Terri Windling's Blog, page 246

On Your Desk

Our next set of intriguing "On Your Desk" photographs comes from reader Icarus! Quinn, who says:

"I'm a writer, photographer, musician, shaman and chaos magician from New Jersey, and my creative/sacred space is called The Womb. It's a two room finished attic which houses all of my books and instruments and computers and assorted toys and stimuli.

"The first photo (above) is of my music/Mac desk. Pretty self explanatory. The second photo (below) is a wider shot of my PC/writing/photoshop desk, with a sneak peek into the front room, where the drums live. The light is always bright in the front room, and always muted in the back, which is a wonderful contrast, especially in the winter."

"There are two websites I'd be happy to share. One is my blog, My Icarus Moment, which features a lot of my photography, the occasional poem and daily reflections. The other one is for The Idirlion Project, a shamanic/magickal initiative I co-founded with my teacher last year, taking the sigilization techniques of Austin Spare and bringing them into the 21st century."

Thank you, Icarus!

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All readers of this blog are welcome to contribute to the "On Your Desk" series. You'll find more information (and the address where you should send your photo) in the first post of the series, and you can view the full series here.

Trading Stories

Jhumpa Lahiri, one of my favorite writers, has a gorgeous piece in the current New Yorker Magazine: "Trading Stories: Notes from an Apprenticeship."  (You can read it in the June 13, 2011 issue , or online on the New Yorker website.) In this short memoir, Lahiri describes her journey from book-loving child to Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and examines the mindset that turns some of us into writers  despite every other intention.

I found "Trading Stories" of particular interest because, despite our vastly different family backgrounds, Lahiri and I have one thing in common: we were both children who wrote incessantly in youth...and who then stopped writing (for a time) in young adulthood, channelling our creativity into other areas instead. She writes:

"As I grew into adolescence and beyond, however, my writing shrank in what seemed to be an inverse proportion to my years. Though the compulsion to invent stories remained, self-doubt began to undermine it, so that I spent the second half of my childhood being gradually stripped of the one comfort I'd known, that formerly instinctive activity turning thorny to the touch. I convinced myself that creative writers were other people, not me, so that what I loved at seven became, by seventeen, the form of self-expression that most intimidated me. I preferred practicing music and performing in plays, learning the notes of a composition or memorizing the lines of a script..."

For me, the writing impulse was channeled into acting, and I actually entered university intending to major in theater -- an intention so ill-suited to my nature that it seems little short of insane to me now. Fortunately it wasn't too long before I found my way back to my true vocation.

Lahiri explains her own detour away from her proper vocation with the following words:

"For much of my life, I wanted to be other people; here was the central dilemma, the reason, I believe, for my creative stasis. I was always falling short of people's expectations: my immigrant parents', my Indian relatives', my American peers', above all my own. The writer in me wanted to edit myself. If only there was a little more this, a little less that, depending on the circumstances: then the asterisk that accompanied me would be removed. My upbringing, an amalgam of two hemispheres, was heterodox and complicated; I wanted it to be conventional and contained. I wanted to be anonymous and ordinary, to look like other people, to behave as others did. To anticipate an alternate future, having sprung from a different past. This had been the lure of acting—the comfort of erasing my identity and adopting another. How could I want to be a writer, to articulate what was within me, when I did not wish to be myself?"

This too I can relate to. As a child growing up with a mentally ill parent, tossed between various relatives, all I wanted in adolescence was to be ordinary, from an ordinary family. The very things in my background that give me strength and compassion as an adult, both as a woman and as a writer, were the things things that mortified me in adolescence; and I was no more willing to "alchemize" them into prose than I was to strip in public.

"It was not in my nature to be an assertive person," Lahiri continues. "I was used to looking to others for guidance, for influence, sometimes for the most basic cues of life. And yet writing stories is one of the most assertive things a person can do. Fiction is an act of willfulness, a deliberate effort to re-conceive, to rearrange, to reconstitute nothing short of reality itself. Even among the most reluctant and doubtful of writers, this willfulness must emerge. Being a writer means taking the leap from listening to saying, 'Listen to me.'

"This was where I faltered. I preferred to listen rather than speak, to see instead of be seen. I was afraid of listening to myself, and of looking at my life."

I can't help but wonder how many other young writers have likewise faltered in making that step -- or, worse, have stopped in their tracks altogether. It takes courage to write, and to expose oneself. And to be oneself. But then, all art takes courage.

And stubbornness.

And foolishness.

Stirred together with a teaspoon of talent, a tablespoon of craft (or maybe it's the other way around?), a heaping cup of plain hard work, and a pinch of luck.

On Your Desk

It's a pleasure to start up the "On Your Desk" series again with photos from two of my favorite people from the younger generation of mythic artists: painter/designer Yoann Lossel and writer/potter Claire Briant. They live in an old stone farmhouse on the edge of the Forest of Broceliande in Brittany (a landscape thoroughly steeped in Arthurian and Celtic myth), creating art out of paint, clay, words, ancient legends, symbols, spells, and the mysteries of nature.

