Ruthanna Emrys's Blog, page 6
January 23, 2015
New Cthulhu 2
"The Litany of Earth" will be reprinted in Paula Guran's New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird, due out in April. The full table of contents makes for delightful company:
The Same Deep Waters As You, Brian Hodge
Mysterium Tremendum, Laird Barron
The Transition of Elizabeth Haskings, Caitlin R. Kiernan
Bloom, John Langan
At Home With Azathoth, John Shirley
The Litany of Earth, Ruthanna Emrys
Necrotic Cove, Lois H. Gresh
On Ice, Simon Strantzas
The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward, Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
All My Love, A Fishhook, Helen Marshall
The Doom That Came to Devil Reef, Don Webb
Momma Durtt, Michael Shea
They Smell of Thunder, W. H. Pugmire
The Song of Sighs, Angela Slatter
Fishwife, Carrie Vaughn
In the House of the Hummingbirds, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Who Looks Back?, Kyla Ward
Equoid, Charless Stross
The Boy Who Followed Lovecraft, Marc Laidlaw
I'm supposed to be proofing my own story, but keep reading everyone else's instead. Deep One fans are going to be happy--I count at least three such stories aside from mine, and I haven't finished reading yet.
The Same Deep Waters As You, Brian Hodge
Mysterium Tremendum, Laird Barron
The Transition of Elizabeth Haskings, Caitlin R. Kiernan
Bloom, John Langan
At Home With Azathoth, John Shirley
The Litany of Earth, Ruthanna Emrys
Necrotic Cove, Lois H. Gresh
On Ice, Simon Strantzas
The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward, Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
All My Love, A Fishhook, Helen Marshall
The Doom That Came to Devil Reef, Don Webb
Momma Durtt, Michael Shea
They Smell of Thunder, W. H. Pugmire
The Song of Sighs, Angela Slatter
Fishwife, Carrie Vaughn
In the House of the Hummingbirds, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Who Looks Back?, Kyla Ward
Equoid, Charless Stross
The Boy Who Followed Lovecraft, Marc Laidlaw
I'm supposed to be proofing my own story, but keep reading everyone else's instead. Deep One fans are going to be happy--I count at least three such stories aside from mine, and I haven't finished reading yet.
November 28, 2014
The Social Justice Warriors Eat a Turkey
We aren't following our usual Black Friday tradition of going hiking, because there's a foot of snow on the ground and S is 8 months pregnant. Instead we're following our new Black Friday tradition of hanging around the house and writing and yakking and maybe playing chess if we feel really ambitious. But not acting smug about it, because this article kind of schooled me on the similarities between Black Friday and the Hunger Games.
Both B's and C's schools had 'traditional' Thanksgiving pageants this year and both came home with construction paper "Indian headdresses." Alas, neither is old enough to emulate Wednesday Adams on the matter. I was disappointed, because I'd somehow gotten it into my head that, in the decades since I was in elementary school, most places had picked up a clue and stopped doing that. Apparently not. Now pondering the best suggestions for alternatives, as every good behaviorist knows that you're more likely to get someone to stop doing something if you can suggest something better in its place.
Option 1: Follow a slightly older tradition. Go back a hundred years and make Thanksgiving more like Halloween or Carnival. Dress up and parade through the streets, and put on a wider variety of costumed pageants. Minus the "dressing as caricatures of other countries and classes" bit.
Option 2: Go back to the holiday's real origins, and put on a pageant about Abraham Lincoln trying to figure out how to heal the country post-Civil-War. Still problematic, given the general failure to do so in the years since, but more historically accurate and includes the opportunity for everyone to dress up representing their own cultures and talk about how they've contributed to the country.
Option 3: Teach about real cooperation between Europeans and American Indian nations and have kids put on plays about the syncretic communities that sprang up shortly after contact--the ones where plague survivors took in runaway slaves and Europeans who found Puritan life too constrictive, and where "kidnapped" women for some obscure reason refused to go back when their families tried to rescue them.
All historically accurate, and all still fun and positive. I know there are good reasons to focus on non-positive things on Thanksgiving, but given how most kids' families celebrate they are not going to go for that. And for families where the holiday really is a rare opportunity for feasting and togetherness, or for people who aren't descended from colonists and aren't benefiting from the current system, pretty seriously not cool anyway. Guilt-focused curricula that assume everyone is rich and/or white are starting to piss me off almost as much as curricula that just ignore the problematic bits. Erasing your audience isn't better than erasing history.
