Nicola Griffith's Blog, page 22

Friday, 7:00 pm: Portland!

This is my first Official Event for Menewood and I’m excited! I’ve got two short readings, one from each end of Hild’s emotional spectrum, but mostly we’ll be talking about the book. Michelle is lining up questions—I don’t know what they are, so that’ll be interesting—and of course I sincerely hope you’ll come ready to chat. I’ve been waiting to talk about this book to real live readers for 10 years!

All details here. And you can see my other events here. See you soon!

Menewood? Going well!

Headlines: two great reviews out so far. I had a great time on Launch night. Three interviews are up. And Menewood debuted well in audio.

Reviews

Gary Wolfe reviewed Menewood in Locus. I can’t find a link but he said nice things, and I made nifty little quotes tiles from some of it.

You’ve already seen the news about the New York Times review, but I couldn’t resist making quote tiles for some of that, too:

Launch!

I did an informal signing at favourite neighbourhood bookstore, Phinney Books, on opening night. As I said in a blogpost the other day, launch days are weird—you never know what you’re heading into—and as we parked I said to Kelley, “I wonder if they’ll have my book in the window…” And then we got there and, why yes, they had my book in the window.

I signed some stock and a zillion pre-orders, and then some books for folks who showed up in person (Kelley helped me with the book wrangling because it turns out not to be the easiest thing in the world to sign a book that’s nearly 6cm thick) — then we went to the pub next door for a few pints and some decompression. Because, like the sign says, 10 YEARS IN THE MAKING!

Thanks to Colleen Lindsay for the photos, to everyone who showed up to help me celebrate (10 yrs!) and to the super-patient bar staff at 74th St Alehouse

Interviews

There are three new interviews up: with April Austin at the Christian Science Monitor

The Orange County Register:

How ‘Hild’ author Nicola Griffith mapped the life of her medieval ‘Menewood’ heroine

And The Mary Sue:

How Nicola Griffith Turned a Medieval Saint Into a Badass and Beloved Feminist Heroine

As you can see, they’re all pretty different in tone.

Audio Debut

I’m glad I did that long interview with Pearl Hewitt, the narrator of Menewood. It paid off and she deserves it:

So things are moving along. Tomorrow I’ll be in Portland, at Powell’s, talking with Michelle Kircherer about all tings Hild and Menewood. It should be an ecellent conversation. Please come and say hello.

A banger of a beginning for Menewood

Publication Eve

A book launch is full of excitement and trepidation. Excitement because, wow, it’s my book! I love it! I can’t wait for other people to read and love it too! Trepidation because, well, you never know what you’re launching into. I’ve come to think of publication as like a huge stage show: months of prep, costume tryouts, rehearsals, sending out invitations. Then you’re in your dressing room warming up your vocal cords, running through your lines, then there’s the knock on the door, “Places!” You stand i the wings, and through the thick curtains you think you can hear something, but maybe not. And then, Blare! The music starts, the lights explode in brilliance, and you step out onto the stage and see…

And that’s the whole point: you don’t know. You don’t know if it will be a rapturous full house, radiating love and hope you succeed; the ringing silence of an empty hall; or sniggers of contempt and a couple of thrown eggs. You. Just. Don’t. Know. You hope—I hope—of course, but even after all these years I can never be sure.

I’m a fucking good writer and I know it. I don’t lack confidence in my work. Certainly I think Menewood is the best thing I’ve done—the sum and summit of who I am and what I’ve learnt. But my career isn’t like other people’s; everything I write is different from what came before—different length, different mood, different genre. I know that some of my readers simply can’t or won’t follow me down new paths. Or, given the segmented fashion of publishing awareness these days, they might not even know I have a new book out if it’s not in the genre they usually read. And then, of course, just to add a layer of difficulty, I wrote a novel that’s three times normal size, using four different dead languages and featuring nearly 200 named characters.

There are also the vagaries of chance: a puff of wind in the wrong direction, a bit of grit in the gears of the machine… So perhaps a more accurate analogy might be witnessing the launch of the biggest rocket to ever fly: it should work, but a thousand things can go wrong. And the waiting seems endless. But finally, you’re at the countdown. Ignition. The huge bloom of flame and roar…and nothing seems to be happening, just the continual roar and rumble and ground shake. Then gradually, infinitesimally, the rocket begins to move, but with such agonising slowness… This is the stage where you can’t tell if it’s going to wobble, tip, and fall like an axed giant in a roil of smoke; or take off—but at the wrong angle, and crash and burn; or, miraculously, streak, blazing, into the sky to just…explode, and patter down around you in pieces. It should work, but things do go wrong…

So, yeah, lots of uncertainty. So much so that last night I kept patting Menewood and had one more drink to the book while she was still mine and before she went out into an uncertain world…

Lift Off!

I had high hopes for Menewood but no expectations. So I was amazed and delighted to wake up this morning to this stunning review in the New York Times:

[I]f you loved Hild, you’ll love Menewood; the decade between them may as well have been a comma in a sentence. Menewood is everything Hild was in terms of prose craft, depth of research and immensity of feeling […] While the novel teems with the granular detail of Griffith’s research, it reads with the easy grace of epic recitation…

Reading Menewood is like opening a door and stepping into another world, one that’s cool and wet, green and gray, full of birds and trees, valleys and hilltops, rivers and seas. There’s dreadful violence, yes, and hunger, profound loss; there’s wearying work, but also bristling energy, fierce joy. There’s Hild, still, at the heart of it all, figuring herself out in the vast and rippling pattern around her. Menewood doesn’t feel like a sequel so much as the same book, the same life, spooling a little farther along its path. 

