Katharine Beutner's Blog, page 3

Another news roundup

Chronologically, as it seems easiest:

Last Friday, I defended my dissertation in the Fleur Cowles Room at the Harry Ransom Center. (You want to follow that photo link, I promise.) Fleur Cowles was one of the sponsors of the internship I participated in at the Ransom Center, so it felt like a nice conclusion to my years as a graduate student to be in that pale-yellow room full of paintings of tigers and flowers and at least one unicorn. The defense itself went swimmingly, as did the dinner and drinks we decamped for afterward. It was really nice night.

This week, I finished up the line edits I'd made while re-reading the dissertation yet again before the defense, and yesterday I officially filed to graduate. A very strange feeling, I can tell you. But pleasant, too. I'm looking forward to being back in the classroom.

And then: last night, Alcestis won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction from the Publishing Triangle. I wasn't able to get to New York to attend the ceremony, unfortunately, but I followed the live-tweets (!), and got a report from Soho's Mark Doten, who attended on my behalf and accepted the award. I hear that some very nice things were said about the book, and I am so honored and touched. Here's Lambda Literary's lovely write-up of the awards ceremony, with a photo of the winners who were present.

On a sadder note, I was sorry to see earlier today that Joanna Russ has died after a series of strokes. If you haven't read How to Suppress Women's Writing, now's a good time. (It continually makes me happy to know that there's a UT Press edition of that book.) If nothing else, read the cover, which in itself is enough to get a good conversation started with students. I don't know if I'll have the chance to use the book or its cover next fall, but it'll appear in one of my spring classes. For more about Russ and her literary career, see this excellent tribute at io9.

I'm still a bit dazed from the last few weeks, but I'll be moving on soon to more course-planning and Killingly-writing. And planning my move to Wooster!

Questions answered

Over the weekend, Diane Havens, the wonderful narrator of the Iambik audiobook of Alcestis, and Miette Elm of Iambik asked me excellent questions about the book, writing, and audiobooks, including some Proust-questionnaire-style inquiries about my favorite sounds. If you follow the Q&A link, you'll see a discount code for all Iambik's titles through the end of the month, too.

I'm in the last push toward finishing up my degree right now, but I've been saving up blog material. (And occasionally then deciding not to write a post on it because it was just too annoying to think about in any more detail, cf. Ginia Bellafante's remarkably silly "girls can't possibly like Lorrie Moore and The Hobbit at the same time!" review of Game of Thrones and her point-missing follow-up piece. Sorry, couldn't resist.)

I have managed to go to a couple of readings lately, though — last night was Russell Banks, reading from his forthcoming Lost Memory of Skin, and I'm hoping to make it to Chimamanda Adichie's reading on Thursday, also at the Joynes Reading Room at UT. A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to attend the benefit reading for Dean Young held here in Austin. Dean has since received the heart transplant he needed, but he and his family still need support. If you haven't (or even if you have), do donate here.

Iambik works fast!

Because here's the whole thing: Alcestis in audiobook form, in non-DRM mp3 format, for $6.99. I am just so excited about this. If you listen to it, I'd love to hear what you think!

And here are Iambik's tags for the book, as part of its metadata:

marriage greek-mythology death women gods-goddesses sapphic-love sensuality pomegranate underworld hero

Pretty perfect.

Iambik Audio teaser for Alcestis audiobook

The lovely people at Iambik Audio have posted the prologue to Alcestis, read by Diane Havens. The full audiobook will be released very soon, according to their tumblr. I've been looking forward to this, and was really excited to hear Diane's interpretation. As I said on Twitter, I've gotten really used to my own intonations, especially for the prologue — it's the part of the book I've read out loud most frequently. It's fascinating to hear how someone else chooses different emphases; it makes the writing sound mine and not-mine, at the same time. I can't wait to hear more of the recording.