Both B's and C's schools had 'traditional' Thanksgiving pageants this year and both came home with construction paper "Indian headdresses." Alas, neither is old enough to emulate Wednesday Adams on the matter. I was disappointed, because I'd somehow gotten it into my head that, in the decades since I was in elementary school, most places had picked up a clue and stopped doing that. Apparently not. Now pondering the best suggestions for alternatives, as every good behaviorist knows that you're more likely to get someone to stop doing something if you can suggest something better in its place.
Option 1: Follow a slightly older tradition. Go back a hundred years and make Thanksgiving more like Halloween or Carnival. Dress up and parade through the streets, and put on a wider variety of costumed pageants. Minus the "dressing as caricatures of other countries and classes" bit.
Option 2: Go back to the holiday's real origins, and put on a pageant about Abraham Lincoln trying to figure out how to heal the country post-Civil-War. Still problematic, given the general failure to do so in the years since, but more historically accurate and includes the opportunity for everyone to dress up representing their own cultures and talk about how they've contributed to the country.
Option 3: Teach about real cooperation between Europeans and American Indian nations and have kids put on plays about the syncretic communities that sprang up shortly after contact--the ones where plague survivors took in runaway slaves and Europeans who found Puritan life too constrictive, and where "kidnapped" women for some obscure reason refused to go back when their families tried to rescue them.
All historically accurate, and all still fun and positive. I know there are good reasons to focus on non-positive things on Thanksgiving, but given how most kids' families celebrate they are not going to go for that. And for families where the holiday really is a rare opportunity for feasting and togetherness, or for people who aren't descended from colonists and aren't benefiting from the current system, pretty seriously not cool anyway. Guilt-focused curricula that assume everyone is rich and/or white are starting to piss me off almost as much as curricula that just ignore the problematic bits. Erasing your audience isn't better than erasing history.
November 15, 2014
Oh, there's my inspiration; I left it under the bed
Story due December 1st has finally come unstuck, and now has plot and character that actually go together. Also mysterious libraries, carnivorous books, and a sprinkling of my housemate's horror stories from rural Louisiana.
Nebula Nominations - Suggestions?
"Litany of Earth" was my SFWA-qualifying story. This means that I'm now able to nominate for the Nebulas, a slightly daunting duty.
I feel comfortable with the novels, and the Reading List suggests that my own preferences line up pretty squarely with everyone else's. And at my current reading rate (and likely post-baby reading rate) I am not likely to fit in all that many more before mid-February. But I feel a bit behindhand on shorter works, and more confident in my ability to fit them in around editing and nesting and changing diapers. What should I be looking at in novellas, novelettes, and short stories that I might not have seen yet?
I feel comfortable with the novels, and the Reading List suggests that my own preferences line up pretty squarely with everyone else's. And at my current reading rate (and likely post-baby reading rate) I am not likely to fit in all that many more before mid-February. But I feel a bit behindhand on shorter works, and more confident in my ability to fit them in around editing and nesting and changing diapers. What should I be looking at in novellas, novelettes, and short stories that I might not have seen yet?
October 16, 2014
The next day, Mr. Earbrass is conscious but very little more
It's 5 AM, and that's a draft.
Mr. Earbrass is also conscious of the fact that he has let his inbox get kind of out of hand during the last couple of weeks.
Mr. Earbrass is also conscious of the fact that he has let his inbox get kind of out of hand during the last couple of weeks.
September 20, 2014
Better Ideas
As I get older, I've learned to appreciate people who actively work on their shit--as opposed to ignoring potential problems and pretending everything is just fine.
The extremely diverse DC suburb where I live is planning a series of community discussions about whether we have any cop-civilian tension, and what to do about it if so. I haven't noticed any, but I'm female and pretty white-looking--I plan to sit in the back of the room and listen.
Apparently our police department did receive a humvee through that horrible military-surplus-for-police program. The city council had just said no to a bunch of things that cost money, and felt like "free equipment" was an easy thing to say yes to. We use the humvee for snow removal, so we don't just want to get rid of it.
One of the proposals on the table, therefore, is to repaint the humvee as an art car in order to reduce the potential for testosterone poisoning. This, explained the neighbor who's planning to host one of the discussions, would "better reflect community values."
Which is true. I do love this town. It's far from perfect, but it's actively working on its shit.
