Fran Wilde's Blog, page 35

A Richness of Firsts: Chicon 7, the Retrospective

Food & Fantasy panel audience – my first panel audience. Missing: excellent co-panelists James Bryant, Petrea Mitchell, Daio, and Mary Frances Zambreno. Included in photo: Classic Kelly Lagor photobomb

(with added booklist from the food & fantasy panel, see below)

The Short Version

When I deplaned in Philly on Monday night, I had this silly grin on my face, and I was still tweeting and messaging up a storm, as I’d been doing for the past five days in Chicago for Worldcon. My family found it amus...

Foxhole Pizza and Interstellar Quail: Cooking the Books with Joe and Gay Haldeman

Joe & Gay Haldeman [Photo: Sharon Tackaberry, 2011]

If you look carefully, you’ll find that diverse meals are served regularly and with gusto at Joe Haldeman’s fictional tables.

Haldeman is the author of award-winning novels including The Forever War (St. Martin’s Press, 1975), Forever Peace (Berkley 1997), Camouflage (Ace, 2004), and, most recently, Earthbound (Ace, 2011), the third book in the Marsbound trilogy. He and his wife Gay are lifelong travelers and cooks. Haldeman’s cooking experien...

Cooking the Books Loves Wired Magazine Today

We here at Cooking the Bookswould like to take a moment to doff our collective hats toward Wired Magazine‘s Geek Mom column, for “Fourteen Fictional Foods You Can’t Have (and recipes for them)” — Fruity Oaty Bars, Lembas, and Ice-Nine — Go and feast your eyes!

There will be cake…

Not familiar with Cooking the Books? We post interviews with speculative fiction writers – includingElizabeth Bear,Gregory Frost,Steven Gould, andMichael Swanwick- about the intersections between writing and cooking. J...

My Chicon Schedule

>> updated, 11:30 am 8/7

I have a con schedule! That’s kind of cool terrifying cool.

Mostly I’m excited about attending other people’s panels and readings and coffeklatches and writers-under-glass events, but I’m looking forward to these events too :

All is of course subject to change until events actually happen.

Thursday, Aug. 30, 1:30 – 3pm, (Wright) – Panel: Food and Fantasy in SF
Friday, Aug. 31, 3-4:30 pm (Picasso) – Panel: Travel as Research (new)
Saturday, Sept. 1, 9 – 10:30 am – Codex Brea...

Your Voice, in Public

The dreaded podium.
photo credit: Brian Herzog
source: Flickr (creative commons license).

Last week, at alocal writers’ coffeehouse sponsored by the Philadelphia Liars Club, the topic of pitches came up.Meaning the kind of pitch you do sometimes in an elevator (giving the pitch its name), sometimes in a conference room, and never in a bathroom. The “I’ve finished a novel/autobiography/teleporter,” pitch. The “you’ll remember me, because,” pitch.

Keith Strunk, an actor, author, and Liar (the c...

A Place to Connect: Cooking the Books with Michael Swanwick and Marianne Porter

Among the things you should know about author Michael Swanwick and his wife Marianne Porter, should you be lucky enough to dine with them: your dinner conversations will never be dull when they are near, they are literary epicures of the highest order, and Michael is a consummate storyteller, offering colorful information that may occasion a Look from Marianne.

Furthermore, Marianne is the author of a recipe for “Metaphysically Areferential Chicken.” More about that in a moment.

That this is th...

Thrice More over the George Washington Bridge – Or, Returning from Boston

The Readercon Book Room. Or, Where I left all my money.

I’d planned to keep blogging Readercon, but then Readercon happened. And then the George Washington Bridge happened, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Readercon was all about seeing friends, meeting new people, going to panels and readings, and battling my (newly minted) arch-nemesis Carrie Cuinn. Also keeping up with Kelly Lagor. She is fantastic fun and you should absolutely follow the sound of her ukelele the next time you hear it at a...

Slouching toward Boston

10 am Thursday – we hit the road.

For the record, should you have a chance to roadtrip with either Kelly Lagor or A.C. Wise, do it. Great fun.

We have discovered that Boston is magically 6 hours from everything. Except if you take the GW bridge. Then it’s 8.

(the sign says Readercon or Bust, but this is what happens when you ask strangers to take photos.)

Found our VP people fast and totally took over the restaurant lounge. Awesome.

8 am Friday: Going for coffee when you are wearing your Firefly...

The Care and Feeding of Your Assassin-Self

While so stealthy as to avoid a listing in Wikipedia, the assassin-self nevertheless runs wild when creatives are present. The ratio is sometimes as great as 1:1.

For those who have had an assassin-self appear by their desk, or, worse, in public, with sour looks of pity and greasy sussurations of “not good enough,” and “shouldn’t even try,” a friend of mine* proposed the followingregimen of care and feeding.

Care:

Swift curb kicks and regular repetition of “this doth not suck.”
Earplugs (for you)...

Power Positions

About a week ago, Nancy Kress talked about something that made my brain get 2x bigger: Power positions in stories.

Her point: endings are powerful. They are the power position. All endings.

She meant don’t pull your punches when you get to the end of anything. Drive it through.

This means:

Sentence level. The last word is a powerful word. Don’t end on a word or phrase that doesn’t matter.
Paragraph level. The last sentence is a powerful sentence. Make it fierce.
Scene level. The last paragraph in a...