Nicola Griffith's Blog, page 19

2024: Refilling the aquifer

Image description: Black and white photo of a short-haired white woman (Nicola) holding a tabby cat (Charlie) blissing out in mutual regard. Photo by Kelley Eskridge.

Usually at this time of year I have a reasonably full calendar for the year ahead: books coming out, book-related travel, family visits, holidays, talks, panels, teaching, conferences, and, of course, books in progress. Not this time. For 2024 I have nothing firm lined up and no travel booked. I don’t have a book coming out and I am not currently working on a new one.

There are plenty of things I should be doing—stories and essays I’ve promised—and plenty I could be doing—at least three books I’m eager to write. But for once I am going to take my time before plunging in. It feels a little odd but it’s a deliberate choice; it’s necessary.

Kelley and I have spent the last three years working flat out and stretched to breaking point by various work, personal, and family catastrophes. Frankly there have been a couple of times when we’ve moved past breaking point. We have neglected friendships. Our house looks like a bombsite. We have pushed our bodies, bank accounts, and will to the limits.

Given our on-going family situation this is not going to improve anytime soon. I suspect there will be times in the coming months when we have to drop everything and travel, and/or spend weeks at a stretch wholly focused on handling crises.1 We have to take some pre-emptive measures. I have close personal experience of what can happen to people who don’t take care of themselves—who just keep going, who gut it out, who pretend the strain they are under is not extraordinary and the burdens they carry are supportable by mere human beings. At worst it can destroy people; at best we begin to unravel, lose perspective, and start making terrible decisions. And this happens to essentially fit and fit and healthy people. I have, among other things, MS, a degenerative and disabling illness. I’m already pushing into redline territory; if I push any harder something will break.

So right now I need to just…stop. We need to rebuild friendships. Turn the house back into a haven. We need to sit by the fire, talking idly of nothing in particular. We need to ignore what should be done—ignore the pressure to be Good Daughters and Good Sisters and Good Neighbours—and instead do what must be done for our health and our sanity: slow down, look around, and breathe.

For the coming year, then, Kelley and I have said no to every conference, convention, and benefit dinner, and have accepted story commissions only informally. I’ve walked away from a couple of consulting-media type things and refused all Good Citizen tasks such as sitting on boards and juries. After February I don’t have a single confirmed appearance and only one firm writing-related commitment—and only because it’s for an old friend who is no longer with us.

Last time I posted something like this—more than 10 years ago—I got a lot of anxious emails. So let me preempt some questions. Do I want to stop writing? No! Absolutely not! Just the opposite. Writing is one of the things that makes me feel most alive and truly myself. I not only love it but need it. Writing, though—the creation of good fiction, or at least the kind of fiction I prefer—requires a particular animal vitality. It’s one of the first things to drain away when we’re under great stress, or mentally, physically, and/or emotionally exhausted. And it’s one of the last things to seep back after we recover from illness or loss or trauma. It’s difficult to describe—it’s a rushing, bubbling, vital energy, yes, but it’s also quiet and still, like a pool or a well. Or perhaps the aquifer that that’s the source of spring, pool, and well—old and deep. Fast to deplete and slow to refill. Mine is almost drained.

I need to let my energy slowly seep back and my aquifer refill. To do that, I need, first, time and rest and lack of stress. And, second, simple joys—time to just put my head back and look at the sky, to dwell in the bliss of a small cat’s regard, or the aromatic warmth of the perfect cup of tea. To breathe and feel glad to be alive. To take time for just us. Time to just be.

Do I want to stop writing-related activities? No! I love performance, public appearances, meeting readers, meeting fellow writers, hanging out in the bar. If all goes well, 2025 will brim with those glories.

But for now, for a little while, I need to stop. Read. Breathe the air. Listen to the birds. Hold the cats. And, as I begin to recover, to actively seek out sources of joy rather than obligation: human connection, using my body, learning something new, relaxing with old friends and making new ones, listening to music—maybe even making some. Regrouping and relearning; reimagining the energy to be spontaneous again and take life on the volley.

I’ll still write blog posts—but not to any schedule: maybe more, maybe fewer, maybe longer, maybe shorter. (I don’t know, and I’m unwilling to force myself to know.) I probably won’t read any books for blurbs—though there may be exceptions—and only for review if they’re particularly delicious, dangerous, provocative, and/or dangerous. My main task and pleasure for the coming year is to gather, grow, and delight in health, happiness, and zest.

