Gillian Polack's Blog, page 198
March 25, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-03-25T17:11:00
I have some very good news. I can see for long enough to write! I just did my BiblioBuffet article for next week. It might be a complete fiasco, but I wrote it and the spider did not dance across my vision. And last night I completed this week's work on the Beast (it was a light week for the Beast, for which I am very thankful). I am reclaiming my life, and it feels very, very good.
Now the spider is making its presence known, however, so I'd better get off the computer for a bit.
Now the spider is making its presence known, however, so I'd better get off the computer for a bit.
gillpolack @ 2012-03-25T12:47:00
Today I'm thinking about Shoah. Most people save that for the official remembrance day, but the official remembrance day is always on or near my birthday, so I think about it earlier. Also, Donna and I were talking about the different ways people dealt with their tattoos the other night (because the Phryne Fisher episode had characters from the Jewish Melbourne that was my family's Melbourne - and the world of the novel and TV was nothing like my family's world) and so it's on my mind. In my childhood, I didn't know who were survivors and who weren't, for they all wore long sleeves and we were told it would be cheeky to ask about their childhood. A special kind of courtesy was instilled in me that helped family friends move on. Donna was saying that her experience was quite different - she knew people who showed their numbers.
What strikes me always and ever that there is nothing distinctive about Shoah survivors compared to other humans (any of the survivors - not the Jewish ones alone): there was absolutely no reason they were persecuted. All the reasons for persecution were cultural inventions. They were all human beings.
It wasn't any apparent differences or real threats that caused so much pain. It was imagined differences and perceived threats. It was a misplaced sense of privilege on the part of the persecutors and a really warped understanding of the relative importance of human beings. That sense of privilege and of relative worth led to a bully culture and one where the capacity to kill was given to the bullies.
Every year I mourn the millions who were murdered. This year is no exception.
What strikes me always and ever that there is nothing distinctive about Shoah survivors compared to other humans (any of the survivors - not the Jewish ones alone): there was absolutely no reason they were persecuted. All the reasons for persecution were cultural inventions. They were all human beings.
It wasn't any apparent differences or real threats that caused so much pain. It was imagined differences and perceived threats. It was a misplaced sense of privilege on the part of the persecutors and a really warped understanding of the relative importance of human beings. That sense of privilege and of relative worth led to a bully culture and one where the capacity to kill was given to the bullies.
Every year I mourn the millions who were murdered. This year is no exception.
Women's History Month - guest post by Sue Isle
I've been sitting here in my study looking around at the books for inspiration. You're never completely on your own when you live with books. If a person never read anything, how would they be able to write? Everything I've read has inspired me in some way. Even if I absolutely hated certain books, which was the case with some of the books I was required to read through school and university, they still shaped how I turned out as a writer and maybe as a person.
Still, when you're asked to write about writers who have inspired you, it's generally accepted that they're writers you like.
The thought of "women's writing" actually annoys the hell out of me, as I've never liked the idea of segregating half the community into an unnecessary subcategory. When I encounter people who think being female causes one to think or write a certain way, I have to fight the urge to smack them repeatedly with a nice hardback copy of War and Peace. [That's still the heaviest book in my library.] With great self control, I didn't smack the workmate who said wasn't science fiction for boys, upon hearing that I wrote the stuff. There's writing. There are authors. Deal with it.
Okay. What have I got here? Ruth Park. The Harp in the South. That book is from high school, I think, and the fact that it's still here means it somehow survived the butchery that is high school literature analysis. With most of them, I could never bear to open the book again. I've read one other book of hers, Swords and Crowns and Rings (title from memory) which was a mainstream novel about a dwarf. It wasn't much more cheerful than Harp, but even so, she was very good about writing stories full of awful things (family tragedies and terrible poverty etc) which nevertheless contained hope and even humour and could depict a time and place so clearly that I felt I'd been there.