— Amal El-Mohtar, New York Times

Read the whole thing—the link above is a gift link, so there’s no paywall.

And then there was the news that Amazon has chosen Menewood as one of their Literature & Fiction Picks for October.

The last time Amazon paid any attention to any of my books whatsoever was The Blue Place. In 1998. So, yeah, this is a step up!

The verdict for Menewood so far, then? So far, so good! We have lift off…

Menewood is coming…

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Tomorrow (Oct 3) Menewood will be available wherever books are sold. It’s a book to read by the fire while outside the wind howls and you feel glad to alive…

Interview with Menewood narrator, Pearl Hewitt

Hild was first published ten years ago. The sequel, Menewood, will be out in four days. Usually I prefer to do my own narration but I don’t have the professional vocal stamina for this kind of massive project. Both audiobooks are instead narrated by Pearl Hewitt, like me a northern lass with a true love of the north and its landscapes. I was really curious about her experience and asked if she’d be willing to talk about it. This is a lightly edited version of our conversation.

The Conversation

I’ve narrated two of my own books. I got into it because I’d been doing public readings of my work for years and loved it, and thought I’d like to try doing it For Realz. But how did you get started—where did it begin?

I started narrating in 2007 after reading the first two Harry Potter books to/with my 12 year old son, Bobby. He got Book 3 in audio format and was enjoying the audio perfromance of the amazing Jim Dale. But half-way through he was missing our cozy, bedtime reading routine. He asked if I’d read the next chapter while he followed along. I got immersed in the story and performing each character’s distinctive voices. As soon as I’d finished, he literally took my face in his hands, looked me in the eye and told me I was really good at this narrating thing and I should do it as a job.

            Ding! It was lightbulb moment for me.

            I Googled ‘how to become an audiobook narrator’ and went from there. It’s been a long journey of discovery—I had a lot to learn.

So how did you figure out how to do it?

First of all let me just say if my husband was not the wonderful soulmate that he is I would never have been able to pursue this. He was behind me all the way and both of my kids have always been my avid fans.

            Second, many people are under the impression that audiobooks are recorded in a commercial recording studio where the narrator is behind glass in one room with an audio engineer in another room and possibly a director coordinating the production and calling the shots. But that luxury is gone now for all but a few high profile narrators or Hollywood stars. These days almost all working professional narrators work from their own home studios. And that’s what I had to do .

            I started by watching a lot of ‘how to’ videos on YouTube to pick up the basics. Then I volunteered for Houston Sight Into Sound Radio (formerly Taping For The Blind) where I recorded my first novels, in weekly installments, for the ‘mystery/suspense’ hour aired on Saturday evenings.

            I also made connections on social media with support groups for narrators where I learned about many available workshops and classes.

            From September 2007 onwards all my spare time and spare money was taken up with classes, webinars, workshops and the hard grind of try, try, trying again. I had to, first, learn how to actually be an actor at the microphone. And then, second, become tech-proficient in the booth: to record, edit-out mistakes, splice-in retakes and then master the audio so it conforms to the required specifications.

            It’s an ever-changing landscape and I still regularly attend workshops to learn the latest tips and tricks for successful audiobook production.  

What ended up being your first professional audiobook?

A Jane Austen fan-fiction by indie author, Abigail Reynolds, Mr Darcy’s Letter, in 2012. I both narrated and produced for her through ACX (The Audiobook Creation Exchange).

To finally narrate that first professional book after five years of learning and volunteering… Wow. How did it feel? 

I absolutely loved it, though it was challenging to narrate. It’s written in the 19th century style of Jane Austen, full of complex sentences that go off on a tangent then come back to the main point but take up a whole paragraph before the period (full stop). Just trying to figure out where to take a breath was demanding. I did many retakes. But I got there in the end and it felt amazing to see it for sale on Amazon/Audible and iTunes.

            In those early days I recorded in my closet and had to constantly stop and start when the AC kicked on and off. I didn’t have funds to pay other audio professionals to do the post-production, either, so I had to do it all myself: narrate, edit, proof and master. It took a whole month to complete.

What is it that you like about narrating?

My favourite thing is that, essentially, it’s an acting job and I get to play all the characters. Women, men, children, and even animals. I’ve been told I perform ‘cat-speak’ very well (in a cozy mystery series I narrate). I’m lucky in that I haven’t been pigeon-holed into one specific genre because my vocal style and acting capabilities are well suited to a variety of genres. I’ve now got over 200 titles under my belt in historical fiction, romance, mystery and suspense, crime thrillers, children’s and YA, history, biographies, memoirs, personal development, educational and many more. It’s never boring. I love my job!

Last year I narrated my novel Spear which, like Hild and Menewood, was set in Early Medieval Britain and used lots of Old Welsh and Irish—scores of words and phrases I had to figure out how to pronounce. But Spear is a short novel—Menewood is six times as long, and uses four different languages, not just two. That must have been daunting. How did you approach it?

A lot of research on pronunciation using websites, other online sources, the library, and contacting some universities. Macmillan also hired a language expert to record some of the pronunciations, and another lady that was recommended to me by a colleague.

So which language was easiest/hardest?

That’s tough to answer because each was challenging, just in different ways. Welsh was the most difficult to pronounce but the Irish words hurt my brain—many of the letters look the same as English letters but are either silent or sound completely different.

I loved the feel of Welsh in my mouth—do you have the same sensory relish with some of the languages of Menewood?

Many Welsh vowels sound like my own, native Geordie accent from north east England so I particularly enjoyed the Welsh. I would love to be able rattle off some of the Welsh words with a thick, heavy accent because it’s so satisfying to speak the words aloud. But I can’t easily roll my rr’s so that tripped me up a few times. I really love speaking with a Yorkshire accent. I find it rolls off the tongue quite easily. I gave Begu a Yorkshire accent and I was delighted she had a lot of dialogue throughout the book.

