Kyell Gold's Blog, page 45

RainFurrest Approacheth!

It is that time of year again, when furries migrate northward to Seattle and explore the wilds of RainFurrest. I will be doing many panels there, and when not on panels, I will be most likely in the dealer’s room at the Sofawolf table selling and signing books.

Here are my panels as they currently stand–as always, keep an eye on the RainFurrest programming site and my Twitter feed for last-minute changes:

Thursday
4:00pm – A Reading by Kyell Gold. I may read from the imminent “Winter Games.” Or I might read something else…something either upcoming, unpublished, or both. I will have a bunch of stuff with me, and maybe I will let people vote on what I read!

9:00pm – Mega Book Launch! Winter Games will be officially launched! You can buy it from FurPlanet at their table, but probably not during this event–this will be just for me to introduce the book.

Friday
2:00pm – Being Published (with Rahne and Electrikeet)

3:00pm – Writing 101 (with Rikoshi and Calidon Dalimar)–It looks like this is “Writing 101 #2″ on the program.

9:00pm – Writing (More) Furry Erotica (with John ‘Kitsderwulf’ Kurpierz and K.M. Hirosaki)
*This Panel will be in the San Juan Meeting Room in the Convention Center

10:00pm – Unsheathed Live! Podcast (with K.M. Hirosaki and Kit Silver). Come celebrate the anniversary of our very first live show with another bucketful of fun!
*This Panel will be in the San Juan Meeting Room in the Convention Center

Saturday
1:00pm – Collaboration in Writing (with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough and Mangi)

Hope to see you guys at one or more of those–especially the book launch and the podcast, which will be tremendous fun!

Waterways Audio Book

Hey all! Little bit of exciting news: I am working on a contract to get a Waterways audio book done through ACX. I have a narrator (and he is awesome, I am really excited to be working with him–he does professional narration for a living), and we’re hoping to have this done by the end of the calendar year, with the audiobook going on sale through Amazon/Audible and iTunes in January. And if this works out, then there will certainly be more audiobooks on the horizon.

I have been listening to more audiobooks lately and so this is really exciting news. I can’t wait to hear the final version! I’ll keep y’all posted.

Google Books update

Well, after sending an e-mail to Google Books help, I discovered the problem (WE THINK). I did not magically divine that you could ONLY upload ePubs through their Google Uploader tool. The tool, which is Java-based, had not been working so well on my Windows machine, so I had been uploading using the web form, following (foolish me) the instructions on the screen. At no time during the upload did the software say, “Hey. You know ePubs won’t work with this method, right?”

© 2012 Google

So anyway, I switched to the Mac, where the uploader tool works, uploaded “The Silver Circle” and “Green Fairy,” and we will see. It takes 24 hours for them to show up in the “these are your books” list, I guess. Will update you as events warrant.

(At least they haven’t yet bounced a check to me, so there’s that, still.)

Chicon 7 In Retrospect

Clearly, when looking back at this year’s WorldCon, the beginning and end of the highlight reel is Ursula Vernon’s Hugo win. It’s terrific for her, terrific for Sofawolf and furry fandom in general, and I think in that regard Ursula is owed many many thanks, not only for producing work so brilliant, engaging, and touching that the rest of the world could not help but sit up and take notice, but also for remaining with one foot firmly in the furry fandom sphere when her career is taking off like a rocket with a gorgeous glass base in so many other directions. It is a model that I hope all of the talent in the fandom (yours truly included) will emulate when (not if) the opportunities present themselves. She deserves every vote and more, and I hope there is room on that shelf for dozens more awards, because even an unfair world has to reward the kind of talent, drive, and personality she has.

(Also we had a terrific talk at the Hugo Losers’ Party which is (obviously) not just for Hugo Losers, and even though she confessed to being pretty drunk, she remained awesome. And she didn’t even body-check me into the guacamole.)

So anyway, apart from that, WorldCon was still pretty cool. I gave four panels and did not embarrass myself on any of them as far as I’m aware. “How to Write For Furries” went okay and resulted in one woman coming down to buy one of my books. Gene Armstrong and I talked about the fandom and the way we tell our stories. In “History of Furry Literature,” I led a retrospective of the way the fandom’s stories have been told, from people sitting in a hotel room at Comic-Con to APAs to fanzines to semi-pro ‘zines to novels.