I'm primarily into science fiction, but I also read a lot of historicals. Other times, either way. I find those more interesting than reading about the here and now. That's why I've got Rosemary Sutcliffe, Ellis Peters, Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte in my library alongside C.J. Cherryh, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Barbara Hambly. All of them depict their worlds so clearly I can see them and go back to them again and again because there's always something new.
The book I always name when asked for ONE favourite (which is like taking one chocolate) is Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and not always for the big picture reasons; depiction of prejudice, hope for the future and so on. It's another survivor from high school and what I remember liking then was the creativity of the children. They invented games the way I did, with characters and storylines, sometimes borrowing from movie serials but always uniquely theirs. They get into awful trouble when their father catches them acting out the real-life drama of their neighbours, who imprisoned their mentally-ill son in their house. Young Jem imagines lurid scenarios of Boo Radley's life but his father Atticus comes out with one of the most chilling lines I've ever read, relayed by viewpoint character Scout, that no, there were other ways of turning people into ghosts.
The theme mentioned artists or musicians which have inspired me, as well as writers, but I'm afraid I don't know too much about the first two. My favourite music type is folk, because I enjoy songs which tell stories, so I've listened to a lot of music from folk musicians, some famous and others unknown beyond the folkies club they played in. From that I discovered filk, the sf and fantasy variations. Often it was created and played by sf authors, sometimes by fans who became famous as filkers. These include people like Leslie Fish, who wrote cheerful, anarchic pieces about the fall of human civilisation, such as "Black Powder and Alcohol/When the states and the cities fall/When your back is against the wall!" Fantastic stuff, highly recommended to have playing while one writes one's Nobel Prizewinning epic about the zombie apocalypse. Hey, a person can dream.
Right now, as I write, I've discovered the writing of Kerry Greenwood, the Phyrne Fisher books set in 1920s Melbourne! These are a lot of fun and a great inspiration. This is the 1920s we should have had. Phryne Fisher for Prime Minister!
I'm supposed to put in a bio, I see. This always makes my brain freeze up. I always have to go and get the last thing I wrote a bio for and remind myself, though I have trouble stopping once I do get started. This was for Nightsiders (2011), the book of stories and one novella that's part of the Twelve Planets series from Twelfth Planet Press and I was allowed to rabbit on for a whole page there. Shorter version: I live in Perth, Western Australia and am very fond of it, despite what I do to it in my fiction, predicting its almost-demise from climate change. I've written quite a few short stories for various magazines, plus two short books, but am now more interested in longer forms.
I have a Live Journal blog, Apocalypse With Rats and believe that online writing may be the way of the future.
Still, when you're asked to write about writers who have inspired you, it's generally accepted that they're writers you like.
The thought of "women's writing" actually annoys the hell out of me, as I've never liked the idea of segregating half the community into an unnecessary subcategory. When I encounter people who think being female causes one to think or write a certain way, I have to fight the urge to smack them repeatedly with a nice hardback copy of War and Peace. [That's still the heaviest book in my library.] With great self control, I didn't smack the workmate who said wasn't science fiction for boys, upon hearing that I wrote the stuff. There's writing. There are authors. Deal with it.
Okay. What have I got here? Ruth Park. The Harp in the South. That book is from high school, I think, and the fact that it's still here means it somehow survived the butchery that is high school literature analysis. With most of them, I could never bear to open the book again. I've read one other book of hers, Swords and Crowns and Rings (title from memory) which was a mainstream novel about a dwarf. It wasn't much more cheerful than Harp, but even so, she was very good about writing stories full of awful things (family tragedies and terrible poverty etc) which nevertheless contained hope and even humour and could depict a time and place so clearly that I felt I'd been there.
I'm primarily into science fiction, but I also read a lot of historicals. Other times, either way. I find those more interesting than reading about the here and now. That's why I've got Rosemary Sutcliffe, Ellis Peters, Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte in my library alongside C.J. Cherryh, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Barbara Hambly. All of them depict their worlds so clearly I can see them and go back to them again and again because there's always something new.