We meet Hild at the beginning of the first book as a 3 yr-old and by the end of Menewood she’s in her early twenties. How do you approach aging a character’s voice?

It’s important to take a step back and really analyse the character: their personality, how they look and not only how old they are but their level of maturity. We also need to consider the audience. Who are we projecting this character to? Are the listeners going to be young children or mature adults? Is it likely that a childish voice would be irritating or jarring to the listener’s ear and pull them out of the story instead of being engaging? I always have the wise words of narrator tutor and coach, Paul Alan Ruben, in the back of my mind. He constantly reminds us that the characters in a book are real people even if they are squawking parrot in a cage. They don’t know they’re characters in a story.

That’s always been my approach: characters have no idea they’re making history, they’re just getting through life day-to-day.

Yes, treat them as real people or beings with souls and don’t turn them into larger-than-life caricature versions. I could have made 3-year-old Hild sound like a little pipsqueak with a cutesy, high-pitched, baby voice. But not only would it have been very irksome for listeners, making some to stop listening, but we were often in the mind of Hild and her thought-processes were very mature. So I gave her a youngish voice but not a toddler’s. That would have been both wrong for the story and hard on my vocal cords—forcing my voice so high.

Pitch is just one way to distinguish characters. How else do you do it? Accent? Tone? Timbre? 

I’m lucky to have a good ear for accents and can usually mimic them but performing certain ones are challenging. Northern Irish, for example is my kryptonite. It may be because it’s not called-for very often so I rarely have an opportunity to perform it. In situations like that the only options are either to ask a native northern Irish speaker to record themselves speaking the lines you need to perform and emulate them or work with an accent coach who can advise how to create the relevant vowel sounds using tongue, lip or jaw placement etc. Tone and timbre are both part and parcel of interpreting emotions and feelings within the story which are inherently rooted in the subtext of the book—the nuances of their environment, descriptions of landscapes, relationships between characters, the mood atmosphere, and many other nuances. But if I’ve done my job properly and fully immersed myself in the story then the subtext should automatically inform my performance and so connect those emotions to the listener. If I’m disengaged from the story then the subtext won’t come through and the listener would simply hear the words empty of context or emotion.

Hild goes through many—many!—different emotional states in this book. How difficult or exciting was that for you?

Once I’m in the booth and behind the mic—have done my warm ups and facial muscle and tongue relaxation exercises—I get lost in the story and I’m in the characters’ heads, especially Hild. I feel her emotions. All of them. And I react to others’ dialogue as if I’m her and not me.

Like method acting?

It’s as if I’m right there as her and those emotions are real. Certain scenes of grief were very difficult to perform because I felt real devastation. I had to get out of the booth and collect myself twice and re-record the scene because I couldn’t speak for crying. It was very powerful. I felt those emotions and it was gut-wrenching. I sobbed. Great writing, I have to say.

And how did you convey some of the huge emotions—battle cries, grief—without breaking your voice?

It’s all down to acting and mic technique. My recording booth is a tiny 3’ x 4’ box so there’s no room for me to move back away from the mic and shout the battle cries. The cries had to come from my gut. The emotion is built up inside. First I imaged I was about to go to battle and physically punched the air, screwed up my face and silently mouthed the cries with all the passion needed. Then I spoke aloud using the same technique but speaking from the pit of my stomach so the sound leaving my mouth is not much louder than my usual speaking voice. As I said previously, the grief was difficult because it felt real and I had to keep getting out of the booth, taking some deep breaths and collecting myself before going back in but I spoke the words from my heart as I can only imagine a [redacted for spoilers] would. Once I finished that scene I had to take a long break.

If you had to pick your favourite scene, the one you’re most proud of, what would it be?

So many! Hild rousing her troops to get ready to fight. The scene where Hild and Brona meet and butcher the horse. Cian realising [redacted]. And that lovely scene where they climb the pollard and he shows her the carved hedgepig. The first scenes describing Menewood and how it was hidden from the world, as well as the growing community in the valley. I really enjoyed the anxious scene of the birth of the twin foals. Any scenes with a lengthy dialogue from Begu. She adds light relief and I love her especially because she loves yellow, like me.   

When I first contacted you to ask if you’d like to do this interview, you were busy doing pickups. Last time I did pickups it was almost all the same phrase that had driven me crazy during recording— ‘The Eingl have taken Deverdoeu’  —a phrase that came up a few times in the text but I just couldn’t seem to wrap my tongue around. (If I hadn’t written the book I would have wanted to strangle the author.) In Menewood did you have particular words or phrases that you tended to trip over?

I tripped over Hagustaldesham. Every. Single. Time! On it’s own it’s not bad but within a sentence, I just couldn’t say it. I looked up the modern name for it and realised it’s Hexham, which is a town I actually know and my sister-in-law actually works there. I kept wishing I could just use the modern name—

Sorry! I hope you didn’t want to strangle me!

—and since I’ve finished the book the name has been stuck in my head just like a song gets stuck and repeats over and over. [laughs] I can now roll it off the tongue with no problem at all!

            Not Menewood-related but in general two words that always put my tongue in a twist are grasped and clasped. They’re used a lot in Regency romance so I’ve come across them many times in my career.

            If I see hard words or a phrase I dread coming I take a 5 minute break, leave the booth, do some facial and tongue relaxation exercises as prescribed by a wonderful vocal coach Nicola Redman. It really helps. She has a YouTube channel with loads of free advice and ‘how to tips and tricks’ videos. She’s an amazing coach with a marvellous Northern Irish accent. One way to stay relaxed is to take a break, lie down, and do some ‘tapping’ meditation, breathing exercises, or both.

