Nicola Griffith's Blog, page 104

A conversation with my editor about Hild

There's a long and meaty conversation between me and my editor, Sean McDonald, up at Farrar, Straus and Giroux's Work in Progress.

If you like to see behind the writer's curtain, this is what it looks like. One of the things I talk about is being afraid to begin, really quailing, some of the reasons for that, and what happened.

I didn’t want to write about the restrictions of gender. Domesticity makes me claustrophobic. Hearth and home are all very well, but I love an epic canvas: gold and glory, politics and plotting.

To avoid that, I was tempted to take the easy way out and make Hild so singular that the restrictions didn’t apply to her. I tried everything I could think of; at one point I even had her learn and use a sword, although in reality she might have very well have been put to death for that.

It didn’t work: History is made by real people; the rules always apply. I despaired of being able to reconcile that reality with what I wanted, what somewhere inside I knew was possible.

In the end I did what any good Anglo-Saxon would: I got drunk, laughed in the face of fear, and charged. And I discovered what poets have known for millennia, that constraint is freeing. I had nothing to lose, so I committed. The words came. It felt like magic. It was Hild’s voice.

Go read the rest. Tell me what you think.

New interview up

"I don't see genre as an identity, but as a tool." A quote from a long, juicy interview by Valerie Easton that just went up at Crosscuts (whose mission is to reveal and strengthen the civic and cultural life of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest).

Let me know what you think.

New photos of me and Kelley

Both (of course!) by Jennifer Durham. We have others, but these will do for now.

The first public reading of HILD: save the date!

I'll be doing the very first public reading of Hild, Thursday May 30th, 7 pm, at McNally Jackson Books.

It'll be a short reading—less than ten minutes—but it will be The First. So I'm excited. If you're in town that evening, I hope you'll join me and Kelley for some Hild time.

I'll be reading with Alice McDermott, Fiona McFarlane, and Mary Kay Zuravleff. We'll be introduced by Sarah Crichton, of Farrar, Straus and Giroux; the evening is sponsored by Book Keeping, the FSG Facebook page for all things book-related.  (Book Keeping is currently registering book clubs so if your club wants nifty freebies—books! reading group guides!—go sign up.)

Hild is a fall/winter Buzz Book

I heard this morning that Hild will be one of the fall/winter buzz books from Publishers Lunch. This is a big deal, because it means that Hild is one of the 40 most-buzzed books for the season. It also means you can read the first chapter today.

This is because Publishers Lunch have created a special ebook (for Kindle, iThings, and Nook) that contains excerpts from those top 40 books, including, y'know, me, and, oh yeah, stuff from writers such as Amy Tan, Jonathan Lethem, Sue Grafton, Tamora Pierce...

Here are direct links (for people in the US) to the free book direct from your favourite device or app:
Kindle NookiThingFor readers outside the US there is--woo-hoo!--an international edition (which has fewer excerpts). I found the link for those in the UK, to read via Kindle. But if you're in say, Australia, you'll have to search your favourite retailer for the link.
Enjoy! Then, y'know, go pre-order Hild...

Lilacs in the mist

lilacs and honeysuckleWe've had a run of magnificent weather here in Seattle. That's scheduled to change tomorrow. But here's a photo taken not long after dawn a couple of days ago: the back fence where our honeysuckle is making friends with the neighbour's lilace.

It turned out to be a blazing hot day but it began, as so many do, shrouded in sea mist. The briny mist, the aromatic cedar fence, the light perfume of blossom: sublime.

I hope to blog more next week. Right now I'm going through copy-editor queries resulting from my first-pass proof comments. Then it's pondering the Hild map—specifically Roman roads. Then I have to turn my attention to all the stuff I have to get done before New York. So, eh, we'll see...

A map of Hild's world

Hild, when published, will have at the front a gorgeous map of seventh-century Britain. The Hild ARC, though, is mapless.

It occurred to me that those who are reading the mapless ARC might want a rough idea of where Hild's been and what the country looks like. So here's a high-quality version of my initial map of Hild's world. Thanks to two friends, Angélique Corthals and Jennifer Durham, it's better than anything I could have come up with on my own—but it's not nearly as nifty as the final published version will be.

For those who don't like to click through, here's a smaller iteration:
seventh-century Britain, a draft—click to enlarge (buy, hey, it's not as big as the one linked to above)The island of Glannauc is hugely enlarged; I wanted readers to be able to see it. Also, some of the region/people names are disproportionately labelled. So Craven and Elmet look like polities of the same size, even though Elmet is much, much more important. Hopefully that'll be fixed in the spiffy published version. Everything else is about right. (Er, except for one of the rivers. But I'll let you figure that one out for yourself.)

Enjoy.

Delicious

It's truly delicious weather here: seventies, sun, everything bright and blooming.  The perbs are growing like Jack's beanstalk. Yesterday we cut some to make a wee bundle to shove in a with roasting chicken:
The whole house smelt like spring: roasting herbs within, lilac without.

Even morning's (not my favourite) are a delight. We're woken by birds twittering and flittering about in the bushes by the window—not irritating robins, either (which I think might be the dimmest birds on the planet), but busy little bush tits (which I always have the peculiar urge to stuff in my mouth; I've spent too long in the heads of predatory characters...).


Soon I suppose I'll have to rejoin the world—pay attention to email, catch up with blog posts, and so on. At which point I'll let everyone know about Hild ARCs. Until then, hey, I hope that wherever you are you're having a splendid spring.

I've won the Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize

From the press release:

The Lambda Literary Foundation, the nation's leading national nonprofit organization promoting LGBT literature and writers, is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2013 James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize. This year the Mid-Career Prize recognizes Nicola Griffith and Trebor Healey. 

"Trebor Healey and Nicola Griffith are both writers who are unafraid to take risks in their writing, stretching the strictures of genre to ask bigger questions. They use the lens of their LGBT experience as a prism through which universal themes of love, society, and the meaning of life are refracted, disassembled and reassembled in ways that are at once challenging and rewarding to the reader. Their work deepens and enriches the tapestry of LGBT literature: worthy of a place in the modern canon of English literature while expanding the notions of what LGBT literature can be."

The Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize, made possible by James Duggins, PhD, consists of two cash prizes of $5000. To qualify, recipients must have published at least three novels or two novels and substantial additional literary work such as poetry, short stories, or essays.  The awards will be handed out on June 3, 2013 at the 25th Annual Lambda Literary Awards ceremony in New York City.

"The judges made excellent choices from among a field of strong candidates," said LLF Board President, Dr. Judith Markowitz, "The writing of both Nicola and Trebor pushes readers to leave our assumptions behind so that we might feel, think, and imagine in new ways."

I only heard the news on Monday; it's still sinking in. I am very, very pleased about this and no doubt by the time I pick up the award (and cheque!) at the Lambda Literary Awards ceremony, I'll have recovered my aplomb. Meanwhile, a big Thank You to all those who gave me this vote of confidence and congrats to Trebor.

For now: woo hoo! See you in New York!

Time off

I won't be around for the next little while; I'm pulling the internet plug for a few days. Have fun, preferably doing something simple and idiotic. Like bouncing a ball in the sun, or building something meaningless out of logs. It's spring. Go enjoy it.
Spring in the ravine