The book I always name when asked for ONE favourite (which is like taking one chocolate) is Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and not always for the big picture reasons; depiction of prejudice, hope for the future and so on. It's another survivor from high school and what I remember liking then was the creativity of the children. They invented games the way I did, with characters and storylines, sometimes borrowing from movie serials but always uniquely theirs. They get into awful trouble when their father catches them acting out the real-life drama of their neighbours, who imprisoned their mentally-ill son in their house. Young Jem imagines lurid scenarios of Boo Radley's life but his father Atticus comes out with one of the most chilling lines I've ever read, relayed by viewpoint character Scout, that no, there were other ways of turning people into ghosts.
The theme mentioned artists or musicians which have inspired me, as well as writers, but I'm afraid I don't know too much about the first two. My favourite music type is folk, because I enjoy songs which tell stories, so I've listened to a lot of music from folk musicians, some famous and others unknown beyond the folkies club they played in. From that I discovered filk, the sf and fantasy variations. Often it was created and played by sf authors, sometimes by fans who became famous as filkers. These include people like Leslie Fish, who wrote cheerful, anarchic pieces about the fall of human civilisation, such as "Black Powder and Alcohol/When the states and the cities fall/When your back is against the wall!" Fantastic stuff, highly recommended to have playing while one writes one's Nobel Prizewinning epic about the zombie apocalypse. Hey, a person can dream.
Right now, as I write, I've discovered the writing of Kerry Greenwood, the Phyrne Fisher books set in 1920s Melbourne! These are a lot of fun and a great inspiration. This is the 1920s we should have had. Phryne Fisher for Prime Minister!
I'm supposed to put in a bio, I see. This always makes my brain freeze up. I always have to go and get the last thing I wrote a bio for and remind myself, though I have trouble stopping once I do get started. This was for Nightsiders (2011), the book of stories and one novella that's part of the Twelve Planets series from Twelfth Planet Press and I was allowed to rabbit on for a whole page there. Shorter version: I live in Perth, Western Australia and am very fond of it, despite what I do to it in my fiction, predicting its almost-demise from climate change. I've written quite a few short stories for various magazines, plus two short books, but am now more interested in longer forms.
I have a Live Journal blog, Apocalypse With Rats and believe that online writing may be the way of the future.
gillpolack @ 2012-03-25T11:29:00
Lisa's post will come when it's ready. Sorry for the wait, but there were formatting issues. I could probably have solved them if life were normal, but my life is not normal today, so I have asked Lisa for help. It's worth the wait!
Today's post will be up in a moment (no formatting issues!) and Lisa's will be along later. Right now, I'm fixing Kylie's post - mostly to add her missing bio. And then I am due along hot and fragrant bath!
Today's post will be up in a moment (no formatting issues!) and Lisa's will be along later. Right now, I'm fixing Kylie's post - mostly to add her missing bio. And then I am due along hot and fragrant bath!
March 24, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-03-25T00:15:00
I'll put today's WHM post up in US time (ie tomorrow morning) and tomorrow's post up later. Today's post requires a bit of formatting and I could either have done it or I could have done work. I so needed to do a few hours work.
My capacity to write and edit and research increases, day by day, but some stuff with deadlines coming soon was getting rather behind and so I made a call. What's odd is that my earlier posts didn't get in the way of WHM - it was the editing. I can do some things fairly easily and other things make my eye work harder and then I get the spider leaping across my vision again. So typing is easier than editing and editing is easier than html and it's all easier this week than last week. I'm making more errors this week, but that's not my eye's fault!