Any other favourite tricks do you use to keep your voice in shape on marathon projects? I drank gallons of chamomile tea in the studio and water all the time between studio sessions.

HYDRATION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TRICK! Not just drinking water right before you get in the booth but drinking plenty of water at least two hours before. It takes that long for the water to fully wet your whistle, so to speak. Having a nice cup of hot Yorkshire tea often does the trick. Some people drink throat coat tea but I gag at that. I follow a regimen of vocal exercises outlined by Nicola Redman. It would be hilarious for anyone to watch me doing them. Gurning has nothing on these exercises. [laughs] It’s not just vocal warmups, it’s whole body stretching and relaxation. It’s mind boggling how it all works to release the voice. Sometimes, though, the vocal chords are just too tired, then there’s nothing that’ll help except complete vocal rest.

Menewood is a long book—more than twenty percent longer than Hild—long enough, I’m guessing, to test any narrator. How long did it take in the studio?

I started recording on August 9th and finished Sep 2nd and worked about 7 hours each day. So I completed an average of almost 2 finished hours every day. That means removing all my extra takes then giving the files a thorough check again before sending to the publisher. The audio ended up being almost 29 hours long.

Apart from the length, how else did the experience of Menewood differ from Hild?

I was so much more prepared for Menewood! For a variety of reasons. Ten years ago I was brought in to do Hild at the last minute because the previous narrator had to pull out of the project for personal reasons. I was a relatively new narrator in my first year of professional narrating but my producer, the late great, Bill Dufris,  who I’d worked with previously, had every faith I could deliver the audio files within the timeframe. We got it done!

I’m glad I didn’t know you were so new at the job then! I would never have guessed. How else did the two compare?

Both times, I really enjoyed the ancient language research although I did find it a challenge that some words just didn’t want to be found. I experienced a sense of home while narrating both books. Hild and Menewood are set in the north and north east of England, where I am originally from. I’ve been in Texas now for 22 years but I visit my mother in my home town of Jarrow at least twice a year. Many of the place names are very familiar to me. Tinamutha (Tynemouth), Arbeia (The Roman fort in South Shields),both less than 5 miles from my mother’s house. Bebbanburg (Bamburgh Castle, of which I have an original oil painting on my living room wall), Corabrig (Corbridge) and many more. Both my husband and I are from Jarrow on the south bank of the river Tyne where St. Bede, who wrote The Ecclesiastical History of The English People lived in the 7th and 8th century at St Paul’s monastery. Bede was the only historian of his day who wrote about Hild, later known as St Hilda, Abbess of Whitby. I visit St. Paul’s church every time I visit home. It’s such an ancient place and the ruins of the monastery Bede lived in are in the church grounds.

Have you visited any of the other places Hild would know? 

I went to Tinamutha and Arbeia a couple of months ago and on my previous visit I walked along the outstanding beach below Bebbanburg (Bamburgh Castle). No better beaches in the world, hands down! Shame the water is so cold. Bebbenburg beach is probably still the same as it was back in the 7th century. The castle that’s there now wouldn’t have been the same structure then but it’s amazing. Very imposing indeed. Hadrian’s Wall is a frequent visit of mine. I especially enjoyed references in the book to the Redcrest buildings. There are still remnants left today. It’s fascinating.

            Houston, Texas is where I live but it’s such a ‘new’ place. I revel in going back to being grounded amongst the ancient relics.  It’ll always be home.

Do  you think you’ll want to narrate the next Hild book? It might take a while…

I would love to narrate the next Hild book no matter how long it takes. I won’t be retiring from this job anytime soon. I’ll be doing it for as long as I can keep the AI demons at bay and hoping that will be for many years to come. To be honest I’ve felt very honoured to be the voice of your books because I feel a genuine connection to them. The landscapes described in the books are familiar to me. I could picture myself being right there. I loved every minute of it.

Pearl Hewitt

Pearl Hewitt is an award-winning audiobook narrator on a mission to bring stories to life and captivate the listener’s imagination, all while remaining true to the authors intent. Pearl narrates audiobooks across genres, specialising in regional UK and European accents. She can be found online on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Or take a look at her catalogue on Audible.Buy

For Gear Nerds

Here’s what gear Pearl currently uses:

Recording space: Studiobricks One recording boothMicrophone: Audio Technica AT4047Audio Interface: Solid State Logic SSL2Hardware: Mac Mini, MacBook Pro, iPad Software: Daw (Digital Audio Workstation) Twisted WaveReading software: Adobe Acrobat Reader and iAnnotate on the iPad 

And because I know how much some of you love geeking out about the gear, I built a whole sidebar page full of lots of extra info, including very generous why, how, and where-from advice from Pearl on creating your own set up. Knock yourself out!