That, then, is my hope for 2024: health, happiness, and zest. For all of us. See you on the other side.

1 And then there’s the world situation—later next year I’m guessing I’ll have a lot to say about war, politics, climate, and democracy. This year I haven’t had the bandwidth.

Bombed With Aplomb

Every year we get a Christmas tree. Every year, Kelley spends hours making it pretty. I help with the sheer force of my admiration (and adoration). And then I blow it to smithereens.

As the holidays are a family affair, this year I tried to include the cats. It turns out, though, that cats don’t take well to direction. Who knew?

After a few tries I got something reasonable—Charlie sitting nonchalantly, and George strolling by and then sitting nonchalantly—as grenades fly. Sadly, in that take George got blown up—well, okay, his head set on fire—in the process. So to save viewer sensibilities I had to cut the video down radically, to just 8 seconds.

So here, for your delectation and delight, is 2023’s Blow Shit Up FX movie, “Bombed With Aplomb.” Enjoy!

2023 Blog Stats

HeadlinesLike last year, the number of people who came to read something increased—the highest number in five years. (More about this in Looking Ahead.) I posted more often—86 posts so far, including this one—though a number of these were brief and informational: notices of appearances, links to new reviews, and so on. For the first time in a while, I did a handful of Snippets posts.I did quite a few long and detailed posts, about everything from the real story of our wedding to in-depth looks at various aspects of Menewood, for example, this one about Menewood as an Object d’Art.Countries2023

Image description: Map of the world showing density of visitors by country. The USA is coloured dark pink, the UK and Canada medium pink, and the rest of the world pale pink—with some countries (mainly in central Africa) showing blank.

As you can see, people come from a lot of countries. The Top 6 countries from where my readers log on haven’t changed at all from last year, but the next four were a bit different, with China and Ireland being displaced by Italy and Spain:

USUKCanadaAustraliaGermanyFranceSpainIndiaItalyNetherlands

Spain of course is not surprising, given the recent publication there of Spear.

2012 – 2023

If you compare this year’s map to one below of the last 12 years—when this iteration of my website began—you’ll see that I’ve been visited by readers (or bots or trolls) from almost every territory on earth. There are eleven exceptions: Turkmenistan, North Korea, Svalbard, and eight in Africa (Eritrea, Djibouti Western Sahara, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Chad, and the Central African Republic). So if you’re reading this, and planning to visit any of these places, why not log onto my blog for a minute while you’re there? It would give me a lot of satisfaction to say, straight-faced, “My platform blankets the earth.”

Image description: Map of the world showing density of visitors by country. The USA is coloured dark pink, the UK and Canada medium pink, and the rest of the world pale pink—with some countries (mainly in Africa) showing blank.Popular Posts 2023

This year I didn’t talk much about the cats—there was too much other stuff going on. I did post photos of them a fair bit on social media. I also returned to writing Snippets posts—bulleted paragraphs of miscellaneous items I find interesting. This is something I used to do a decade or two ago when I blogged at least once a day. I don’t see myself returning to that kind of frequency but I’d forgotten how much enjoy doing this kind of not-about-me-just-interesting posts.

Top 10 New Posts

Of the Top 10 New Posts or Pages in 2023, most were book-related—seven about Menewood and one about Spear—with just two that were purely personal: one about my horrible winter, and another about the real story (or part of it) of my two weddings with Kelley.

Menewood Hieme HorribilisNo Matter What: 30 Years and 10 Years, The Real StoryMenewood Cover Reveal!Spear Wins the Ray Bradbury PrizeInterview with Menewood Narrator, Pearl HewittHollowed By Sorrow and Filled With JoyThree Books, Seven Parts, 38 Chapters…Menewood Q&AEcce Hild! The Art and Craft—And Work, So Much Work—of Early-Medieval EmbroideryTop 15 Overall

The Top 15 most-visited posts or pages overall this year were mostly perennial favourites, with two—Lame is So Gay and Books About Women Don’t Win Big Awards—reappearing after last year when they dropped off the list for the first time since they were first written in 2011 and 2015 respectively. There were just three new ones* that made this year’s overall list:

Men Are Afraid Women Will Laugh At Them Spear Hild Menewood *AboutAbout the Real HildBooks About Women Don’t in Big AwardsHieme Horribilis*Lame is So GayNo Matter What: 30 Years and 10 Years, the Real Story*Fiction that passes the Fries TestSong of Ice and Fire Speculative MapAud BooksKitten Report #11: Seven months old So Lucky Looking Ahead

Headline: this blog is not going anywhere; I’m here to stay.