In the photograph above, we see Yoann at his desk in the studio room the two artists share. Below is a close-up photograph of Claire's desktop: 

"This is the place where I write, draw, and dream," she says. "You can see some of the many pictures covering the wall, as well as some quotes. I like to let my eyes wander on this wall; it really does inspire me when I write. At this time, I keep only two books on my desktop: one on pottery (the red one, which is kind of a bible) and the other dealing with ornamentation. I use them to create designs for my pottery."

"In this next picture (above), you can see both of our desktops and the pictured-covered wall."

"Here is Yoann's desk. It's twice as large as mine, as he does spend a lot of time here. This desk is dedicated to graphic art, and composing designs for books and websites. Obviously (as you can see from the speakers on his desktop), Yoann likes to listen to music as he works. On the left are some of our books, especially the ones we use as reference for our projects. These include Arthurian legends, myths in general, illustrators we love (like Dulac, Doré, Rackham, Beardsley, and Alan Lee), Oriental philosophy, cosmology, and quantum physics (which is truly Yoann's field)."

"When you look on the other side of the room you can see Yoann's painting place. The painting on the right is called Imperial Twilight. The other canvas is still white, waiting...for a snowy landscape.... In the middle are all the different preparations and secret recipes of the painter, waiting to be used. What a smell!!"

"Here is my very filthy pottery workshop. This is what I first see when I enter the place from my house. All the pieces you see here are drying, waiting to be fired."

"Above, another picture-covered wall, with reproductions you'll surely know, and some of  my creations of patterns. On the work table are more bowls and cups just finished, drying."

"Here's my wheel, kind of neat for once. The big lazy black cat is Dude. He is forbidden to come inside the workshop, because he is my most demanding art director. Some mornings, I enter the place and see broken pieces of what use to be a pot."

"Above: more pots, and a sculpture as well. This is my first sculpture, and a second is coming soon."

"This big blue thing is my kiln. It sits just outside in a shelter made of windows and wood."

"So, here we step outside the workshop, directly into the garden. You can see six big green bottles of gas, which are here not to blow up the place, but to get my kiln working! Two at a time will be enough."

"And this is our garden. We spend a lot of time out here, just listening to the birds, watching the sky and clouds. It looks a bit dry these days, however, and those clouds aren't bringing any rain...."

Yoann Lossel's paintings have been published in L'Univers des Dragons II, Le Chaudron Magique, and The "Sir Lanval" Exhibition Catalog, among other places,; and there is an "Around the Table" interview with the artist forthcoming on the John Barleycorn blog. (I'll post a link to it when it's up.) To see more of Yoann's beautiful paintings and drawings, please visit his website.

Claire Briant's pottery is exhibited and sold in Brittany; she is currently at work on a variety of magical writing projects; and she is also associated with the Centre de l'Imaginaire Arthurien in the Forest of Broceliande. The photograph below shows a lovely pot that Claire made for me and Howard, inspired by the lines and lore of swans.

Tunes for a Monday Morning

The first tune day is "Riverside," a gorgeous song from the album Philharmonics by Danish singer/songwriter Agnes Obel. (The recommendation comes from Ellen Kusher, via Emma Bull, via Elizabeth Bear.)

Below, Obel performs "Over the Hill" on TV Noir.

Friday's Recommendations:

* My favorite post of the week is A Return To How they Drank at Midori Snyder's In the Labyrinth, in which 6th graders write poems inspired by a previous post, How They Drank in the 40s. Marvellous.

* My favorite essay is Jonathan Franzen's "Liking is for Cowards. Go with What Hurts," in The New York Times...which starts off as a discussion of modern technology/social networking and ends as a discourse on the importance of love in the glorious and messy real world we live in. "Love is about bottomless empathy," writes Franzen, "born out of the heart's revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific. Trying to love all of humanity may be a worthy endeavor, but, in a funny way, it keeps the focus on the self, on the self's own moral or spiritual well-being. Whereas, to love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self." So true.

* Over on The Guardian's book blog, Sarah Crown discovers fabulism, which she is positing as a brand new trend. I finished the article and thought, "Well, this is clearly a reviewer unfamiliar with the literary end of the fantasy field, in which fabulism has been the 'new thing' for about 20 years now." But reading through the post's comments, I find this from Crown: "I read plenty of SFF, but this feels texturally different for me - SFF and fairytales/fabulism seem to me to be palpably different things, just as SFF and magical realism are. This isn't to reduce either of them: Isaac Bashevis Singer and JRR Tolkien, for example, are not operating in the same genre - but that doesn't mean I don't love them both." But fantasy isn't just Tolkien, for heaven's sake; it's Kelly Link, John Crowley, Elizabeth Hand, etc. etc. etc.. I can't believe it's 2011 and we're still having this argument about whether works published under the fantasy label can also be literature.

* Katherine Langrish has started up her Fairytale Reflection series again at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles, and the first one is from, um, me. (Thank you, Kath!)

* Helen Castor discusses the symbolism of the rose in her review of The Rose by Jennifer Potter, in The London Times.

* Jessica Loudis discusses Asti Hustvedt's new book Medical Muses: Hysteria in 19th Century Paris on the NPR website. There's also an excerpt from the book itself, and it's absolutely fascinating -- particularly if, like me, you have an interest in 19th century art and life.