I will catch up with things! What's more, I will catch up with people. I finally managed to book a bus to Sydney for the Aurealis Awards. I shall cheer everyone on with great gusto. That gives me until May to completely catch up with the lost ten days. And I'm already caught up with the Beastly part of this weekend (and last week was a quiet week for the Beast, thank goodness, so it's only everything else that's fallen behind - 'only' everything else!)- and many of my messed notes are roughly sorted - and I have ordered replacements for enough of the Medieval replicas so I don't have to madly improvise my next workshop (well, I do, but less so). I feel a lot happier now that I'm not staggering from crisis to crisis. Suddenly all I want to do is sleep. I haven't had much sleep recently and teh sleep I have had has been full of strange visions (burglary does that, I discovered - everything around me feels askew and uncomfortable).
So, when I wake up, it will still be Saturday (by a twist of the imagination) and you will read what the wonderful Lisa Hannett has to say!
My capacity to write and edit and research increases, day by day, but some stuff with deadlines coming soon was getting rather behind and so I made a call. What's odd is that my earlier posts didn't get in the way of WHM - it was the editing. I can do some things fairly easily and other things make my eye work harder and then I get the spider leaping across my vision again. So typing is easier than editing and editing is easier than html and it's all easier this week than last week. I'm making more errors this week, but that's not my eye's fault!
I will catch up with things! What's more, I will catch up with people. I finally managed to book a bus to Sydney for the Aurealis Awards. I shall cheer everyone on with great gusto. That gives me until May to completely catch up with the lost ten days. And I'm already caught up with the Beastly part of this weekend (and last week was a quiet week for the Beast, thank goodness, so it's only everything else that's fallen behind - 'only' everything else!)- and many of my messed notes are roughly sorted - and I have ordered replacements for enough of the Medieval replicas so I don't have to madly improvise my next workshop (well, I do, but less so). I feel a lot happier now that I'm not staggering from crisis to crisis. Suddenly all I want to do is sleep. I haven't had much sleep recently and teh sleep I have had has been full of strange visions (burglary does that, I discovered - everything around me feels askew and uncomfortable).
So, when I wake up, it will still be Saturday (by a twist of the imagination) and you will read what the wonderful Lisa Hannett has to say!
gillpolack @ 2012-03-24T18:26:00
Hi new people who are reading my blog. If any of you feel like introducing yourselves, I'd like that very much. I've noticed you flitting in and out (my stats announce you), but if you are shy or just passing through, that's fine. You might be both shy *and* passing through - that's fine too. My blog isn't normally this exciting. I say this firmly, to force things back into a semblance of normal.
This is a quick post, because I need a break and this evening I intend to actually do work. I'm very tired of my eye and even more tired of finding new areas of dumped mess in my flat. I intend to sort notes and work out where I was up to before the world became so very interesting (only ten days ago!). When I've done that, I have a section of the Beast which needs attention. I intend to force it to lose 2/3 of its weight. A Beast on diet! And all this will take me to where I should have been at 4 pm last Monday.
I rang my mother and said "No dramas today," and she said "Thank goodness!" and she is now watching Phryne Fisher and we're going to dissect it evilly when she's done. Which will be in ten minutes. Which will be my break. There is logic in all this.
This is a quick post, because I need a break and this evening I intend to actually do work. I'm very tired of my eye and even more tired of finding new areas of dumped mess in my flat. I intend to sort notes and work out where I was up to before the world became so very interesting (only ten days ago!). When I've done that, I have a section of the Beast which needs attention. I intend to force it to lose 2/3 of its weight. A Beast on diet! And all this will take me to where I should have been at 4 pm last Monday.
I rang my mother and said "No dramas today," and she said "Thank goodness!" and she is now watching Phryne Fisher and we're going to dissect it evilly when she's done. Which will be in ten minutes. Which will be my break. There is logic in all this.
Book reviews and WHM
I'm thinking about reviews today. That wonderful (and depressing) work by Vida demonstrated that reviews are not distributed at all evenly according to gender.