For several years, traffic to my post dropped steadily—and, for a few years, precipitously. Most obviously, though: readers stopped leaving comments. If I was not also on various social media platforms I might have felt as though I were shouting into the void. But what was happening was that people were talking about the posts, just not here. They left brief notes on Twitter, and Facebook, and—to a much lesser extent—Instagram. But three years ago, early in the pandemic, the number of visitors to this site stabilised and then last year started going up. This year the numbers are up again—the best since 2017 (though still a fraction of the early days). The number of comments has also stabilised, though—like the visitor numbers—are a fraction of what they were ten years ago.

My guess is that this is a reflection of what’s been happening with social media: a continuing fragmentation and loss of centre, plus the ever-increasing thicket of trolls and bot-based lifeforms, not to mention the barbed bramble of adverts blocking the path to conversation. Blogs like this, with no advertising, can be a haven of calm.

I’m relatively content with the new equilibrium. I enjoy writing the posts and people seem to enjoy reading them. So I’m not going anywhere. This blog is here to stay. This year’s Xitter debacle is just another demonstration of why we all, and creators in particular, need to own our own platforms. Even if I thought all those other social platforms really were being run as public utilities for the greater good (ha ha ha), I like being able to say things too long for Bluesky and Threads and not pretty enough for Instagram. This is the best place to do that.

Will I start a newsletter (or post on Medium or Substack)? No. For the simple reason that this blog functions as a newsletter. All you have to do is subscribe (in desktop view, just look at the top of the right hand sidebar; in mobile platforms, scroll right to the end of an individual post), and every new post will be delivered directly to your mailbox the minute it’s published. No muss, no fuss—just like any other newsletter, except that a) you don’t have to pay, you will never have to pay, b) I’ll never share your data with anyone for anything, c) there will be no adverts. Plus, on a blog you can talk back if you like, safe in the knowledge that I’m in full control of the comments.

There may of course be some changes. Right now I have no particular plans. I would like to get back to posting longer and more interesting things. When I last checked I had literally hundreds of posts partially drafted. Many are from years ago and so will no longer be relevant, but I’m guessing a few others might be worth revisiting. But even if I deleted them all tomorrow, I have a list as long as my arm of things I’d love to talk about. It’s just a question of how I have the heart—that mix of hope, health, energy, time, and bloody-minded thick-skin-ness that long-term blogging requires. But I like this blog; I’ve been doing this or something like this for nearly 30 years. So stay tuned.

YouTube Livestream Sunday 1pm PST!

I’ve mentioned before how cool Raf BluTaxt’s YouTube videos about Spear and Hild and Menewood are. It seems we like the same stuff, including beer, so we thought it would be cool to have a drink and chat about all those things. And then we thought, Hey, let’s do it live! On YouTube!

I’ve never done a YouTube Livestream but, hey, there will be beer—lots of beer!—and we have a lot to talk about,so what could possibly go wrong?? So come join us while we drink and enthuse about swords and ponies and maps; hedgepigs and cats; how to build community and argue about Easter; queerness in historical fiction, beer in the seventh century, and whatever else we—or you!—feel like. Come ask questions. Or just pour yourself a glass of something and enjoy the chaos…

Sunday, 17 December, 1:00 PM PST/4:00 PM EST/9:00 PM GMT/10:00 CET

The voice of each piece is born on the first page

Image description: Black background with, on the right,  a black and white headshot of a short-haired white woman at a microphone, and, on the left, gold-coloured text reading, “George Saunders proposed on his substack that it’s in the editing process that literary voice emerges — the more a writer edits the more they’ll make choices different to other writers, resulting in a voice and style unique to them. Does this strike you as correct?  In terms of voice, no. Very no. The voice of each piece is born on the first page, spilling out slippery and alive.”