Then I had two non-furry panels. The first was “Fandom’s Blind Spots,” in which we were supposed to discuss diversity in the fandom, and where we still have challenges. It was a unique panel, not in that it contained that person who thinks they should be on the panel, but in that that person was actually invited up onto the panel. Isabel (didn’t catch her last name), a Latina woman, stood up and pointed out that there were no people of color on the panel, and as she had participated in convention programming before, the moderator (Graham Sleight, who later won a Hugo) invited her to join us. She and Amber Clark, a self-described “mouthy broad on the Internet,” more or less dominated the panel, but it remained generally positive, with people agreeing there were problems. My main contribution, which I was proud of, was joining in telling the audience that they are part of the fandom and that what they can do is (a) look for more diverse works by people outside their normal scope, and (b) be willing to talk about those works even if nobody else is. I believe that embracing more diversity can be helped from the top down, but is most effective from the ground up.

(That goes for all of you reading this, too.)

The last panel was on “Getting the Most Out of Writing Groups,” and even though it was at 10:30 am, I had been up ’til 3 and was a little muzzy toward the beginning of the panel. But as people talked, I got better about it. Bill Shunn, the moderator, was terrific, keeping the discussion moving and on track, and the other panelists, David MacDonald and Sarah Stegall, both had great perspectives on writing groups. So I was quite proud to be in their company and feel like I belonged there.

One of the odd consequences of WorldCon is that I had initially registered under my real name, and then, because the Outer Alliance people know me as Kyell, registered for panels as Kyell. So it became harder to split the two identities, and eventually at the con I gave up. Half the authors at the con write under a pseudonym for various reasons, probably very similar to mine, and after I went to an “Erotic F&SF” party Friday night (and met the wonderful Cecilia Tan of Circlet Press, who remembered the story I sold her a year and a half ago), I felt much less self-conscious about my gay furry work.

(Also I read this book recently that had a rave/rape scene pretty explicitly described at the beginning and I was like, my stuff might be more explicit than this–slightly–but it’s NOT more disturbing. Unless you are freaked out by teh gay, but not by a guy drugging a woman to get her to blow him in front of a camera and like a dozen other guys.)

So as not to end on that note: it is a really interesting con not only because there are a million awesome authors there, but also because it really is all about the books. For a lit geek like myself, that’s just amazingly wonderful. So it was very different from a furry con–furry cons feel like home to me, but this felt like visiting a really nice friend’s house. An older friend with lots of books.

All the World a Stage

I’m heading off today to take part in the World Science Fiction Convention, aka WorldCon, aka Chicon 7. Sofawolf Press will have a table there, largely because they can drive to it and because Ursula Vernon’s Digger is nominated for a Hugo award this year! Which is all kinds of awesome.

I will also be on four panels, two about furries (9 am Friday and Saturday) and two not (“Fandom’s Blind Spots,” Sunday; “Getting the Most Out of Writing Groups,” Monday). The furry ones will be interesting–given the time and the number of competing panels, I suspect there may be more people on the panel than in the audience, but we shall see. If we’re going to tell people that furries are worth their time, we’ve gotta start somewhere, right?

I’m looking forward to meeting a bunch of the people who will be up at Gaylaxicon in a month and a half, and meeting more of the SF crowd, especially some of the Outer Alliance folks I’ve come to know in the last couple years. Should be a lot of fun! I will report for y’all upon my return. In the meantime, have a great Labor Day weekend!

First Person

Question from a reader: The first person has always been a struggling point of mine, not to mention breaking the fourth wall as you did very briefly with the descriptions of football. I’ve only toyed with the idea of it until recently, having just begun a little experiment of my own. My question about the style, though, is why the change [to first person present for the Out of Position series]?

Well, the simple explanation is that that’s how I wrote the first story, and that’s how I came to think of the characters, so that’s how all the subsequent stories were and are written. The choice to write it for the first story wasn’t really a conscious one, but it worked well for the visceral tale, immersing the reader in the present moment.

If you want to break it down further, you could ask “why first person?” and then, “why present tense?” First person is the easier one to explain. In these books, the feelings of the two characters and the tension between them is the main conflict, so getting as close to those feelings as possible is important. Additionally, it’s not a big, sweeping epic; it’s a personal story, so there isn’t a lot of action that takes place away from the main characters. So first person works and allows me to present the same events from two different points of view. Also, first person allows me to use present tense–third person present is a much more awkward voice.

So why present tense? Well, that is something of an ongoing experiment. I actually think there isn’t a whole lot of difference between that and the more traditional past tense, save for habit. We use the two interchangeably when telling stories to our friends: “So I’m walking to the store and there’s these two women pushing baby strollers taking up the whole sidewalk, and I ask them to move, but they’re not even listening…” Present tense is a little less formal, and it allows characters to recall events from the past (as in the “Brian’s Song and Dance” chapter of Out of Position). More to the point, it has an immediacy that seems to fit this story.