Buy Menewood: the AudiobookApple BooksLibro.fmAudibleAudiobooks.comGoogle Play

Snippets—Oldest built structure, one week to Menewood, the great vax hunt, more

Menewood is out in exactly one week. I’ve been happily making little quote tiles like the ones above. (I’ve made more than this but those reviews are embargoed so I can’t use them yet.) I’m also pondering the shape of my only solo presentation in Bellingham. I think I might for the first time use slides because all through the Menewood process I’ve been making images—maps, banners and shields, animals—and it might be fun to share. Check my Events page for dates/times/venues. And remember, there’s still time to pre-order!Archaeologists working in Kalambo Falls, Zambia, have unearthed evidence of wood-working and a shaped-wood structure that is almost half a million years ago. This is the oldest built structure in the world. It predates Homo sapiens by at least 100,000 years (and possibly more). Who built them—what variety of our genus? What are the structures exactly? (My guess: some kind of causeway or platform raised out of the water.) You can read the entire paper published in Nature, “Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago,” by L. Barham et al. What blows my mind is how much we still don’t know, how amazing the world keeps turning out to be. How many signs of civilisation on our own planet have we missed? Would we recognise something not naturally occurring from, say, the Jurassic or Cretaceous? What marks of our own civilisation will still be recognisable in half a million years? Right now probably only those structures carved from rock—but only the hardest rock. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.And speaking of still figuring things out, a couple of months ago the Proceedings of the Royal Society published a paper on giant sloth bones in central Brazil. But they weren’t just any old sloth bones—these were bones that had been intentionally modified. Not only that, but modified some time during th late glacial maximum, which was 19 to 26 ka BP (that is, 19,000 – 26,000 years before the present). In other words, it’s pretty good evidence of people in South America well before most people thought it possible. (The date keeps creeping. It used to be that the earliest evidence of people in the Americas was dated to the Clovis people of about 13,500. Then there have been a few bits of burnt stuff that stretched it to 16,000 years. The possibility of 26,000? A big jump. There again, I’m still willing to bet that before I die there’ll be evidence of humans in the Americas at least 40,000 years ago and I wouldn’t be shocked by 50,000.Yesterday, after a four day hunt—phones and emails and chatbots and websites, that is, endless phone loops, crashed sites, contradictory information—I finally tracked down and kept an appointment to get my XBB vaccination. I always have mixed feelings about these shots. There’s no question that I need one—last time I checked the stats, a person with MS who uses a wheelchair was 24 times more likely to die of Covid than a mobile, non-Ms person. But these shots fuck me up. A lot. The first 30 hours are truly dreadful: I become incapable (seriously, there’s an 8-hour period when I can’t even turn over in bed unless Kelley helps); I’m in a lot of pain; and on really lucky occasions I get a week of basilar migraines (the kind where I go blind and aphasic—so much fun!). So I dread the shot, every time. And every time I go get it. And I’m glad I didn’t out it off: as she threw the syringe into the sharps box, the pharmacist told me that was the last dose, and she’s not sure when the next batch arrives. I’m typing this Monday evening and scheduling for Tuesday because by the time you’re reading this I will less capable of civilised conversation that whoever made that wooden structure half a million years ago…

Snippets—Another award nomination for Spear, the true toll of Covid-19, Menewood launch event, more

Spear has been longlisted for the History Writers’ Association Gold Crown, given annually to the best historical novel published in the UK. This one truly caught me by surprise—I hadn’t realised my sapphic sword-swanger stuffed with myth and magic would be eligible. And there was no warning: just, boom!, an email in the middle of the night while I was asleep and waking up to announcements on Twitter. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a delightful surprise, and the weird symmetry—Hild nominated for sff awards, now Spear nominated for histfic awards—is oddly appealing. Go take a look at the list; there’s some fine historical fiction there. The Economist estimates that, although the official number of deaths caused by Covid-19 stands at 7 million, their single best guess of the actual toll is 26.1 million people. “We find that there is a 95% chance that the true value lies between 17.9m and 31.6m additional deaths.” I love the Economist data visualisations—I think they’re the best in the business. Go take a look.And speaking of sapphic sword-swinging, as the result of a two-day sale of the Spear ebook I can finally say I’m a #1 Amazon Best Seller! I’m sorry to say the sale is over, but it’s amazing what a sale will do for, uh, sales. Sapphic sword-swinging for the win! Menewood Day approaches! Just 13 days to go (you can pre-order here). I’ve done my first interview and seen my first two reviews (embargoed for now) and, well, there will be quotes like “The major work so far of a major talent” and “seamless…ease and grace that belies how truly deep it feels…it is a marvel” and I’m am grinning. Don’t forget that if you want a guaranteed signed, personalised, first edition first printing hardcover shipped direct to your door on October 3, order from Phinney Books.Still gathering links for my Events page, but the basics of time, place, and type of event are there. If you’re in Seattle come to either:the informal hangout-and-get-your-book-signed hour on Tuesday, 3 October, at Phinney Books followed by celebratory drinks and chat at the pub next door, orIn-conversation with Neal Stephenson event on Wednesday 18 October, at Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park

Snippets—Cath Llew, Events, Sales, and Deep Dives

In Hild, Hild acquires four bynames or epithets—like ‘Butcherbird’ and ‘hægtes’. In Menewood (out in just 15 days!) she acquires more, the first of which is ‘Cath Llew’, or lynx. Over on , I’ve written a juicy post—maps! drawings!—about how and when and why that happened. As Menewood is out soon (15 days!), I’m gearing up for publicity, which includes starting to update my Events page. It needs more work but the bare bones are there: dates and times of where I’ll be when, and who I’ll be talking to. Mark your calendars.Something that’s happening right now: Spear is on sale for $2.99 on all US and Canadian digital platforms. Want to know why some readers love the book while others aren’t even sure which way up it goes? Now’s your chance to find out! Lots of buy links here on the main Spear page. Or if you want to read an in-depth review essay, take a look at Ploughshares .Before Spear was published I was at a conference in Florida where I bumped into a former student of mine, Mary Anne Mohanraj. She’s been running something called the Portolan Project, designed to offer creative writing courses and resources. She asked if she could interview me. I said, Sure! So that’s what we did. Only, well, it was the morning after a very long bar-then-restaurant-then-pool bar-then-indoor-bar afternoon and evening and night, and I had a towering hangover. You’d think by now I’d be old enough to know better—and I do, I do—but this happened to be the first full conference I’d been to since the start of the pandemic and I just kept meeting people I’d hadn’t seen for years. Every time I’d think, Oof, time to stop, someone else would walk in and, wham, another round of drinks. Anyway, if you’ve ever wanted to know what I look and sound like when I sort of wish I could lie down and fast-forward the day, here’s a six-minute clip.