Just up on Auraist, my interview-essay on Spear, prose style—you will be shocked, shocked to hear I have Opinions!—and voice. And using tense to delay or accelerate characterisation, a bit of a rant about the whole misery-lit-is-better-lit fallacy, and more…

Here’s a little taste:

George Saunders proposed on his substack that it’s in the editing process that literary voice emerges — the more a writer edits the more they’ll make choices different to other writers, resulting in a voice and style unique to them. Does this strike you as correct?

In terms of voice, no. Very no. The voice of each piece is born on the first page, spilling out slippery and alive. It grows with the story. By the end the voice stands proud, distinctly itself—unlike any other, even from the same writer. All editing can do is wash and tidy that original voice, teach it to speak a little more clearly or how to play nicely with others. But the essence is unchanged.

Voice rests on style—the sinuous rhythm or blunt word choice, the metaphor systems and narrative grammar, the choice of what is stated and what left unsaid—and here revision, the series of conscious choices made after the fact, can sharpen and shape the style. To the extent that there is a difference between style and voice perhaps it’s that style is conscious, voice more primal.

Nicola Griffith on Auraist

The pattern of life, and built to a purpose

I’ve just read a lovely long review of Menewood by Liz Bourke over at Tor.com. She focuses on three things. The first is something that comes up often: the occasional hyper-reality of immersion.

Griffith roots her novel so closely and so tightly in the rhythms of that antique world, its sounds and smells, its textures, its necessities and its uncertainties, that it begins to seem more real than any other truth.

Liz Bourke, tor.com

Then there’s a lot about how I excavate emotion (many elisions to avoid spoilers—which Bourke kindly marks in the review, so proceed with confidence):

Griffith has published only a handful of novels, but each of them has been in some way extraordinary. She writes with a clarity of expression, precision, and force that few writers of my experience can equal, and with the unflinching ability to look at both the terrible and the tender things that people do, and treat them as sides of the same coin. Griffith has a gift for excavating the most raw of human emotions … scenes that made me close the book and weep great gasping sobs … lines and paragraphs that will haunt me for years. Griffith has an incredible talent.

Liz Bourke, tor.com

She also examines power. I’ve always known that Menewood is very much concerned with Hild’s understanding of and relationship to power, but Bourke points out, rightly, I think, that:

Menewood is continuing a conversation about power that, I think, Griffith may have been having for her entire career: what kinds of power are open to different people, what it means to have power (violent or otherwise), what it means to use it, or to refrain from using it, to achieve one’s own will.

Liz Bourke, Tor.com

In some of my work this power differential is based a variety of identities—for example class in Slow River, and Spear, or disability and access (So Lucky)—but as far as I’m aware it’s never based on gender or sexual orientation or skin colour. Those are conversations that are necessary in the real world, but when it comes to fiction I like to offer a space that’s free of that, just for a little while. In Menewood my focus is on how power works and the consequences of assuming it or refusing it.

The review wraps nicely:

I deeply admire this book … It is a truly impressive novel, a thoughtful, thought-provoking, deeply compelling work of art, and one that I expect I will return to many times in the coming years. Griffith has added another piece to the masterwork that is Hild’s story, one every bit as impressive and magnificent as that which preceded it. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Liz Bourke, Tor.com

This is one of those reviews whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts—at least for me (though of course most people won’t have nearly as much invested as the author), and repays a read.

One week left to order signed, personalised books

In just seven days I’ll be going to Phinney Books to sign and personalise the last lot of books for a while. If you want one—and books make great gifts!—you should go order now.

All details of what’s available and how to order it are in my previous post.

If you’re still dithering about buying the Menewood hardcover, let me refer you to this post all about how truly gorgeous the physical object is. The binding alone is a work of art. And remember: just seven days left…

Three maps of early medieval Britain to download

No matter how accurate and/or pretty book maps are, the image clarity is limited by the physical dimensions of the printed book or the resolution/file-size of the ebook. Luckily for you I love making maps, so I’m putting three here for you to look at or download and embiggen them to your heart’s content.

Some of the maps I make for myself are so detailed and such high resolution that I could print them out bigger than my office wall. I’m not going to post those here—the file sizes are unwieldy, and some of the info would be spoilers. But here are three that I’ve edited and converted to something you could print out to a reasonable size. Just click through to the downloadable file.

Here’s a merged version of the layered Photoshop file I sent to my publisher to use as a base for the main book map.

