Katharine Beutner's Blog, page 16
February 11, 2010
Book launch photos
Today I got a shiny CD from my friend Kristin, who took wonderful photos of the Alcestis book launch party last Sunday at BookPeople.
T. says that I should do a Wesley Willis-style description of the event: "I read at BookPeople. About thirty or forty people were at the show. It was a rocking good time." Which is actually pretty accurate! Because I did my master's degree in fiction writing at UT and am still in the same department for my Ph.D. work, I am lucky enough to have a group of...
February 9, 2010
The Hellenistic period on film
Today, found this lovely blog about period dramas (with which, as my Netflix queue would show you, I am totally obsessed). One of the entries on the front page at the moment is a review of Alejandro Aménabar's Agora, a film about Hypatia, the Alexandrian scholar of mathematics, philosophy and astronomy murdered by a mob in 415 AD. (Click here for a great image of Aménabar directing Weisz. So cool to see Egyptian wall murals with the colors intact!)
Here's the trailer, on YouTube:
I'm really...
February 8, 2010
Alcestis herself
Yesterday's launch party was just wonderful. My friend Kristin Ware kindly volunteered to photography the event and did a marvelous job — I'll have photos from her soon to share with you. T. also recorded a video of me reading. Hopefully I'll have a chance to edit that and get it posted quickly as well.
In more Alcestis news of the visual sort, the lovely Realm Lovejoy interviewed me for her blog. Realm is a videogame artist, an author, and an illustrator, and she creates beautiful...
February 7, 2010
Launch party day
I'm getting ready to head over to BookPeople in an hour or so to set up for my launch party, but before I go, I wanted to share the guest post I wrote for Wonders & Marvels, a great blog about history. Wonders & Marvels will also be offering copies of Alcestis in a giveaway, about which I'll post more details tomorrow. But for now, off to the party!
February 5, 2010
Things I'm discovering about publication #48765
There is really nothing quite so cool as having friends email/post on your Facebook wall/message you on Twitter to tell you that they've just seen your book in their local bookstore.
For visual evidence, this photo arrived earlier in the week from the lovely and wonderful Elizabeth Scott, who wrote to show me that Alcestis had just been added to the display case at the front of her area Barnes & Noble.
My reaction: WHEEEEEEEEEEEE. And then I forwarded it to my mother.
Right now I'm...
February 3, 2010
'Alcestis' on Scalzi's The Big Idea
The wonderful John Scalzi was kind enough to give Alcestis a place in his Big Idea series, a frequent feature on his blog in which other writers talk about, as he puts it, "what makes their books tick." For my Big Idea piece, I wrote about why I chose the myth of Alcestis and why I think it's important not to limit the seduction-by-deity plot to male/female romantic pairs. (I even got to use my favorite line from one of my favorite high school English teachers to explain this!) I've...
February 1, 2010
Official release day!
Today marks the official release of Alcestis! You can buy it in hard-cover or as a Kindle e-book — and yes, I totally just bought a Kindle copy of my own book, and I'm very happy to report that it looks just as gorgeous in e-ink as it does in hard copy.
The book is available for order at:
Amazon
Borders
Barnes & Noble
Powells
IndieBound
And many other fine bookstores, I hope!
You can also enter to win a signed copy via AuthorBuzz, by emailing the marketing staff at Soho — my wonderful...
January 31, 2010
Austin American Statesman interview
Back quickly to note that the Austin American Statesman just published Joe Gross's interview with me about Alcestis, in which we discuss, among other things, companion animal fantasy, D'Aulaires' Greek myths, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (I guess I should make an interview category on the blog, hmm?)
Back in Austin
My brief jaunt out of town turned into a slightly longer jaunt out of town, thanks to the snow and ice storm that hit the mid-south this week. But I'm back, just in time for the official launch of Alcestis! Expect a longer blog post tomorrow, but for now, check out this Washington Post article on the comparatively tiny sales of classical recordings required to break into the top ten. Interesting to compare with small press expectations for literary fiction, I think.
January 27, 2010
Deciphering history
Today, two interesting news articles about the difficulty of deciphering historical symbols, particularly those associated with death.
The first focuses on a mysterious heart-shaped symbol found on a coffin in a colonial-era African-American burial in Manhattan — it may or may not be a sankofa, a sigil printed on funereal clothing in Africa.
The second article describes rare bamboo-strip books found in a grave in Hubei province, in China:
Archaeologists will have to wait until excavation of...