Which is not to discount the above answer: that is how I’ve grown accustomed to writing these characters and their lives, and probably the series will remain in first person present until the end.

The Quotable Fox

I did a guest blog for Deborah J. Ross a little bit ago, and she quoted part of my post in her essay contribution to an “LGBT in Fantasy” roundtable, here: http://warrenrochelle.com/2012/08/27/...

It’s a good read, including one essay from a Christian woman who has issues with homosexuality. I’m impressed by the inclusion of an alternate viewpoint, and she’s articulate and sympathetic. Also, Warren Rochelle, who hosts the blog, is going to be on a panel with me at Gaylaxicon, so it’s cool to get to “hear” from him.

If you just want to read Deborah’s essay, it’s on her own blog, as is my guest post, if you missed that.

What My Upcoming Book Is About

Well, the book is called “Winter Games.” It’s coming out at RainFurrest, specifically at a launch party at 9 pm on Thursday, September 27th which you should all make sure to attend because there will be cake and drinks and me, and I will be fairly giddy because it will be the first day I have seen this book finished too. I can’t wait to see Sabretoothed Ermine‘s art on the printed page.

But what about the story, you ask! Well, the story is in the Forester universe, more or less. The main character is a snow leopard named Sierra who is trying to start a new chapter in his life, having spent the last fifteen years looking for someone (a particular someone, not just any old someone). He’s gotten very good at conning people into doing things for him by making up stories about himself, and conning computers into doing things for him by making up stories in their language. What he hasn’t managed to do is shake the memory he’s been chasing for fifteen years.

Interspersed with the current-time story, we see Sierra fifteen years before, arriving at a new high school in Forester!Europe for his senior year and meeting a female snow leopard who latches onto him immediately, as well as a sly male coyote who doesn’t. As 2012!Sierra finds himself unexpectedly close to the answers he’s been looking for, 1997!Sierra comes closer and closer to the incident that drove them apart. There is some skiing, some sex, and some grunge rock music, and quite a bit of con games.

“Winter Games” is a Cupcake from FurPlanet–if you can’t make it to RainFurrest, you can order it very soon after from the FurPlanet site (or perhaps pre-order it before!). It’s 49,900 words, kind of long for a novella, but it’s worth it. And if you’re coming to RainFurrest, you can get one of the very first copies ever! Hope to see you all there.

Guest Post: Deborah Ross on Queer-Friendly Editing

Adventures in Queer-Friendly Editing

In 2007, I was asked by Vera Nazarian of Norilana Books if I’d like to edit an anthology. This was something I’d thought about for a long time. I’d had both wonderful and awful experiences from the writerly standpoint, and I had formed opinions about how I wanted to treat my authors. I also thought it would be a great thing to work with my favorite writers and to meet new ones. After some discussion, we arrived at a topic: romantic, swashbuckling “sword and sorcery” fantasy with wit and intelligence. The title, Lace and Blade, was one Vera came up with to describe this particular flavor of fantasy.

I’d worked with Marion Zimmer Bradley, as an author she edited as well as a personal friend, for long enough to know that the narrower the scope of an anthology and the more rigid the guidelines, the deeper into the slush pile you have to dig. The stories that can hit a tiny target and offer excellent quality are few and far between. Marion was a personal inspiration to me as well, in the fearlessness with which she tackled controversial topics (like sexual orientation) at a time before such things were acceptable in genre publishing. I remember reading her ground-breaking novel, The Heritage of Hastur (1972, in which she deliberately set out to portray a heroic, sympathetic gay character), and bursting into tears at the struggles of this character to accept himself — both as a gay man and as the heir to enormous, soul-crushing responsibility. (In the final year of her life, Marion began work on another story about Regis Hastur and his lover, Danilo Syrtis, and I had the privilege of finishing it and seeing it in print: Hastur Lord, DAW, 2010). She taught me that it was possible — and morally imperative — to tell compelling stories about human problems — power, sex, jealousy, self-sacrifice, and most of all, love — and that gay people must be included in those stories. I knew that this is what I wanted to do as an editor.

Because Vera and I intended to bring the first volume of Lace and Blade out the following Valentine’s Day and time was short, I determined the first volume would be by invitation. Tanith Lee had already agreed to send a story, and I contacted a number of authors that I knew professionally, authors I could count on to understand the concept and deliver fine stories on a tight schedule. I specifically stated in the guidelines:

This is not “Romance” but “romance,” a play of sensibilities, a vision of something wondrous but not sentimentalized, from bittersweet to transcendent, stirring the heart, but not stereotyped “love stories.” I have no objection to happy endings (or heterosexuality, or monogamy), but I do not require them. … Alternate sexuality is welcome, although this is not specifically gay-themed — these are stories of the heart, not the plumbing.