This is a simplified version—several roads taken out and places left unmarked—because its purpose is to offer a a general overview, a snapshot of the power players in their geographic region. Unlike the published book map, my version uses a number key rather than written-in-place settlement and river names: I wasn’t sure those would be readable at book-page size.

Instead, to accompany the mainmap I made two detail maps, one of Bernicia and one of Deira—these also served as the foundation for the eventual book maps.

You’ll see that they’re all slightly different in tone. I’m not used to working in black and white, so I wasn’t sure which variety of shading might work best. The frames are slightly different too—I’m learning as I go. Besides, these weren’t to be used for publication, just to base the Real Maps on.

Obviously I have many—many!—more, and in colour. And I’ll get to those biti by bit. But this should be enough for you to follow along with while you read.

Let me know what works for you, map-wise and what doesn’t. Is there something you were really hoping to see? Something that might make the maps clearer? Or more interesting? I really do love messing with this stuff, so give me an excuse to play!

Signed personalised books for the holidays—order before 13 December

Image description: Two hardcover novels, HILD and MENEWOOD by Nicola Griffith, standing upright next to each other on a sunlit wooden table.

I’m teaming up again with Phinney Books, on Greenwood Avenue, Seattle, to bring you signed, personalised books for the holidays. Please note that the deadline is December 13. There may still be signed books available after that, at least for a few days—but once the signed books are gone, that’s it for the foreseeable future. After the 13th I won’t be personalising again until the next book, and have no current plans to sign more stock.

Two things to note about the books listed below. One, the US paperback of Hild is temporarily out of stock but the wholesaler and publisher will no doubt sort it out quickly so hopefully there will be more soon. (I’ll update this post as and when that changes.) Meanwhile, for your immediate delectation and delight Tom can offer:

A very limited number of first edition, first printing hardcovers of Hild—which is utterly gorgeous. But there are only 6, so it’s first-come, first-served. These really are the last. And just look at how very handsome the two hardcovers are next to each other.A limited number of the UK paperback of Hild which, at 640 pages, is more generously typeset than the US paperback (560). There are 12 of these so, again, first-come, first-served.

Here’s how it works.

Go to Phinney Books’ online ordering page to buy any of my books, no muss no fuss, and get them shipped to any address in US. If you want one of the Hild special orders, or you’re not from the US, see the next step.Email info@phinneybooks.com (phone is okay: 206-297-2665) with billing info: all major credit cards accepted. They use Square, so they’ll also need the 3-digit code on the back and your billing postal code.Tell them what you’d like: Menewood (hardcover—audiobook available via Libro.fm) Spear (hardcover—audiobook available via Libro.fm) Hild (paperback or hardcover, but see above—audiobook available via Libro.fm) So Lucky (paperback—audiobook available via Libro.fm) Ammonite (paperback—audiobook available via Libro.fm) Slow River (paperback) And Now We Are Going to Have a Party (very limited!)Don’t forget, you can order audiobooks via the store (I narrated So Lucky and Spear). Sadly I can’t personalise those, though—unless you buy a card from Tom and I sign that.Tell them whether you want the books personalised—to you, or to someone else; if so, who; and what short thing you’d like me to add (it must be short and you must be specific). If you give this order by phone, please spell out even the most common names.Give them your mailing address and payment info.Beam, sit back and relax: you’ve done your holiday shopping!

Tom, the owner, tells me he is happy to ship multiple copies, to ship internationally, and to ship express/priority, but then there will be extra charges you will have to work out with him.

Deadline: December 13. But the sooner you get orders in the better, especially for the special orders. Good luck!  

Menewood awards eligibility

Menewood by Nicola Griffith (MCDxFSG, 3 October, 2023. Cover art by Anna and Elena Balbusso.)tl;dr

Menewood is an epic literary speculative novel of character set 1400 years ago and stuffed with people of every persuasion. If you like it enough to nominate it for an award, any award, you have my blessing.

Amusement and Exasperation

I’ve done exactly one award eligibility post before—last year, when readers were asking me whether, for award purposes, Spear was a novella or a novel. I answered because it was about word-count categories and those rules are usually spelled out clearly in genre awards. But now people are asking me how to categorise Menewood, this time in terms of identity and genre, and I’m feeling both amused and exasperated.