The extremely diverse DC suburb where I live is planning a series of community discussions about whether we have any cop-civilian tension, and what to do about it if so. I haven't noticed any, but I'm female and pretty white-looking--I plan to sit in the back of the room and listen.
Apparently our police department did receive a humvee through that horrible military-surplus-for-police program. The city council had just said no to a bunch of things that cost money, and felt like "free equipment" was an easy thing to say yes to. We use the humvee for snow removal, so we don't just want to get rid of it.
One of the proposals on the table, therefore, is to repaint the humvee as an art car in order to reduce the potential for testosterone poisoning. This, explained the neighbor who's planning to host one of the discussions, would "better reflect community values."
Which is true. I do love this town. It's far from perfect, but it's actively working on its shit.
August 29, 2014
Cultural shifts
Okay, it's time to do a pass for smoking, and for the minefield that is women's choices of hats (or no hats) in 1949.
Does anyone know:
...whether smoking would have been permitted in a library--in this case an ivy league academic library?
...in bookstores?
My instinct is what the hell are you thinking, but I can only just remember what it was like to have everyone smoking inside in the first place? (It sucked, that's what I remember. But people mostly got used to it.)
Does anyone know:
...whether smoking would have been permitted in a library--in this case an ivy league academic library?
...in bookstores?
My instinct is what the hell are you thinking, but I can only just remember what it was like to have everyone smoking inside in the first place? (It sucked, that's what I remember. But people mostly got used to it.)
August 24, 2014
Writing Progress
Good: The rest of the Aphra novel is basically outlined, and I know most of what happens...
Bad: ...except for the climax, currently listed as "and then they do a thing."
Good: I like writing by the seat of my pants, and if I thought I knew what the climax looked like I'd be wrong anyhow.
Good: I've finished writing the annoying-but-necessary transitional bit before sh*t hits f*n for the rest of the book. (Annoying to me, hopefully not annoying to readers.)
Bad: I've looked over how long scenes have taken on average, so far, and have counted up remaining scenes, and that's a longer book than I thought. Which means either busier writing nights, or a busier editing season--because Baby M's birth date is not going to be affected by whether I've finished my other big projects.
Good: I find deadlines very motivating.
Fingers crossed.
Bad: ...except for the climax, currently listed as "and then they do a thing."
Good: I like writing by the seat of my pants, and if I thought I knew what the climax looked like I'd be wrong anyhow.
Good: I've finished writing the annoying-but-necessary transitional bit before sh*t hits f*n for the rest of the book. (Annoying to me, hopefully not annoying to readers.)
Bad: I've looked over how long scenes have taken on average, so far, and have counted up remaining scenes, and that's a longer book than I thought. Which means either busier writing nights, or a busier editing season--because Baby M's birth date is not going to be affected by whether I've finished my other big projects.
Good: I find deadlines very motivating.
Fingers crossed.
August 21, 2014
Sale: The Deepest Rift
To Tor.com, and due out early next year. Aliens, AIs, and academic politics.
...and that actually basically clears out the short stuff queue, except for the lesbian steampunk mad science epistolary story. The entire genre should be embarrassed that there aren't more markets that are obvious targets for a 2700-word lesbian steampunk mad science epistolary story. In any case, I must write more shorts, but not until after I finish the novel.
...and that actually basically clears out the short stuff queue, except for the lesbian steampunk mad science epistolary story. The entire genre should be embarrassed that there aren't more markets that are obvious targets for a 2700-word lesbian steampunk mad science epistolary story. In any case, I must write more shorts, but not until after I finish the novel.
August 20, 2014
Seven Commentaries on an Imperfect Land
Seven Commentaries on an Imperfect Land is up today on Tor.com. Those of you who've been here for a while may remember the first couple of sections: the early drafts were created as, um, commentary, on the question of whether there's a Jewish Narnia and what it would mean if there were.
The issue of what it means to have a homeland may have gotten more political since I wrote the story. No regrets; it still says what I want to say on the topic.
Lest I make it sound like a heavy read, this is probably the nicest story I've ever written. It has magical mint and dolphin alliances and bread baking and cross-cultural friendships and a really good library.
The issue of what it means to have a homeland may have gotten more political since I wrote the story. No regrets; it still says what I want to say on the topic.
Lest I make it sound like a heavy read, this is probably the nicest story I've ever written. It has magical mint and dolphin alliances and bread baking and cross-cultural friendships and a really good library.