In other words, I wanted to see stories of love and adventure for all of us, queer and straight and neither and in-between. I believe that we all benefit by celebrating love (and courage and compassion) in its wondrous and diverse forms. I wanted excellence and I also wanted stories that pushed me — and my readers — just a little over the edge, that made my world larger and richer and more filled with possibilities.

One of those I contacted was British writer Chaz Brenchley. I’d read a little of his work (Bridge of Dreams) and loved it. He sent me “In the Night Street Baths,” which featured an intimate relationship between two eunuchs, complete with a steamy sex scene (steamy in more than one sense, since it takes place in the Turkish baths and is sexually explicit). I say intimate rather than romantic because of the subtlety and complexity with which Chaz portrayed an unusual relationship. One doesn’t typically think of eunuchs of having love lives, let alone sexuality, but both were handled brilliantly, and in perfect counterpoint to elements that were startling and disquieting as well as deeply moving. After the anthology came out, Steve Berman of Lethe Press contacted me to reprint Chaz’s story in Wilde Stories 2009: The Year’s Best Gay SF. Other stories in the first volume appeared on the LOCUS Recommended Reading List, and Mary Rosenblum’s “Night Wind” was a Nebula Finalist.

The second volume included another heart-rending gay story from Chaz, writing as Daniel Fox (“The Pillow Boy of General Shu”), “Writ of Exception,” by Madeleine E. Robins, in which two young women solve their separate dilemmas by marrying each other, and an edgy gender-bending story from newcomer Traci N. Castleberry (who writes gay erotica as Nica Berry). Tanith Lee sent me a story, and I was beginning to recover from my state of abject awe at editing her. Tanith herself encouraged me. She wrote, “On editing though – like writing, I feel strongly one must do what one feels is right. In me, of course, you run into an old war-horse, 40 years in the field, covered in armour and neighing like a trumpet.” Which was a most gracious way of acknowledging that the relationship between an author and an editor is an organic process, when at its best rooted in clear communication, deep listening, and respect. Not intimidation (in either direction), but a partnership in which both people have the same goal — to make the story the best representation of the author’s vision.

The next anthology I put together was The Feathered Edge: Tales of Magic, Love, and Daring. For this one, Tanith wrote an amazing tale: “Question A Stone” involves two superb and very sexy swordsmen who, through a twist of circumstances, find themselves committed to fighting a duel to the death, despite having fallen in love with one another. Their swords, being magical, have other ideas. Here’s the aftermath of their first meeting:

-***-

Even after they had vanished from sight, Talzen lingered by a pillar, pretending to study a small chameleon perched on a pedestal and seemingly made from a ruby, until it winked at him and turned grey as his cloak.

By the stars, thought Talzen, between amusement and alarm, is that black-haired man the one I’m to be careful of? As if I wouldn’t anyway. My God.

With which his heart rapidly agreed, not to mention his loins, which were also determined to inform him that they, too, were now very hungry.

What a beautiful man. Handsome as a panther. Twice as dangerous, from the look of him. That sword–that’s black iron and haematite–and mercurix, unless I’ve forgotten everything I ever knew. You don’t put anything else into a scabbard of that sort, unless you’re a total idiot. And he doesn’t seem to be.

Inadvertently, Talzen found he had put his hand on the pommel of his own sword, which was itself of red iron and mercurix.

At this instinctive and lascivious pun, Talzen almost smiled. But he was taking no chances. Instead he followed the servant to his allotted room, and in fifteen minutes was lying naked up to his chin in water at first scalding, then as heady and relaxing as the flagon of plum qvass he drank.

Presently, irresistibly, Talzen’s thoughts turned themselves again towards the black-haired stranger. They imagined him in other circumstances and rather less formally dressed. Almost sleepily, Talzen found his hand now strayed along the lean length of his own body to the other sword, which like a firm-fleshed, greedy waterlily was raising an inquisitive head above the lake of the bath.

Talzen reminded his thoughts of the warning. He told the ardent flower to lie down again, and removed his hand from its temptation. Nor was he an idiot. He would not have survived this long at his trade of swordsman, if he had always indulged himself. And tonight he had better be sharp.

-***-

We’re all different in what delights and inspires us, not just as queer/straight and male/female, but as individuals. At the same time, it is also important that there be a “place for us,” whether it be a specifically gay-themed anthology or one in which love stories between men or between women are portrayed with the same respect and rapture as those of the straight couples.

I have long believed that what is wrong with this world is not too much love, but too little. I hope to play a small part in creating a world in which no one feels invisible or excluded, and all expressions of who we are are are celebrated.