Or you can listen to the whole thing:

And if you want to read an example of exactly what I’m talking about when I talk about immersion, then Menewood is out in just 15 days! Pre-order from Phinney Books and I’ll sign and personalise it and they will ships direct to your door on the day of publication.PRE-ORDER MENEWOOD

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Three Books, Seven Parts, 38 Chapters…

Menewood by Nicola Griffith (MCDxFSG, 3 October, 2023. Cover art by Anna and Elena Balbusso.)Published 3 Oct: Pre-order

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In exactly three weeks you can hold your most marvellous copy of Menewood and gaze upon its wonders. What will you find?

The cover, obviously, by Anna and Elan Balbusso, which is flat-out gorgeous. But I’ve talked about that before—a couple of times. When I actually get a finished copy I’ll post photos because there’ll be deep, rich colours and lots of shiny luscious gold.

Inside there’s the title page—very pretty (designed by Abby Kagan)—and the list of contents.

It’s a long list; it’s a big story. So big, in fact, that I briefly toyed with the idea of turning it into three novels. You can trace the vestigial evidence of that in the structure: Menewood is divided into three Books, each of which are further divided into Parts and then into Chapters.

The first Book is the longest, and it’s divided into three Parts (the other Books get two Parts each). Each part gets its own title page. Here’s the first one:

Menewood, Book One, Part 1

The first page of each part includes three lines of information. The first line characterises Hild and her actions. Here we see that Hild in the chapters of Part 1 is known by the —which won’t mean much until you’ve read the book, but when you’re leafing through again afterwards you’ll know exactly where you are. The second line lists the stops on her travels; here it’s clear she’s moving around a lot, going as far north as the Tweed valley (actually a little beyond it). The third line gives a sense of time—the book opens at the very end of Wulfmonath (January) and takes us to the beginning of Litha (June). Different parts of the book move at different speeds, and this way the reader can get a sense of what sort of pacing to expect.

Do I think readers need this level of orientation? Most of you, no. But I also know what the pandemic has done to my reading-attention span and Menewood is, as I’ve said, a big story, and it seemed a kindness to offer as many signposts as possible.

In addition to the three Books, seven Parts, and 38 Chapters there are three maps (I’ll do a separate post about those because, wow, getting good maps in a book is not nearly as easy as it should be), a glossary, a Cast of Characters, and a long juicy Author’s Note which itself is divided into five parts—with footnotes! Plus the usual fiddly bits like Acknowledgements and About the Author and Dedication.

But the meat of the matter is those 676 pages of juicy fiction. Here’s a taste to whet your appetite.

Chapter 1

On the high moor of Elmet, ghostly in the pale winterlight, wind hissed like grit through frozen bracken. Hild eased Cygnet to a halt, loosened the reins, and hooked one foot up across the saddle to wait. The big mare turned her rump to the wind, but Hild drank deep of the cold, clean air, unbreathed by any but lost sheep and soaring birds.

     Below her, seven riders picked their way up the slope: six striplings, alike in coarse grey cloaks and plain leather caps, and Wilfram, her Hound. In this world of silvery lichen and snow-dusted rock, Wilfram, in the gleaming glory of a warrior gesith, was the only splash of colour: blue cloak, silvered warhat, and great shield, the leather cover painted half in green with the hazeltree of Elmet and half in purple with her own Yffing boar. He was keeping the younglings to a deliberate pace, no doubt to give the Lady time to whisper with the wind, or walk with the wights, or whatever else her Hounds thought she did to gain uncanny knowledge. So many songs, so many stories: Hild Yffing, light of the world and godmouth; hægtes and freemartin; Butcherbird and king’s fist.

     Old songs, all of them. Time for new ones.

     She turned in the saddle, gauging the distance to the top of the moor. From there she could see for miles, and, as new-made Lady of Elmet, everything she saw was hers—or would be when she had the spears to defend it.

     Three months ago Edwin Overking had given Elmet to Hild and Cian Boldcloak to hold in his name, much to the rage of Osric Yffing, who now must be content to hold only Craven, to the west. This much was known. What was unknown, or as yet undecided, was where Craven ended and Elmet began.

     Nothing could be done in Wulfmonath, when sensible folk bided by the fire to make and mend until the world turned back towards the light and the land unfroze. And she wanted nothing begun until she commanded more spears. What better time, then, than now, with no one abroad but the wolves, to train those spears?

Menewood, by Nicola Griffith (MCDxFSG, 2023)

You can read the rest—or listen to it—in just three weeks! And if you pre-order from Phinney Books, you’ll get it (or them—buy two, buy three!) signed and personalised.

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No matter what: 30 years and 10 years, the real story (or part of it)

Ringshots from 1993 (top, by Mark Tiedemann) and 2013 (by Jennifer Durham)

Image description: Two photos of two white women’s hands. The top photo is in colour; each woman wears a single gold band on their ring finger. The photo below is in black and white; each woman wears two gold bands on their ring finger.

On this day 30 years ago Kelley and I got married for the first time—in our back garden in Atlanta surrounded by about fifty of our family and friends. We gave each other a 14ct gold wedding band. The marriage had no legal force.

Exactly 20 years later we got married again, this time before a judge and attended by fourteen family and friends. We gave each other an 18ct gold wedding band which we wore next to the first. And this time it was a legal ceremony, and our marriage was—and is—valid all over the world.

I’ve talked about this many times. What I haven’t talked about before is how the world of difference between the two weddings (seriously, the world of 1993 was very different to that of 2013) made no difference at all to the bedrock meaning of our vow.

Georgia in 1993: I had published some short stories and my first novel, Ammonite—which because of the way the mass market original paperback contract was structured would never make me any royalties. (That’s a whole other story that I may tell one day.) Kelley was earning $31k a year at an environmental-engineering company—she had health insurance, I didn’t. (This was in the days before domestic partnership and their healthcare advantages—y’know, such as they were.) I had just been diagnosed with MS (diagnosis and treatment was costing us a fortune). I was on an H1B visa which was about to expire (immigration attorneys and application fees were costing us a fortune). I had just about finished Slow River; Kelley had published some short stories. We had bought a neglected, ramshackle little house that backed onto a nature preserve that we were slowly making liveable (asbestos removal and lead paint mitigation had cost us a fortune). We were broke and beyond broke, with credit card debit almost equal to our annual income.

I would wake up every day and go to my desk and look at the money charts on the wall showing where we were—barely keeping up with interest payments on the debt—read another email from another immigration lawyer saying, ‘Are you famous? No? Then I can’t help you,’ open another bill from the hospital for IV MS treatment, and wonder how we would survive, and where we might be living in a year. And then remember that where we were living, in Georgia, it was, literally, illegal for Kelley and I to have sex.

We needed help. We needed support. We needed to affirm to ourselves and to each other that no matter the odds stacked against us, no matter how sick I got or how long I had left (all I knew about MS then was the story of Jacqueline Dupree) we were going to love and live our lives happily and together. And that, I thought, is what a wedding is for: to stand before family and friends, declare our love, and then rely on the community we had brought together that day to help us remember that love and determination when things got really bad. The more we thought about it, the more it made sense: we should get married.

The problem was, it didn’t make sense to anyone else on the planet. In June I told my family in England we were going to get married and my two straight sisters said, Ah. Well, I can’t come that day (we hadn’t even named a date), my queer sister said, Why on earth would you want to do that? My mother was unhappy but I don’t remember which bit bothered her most, but my father… My father was personally offended. Don’t be ridiculous, Nicola. And why on earth would you want to rub peoples’ noses in it? As if our relationship was, literally, dogshit. None of my family had ever seen fit to visit me in the US in the four years I’d lived there—they just hadn’t though tit worth it because of course all unnatural lesbian relationships failed so I’d be coming home to the UK soon enough; why waste money?—and now it looked as though they never would.

But if I’d let me family’s approval influence my behaviour I’d either be dead (like my two queer sisters) or still living in Leeds with children and grandchildren, like my two straight sisters. So, fuck it. We told Kelley’s folks next. I admit I don’t remember their initial response but bother her mother and stepfather and father and stepmother had always, always supported her choices and kept their own counsel regarding their feelings on the matter. They said they would come to the wedding—including Kelley’s four stepbrothers. So we went ahead and picked a date and then told everyone else, and sent out invitations. Our friends, gay and straight, responded with a mix of Yes! And, Oof, I’m sorry, I can’t afford the trip.

So we started planning. We allotted ourselves $500 for the entire wedding: food, drink, venue, flowers, clothes, invitations—excluding the rings. It was more than we could afford but we had to spend something. Venue: no brainer, it would have to be in our back garden; it was free. Flowers: one of Kelley’s co-workers’ sweeties was a florist; we got table arrangements for free. Clothes: we had no clue what to wear—white dresses? sharp suits?—or where to get them or how to afford them. Kelley’s mum stepped in a said, Find a local dressmaker and I’ll pay. One of ur friends knew a wonderful design student who was delighted to make us something as an experiment: I got a simple bias-cut dress in white charmeuse (I learnt the words bias-cut and charmeuse)—long-sleeved to hide all the terrible bruising and IV marks—and Kelley got one in a slightly different style with short sleeves. Catering: we found a local caterer who would come to the house and grill salmon and chicken and asparagus, do a baked brie (we didn’t know any vegans) and made a pretty two-tiered carrot cake for a ‘very reasonable price’—and when she saw our faces fall at the ‘reasonable’ (over our entire budget) she made it self-serve, added the rental of tables, chairs, glassware etc., and knocked 15% off. The drinks: one of our friends was learning to make mead; he brought enough mead for everyone, and we bought some sparkling water and generic sparkling wine for the toasts (plus two bottles of Taittinger just for us—I wasn’t going to start my married life with crap wine…). Then the rings. Remember, we had no money. Remember, no one in the world was doing this. We had some vague idea that maybe as our situation was unique we should have unique rings. We went to a jeweller, who showed us all kinds of strange silver designs and we nodded and asked questions and all the time our gazes kept straying to the rows of traditional gold rings. Neither of us acknowledged that fact because it just felt too overwhelming—suddenly real, suddenly and oddly both traditional and dangerous.

We went home and decided to try again the next week. When we did, we both just stopped next to the wedding ring case, looked at each other, and said, ‘Those.’ It turned out if we went for the cheapest gold and paid a bit per month, we could more or less manage it. So we paid our money, ordered them to be engraved N&K: No matter what and K&N: No matter what, and went home smiling.

Then, the basics taken care of, we considered the fiddly bits: Public announcements and registering our gift list. And this is when it truly came home to us how new what we were doing was. Long story short (it’s a good story—and I’ll tell it another time), we were the first queer couple to announce our wedding in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the first queer couple to register at Macy’s.