* Meghan Cox Gurdon discusses "Darkness Too Visible" in young adult fiction in The Wall Street Journal. Midori Snyder agrees, and Linda Holmes disagrees. They both make good points.

* Kathryn Schulz discusses profanity and Adam Mansbach's Go the Fuck to Sleep in the Books section of New York Magazine.

*Theodora Goss discusses "The Half-and-Half Life" on her writing blog. As a writer, she says, "you are always only half in the world. You are also at the same time half somewhere else....It can be a little scary, living half in and half out of the world. On the other hand, the world becomes a magical place, filled with stories."

* My favorite source of daily inspiration is Jude Hill's beautiful Spirit Cloth blog, which I imagine that many of you follow as well. Three of Jude's posts particularly resonated with me recently: Transparency (in which she gives us a glimpse at a 40-year-old drawing that is truly charming); There Are Days (oh yes, indeed there are); and Looking Through Process (which speaks to me as a fellow hanger-of-stuff-on-studio-walls).

* Art recommendations this week:

First, an "On Your Desk" photo picturing the drawing board of Pauline Baynes (1922-2008). Jen Parrish, who sent me the link, comments: "I was really moved by seeing her work desk. Maybe that I had just discovered her work and to realize she had passed so soon after this photo was taken... the frailty of life and the passing of time." For any of you unfamiliar with Pauline Baynes, there's a good post about her life and work on Brian Sibley's blog.

Also: Have a look at "Violet Goodenough," a lovely prose-poem zine by Cathy Cullis at Nevering (via Jude Hill), and Debbie Styer's post on "The Art of the Autochrome" at Bluehour Studio. Don't miss the very beautiful new forest paintings by Valerianna Claff at RavenWood Forest, and Tom Hirons' magical leather masks at The Hermitage. And Howard is back at John Barleycorn (just barely) -- as well as here at Bumblehill, to Tilly's joyous relief.

* Fiction recommendation this week: Alaya Dawn Johnson's delightful Bordertown story, "A Prince of Thirteen Days," in Fantasy Magazine.

* Video recommendation this week: Natalie Merchant sings old poems to life.

Have a good weekend.

Clouds, Part 3

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

"What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places -- and there are so many -- where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

"And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."  - Howard Zinn

"In the midst of global crises such as pollution, wars and famine, kindness may be too easily dismissed as a 'soft' issue, or a luxury to be addressed after the urgent problems are solved. But kindness is the greatest need in all those areas -- kindness toward the environment, toward other nations, toward the needs of people who are suffering. Until we reflect basic kindness in everything we do, our political gestures will be fleeting and fragile. Simple kindness may be the most vital key to the riddle of how human beings can live with each other in peace, and care properly for this planet we all share." - Bo Lozoff

"People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes.  All is a miracle."  - Thich Nhat Hanh

"I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being." - Hafiz (the great 14th century Persian poet)

Clouds, Part 2

"I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe."
- Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

"The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy." - Eudora Welty

"Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity." - Simone Weil

A quick announcement for upcoming events

Those of you in or near New York City are invited to two book events happening this week:

* First, there's a Welcome to Bordertown Launch Party/Reading/Signing Extravaganza at Books of Wonder tomorrow night, June 9, with musical guest Joe Kessler, of Boiled in Lead and Klezwoods fame. Editors Holly Black and Ellen Kushner with be there, along with contributing writers Cory Doctorow, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Annette Curtis Klause, and Delia Sherman. More information can be found on the Bordertown blog.

* Second, there's a Teeth reading at the Jefferson Market Library on Saturday, June 11. My co-editor, Ellen Datlow, will be there along with contributing writers Steve Berman, Holly Black, Jeffrey Ford, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, and Genevieve Valentine. More information can be found on the New York Public Library site.

Clouds, Part I

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." - Nelson Mandela

"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."
- Alan Watts

"It doesn't matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn't matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years -- we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on." - Sharon Salzberg

"Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have."  - Margaret Mead

Tunes for a Monday Morning

Today's tune is "Both Sides Now," by the great Canadian-born singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell. Her music, for those of us of a Certain Age, was the soundtrack of our youth...and like many poetic, dreamy young girls in my generation there was a long period when I basically just wanted to be her when I grew up. (Thus it came as a bit of a shock to find that my stepdaughter had never even heard of Joni Mitchell -- though perhaps, in addition to the generational change, it's also that she wasn't such a deeply iconic figure here in Britain as she was back in the U.S., both during her Greenwich Village folk years in the '60s and California countercultural years in the '70s.)

Above, Ms. Mitchell performs "Both Sides Now" live in 1970. Below, she performs it thirty years later. It's particularly poignant to listen to the two versions side-by-side because the song itself is about life, age, and change.

It's going to be another week of limited posting, I'm afraid -- not because of deadlines this time (the book is in, hurray!), but because other pressing Life Matters are demanding my attention. I shan't be disappearing altogether, however: I have some posts prepared for you, moving on from last week's theme of "light" to the theme of "clouds"...which the song above happens to kick off nicely....