Large press has more money to send review copies into the wilderness and so books published by large press are more likely to get reviews (at least in theory) and publishers who do clever marketing will get enough buzz about a work to guarantee mention in key places. But this is just the beginning of it. There are publishers (who produce amazing books) who some critics will not review anything from because they know they will get criticised if they say anything negative - not all editors and publishers are understanding when a critic dislikes something. There are publishers who don't check who writes what or know enough about the magazine or organisation - someone sent the CSFG a post-apocalyptic book for review the other day, for instance, and CSFG doesn't put reviews on its website (or hasn't ever, yet)
When publishers get it right, though, and reviewers get books that fascinate them, then life can be very cool. I got to write a review essay about Sara Douglass because Ticonderoga always keeps my particular preferences in mind. Ticon often publishes books by friends of mine (which just shows that I have friends who are fine writers) and I will not review books by friends. They do the check and they know my limitations and they do not send me books by friends. Angry Robot, likewise, has a setup - as do most of the academic publishers - where I don't get review copies (not paper, not electronic) of volumes I can't use. Prometheus sends me a wider range - but Jill Maxick is a living miracle, for these books always reflect my interests - and so I can review or comment on most of those I receive. And yet I had a complaint from a much bigger publisher that I only once reviewed anything they issued. This would be because they have never sent me anything and that once I got the book for myself. And another was perplexed that I didn't review books by friends.
Most publishers who send me work (and this includes the academic presses) are very careful to reflect what they know of my interests. This is important. It's a signal that those Vida statistics are not as simple as reviewers choosing male writers. It's also a question of what publications are available for review for the places you write for. I will go out and buy books I want to write about when I have the money, and I suspect I'm not the only person who does that. But if an interesting book appears in my letterbox, then I don't have to and I'll write about that book ahead of the mythical one I have not yet seen.
All this is just a subset of possible illustrations: the gender imbalance is due to complex causes. Some of it is choices by reviewers (I need to do a pie chart for my reviews and essays to find out what it looks like, but I admit I'm a bit nervous), some of it is the policies of the place the reviews appear (what publications are offered for review, what do the editors tell their reviewers? - BiblioBuffet tells me very clearly I can write about the books I want to write about, so if I only write about books by male authors, then I'm the one who has made that choice, for instance, not BiblioBuffet), what do publishers and writers send notes about and which books do they send out and to whom (I get more books by male writers than female, across the board) and which reviews and essays elicit reader interest?
This last is one reason I chose the subject I chose for this year's Women's History Month. I wanted to see if people wanted to read about women in the arts. And they do. Lots of readers. They're not chatting about the posts on the posts, but they're coming to read them in droves. I don't think that this is because of gender - I think it's because interesting people are writing interesting things about other interesting people. And that's the bottom line. We need to stop assuming that audiences only want to read about books by men. Yes, there are many readers who discriminate by gender, but there are even more readers who aren't being given a chance to make that choice, because so many wonderful books by women aren't having enough light shone on them. If a reader doesn't know a book exists, how can they decide if they want to read it?
It's not enough to remind people to read books by women. It's not enough to get readers realising that the gender of a writer is not an indication of how good or bad a book is. We have to change the system by which knowledge of the existence of good books by women reaches the reading public.
Speaking of books - it's almost time for my library visit. I'm still running background checks because my eye still can't deal with solid work, so my check for the weekend will be long slow narratives. During the week it was the narratives surrounding Martin Guerre. I'm going to have to bite the bullet next week and do solid work regardless, but at least I learned a heap about my own assumptions of what creates story while I was dealing with life and the universe.
