero (Visiones 2012. AEFCFT)
“El enemigo en casa” [“The Enemy Within”], by Concepción Regueiro (Historias del Crazy Bar. Stonewall)
“La última huella” “The Last Footprint”], by Miguel Santander (La costilla de Dios. Libralia / Revista TerBi nº 6)
“Los orcos no comen golosinas” [“Orcs Don’t Eat Candy”], by Carlos López Hernando (Visiones 2012. AEFCFT)
“Wendy de los gatos” [“Cat Wendy”], by Jesús Fernández Lozano (Reyes de aire y agua. Cápside)
Anthology
Cuentos para Algernon Año I [Stories for Algeron, Year I], edited by Marcheto (Cuentos para Algernon)
Hic sunt dracones, Cuentos imposibles [Hic Sunt Dracones: Impossible Dreams], by Tim Pratt (Fata Libelli)
La bomba número seis [Pump Six and other stories], by Paolo Bacigalupi (Fantascy)
Reyes de aire y agua [Kings of the Air and Water], by Jesús Fernández Lozano (Cápside)
Terra Nova Vol. 2 [Terra Nova Vol. 2], edited by Mariano Villarreal and Luis Pestarini (Fantascy)
Non-Fiction
Cómo escribir ciencia-ficción y fantasía [How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy], by Orson Scott Card (Alamut)
El poder de la sangre [The Power of Blood], by Pedro L. López (Dolmen)
Jack Kirby. El cuarto demiurgo [Jack Kurby: The Fourth Demiurge], by José Manuel Uría (Sportula)
Japón sobrenatural [Supernatural Japan], by Daniel Aguilar (Satori)
La biblia steampunk [The Steampunk Bible], by Jeff Vandermeer and S. J. Chambers (Edge Entertainment)
La 100cia ficción de Rescepto [Rescepto C_ience Fiction], by Sergio Mars (Cápside)
La literatura fantástica argentina en el siglo XIX [Fantastic Literature in Argentina in the 19th Century], by Carlos Abraham (La Biblioteca del Laberinto)
Silencios de pánico [Panicked Silences], by Diego López and David Pizarro (Tyrannosaurus Books)
Steampunk Cinema [Steampunk Cinema], by various authors, (Tyrannosaurus Books)
Article
“Howard Koch, el guionista tras la magia de La guerra de los mundos de Orson Welles” “Howard Koch, the Scriptwriter Behind the Magic of The War of the Worlds by Orson Wells”], by Luis Alfonso Gámez (Web Magonia)
“La ciencia ficción española”[“Spanish Science Fiction”], by Mariano Villarreal (Web El rincón de Koreander)
“Literatura Fantástica en cifras. Estadística de producción editorial de género fantástico en España durante el año 2013” [“Fantastic Literature in Numbers: Statistics on Genre Publishing in Spain in 2013"], by Mariano Villarreal (Web Literatura Fantástica)
“Sobre la fantasía feérica” [About Fairy Fantasy”], by Sergio Mars (Anthology Reyes de aire y agua)
“Ucronía” [“Alternate History”], by Asociación Cultural ALT+64 (Revista TerBi nº 7 / Web alt+64 Wiki)
Art
Cover art, De monstruos y trincheras, by Koldo Campo (Juan José Aroz, Espiral)
Cover art, El dirigible, by Carlos Argiles (Dlorean)
Cover art, El mejor de los mundos posibles, by Alejandro Colucci (RBA)
Cover art, Memoria de tinieblas, by Eduardo Vaquerizo (Sportula)
Cover art, Reyes de aire y agua, by Olga Esther (Cápside)
Cover art, Terra Nova Vol. 2, by Ángel Benito Gastañaga (Fantascy)
Cover art, Zaibatsu / La edad del vuelo, by Koldo Campo (Juan José Aroz, Espiral)
Audiovisual Production
El cosmonauta [The Cosmonaut], by Nicolás Alcalá (movie)
Fallo de Sistema [System Failure], by Santiago Bustamante (radio program)
Los últimos días [The Last Days], by Álex Pastor and David Pastor (movie)
Luces en el Horizonte [Lights on the Horizon], by Luis Martínez and Pablo Uría (podcast)
Los VerdHugos [The Hugo Hangmen], by Miquel Codony, Pedro Román, Elías F. Combarro and Joseph María Oriol (podcast)
Cartoon
Category cancelled this year due to a failure to reach the minimum number of candidates specified in Article 26 of the rules.
Obra poética
Category cancelled this year due to a failure to reach the minimum number of candidates specified in Article 26 of the rules.
Magazine
Alfa Eridiani (Asociación Cultural Alfa Eridiani)
Barsoom (La Hermandad del Enmascarado)
Delirio (La Biblioteca del Laberinto)
miNatura (Asociación Cultural miNatura Soterrània)
Planetas Prohibidos (Grupo Planetas Prohibidos)
Scifiworld (Inquidanzas Ediciones)
Website
Alt+64-Wiki, by Asociación cultural Alt+64 (http://alt64.org/wiki/index.php/Portada)
Cuentos para Algernon, by Marcheto (http://cuentosparaalgernon.wordpress.com)
La tercera fundación, by Asociación para la difusión de la literatura fantástica ‘Los Conseguidores’ (http://www.tercerafundacion.net)
Literatura Fantástica, by Mariano Villarreal (http://literfan.cyberdark.net)
Sense of Wonder, by Elías Combarro (http://sentidodelamaravilla.blogspot.com.es)
Congratulations to the nominees! It's an especially fine selection this year, and it will be hard to pick a winner.
July 18, 2014
Pamplona: "For a fiesta free of sexual abuse and harassment"
http://www.expatica.com/es/news/local_news/spain-tackles-sexual-assault-at-bull-run-festival_297027.html
July 16, 2014
Go Ahead — Write This Story: Not as planned
You get a great idea, sit down to write, and it doesn’t turn out as expected. Don’t be surprised. Writing makes nebulous ideas concrete, in the process shutting out various possibilities. In the nebulous state, everything was possible, and now it’s not. Yet, new ideas might have been discovered, leading to another set of possibilities. The written version might even be better than the original idea, and only your (understandable) disappointment keeps you from seeing that. This is why writers drink.
If you need some ideas to make concrete, here are a few story possibilities (BYOB):
• This is a revenge story about a woman who learns she is a clone and is surprised by whom her parents chose to copy and how different this was from most choices.
• This is a story about an engineer whose design for a lunar habitat won a major prize but who is terrified to go to the Moon, yet must go live there anyway as an obligation of the prize.
• This is a first contact story in which two civilizations initiate a series of gift exchanges to begin their relationship, and the gifts tell more about the givers than they thought they would.
— Sue Burke
