Katharine Beutner's Blog, page 9

Romance and narrative structure

At Brooklyn Arden, Cheryl Klein is saying interesting things about narrative elements of the romance plot, YA, and Taylor Swift; Malinda Lo responds to a question in Klein's comments about how those narrative elements may or may not change in queer romance plots.

Allow me to geek out for a moment. (I taught a class in fall 2009 on the development of the category romance, which means I have thought way too much about the building blocks of romance narratives.) What's fascinating to me is how...

ArmadilloCon recap

ArmadilloCon was delightful, even though I was gimping around all weekend thanks to a twisted ankle during my Saturday-morning run. (Side note: why are ankles so weird? It felt fine for half a day after I twisted it and then just started throbbing in the middle of a panel. Thanks to everyone at the con for not laughing at me while I did things like hold cups of ice water against my foot during readings!) The con was really well-run and friendly — many thanks to Jonathan Miles, in particular, ...

ArmadilloCon reminder

Just a reminder that I will be reading, signing, and speaking on panels at ArmadilloCon in north Austin this weekend. At the Broad Universe reading, I'll likely read the prologue from Alcestis, and at my own half-hour reading I plan to read the beginning of "The Former Hero," my gothicky Much Ado About Nothing ghost story, which is currently making the rounds.

Hope to see you there!

Rejiggering

I've added some new material to the site this week — pages containing my CV and an overview of my teaching experience at UT. I'm afraid this site needs to be all things to all people: a useful source of information about Alcestis and about me for readers interested in the book, a professional web presence, a place to point search committees considering my applications for teaching positions.

And, also, you know, not boring.

In the interest of not being boring, I've also slimmed down the number ...

Interview with Lisa Brackmann

Lisa Brackmann, the author of the fabulous debut thriller Rock Paper Tiger, is a fellow Soho debut novelist. We've gotten to know each other a bit this year as our books have been released, and we decided to interview each other about the debut publication process.

How long did the process of getting published take, from starting to work on the novel

through its publication date?

LB: Hah. Hahah. HAHAHAHAH.

Ahem. Well, writing the novel took a while. I'm not particularly fast. I started working

ArmadilloCon 32 events

I just got my preliminary ArmadilloCon 32 schedule, so if you're able to make it to Austin at the end of the month and want to see me read, sign, or talk on a panel, you're in luck! My events are all on Saturday, August 28, and Sunday, August 29. The con is at the Renaissance Hotel in the Arboretum, and there are one-day passes available at the con if you're only interested in attending a few events (though of course I encourage you to attend the whole thing!).

Broad Universe Reading

Lambda Literary reviews 'Alcestis'

Just had to post a link to this new review of Alcestis by Andrea Lawlor, for Lambda Literary's website. The part that makes me tremendously happy:

Alcestis is nobody's celebratory gayed-up Greek myth (for that, try Ovid). Instead, Beutner's retelling is resolutely queer: strange, beautiful, ambivalent, sexually fluid, full of human complexity and godly simplicity.

I know it's silly when writers post reviews and say: yes! That thing! Is the thing I was trying to do! But I'm saying it just this o...

Wrapping up the fiction course

The last two weeks of the fiction class I'm teaching are essentially solid workshop. We've had a few breaks to discuss general questions about writing and one very good discussion about "Hills Like White Elephants" (including a bit of a digression re: absinthe, the legality and appeal thereof), but it's almost all student fiction at this point. We have one week left and they're going strong; I'm really pleased.

It's strange to feel September coming and not be preparing to teach or take...

'Inception' redux

I went to see Inception for a second time, in an IMAX theatre. Several things happened:

I enjoyed it more this time than the first time. It really is a lovely-looking movie.I got to hear an even larger audience of people sigh frustratedly in unison at the final scene. I still don't get this, by the way — once you see the REDACTED SPOILER THING, how can you not know what Nolan is going to do with that scene?I traumatized myself by thinking about what it would be like to watch Mysterious Skin

Another reason it's nice to befriend writers

They will come and speak to your fiction workshops! Last Friday, the fabulous Maureen McHugh visited my summer fiction class and spent about 75 minutes talking with my students. In preparation for her visit, they'd read a story from her currently in-development collection of post-apocalyptic short fiction, and they'd also read the first 25 pages of The Road as a counterpoint.

Maureen on the right, talking to one side of the table

We talked about Maureen's ARG company No Mimes. She walked the...