——————

Deborah J. Ross has been writing science fiction and fantasy professionally since 1982, and is a member of the online writers’ collective, Book View Café. As Deborah Wheeler, she wrote 2 science fiction novels, Jaydium and Northlight, and had short stories in Asimov’s, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sisters of the Night, Star Wars: Tales from Jabba’s Palace, Realms of Fantasy, and the Sword & Sorceress and Darkover anthologies. Recent projects include continuing the Darkover series (The Fall of Neskaya, Zandru’s Forge, A Flame in Hali, The Alton Gift, Hastur Lord, and forthcoming The Children of Kings, 2013, DAW), and a gender-bending science fiction novel, Collaborators (2013, Dragon Moon Press). She’s also working on an original fantasy series, The Seven-Petaled Shield. Two of her short stories (“Mother Africa” in Asimov’s 1997 and “The Price of Silence” in F & SF 2009) were awarded Honorable Mention in Year’s Best SF. In between writing, she has sojourned in France, worked as a medical assistant to a cardiologist, singlehandedly revived an elementary school library, studied classical piano and yoga, and has been active in the women’s martial arts community.

Links: Lace and Blade: http://www.amazon.com/Lace-Blade-Deborah-J-Ross/dp/1934169919/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344890518&sr=1-12&keywords=deborah+j+ross

The Feathered Edge: http://www.amazon.com/Feathered-Edge-Tales-Magic-Daring/dp/0615599931/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344890518&sr=1-7&keywords=deborah+j+ross

The Heritage of Hastur: http://www.amazon.com/Heritage-Exile-Marion-Zimmer-Bradley/dp/0756400651/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344890601&sr=1-1&keywords=heritage+of+hastur

Hastur Lord: http://www.amazon.com/Hastur-Lord-Marion-Zimmer-Bradley/dp/B00403NG7C/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344890518&sr=1-1&keywords=deborah+j+ross

Guest Blog and RMFC Recap

Well, the guest post will go up next week. You can read my side of the exchange now at http://www.deborahjross.blogspot.com/2012/08/guest-blog-kyell-gold-on-writing-from.html, though!

And in addition, here is an RMFC recap for you!

We’ve gone to every RMFC so far, from the downtown to the east side, and the last few years, it feels like the con’s really hit its stride. The staff feel very relaxed and there haven’t been any major problems that we’ve heard of. The con keeps growing, too: 823 this year, a huge jump from last year’s 643 (they have had 20-30% growth every year, which is easier to maintain at the 200-300 level than the 600-800 level). But it didn’t feel that much bigger. The Doubletree is a nice space, the dealer’s room is a little cramped but not bad, and the event rooms were all quite spacious.

I ran two panels: From Amateur to Pro, and Novel Writing (with Rikoshi). The first was early Saturday morning, and while it was on the schedule, it wasn’t actually listed in the con book, so all people had to go on was my tweets (and word of mouth). I had about ten people there anyway, and they asked good questions and we had a good time and filled the hour. The Novel Writing panel had more people, and Rikky and I kept a good back-and-forth going with our talk. Lots of people came in with questions, largely around finishing their novel, and we were glad to help out (Rikky was amused when I said that between the two of us, we’ve written a dozen novels).

And of course, K.M. and Kit and I did our Unsheathed podcast, the first live one since FC, and we had a blast. People came with great questions and we had no fewer than three canine (real canine!) visitors, and the karaoke next door only got loud a few times (if you hear us refer to ‘celebrating good times…come on!’, that’s because that was the song that was playing).

At the table, I got to chat with a lot of cool people, meet Maus Merryjest for the first time after years of correspondence, and spend some good chat time with Robert Baird, fellow writing track panelist par excellence. Also, of course, the ever-delightful Blotch, the wonderful FurPlanet selling team of Teiran and Zia, con chair Sorin, Atari, Geo, Zin, Bel, Idess, Laura, Tim, Dark Natasha, Andy (who makes amazing BBQ), Danny, Rukis, Myenia, and many other people whose names I am regrettably forgetting right now. The Sofawolf table, which Kit and I had the pleasure of running, was in a great corner of the dealer’s room, near FurPlanet and a bunch of cool artists, so it was actually fun to stand behind the table there.

I don’t have much more to say, actually. Even though I was working, it was a nice, chill con, and fairly relaxing most of the time. The weather was warm, but a nice rainstorm Saturday night took the heat-edge off, and Denver’s always a fun city to visit. I recommend RMFC if you have the chance to make it out here in August! Next year, the very talented Idess will be one of the GOHs, so come and show her support!