YA dystopia in the classroom

In the fall I'll be teaching a first year seminar and an introduction to poetry and fiction course with some workshopping. I've been fascinated by the YA dystopia trend — as are the Independent, the New Yorker, and the New York Times, not to mention countless bloggers — and I'm planning to teach my first year seminar on a related topic. The title will probably be something like "Teenagers and Rebellion in Contemporary SF Dystopia," or, as somebody shortened it recently, "Teenagers in Dystopia." So far the book list looks like this:

1984, George Orwell

The Giver, Lois Lowry

Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban

The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

Battle Royale, Koushun Takami (possibly the film version rather than the novel, or with only part of the novel, as the book is lengthy)

Feed, M. T. Anderson

How I Live Now, Meg Rosoff

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

Moon, Duncan Jones (film)

The books are roughly paired: TKoNLG and Riddley Walker have a lot of similarities, as do The Hunger Games and Battle Royale, and the Anderson and Rosoff books make an interesting contrast (information overload vs. back-to-the-land fantasy). Never Let Me Go and Moon do some similar things investigating selfhood/individuality. Moon is a bit of a cheat since the main character's not a teenager, but it's very much about family and coming of age despite that. (Besides, in that scene in which the two characters mimic each other, they might as well be teenagers.) I still need to pick up Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower, since I grabbed The Parable of the Talents by mistake during my last trip to the library to harvest all their YA dystopian fiction.

I'm not sure if I'll include 1984 and The Giver or not. I'd like to have that context, but I don't want to over-assign reading, even though these books are fast reads, since I'll be adding some secondary material too. And there are so many other primary texts I want to include and won't have time for, already. I hate not putting His Dark Materials on the list, since it is entirely about the process of becoming an adult, but it's fantasy rather than SF, and it's long. As it is we'll be reading a number of first books in trilogies — and talking about domination of the trilogy model in YA fiction, for sure — but I don't think it would work to read only The Golden Compass.

Among other assignments, I'm hoping the class might be able to work together to build an online taxonomy of contemporary YA dystopia. (Me and Propp again, I tell you.)

This is all still very much in development, so: thoughts? Suggestions?

What I'm doing these days

Today, at least, I'm writing about Boston in the 1890s through the eyes of a retired Congregationalist pastor who is about to have a nervous breakdown of sorts. Here's part of what he sees:

That print was produced only three years before this character visited Boston to investigate a report that a girl with a name similar to his missing daughter had appeared in the City Hospital. Pemberton Square, where the Boston police station was located in 1897, is close to Scollay Square — if I'm reading this map correctly, he would certainly have traveled down Court Street on his way to the station. He would have seen the recently constructed Ames Building; he might have passed Faneuil Hall.

In order to write this man, I've been reading things like the delightfully titled Congregationalism: what it is; whence it is; how it works; why it is better than any other form of church government; and its consequent demands. I've also been reading for fun. It's bizarre and wonderful to have a stretch of time to myself without the immediate pressure of an academic deadline, even a distant one. I am preparing for my dissertation defense, and will be dipping back into that work for the next few weeks. But I've had time to browse the recently published books section at the UT library, the one with two-week checkouts. I can't remember the last time I was able to do that and actually finish a book in time to return it. I've been reading short story collections, thinking about teaching next fall.

I've also been playing with TimeGlider, a tool for producing timelines — I need it to keep straight all the details from the newspaper clippings about the events in Killingly! So far, it's working pretty well. Assuming Killingly appears in print someday, I'll probably make the timeline public and link it here. Though I may take out some of my notes to myself — you know, the ones that say FIX THIS, WTF, etc. Writing a multi-POV, not-strictly-chronological novel based on a complex set of messily-reported real-life events is a sticky business.

Diana Wynne Jones and her books

I was sad to learn yesterday that Diana Wynne Jones had died — I remember, last year, seeing reports that she was quite ill. The Guardian's obituary gives a lovely account of her writing and her life, which had a pretty rocky start — see her own autobiographical essay (thanks to Zen Cho for the link). Diane Duane also memorializes her in a blog post, here. I didn't have a deep personal connection to DWJ's books as a child, though I remember enjoying Witch Week and Charmed Life very much. But I've been meaning to read Howl's Moving Castle ever since seeing the Miyazaki version (which I love as its own story; I've heard that it's very different from the book). Many of the posts I've seen this weekend also rhapsodize about Fire and Hemlock. If you'd like to give her books a try, her official website includes a list of all her works.