Large press has more money to send review copies into the wilderness and so books published by large press are more likely to get reviews (at least in theory) and publishers who do clever marketing will get enough buzz about a work to guarantee mention in key places. But this is just the beginning of it. There are publishers (who produce amazing books) who some critics will not review anything from because they know they will get criticised if they say anything negative - not all editors and publishers are understanding when a critic dislikes something. There are publishers who don't check who writes what or know enough about the magazine or organisation - someone sent the CSFG a post-apocalyptic book for review the other day, for instance, and CSFG doesn't put reviews on its website (or hasn't ever, yet)
When publishers get it right, though, and reviewers get books that fascinate them, then life can be very cool. I got to write a review essay about Sara Douglass because Ticonderoga always keeps my particular preferences in mind. Ticon often publishes books by friends of mine (which just shows that I have friends who are fine writers) and I will not review books by friends. They do the check and they know my limitations and they do not send me books by friends. Angry Robot, likewise, has a setup - as do most of the academic publishers - where I don't get review copies (not paper, not electronic) of volumes I can't use. Prometheus sends me a wider range - but Jill Maxick is a living miracle, for these books always reflect my interests - and so I can review or comment on most of those I receive. And yet I had a complaint from a much bigger publisher that I only once reviewed anything they issued. This would be because they have never sent me anything and that once I got the book for myself. And another was perplexed that I didn't review books by friends.
Most publishers who send me work (and this includes the academic presses) are very careful to reflect what they know of my interests. This is important. It's a signal that those Vida statistics are not as simple as reviewers choosing male writers. It's also a question of what publications are available for review for the places you write for. I will go out and buy books I want to write about when I have the money, and I suspect I'm not the only person who does that. But if an interesting book appears in my letterbox, then I don't have to and I'll write about that book ahead of the mythical one I have not yet seen.
All this is just a subset of possible illustrations: the gender imbalance is due to complex causes. Some of it is choices by reviewers (I need to do a pie chart for my reviews and essays to find out what it looks like, but I admit I'm a bit nervous), some of it is the policies of the place the reviews appear (what publications are offered for review, what do the editors tell their reviewers? - BiblioBuffet tells me very clearly I can write about the books I want to write about, so if I only write about books by male authors, then I'm the one who has made that choice, for instance, not BiblioBuffet), what do publishers and writers send notes about and which books do they send out and to whom (I get more books by male writers than female, across the board) and which reviews and essays elicit reader interest?
This last is one reason I chose the subject I chose for this year's Women's History Month. I wanted to see if people wanted to read about women in the arts. And they do. Lots of readers. They're not chatting about the posts on the posts, but they're coming to read them in droves. I don't think that this is because of gender - I think it's because interesting people are writing interesting things about other interesting people. And that's the bottom line. We need to stop assuming that audiences only want to read about books by men. Yes, there are many readers who discriminate by gender, but there are even more readers who aren't being given a chance to make that choice, because so many wonderful books by women aren't having enough light shone on them. If a reader doesn't know a book exists, how can they decide if they want to read it?
It's not enough to remind people to read books by women. It's not enough to get readers realising that the gender of a writer is not an indication of how good or bad a book is. We have to change the system by which knowledge of the existence of good books by women reaches the reading public.
Speaking of books - it's almost time for my library visit. I'm still running background checks because my eye still can't deal with solid work, so my check for the weekend will be long slow narratives. During the week it was the narratives surrounding Martin Guerre. I'm going to have to bite the bullet next week and do solid work regardless, but at least I learned a heap about my own assumptions of what creates story while I was dealing with life and the universe.
March 23, 2012
Women's History Month - guest post by Delia Sherman
I read my first Lucy Sussex short story in 1988. It was "My Lady Tongue," and I picked it up because I'm fond of Shakespeare and particularly fond of Much Ado About Nothing. Once I got over the fact that the connection between Shakespeare and the story was entirely a matter of theme (which didn't take long), I was hooked. Like many of Lucy's stories, "My Lady Tongue" is about gender and pushing boundaries and breaking rules. It is about a character who is at once a rebel and a citizen, a problem child and a problem-solving adult. It is also written in just exactly the right language needed for the story and the character, beautiful but not self-conscious, atmospheric, but never at the expense of movement or action.
In short, the author of "My Lady Tongue" was clearly just exactly the kind of writer I'd follow anywhere, whatever her subject.