The amusement? Menewood is such a massive multi-modal monster of a book. The idea of trying to squeeze it into any single category makes me want to giggle—it feels a bit like watching a tiger trying to curl up in a shoebox.

The exasperation? I’ve been versions of this many times with many of my books: “Should we shelve Ammonite in queer fiction or science fiction?” “Should we nominate the The Blue Place for thriller awards or mystery (or lesbian fiction or noir)?” “We’ll review Slow River as a psychological novel that explores the essential self…” “No, no, it should go in the Thriller and Suspense column: a novel of sex and industrial sabotage!” People are forever asking me to define my own work but that’s not my job. My job is to write it. It’s the reader’s job to categorise it, if you feel the need. I’m willing to go as far as to say they’re Novels. If pushed, Good Novels. The rest is up to you. If you want Menewood to be, say, Lesbian Fiction or Secret History or Speculative Fiction or Literary Fiction or Disability Fiction or Historical Fiction then, by all means, feel free to think of it (sell it, shelve it, nominate it, judge it) that way.

I love ‘genre’ in the sense that I delight in the kinds of books that are labelled that way. I don’t love being asked to choose one label and hang it around my book’s neck to the exclusion of all others. I’ve never been a fan of either/or. The whole point of what I write is to explore worlds in which those kinds of binary choices aren’t required, and the people who would resist them if they were. (Well, okay, the whole point is to write a thrilling, thought-provoking and satisfying story about believable people doing interesting things in a fascinating place—the kind of book I like to read.)1 I’ve always preferred yes/and .

But Menewood‘s genre/category seems to be bothering people more than is usual so, okay, here are some thoughts.

Is Menewood SFF?

Two previous essays, Hild: Fantasy or History (2013) and Who Owns SF? (2014) cover most of my thoughts on how Hild and her story fit into SFF.2 Seriously, if you really want to know what I think go read them. On balance I’d say that, yes, I’m comfortable describing both Hild and Menewood as speculative fiction. They use the narrative tools of science fiction, read like fantasy, and require the kind of reading skills honed by years of reading SFF. And if speculative fiction is about what could really happen,3 and the Hild novels are about what could really have happened, then the difference is just a matter of tense.

Gary Wolfe, in his recent review of Menewood, also has some thoughts:

…which asked whether the novel itself could be read as some sort of fantasy. I even saw it described as “speculative historical fiction,” which seems to me pretty redundant (how can historical fiction be anything but speculative?) […] As dilemmas go, this one is pretty silly, but the question is likely to come up again with Menewood… 

So, to get back to our original question, what does Menewood promise for the SF/F reader, and why are we talking about it in Locus? Apart from the distinct possibility that this may be the major work so far of a major talent, there’s quite a bit. From the fantasy reader’s perspective, seventh-century Northumbria is such a little-known corner of history that it feels as thoroughly estranged as any imaginary kingdom, and Griffith’s decision to make extensive use of unfamiliar terminology adds to the estrangement […] There are any number of points where characters mention wights, sprites, or fairies, but bringing them onstage would add nothing. (For that matter, does the insertion of Hild into real historical events make it a secret history?) SF readers, on the other hand, will recognize the importance of Hild’s sheer competence throughout (she could outthink a Heinlein hero), as well as her fascination with how things work. We learn how to make parchments, dyes, and inks; what sort of land is best for grazing sheep for wool vs. sheep for milk, how to butcher a horse, even (quite literally) how the sausage is made (and in the hands of Brona and Hild, it can be weirdly sexy). If Hild showed us that close observation and inference could be mistaken for magic and vision, Menewood convinces us that the magic is embedded in history itself. 

Gary Wolfe, Locus, 22 November, 2023

I could also argue that the Hild novels, like everything I’ve written, are focalised heterotopias—which to me place them squarely in the realm of fantastika.

Is Menewood Historical Fiction?

Yes. Next quest— No, wait.

Obviously, yes, Menewood is historical fiction: it’s set beyond living memory and everything in the book could have happened—there are no impossible things, no anachronisms, and nothing contravenes what is known to be known—the material culture and human behaviour is realistic.4 What I want to address is readers’ perceptions of what was possible or realistic in the seventh century, particularly in terms of power and agency relating to gender, race, religion, colour, disability, and sexual orientation.

