Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 172

On my iPod: Nicola Griffith on StarShip Sofa

I couldn't get back to sleep in order to properly appreciate my well-earned Sunday morning sleep in this morning, so instead I hit a button on my iPod and ended up listening to a recent episode of StarShip Sofa featuring a great reading of Hugo-nominated novelette "It Takes Two" by Nicola Griffith.

I have a love-hate relationship with listening to prose read aloud – I want to appreciate it and enjoy it, but I actually only rarely do. I've been trying to train myself to like it more, and I've ...

Of Bags and Bears

I just remembered that while I did remember to post Kaia's birthday quilt, I forgot to post my two other completed quilting projects for this year.

Everything I've made or at least finished this year has been a gift, so no entries for me in the local quilting and craft fair! After three years of entering, and being naturally very competitive (with myself, not remotely with others when it comes to quilting, I am SUCH an amateur) I thought I would feel more of a sense of failure come May, but i...

But The Moment Has Been Prepared For

So was anyone else bizarrely entranced by the finale of Lost, despite having never watched it apart from occasional glimpses and one random episode after it was already universally judged to have jumped the shark?

Or was it just me?

I've always been remotely fascinated by Lost, actually, mostly because the first season was a phenomenon that I missed out on entirely, and the waves of disappointment started coming in round about the first episode of season two, and there were so many comparisons ...

Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by John Green & David Levithan

I have a thing for co-authored books. They fascinate me, especially the type which divide the narrative between authors, each of them taking a character. This is what Kaia and I generally refer to as the 'we totally should have done it that way' theory when we face the heavy editing work ahead of us with our Blueberry project.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson is the product of a collaboration between two heavyweights in the YA novel universe. It is the story of two teenage boys with the same...

Fantasy with Frocks

Episode 2 of the CreatureCourtCast is up at the Creature Court website. (use the second link if you want to play it on the site instead of downloading). You can also find it over in iTunes.

The theme for this episode is 'fantasy with frocks.' Because yes, this is one of those books where clothes get described, a lot. One of my protagonists is a dressmaker, and that means that she sees the world through clothes. When she struggles for metaphors and similes to describe the strange world...

When to Lay Down the Pen

Maggie Stiefvater blogged a little while back about time management, and particularly how it's possible to juggle writing with parenthood. I never know what to say when people comment on how I write books while I have small children to look after. On the one hand, I'm constantly thinking of my failings, of the long gap between books, of how long it has taken me to get here. On the other, I don't want to sound flippant, or imply that anyone can do it, that there's anything particularly...

Girl Genius Vol 09: Agatha Heterodyne & the Heirs of the Storm

This graphic novel is one of the freebies that was sent out with the Hugo packet to help those with voting rights become more informed about the shortlisted works. Can I just say, how awesome is reading comics in e-format? I need to digitise my JLA collection stat.

Girl Genius, written and drawn by Phil and Kaja Foglio, is a webcomic available free, which also releases the stories in graphic novel format each year. I've been interested in this one for some time and gone so far as to...

Peter Watts is Sofanauted

I thoroughly recommend the latest episode of the Sofanauts, and not for once just because it's a freaking episode of the Sofanauts (missed that theme tune so much!) but because it's a frank and at times harrowing interview with Peter Watts.

Watts, a marvellous SF writer whose short story "The Island" is up for a Hugo this year, made the internet explode a few times over the last year with the news that, upon returning to his home in Canada after a convention in the US, he was stopped by...

Galactic Suburbia Episode 7 Show Notes

Galactic Suburbia Episode 7 is now live! (that is, you can play it on the website and it's up on iTunes, the download should be available by tonight our time) In this episode we welcome our first special guest to the show, editor and anthologist Jonathan Strahan. Jonathan is the Locus Reviews Editor. He is a three time Hugo Award nominee and Locus, Aurealis, Ditmar, Peter McNamara, and William J Atheling Jr award winning editor of nearly fifty books. His most recent books include Legends o...

Shopping List for a Book Launch

Bought today:

3 black garments to be worn under red velvet jacket [note to self, check that red velvet jacket still exists:]

1 black (non-nursing) bra to be worn under black garments [note to self, provide snacks for baby at launch:]

1 red satin snood for hair

1 pearl hair tie

4 assorted animal masks/ear and nose sets, to adorn one picky five-year-old and a baby

1 toy dragon to entertain baby during shopping expedition

Still to buy:

Bobby pins

Eyebrow pencil for the drawing-on of whiskers

Still...