After that, I read every Lucy Sussex story I could find. Since she's an Antipodean writer (I say that because, although she's actually a New Zealander, she has lived most of her adult life in Australia, and often writes about Australian history), they were not thick on the ground in the US. Then, in 1996, she submitted "Merlusine" to Ellen Kushner and me for our "music and magic" anthology, The Horns of Elfland.
We were blown away. We know from Louisiana and Cajun music—and she'd got it all exactly right—the history, the speech patterns, how the music makes you feel and how it fits into the culture. Not only that, she'd seamlessly knitted in the French legend of the serpent-bride Melusine as well as dealing with such vexed political themes as racial identity and class in the American South.
And it was a damn fine story, too.
We bought it. Of course we bought it. And when we met Lucy at World Fantasy in Monterey (I think) in 1998, we loved her, too. As a researcher and a historian, she knows an incredible amount about the hidden byways of Australian and American history. As a journalist, she knows how to ask just the right questions. And her sense of humor is as dry as the Outback.
Last year, in preparation for an introduction to a new collection of Lucy's stories, called Matilda Told Such Dreadful Lies, (Ticonderoga Press—look for it) I read very nearly all her stories, one after another, and was blown away all over again. I love the way Lucy layers history and character and narrative like colors in an oil painting, each contributing its bit to the depth and subtlety of the finished story. I love her free and easy way with genre. Since I'm a bit of an historian myself, I love the way she writes about history, and how it bleeds into and influences the present. I love her characters, her strong women and her questing men, her living volcanoes and glaciers and dolls and books. And I admire her clarity—of thought, of expression, of understanding. Her stories are frightening, sad, acerbic, and frequently very, very funny. I just wish that they were better known in the States.
Bio:
If I didn't write historical, fantastical, very fictional fiction, I probably wouldn't write at all. It's not because I don't like talking about my family and my life, heaven knows. I talk about them frequently, and pretty much to anybody who is interested enough to ask. But I don't like writing about them, except at a distance. My tarot deck of go-to characters is absolutely built on my father and mother, my Japanese nanny, my parents' families, my super-competant best friend from first grade, the little boy I had a crush on who tortured me in Sunday school, my ex-partner and her family, my fellow-students in college and graduate school. My viewpoint characters tend to be, like me, foundlings, only children, more connected to adults than other children. But the other details are infinitely variable, and virtually never drawn from my own lived experience. I guess another way of putting it is that I'm only comfortable writing my emotional truths when I can dress them up in fancy costumes and elaborate masks.
In short, the author of "My Lady Tongue" was clearly just exactly the kind of writer I'd follow anywhere, whatever her subject.
After that, I read every Lucy Sussex story I could find. Since she's an Antipodean writer (I say that because, although she's actually a New Zealander, she has lived most of her adult life in Australia, and often writes about Australian history), they were not thick on the ground in the US. Then, in 1996, she submitted "Merlusine" to Ellen Kushner and me for our "music and magic" anthology, The Horns of Elfland.
We were blown away. We know from Louisiana and Cajun music—and she'd got it all exactly right—the history, the speech patterns, how the music makes you feel and how it fits into the culture. Not only that, she'd seamlessly knitted in the French legend of the serpent-bride Melusine as well as dealing with such vexed political themes as racial identity and class in the American South.
And it was a damn fine story, too.
We bought it. Of course we bought it. And when we met Lucy at World Fantasy in Monterey (I think) in 1998, we loved her, too. As a researcher and a historian, she knows an incredible amount about the hidden byways of Australian and American history. As a journalist, she knows how to ask just the right questions. And her sense of humor is as dry as the Outback.