I ran into this a bit with Spear—which, no question, is fantasy fiction because although it’s set in a milieu whose events and material culture are historically accurate there’s the undeniable centrality of legend, not to mention the mythic Tuath Dé. Rather than devote half a blog post to the subject I’ll refer you to my essay for Historia on the perils of outdated notions of history:

[Spear] is a blend of historical realism, legend, and fantasy. Paradoxically, the element that I consider the most important facet of its historical realism is the one that many readers may regard as the most fantastical.

[…]

In terms of historical realism, the book’s material culture, such as building materials, weaponry, food, livestock, textiles; the physical and cultural milieu, such as travel logistics, climate change, social structure, religion, and ethnogenesis; and the language – with the major caveat that I’ve substituted early Welsh for Brythonic and had to essentially guess regarding Asturian names – is as accurate as I can make it.

Many readers would largely agree regarding which elements of the book to assign variously to myth, legend, or realism. But stale historiography – reliance on outmoded and outdated understanding of the past – may lead to one important area of disagreement.

Most artistic representations of the legend – literature, film, visual art, and music – are of wholly white, straight, cisgendered, and non-disabled people. But in Spear disabled, queer, Black, poor, female and gender nonconforming people exist. Because we have always existed. We are here now and we were there then – present in every corner of society in every era, part of every problem and its solution. No story without us is historically realistic.

Nicola Griffith — History, historicity, historiography and Arthurian legend. Historia, 22 May, 2022.

It’s possible I might run into the same outdated notions with Menewood, but I hope not. I suspect the greatest obstacle to the book’s eligibility for UK awards will be its availability, or lack thereof.

Is Menewood Queer/Lesbian/Bisexual Fiction?

Yes.

Oh, you want more?

Hild was shortlisted for both the Bisexual Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction. That felt a little odd—not because young Hild wasn’t bisexual but because I’m not. It felt the way I might feel if I wrote a novel about a trans character and it was nominated for a trans fiction award—as though I were taking up someone else’s space.

In Menewood, although Hild is technically bisexual she’s really sexually attracted, and connected, to women. She’s not interested in sex with any man who’s not Cian. So although technically, yes, Menewood would be eligible for a bisexual book award, if I had to pick one or the other—and if you’re being submitted to the Lambda Literary Awards you do have to choose—I’d plump for Lesbian Fiction. Or maybe LGBTQ+ Speculative Fiction category. Hmmm. I wonder how the LGBTQ+ History category is defined…

Is Menewood Criplit/Dislit?

Yes. At least in the sense that a) its author is disabled and b) it easily passes the Fries Test—with many more named disabled characters than Spear. And Spear, of course, won the Society of Authors inaugural ADCI Literary Prize. However, Hild, although she suffers life-threatening physical injury in Menewood, isn’t scarred/impaired enough to be treated as different because of it; in that sense she herself is not disabled. And while I would welcome being nominated once again for the ADCi Literary Prize—it would be an honour—I also hope that next year there will be enough excellent books by disabled/chronically ill authors that the prize goes to a brilliant book whose main character/s is disabled.

Is Menewood a series novel?

Finally, a simple answer: Yes, Menewood is part of the Hild Sequence. But as I have no idea when I’ll finish the sequence, I have no idea when/if you’ll be able to nominate it. But, yes, there will be more. And meanwhile, if you’re the kind of reader who generally doesn’t like to start a series until it’s all finished you don’t need to worry about that here: each novel can stand on its own.

Conclusion

Awards are wonderful! I love them. If you want to nominate Menewood for an award—in any genre or category—please do! I’d be delighted. Just don’t make me choose.

But no one gives awards for that. There’s no Just the Best Fucking Book You Ever Read award with no caveats regarding who wrote it, who published it, how long it is, or what it’s about. ︎I’m using SFF to cover all the bases: speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, fantastika… ︎Margaret Atwood has advanced many ridiculous opinions of science fiction; this is one I don’t entirely disagree with ︎For a definition see, for example, Richard Lee “Defining the Genre” Archived 2018-07-11 at the Wayback Machine, Historical Novel Society. I tend to think of it as set in a time before the writer’s own experience and, preferably, their family’s experience—certainly their adult experiences. I’m inclined to allow childhood because childhood memories are essentially fiction already. ︎