Speaking of fantasy stories set in the UK, you should read Zen's: "起狮，行礼 (Rising Lion—The Lion Bows)."

Yet more exciting news

In addition to yesterday's Lambda Literary news, Alcestis has also been chosen as a finalist for the Publishing Triangle's Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, along with Michael Alenyikov's Ivan and Misha and Catherine Kirkwood's Cut Away. Here's what the Publishing Triangle site says about the Edmund White award:

Inaugurated in May 2006, this award recognizes outstanding first novels or story collections by LGBT authors. It is unique among the Triangle Literary Awards, in that women and men compete in the same category. The award is open to first-book authors of any age whose work contains queer themes. Writers can have published works of nonfiction, and their short fiction can have previously appeared in a published anthology. The book nominated must be the author's first work of book-length fiction.

This award honors the distinguished Edmund White, who won the very first Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1990. White is the author, among many other works, of A Boy's Own Story, States of Desire, A Married Man, Fanny, and Arts and Letters. The winner receives $1,000.

Past winners are:

2010 — Lori Ostlund, The Bigness of the World

2009 — Evan Fallenberg, Light Fell

2008 — Myriam Gurba, Dahlia Season

2007 — Martin Hyatt, A Scarecrow's Bible

2006 — Mack Friedman, Setting the Lawn on Fire

The Publishing Triangle's judges have picked 22 books in categories including Lesbian Nonfiction, Gay Nonfiction, Lesbian Poetry, Gay Poetry, and LBGT Fiction. I am thrilled that Alcestis is included in this group and am very much looking forward to reading the books on the list that I haven't gotten to yet (also true for the Lammy list, of course, though it's much longer!). If you're looking for even more amazing LGBTQ books to read, don't forget to check out the Band of Thebes Best LGBT Books of 2010 survey. (I picked Emma Donoghue's lovely Inseparable, which just so happens to be a finalist in the Publishing Triangle's Lesbian Nonfiction category!)

Sadly, as the Publishing Triangle Awards ceremony is scheduled for six days after my planned dissertation defense date, I'm not sure I'll make it up to New York — I'll probably be stuck in Austin making sure I'm ready to officially file my dissertation. But I'll try to do something glam here to celebrate this marvelous event! I'm so excited to be a part of it, even in absentia, and thrilled that Alcestis has received a finalist nod. Congratulations to all the other finalists for the Publishing Triangle and Lambda Literary Awards!

More good news!

Which is, as I was just saying to a friend on Twitter, a nice change from the rest of the news this week. (Can't stop thinking about the workers who stayed at the Fukushima plant.)

But on to the good news: Alcestis is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Debut Fiction! When originally nominated, the book was also listed in the "bisexual" category, and even though it ended up being chosen as a finalist in lesbian fiction, I want to thank Lambda Literary for their creation of bisexual and transgender categories. (Notably, the transgender category included enough entries to require splitting into fiction/nonfiction categories this year, just like the bisexual category did last year!) As a bisexual writer, it's nice to be included, especially as the Lambda nomination pool gets bigger — the press release notes that this year's crop included "more than 520 titles represented from about 230 publishers." How exciting!

The awards will be announced at the Lambda Awards ceremony on May 26 — tickets have just gone on sale. I'm not sure if I'll be there or not, but I'd love to go.

And now, back to formatting my dissertation! A life of glamor, I tell you.

And now…

… the other news I hinted at when posting last week: I got a job! Starting in August, I'll be teaching creative writing (primarily fiction) at the College of Wooster, in Ohio. This is a three-year visiting assistant professor position, an excellent way to start, and I'll teach introductory and upper-level workshop courses as well as directing senior independent projects. I am tremendously excited: about the job, the town, my already-delightful future colleagues, the whole deal. The academic job market is really tough these days; I am very, very lucky, and not just because I've gotten nothing but support and love along the way from my department, my family, and T.

And yes, this means that working on Killingly — and whatever comes after — will be part of my job. Like I said: lucky. And so relieved and happy I'm still sort of breathless with it.