Last year, in preparation for an introduction to a new collection of Lucy's stories, called Matilda Told Such Dreadful Lies, (Ticonderoga Press—look for it) I read very nearly all her stories, one after another, and was blown away all over again. I love the way Lucy layers history and character and narrative like colors in an oil painting, each contributing its bit to the depth and subtlety of the finished story. I love her free and easy way with genre. Since I'm a bit of an historian myself, I love the way she writes about history, and how it bleeds into and influences the present. I love her characters, her strong women and her questing men, her living volcanoes and glaciers and dolls and books. And I admire her clarity—of thought, of expression, of understanding. Her stories are frightening, sad, acerbic, and frequently very, very funny. I just wish that they were better known in the States.
Bio:
If I didn't write historical, fantastical, very fictional fiction, I probably wouldn't write at all. It's not because I don't like talking about my family and my life, heaven knows. I talk about them frequently, and pretty much to anybody who is interested enough to ask. But I don't like writing about them, except at a distance. My tarot deck of go-to characters is absolutely built on my father and mother, my Japanese nanny, my parents' families, my super-competant best friend from first grade, the little boy I had a crush on who tortured me in Sunday school, my ex-partner and her family, my fellow-students in college and graduate school. My viewpoint characters tend to be, like me, foundlings, only children, more connected to adults than other children. But the other details are infinitely variable, and virtually never drawn from my own lived experience. I guess another way of putting it is that I'm only comfortable writing my emotional truths when I can dress them up in fancy costumes and elaborate masks.
gillpolack @ 2012-03-23T23:59:00
I have daringly ordered my Medieval badges. I move back in time! Soon it will be Monday again!
gillpolack @ 2012-03-23T18:43:00
WHM will be a bit later tonight.
Two very wonderful friends have helped replace two of the most emotionally significant losses from the burglary and tell me firmly that these are birthday presents. Other friends have located me websites where I can replace the coins, the badge, some of the jewellery. Thank you, everyone! It has helped emotionally as well as helping in other ways. I now have a list of things I need and I shall work through them methodically - I still have not found the type of careful replicas I need for teaching, but the rest is happening. I shall buy my workstuff first, and then take my time with everything else. The insurance people have told me how much I will be given to spend on replacing things like the teaching tools. All this is very good.
My loungeroom looks normally messy and most things are where they belong. My L-space is still worrying and so are parts of my bedroom, but it'll all be back to rights by Monday.
I'm at the stage where I only have one hour of theft related follow-up phonecalls in a day and soon that will diminish further. And I can sit at the computer a whole hour and a half at a time - my eye is finally deciding it can deal with the bloodmist.
In other words, I'm halfway to getting my life back.
This calls for a celebration. I shall order that replacement for the Becket pilgrim badge, just as soon as I've rested my eye. And I might buy myself a Pesach present of a second pilgrim badge while I'm ordering. I was thinking of one of the very unPC ones, obviously bought by very unPC pilgrims.
Two very wonderful friends have helped replace two of the most emotionally significant losses from the burglary and tell me firmly that these are birthday presents. Other friends have located me websites where I can replace the coins, the badge, some of the jewellery. Thank you, everyone! It has helped emotionally as well as helping in other ways. I now have a list of things I need and I shall work through them methodically - I still have not found the type of careful replicas I need for teaching, but the rest is happening. I shall buy my workstuff first, and then take my time with everything else. The insurance people have told me how much I will be given to spend on replacing things like the teaching tools. All this is very good.
My loungeroom looks normally messy and most things are where they belong. My L-space is still worrying and so are parts of my bedroom, but it'll all be back to rights by Monday.
I'm at the stage where I only have one hour of theft related follow-up phonecalls in a day and soon that will diminish further. And I can sit at the computer a whole hour and a half at a time - my eye is finally deciding it can deal with the bloodmist.
In other words, I'm halfway to getting my life back.
This calls for a celebration. I shall order that replacement for the Becket pilgrim badge, just as soon as I've rested my eye. And I might buy myself a Pesach present of a second pilgrim badge while I'm ordering. I was thinking of one of the very unPC ones, obviously bought by very unPC pilgrims.
