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Never at Home
“L. Timmel Duchamp has become a major voice as an editor, publisher, and critic. Her new collection Never at Home confirms her importance as a writer as well. The stories within are strange and heady, original and surprising. In them, the Duchamp heroine often finds herself pulled into some fascinating new world. The Duchamp reader is in the same position, though much happier to be there. Highly recommended.”
— Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club “L. Timmel Duchamp sees the world from an angle inclined at about 25 degrees to the rest of us. Her stories make you feel odd, as if the ground shifted in mid-step and your foot has come down somewhere you weren’t expecting. In this collection she explores in many ways the theme of belonging. They are some of her best unfailingly original, emotionally intense, and suffused with intelligence. I am in awe of this book.”
— Carolyn Ives Gilman, author of Isles of the Forsaken and Halfway Human “A new collection from L. Timmel Duchamp is cause for celebration. Duchamp’s short fiction is compassionate, sharp-eyed, intelligent, and often ingeniously structured. These stories take us places we haven't been before. Never at Home once again showcases a unique, essential voice.”
—Jeff VanderMeer, author of Finch “L. Timmel Duchamp’s stories are intense, tricky, heartfelt, and most of all, interesting; they take on big themes in a clear way, but also at the same time swirl with complications, moments of poetry, life itself.”
— Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Mars Trilogy and Galileo's Dream This collection includes stories previously published in the acclaimed Paraspheres and Bending the Landscape anthology series and in Asimov’s SF , as well as one hundred pages of previously unpublished work.
— Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club “L. Timmel Duchamp sees the world from an angle inclined at about 25 degrees to the rest of us. Her stories make you feel odd, as if the ground shifted in mid-step and your foot has come down somewhere you weren’t expecting. In this collection she explores in many ways the theme of belonging. They are some of her best unfailingly original, emotionally intense, and suffused with intelligence. I am in awe of this book.”
— Carolyn Ives Gilman, author of Isles of the Forsaken and Halfway Human “A new collection from L. Timmel Duchamp is cause for celebration. Duchamp’s short fiction is compassionate, sharp-eyed, intelligent, and often ingeniously structured. These stories take us places we haven't been before. Never at Home once again showcases a unique, essential voice.”
—Jeff VanderMeer, author of Finch “L. Timmel Duchamp’s stories are intense, tricky, heartfelt, and most of all, interesting; they take on big themes in a clear way, but also at the same time swirl with complications, moments of poetry, life itself.”
— Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Mars Trilogy and Galileo's Dream This collection includes stories previously published in the acclaimed Paraspheres and Bending the Landscape anthology series and in Asimov’s SF , as well as one hundred pages of previously unpublished work.
332 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
25 people want to read
About the author
L. Timmel Duchamp
59 books27 followers L. Timmel Duchamp was born in 1950, the first child of three. Duchamp first began writing fiction in a library carrel at the University of Illinois in 1979, for a joke. But the joke took on a life of its own and soon turned into a satirical roman a clef in the form of a murder mystery titled "The Reality Principle." When she finished it, she allowed the novel to circulate via photocopies, and it was a great hit in the academic circles in which she then moved. One night in the fall of 1984 she sat down at her mammoth Sanyo computer with its green phosphorescent screen and began writing Alanya to Alanya.
Duchamp spent the next two years in a fever, writing the Marq'ssan Cycle. When she finshed it, she realized she didn't know how to market it to publishers and decided that publishing some short fiction (which she had never tried to write before) would be helpful for getting her novels taken seriously. Her first effort at a short story was "Welcome, Kid, to the Real World," which she wrote in the summer of 1986. Her next effort, however, turned into a novel. (Getting the hang of the shorter narrative form was a lot harder than she'd anticipated.) So she decided to stick with novels for a while. When in fall 1987 a part-time job disrupted her novel-writing, she took the short stories of Isak Dinesen for her model, tried again, and wrote "Negative Event at Wardell Station, Planet Arriga" and "O's Story." And in 1989 she sold "O's Story" to Susanna J. Sturgis for Memories and Visions, "The Forbidden Words of Margaret A." to Kristine Kathryn Rusch for Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, and "Transcendence" to the shortlived Starshore. Her first pro sale, though, was "Motherhood, Etc." to Bantam for the Full Spectrum anthology series.
After that she wrote a lot of short fiction (mostly at novelette and novella lengths), a good deal of which she sold to Asimov's SF. In the late 1990s Nicola Griffith convinced her to try her hand at writing criticism and reviews. In 2004, Duchamp founded Aqueduct Press; since then editing and publishing books (her own as well as other writers') has claimed the lion's share of her time and effort.
She lives in Seattle.
Duchamp spent the next two years in a fever, writing the Marq'ssan Cycle. When she finshed it, she realized she didn't know how to market it to publishers and decided that publishing some short fiction (which she had never tried to write before) would be helpful for getting her novels taken seriously. Her first effort at a short story was "Welcome, Kid, to the Real World," which she wrote in the summer of 1986. Her next effort, however, turned into a novel. (Getting the hang of the shorter narrative form was a lot harder than she'd anticipated.) So she decided to stick with novels for a while. When in fall 1987 a part-time job disrupted her novel-writing, she took the short stories of Isak Dinesen for her model, tried again, and wrote "Negative Event at Wardell Station, Planet Arriga" and "O's Story." And in 1989 she sold "O's Story" to Susanna J. Sturgis for Memories and Visions, "The Forbidden Words of Margaret A." to Kristine Kathryn Rusch for Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, and "Transcendence" to the shortlived Starshore. Her first pro sale, though, was "Motherhood, Etc." to Bantam for the Full Spectrum anthology series.
After that she wrote a lot of short fiction (mostly at novelette and novella lengths), a good deal of which she sold to Asimov's SF. In the late 1990s Nicola Griffith convinced her to try her hand at writing criticism and reviews. In 2004, Duchamp founded Aqueduct Press; since then editing and publishing books (her own as well as other writers') has claimed the lion's share of her time and effort.
She lives in Seattle.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 4, 2018
Utterly beautiful, will carry you away. Women and queer centric short stories that anyone will love.
December 31, 2013
Brilliant. Duchamp is the queen of originality when it comes to compelling, well-crafted short science-fiction novellas. We are drawn into these unexpected new worlds, unlike any we have traveled with other science-fiction writers. She takes us on an emotional, physical journey with her heroines until we too, feel their exhaustion, their triumph, their compassion, and most importantly, their humanity/alienity. Highly recommended!
May 30, 2013
Timmi's work always hits me in the gut and the brain simultaneously and this collection did not disappoint. I like the variety of story and how they each intimately, profoundly relate to title, each in a different way.
As always, Ducham's mastery of the craft, especially deftness with structure, provides a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing backdrop without detracting from the stories.
As always, Ducham's mastery of the craft, especially deftness with structure, provides a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing backdrop without detracting from the stories.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews