Nicola Griffith's Blog, page 95

HILD to be published in the UK!

I'm delighted to announce that Hild will be published in the UK by Blackfriars, a brand-new imprint of Little, Brown UK. The digital edition is out 10th April followed by the hardback on 24th July. This year. It's happening fast.

I'm thrilled about this. Hild's story is deeply British; I yearn to get this book into the hands of people who walk the landscape she walked.

More news when I have it. For now: I am grinning.

When the hell is Volume Two coming?

From: Sara Finegan

I keep heading over to your blog to find out if you've already answered my question but it's difficult to navigate in that there are round-ups galore sort of clogging it up. The cat pictures are great and very entertaining to my Siamese, who actually feel as strongly as I do that you should just get with the program and produce Volume Two right now, this very minute, and why the hell is it taking so long because really, we've re-read Hild 3 times now and we do not have a lot of patience.

Which leads me to the question: When the hell is Volume Two coming and why the hell is it taking so long, because I've read Hild 3 times now and look, I always keep one Harry Potter book half-read because I don't really want to leave Hogwarts and with only one Hild volume available it will become slightly difficult to remain partially immersed, and now I can only hop between Hogwarts and Muggle world when I SHOULD be able to bop between Hogwarts, Muggle world, and Anglo Saxon Britain.
We all appreciate that you get to get married and that your agent wants you doing interviews and book tour things but let us be frank (and when I say "we", of course, I'm really referring to ME and the Siamese) there are things more important than you getting married and interviews and book tours, and #1 on that list is providing us with more access to Hild World and the rest of, or another part of, her story. When you think about it, what else could be even close to as important? Nothing that WE can think of.
By now you've wasted an incredible amount of good writing time reading this email so just give me a due date and go WRITE, damnit!

I want HILD II to be done, too. It isn't. But as you're a ranter after my own heart, here's a snippet of info.

On my immediate horizon there are three things that will get in the way of writing: travel, teaching, more travel. And I'm not even counting the unexpected. Bottom line: HILD II won't be out any time soon.

Speaking of travelling I'll be away from my desk for a couple of weeks. Don't be alarmed by the eerie silence. But perhaps when I get back there will be News...

Hild roundup #12

After a dearth of beasties today we have lots of cats. Enjoy! Previous roundups here.
REVIEWSParis ReviewWhat We’re Loving"…dazzling… Griffith’s lyrical prose emphasizes the savagery of the political landscape, in which religion, sex, and superstition are wielded mercilessly for personal gain."
Strange HorizonsHild by Nicola Griffith, T.S. Miller[Hild from a medievalist’s perspective—long and juicy. Go read it.]
Book RiotThe Best Books We Read in January"I loved it from the start and am calling it: Hild will be one of my favorite reads of 2014."
INTERVIEWSSeattle WroteThe author is the host who welcomes the reader, Norelle Done[An interview over coffee at the local Chocolati—fun had by all!—in which I ponder how I came to story, and how I got to where I am today.]
MISCELLANEOUS Fitz (who owns Traci Castleberry) loves library books Bliss (who supervises Jo Booms) reads to the fish Hilda (who advises Pastor Pilgrim) communes with an ARC

Hild roundup #11

No interviews this week, just reviews. No photos of pets reading Hild, either (pity--I like those). Instead, lots of email from readers (male and female, old and young, American and not) telling me how much my work means to them, and in what ways Hild (and Aud, and Lore, and Marghe--yes, all this week) has helped them see the world differently. I am deeply touched. Thank you.

Previous roundups here. Enjoy.

REVIEWSio9.com
Hild and the triumph of the skeptical fantasy novel, Annaleen Newnitz
"By the time you've finished this engaging, absorbing novel, you'll feel like you understand the political machinery moving beneath the hide of history. And the great St. Hilda will have come to life in your mind, not as a blessed Saint, but as a real human being with decidedly secular talents. This is one of the truly great novels of the past year. Griffith will seduce you with her lush, fantasy-epic prose, and keep you mesmerized with her well-wrought tale of politics in an age of superstition."

Respiring Thoughts
Book Review: Hild by Nicola Griffith,
"There is an elegance and beauty to this book that’s rather mesmerizing at times. Hild is a dense, involved read, but it’s worthwhile for the authenticity that Griffith brings to the table. It’s the kind of book that you immerse yourself in, that you somehow experience rather than simply read."
Story Studio Chicago
January Booklist: What we’re reading
"A wonderful telling of the early life of St. Hilda of Whitby, circa 650 AD. But this Hild is a unique creature who must pay attention to detail in order to survive. The language is transporting, and Griffith writes in an intense, close 3rd person that leaves Hild haunting you long after the book ends. I think this will be next year’s Booker winner. –Jill Pollack"
[Emphasis theirs.]
Literary Lindsey
Review: Hild, Lindsey
"This is the sort of book you want to live inside. Nicola Griffith has meticulously created a world on the verge of chaos. We readers get to enter 7th century England from a unique position. Hild gives us eyes and ears into both the weaving rooms with the women of the court and on the road to battle with the kingdom's warriors. But no one knows who will be in power next and everyone's motives are suspect. Hild travels with the king, from one town to another as they broker support for his rule and suppress uprisings."

Peace Moon Arts
Hild: a review
"This book offers a window to the lost world of 7th C. Britain, almost unknown even to those of us who love the Middle Ages. I was immediately enchanted…"

Narrator choice for Hild

From: Colleen
Just a note to tell you I've just purchased Hild at the Audible.com site.  
Yes, I prefer to have an actual book in my hands when I read but I must drive about hither thither and yon all over creation  for work and I've found that the traffic and knob head drivers are ever so much easier to tune out when I'm  immersed  in another world. Also, I have the worst migraines and it is hard to forgo the reading even when I cannot see properly. So, audiobooks are my mana these days.   
At any rate, I want to thank you for using an English reader for your audiobook. I am an American (who grew up in Kenya - long story) but I cannot abide historical tales read aloud in American voices. Is it me? Shhh, don't tell the others.
I hope that you will eventually be back to San Francisco with your lovely wife, for some readings etc.  
I wish you only the best of health this coming year.

I asked for a woman with a British accent and was very glad they agreed. Bonus: we're both Northern lasses. All the feedback I've had so far is that listeners like it, so I'm happy.
As for health this year, ha! I went down with a vile cold (or upper respiratory tract infection, depending on which sounds the most deadly) on New Year's Day and it seemed to take an age to go away. But it did pass, eventually. That's the lovely thing about viruses; if they don't kill you they go away.
I'd love to get to the Bay Area. We just have no idea of our schedule right now. There might be overseas travel for both of us; there might not. Everything's kind of up in the air right now.
Enjoy Hild. And do let me know what you think of the narration.

What does spin-patterned cloth look like?

From: Deborah

Now I'm just desperate to know what spin-patterned cloth looks like.  I Googled it but got all kinds of things that are clearly not spin patterned cloth.  Do you have any links to good photos of this???

Wikimedia CommonsA spin pattern, the way I'd imagined it, is a very subtle texture on cloth created by the difference in S- and Z-twist yarns of the same colour. Some fibres spin tighter in one direction than another, so the threads would be slightly thinner and denser--unless the spinner is particularly exacting. Textiles fit for royalty, of course, would have been spun by the best, but even if the yarn was the same size the light would catch them differently.

At least that's what I imagined. But I couldn't find any pictures. So I asked the amazing Astrid Bear, a weaver, for help. She came up with a couple of things for me to look at. Neither is quite what I'd imagined.

The first is like seersucker, way too...messy for Hild. I can see that today it might work for women who want a floaty, romantical kind of dress, or perhaps as a flimsy underdress in hot weather (not as much fabric would touch the skin which means that you'd stay cooler). But it's not really Hild's style.

The second (scroll down to the blue cushions) isn't quite right, either, because the subtlety is obscured by the difference in colour.

So if anyone out there can help Deborah--and me--please point us in the right direction.

Ammonite goes multi-generational

I meant to post this in early November. But, eh, we all know what happened that month...
_____
A conversation two weeks ago on Twitter:

@nicolaz I read Ammonite a long time ago, and it only gets better with time. Thanks for excellent sci-fi. http://t.co/j4gmPjkXqR
— Alix Heintzman (@AlixHeintzman) October 22, 2013

@AlixHeintzman @nicolaz Great book! I recently handed my copy to my 16 year old. Can't wait to talk to her about it : )
— Cathy Pegau (@CathyPegau) October 22, 2013

@CathyPegau @nicolaz You know what's awesome? MY Mom gave it to me when I was 15 or 16. The Great Circle of Life...
— Alix Heintzman (@AlixHeintzman) October 22, 2013

This pleases me enormously (the link in the first tweet leads to an excellent review). In our household we call Ammonite the little book that could. It started life twenty years ago as a cut-price mass-market paperback with what looked like a jellybean spaceship on the cover--all in lurid orange and yellow.

Then it was rereleased with a new cover--still in mass market--to match the nifty original cover of Slow River .

Then it went out of print in 2001 for a few weeks--long enough for me to get a series of anguished emails from academics who'd been planning to teach the book at the beginning of the academic year. I forwarded the emails to my publisher. After a bit of head-scratching they agreed to a brand new contract and a lovely new trade paperback edition, complete with map. I admit, I never really understood the latest cover--which to me looks like a woman wrapped in a bedsheet--but it seems to sell okay so everyone's happy.

But, wow, Ammonite moving through the generations, mother to daughter? I can't tell you how that warms the cockles of my heart.______
And hopefully later this month I'll be able to tell you more about a project I've been working on with an artist. We meant it to be ready last year, to celebrate Ammonite's 20th anniversary, but each of us has been extraordinarily busy with both expected and unexpected (some good, some bad) stuff. Stay tuned...

Hild roundup #10

I've put together a reference page, Hild: roundup-of-roundups where you can find all previous roundups of interview and review links in one place. I'll do my best to keep it updated (which shouldn't be too hard; the book's been out for more than two months now).
INTERVIEWSParis ReviewWe All Have Our Magical Thinking: An Interview with Nicola Griffith, Tobias Carroll[The introductory paragraph:]
"Late in Nicola Griffith’s 1998 novel The Blue Place, her protagonist, Aud Torvingen, speaks rapturously about a spot on the coast of England. “Have I told you about Whitby Abbey, on the Yorkshire coast? There’s a ruin there that dates from the twelfth century, very haunting, very gothic, but the first abbey there was founded in the seventh century by Hilda. There’s a power there.” Fifteen years later, Griffith’s latest novel, Hild, explores the early life of the woman who would go on to become Hilda of Whitby."[I'd forgotten all about that passage in TBP. Wow. Carroll did an admirable and thorough job.]
Author’s Magazine (video)http://www.authormagazine.org/interviews/griffith_interview.html[This was recorded at the height of my unwellness last month, and it shows. But if you can get past how terrible I look, what I'm saying is fine.]
REVIEWSFlavorwire26 Books to Get You Through the Winter"In winter I like sprawling novels, full of conflict and intrigue, and during the bleakest, coldest days of December I holed up with Nicola Griffith’s Hild, a book of love and sex and war and religious upheaval, and I recommend it even over the warmest pair of Sorels." Maud Newton
KOHO Radio (audio)Arts Corner Books of the Month[In which Pat Rutledge, from a Book For All Seasons in Leavenworth, talks about Hild. She loves it. Seriously. Go listen.]

Kristen Hannum
Bright mind, quiet mouth
"If you read Hild, and I heartily recommend that you do, notice how Griffith describes place, transporting you to a wild, early Britain. Notice how she shows us how Hild thinks, in terms of patterns, a metaphor of the weft and warp of weaving that well-born women learned from earliest childhood. “Hild walked the hills in the golden time before dusk, senses wide open but no longer restless. One evening she was moved to tears by the blaze of crimson, gold, and green of the wold, moving at the centre of a vast pattern that she knew she would never have the words to explain. The pattern watched over her from the face of every leaf and every tiny flower of furze. She felt safe and sure.”"[A Catholic perspective on the novel. Worth reading.]
The LawrentianNokes on New Books, Lauren Nokes"This well researched and beautifully written work of historical fiction tells the story of St. Hild of Whitby as a young woman in seventh-century Anglo-Saxon England. The new religion of Christianity conflicts with the old pagan gods and feudalism holds sway. After the death of her father, Hild becomes court Seer for her uncle. Griffith writes vividly about life during the Middle Ages, especially the joys and struggles of female lives."[First time I’ve seen something from a student newspaper so I couldn’t resist including it.]

MISCELLANEOUSSan Francisco ChronicleRecommendations from Kepler's Books"Hild, by : Young, observant Hild, niece to the king, navigates the tumult of seventh century Britain as kingdoms merge and crumble. Griffith's prose transports and beguiles."

The roundup of roundups

I haven't had to the time to sort through the vast (really, there's a lot) pool of reviews, interviews, and Hild publicity miscellany that has accumulated in the last couple of months.

What I've done instead is pull together the links to all the roundups in one easy reference page, the roundup of Hild roundups. So now, should you be so inclined, you can sort through them at your own pace. Every time I do a roundup I'll add it to this list.

Enjoy.

More Hild?

From Leslie:

I bought Hild at the suggestion of NPR--I often rely on their book reviews to point me in the direction of new and wonderful books, and this time was no exception. I devoured this book. I read it in every waking minute I had available for reading. I got cross at my husband when he wanted to watch "our" TV shows because I couldn't be torn away from this book. Admittedly, some of the language threw me at first, and having the e-book, the pronunciation guide was at the end, and not as accessible as a paper book*. But I hunkered down and gathered the meaning from context and I WAS OFF.

Thank you for writing this book. I completely felt like I was in a different world. I love this history of women… how much they were relied on to keep the entire community running, how they could be strong like Hild. I never got the sense from the whole book that the women were treated as property (well, save Gwladus' situation) and from official history, that's all you get. Women were an afterthought. But they had such huge roles! This was a refreshing read.

I'm not a writer, just an avid reader, but when I came to the end of this book, I simply wanted to know more. What happens to Cian and Hild? What of the war? Does Edwin lose power? I have so many questions that are unanswered… Are you thinking of continuing her story? I would buy it immediately. Thank you again, for such an engaging read, and I plan on checking out some of your other work as well. Thank you for letting me get lost in the story.

[This is probably the most frequent question I've had since mid-November. I picked this one at random from literally dozens of variations on a theme.]

Yes, there will be more. My plan is for there to be three books, and whole thing to be known as LIGHT OF THE WORLD. The second, the one I'm working on now, will cover Hild's life from where we left off at the end of the first to her recruitment by Bishop Aidan into the fledgling church. The third will cover what happened when she got there.

I think.

You have to bear in mind that I'd originally intended to tell Hild's story in one big book. But as I told the Paris Review, I hit 100,000 words and Hild was only twelve... People plan and the gods laugh--especially with fiction.

So, I'm working on it. For those who just can't wait to know what happens next regarding the Big Ticket Historical Names (excluding Hild, of course; we know nothing of this period of her life; anyone who says andy differently, no matter how authoritatively, is just guessing) I can recommend two paths. One is to look names up individually on Wikipedia. You'll have an amazing time tracing the interconnectedness of it all. The second is to buy a narrative non-fiction history, The King in the North , by Max Adams. I read it last month and was pleasantly surprised. It takes as its central focus Oswald Æthelfrithing and while Adams and I don't always see eye-to-eye on the role of women he's spot-on with the kings and battles and so forth. Which means--be warned!--there will be spoilers...
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* For those reading digitally, feel free to download and (gasp!) print some of the extras (map, pronunciation guide, glossary etc.--scroll down to More Information) to refer to so that you're not constantly having to click away from the narrative. Enjoy.