Meanwhile, we were beginning to realise everyone who was accepting our invitation was nervous. They didn’t know what to expect. They didn’t know what to wear. They didn’t know what their role would be. Would it be some weird wiccan ritual where people would have to turn to this way and that as we called the four winds? Or lay their gifts on an altar with dildos on it? Some well-meaning non-denominational do-gooder in a badly-embroidered white robe entreating people to be kind to each other and bless our holy union? Someone smudging everything and making everyone cough? Should they dress for a summer wedding or a queer orgy?

It was time to turn our attention to the wedding itself. We didn’t want a religious ceremony. We couldn’t have a legal ceremony. I had zero interest in any kind of woo spiritual thing. I just wanted us to promise to love each other forever and for our witnesses to understand why and what that meant and commit to being our community and support and then to have a bloody good party. But given everyone’s uncertainty we’d need someone to MC, a front-of-house person people could ask questions of and follow their lead while Kelley and I were dressing/drinking/freaking out/throwing up/running away (or whatever we might be doing on the actual day).

Kelley’s friend Ronnie was happy to take the job. She worked in theatre and was used to stage managing. Then we roped in a few friends and Kelley’s stepbrothers to act as ushers. Then Kelley and I figured out the shape of our wedding. People would arrive. Ronnie’s husband, Dan, would be bar tender offering mimosas or sparkling water. Music would start. Kelley and I would walk together to the front of garden. Ronnie would explain why we were all there and the order of events. Then we would each read excerpts from our letters to each during the year we spent apart. Then any members of the audience who wanted to speak could say a few words. Then Kelley and I would made our vows to each other. Then we would eat and drink and party til the sun went down or we ran out of comestibles.

By this time it was mid-August, two or three weeks before the wedding. Things were trundling along. I wasn’t feeling well but trying to ignore it. My mother called—we usually chatted a couple of times a week—and asked how the wedding prep was going. I said it seemed to be moving along; our rings would come soon; we’d sorted the catering. What were we having? Everything grilled. What were our colours? I blinked—our what? ‘Your colours, Nicola, your theme.’ Uh, I said, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. A beat of silence. ‘Well. I see I’ll have to come and sort things out.’

When Kelley got home from work she found me stalking around the house, wild-eyed, muttering to myself. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ I looked at her, took a deep breath, ‘My mother’s coming.’ ‘But that’s great!’ ‘No! No, it isn’t! They’ve never seen our house. We have to redecorate the whole thing!’

And so, by god, that’s what we set out to do—all while planning a wedding, writing a novel, working a full-time job, and, oh yeah, moving into a full-blown MS exacerbation and two hours infusion therapy of 1,000 mg IV prednisolone every day for five days. (This is another whole story that I don’t have time to tell here, but imagine scenes of an insane person—me on taper of oral prednisone that made me manic to the point of being certifiable twice a day—bellowing in Home Depot as she lifts a hundred-pound counter on the cart and her sweetie weeping; an insane person [ditto] threatening to drive the car through a flower stall for not.having.the.right.flowers; an insane person firing the person replacing the kitchen floor… )

But eventually our house was repainted, the kitchen cabinets refinished, the kitchen floor replaced, every bits of door and cabinet hardware in the house replaced, the carpets cleaned, and the back garden completely dug up and re-turfed (mania can be useful) and the day before the wedding our guests began to arrive.

Here we have yet another long story—actually several of them—about major thunderstorms and turf floating away, emergency blue tarps, waking friends at seven in the morning for help rolling tables through the mud, my mother meeting Georgia and calling it swamp and then coming to our house for the first time on l to be greeted by our cat with a snake in her mouth, power cuts to the hotel that meant No tea for my mother on the morning of the wedding, one stepbrother’s sudden dramatic refusal to set food in a lesbian household, the two mothers of the bride turning up both wearing red and blue, and a rehearsal dinner involving two double martinis in five minutes and Kelley divorced parents being in the same room as each other since, well, the divorce…

But we’ll save that for another time and skip straight to the wedding. It was a beautiful day, washed clean the night before with everything sparking under a blue sky and smelling fresh. Everyone beautifully dressed—well, okay, one friend wore eyeball earrings and a goth t-shirt—and smiling. Kelley and I in our white dresses that hid all the damage and floating serenely to our place on valium (Kelley) and Taittinger (me). We read our letters. People cried. My mother spoke beautifully about love knitting up the sleeve of ravel’d care. We made our vows. I won’t repeat them in full but the essence was the phrase ‘I will be strong, and brave, and fierce for you. No matter what.’ People cried. And then we toasted and laughed and cried some more. Then half the people got drunk really fast because the mead, though it tasted light, packed a wicked punch. Then the food was ready and we ate and talked and Kelley and I circulated—never letting go of each other that whole time—and at once point I looked around at this sudden community we had made and just swelled with love and pride and thought, We did it. Now everyone knows what this means. And nothing can stop us. No matter what.

And exactly 30 years later here we are. We’ve had some hard times but we never doubted us, the solidity and rightness of us, because we knew clearly what we mean to each other and who we are as individuals and as that third thing, our relationship. It’s that relationship built on 35 years of love and thirty years of community support that has sometimes been brave and strong and fierce when one of us could not. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that getting married doesn’t matter.

I’m not talking about the legalities but the ritual acknowledgement, because nothing about that first wedding was legally binding. Yes, the law—the legal wedding ten years ago, exactly twenty years to the day after the first wedding—the one where we spoke the traditional vows, to have and to hold, to love, honour and cherish, for richer for poorer, for better and for worse, no matter what, is something good and solid to lean on; it’s reassuring. The engraving on our second rings, Big love, feels true. But the key, the kernel, the heart of the matter of both weddings, the mortar between the building blocks of our daily lives, is that binding oath common to both ceremonies: No matter what.

I love Kelley. Kelley loves me. We will be strong and brave and fierce for each other forever, no matter what.