A lot of us are in lock-down or working from home right now, and cut off from our usual activities. I’ve been getting on with working on the follow-up to the Grass King’s Concubine, but I’ve also been doing on-line readings from my Sekrit Projekt novel, which is a mystery with supernatural elements, set in 9th century Wales. You can find the first three installments here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhmAUZBnGSE
So an exciting thing happened while I was away at Worldcon: my novella Serpent Rose came out from NewCon Press. You can find the details on their website here: http://www.newconpress.co.uk/info/book.asp?id=143&referer=Catalogue
I’ve always felt conflicted about the figure of Kign Arthur. As a historian of the early middle ages, he can be a problem, as the evidence for him is very thin, yet there are a lot of rather misleading books out there about him. As a writer, though, I find the whole canon of Arthurian works fascinating. We tend to tell the same story, these days, but in the 12th through 15th centuries, there were many many different stories told, with different heroes and different endings. Serpent Rose is one of those: I wrote it in an attempt to explore the characters of Lamorak de Galis, who is said to have been the third greatest of Arthur’s knights, yet remains obscure in most retellings. The Prose Tristan contains elements of what may be lost stories about him, and I have used some of those. But his story wove its way into a story about the Orkney brothers, too, and particularly Gaheris. These days, he’s one of the minor figures in the Arthur stories, but like his elder brother Gawain, he seems once to have been more significant, and, also like Gawain, his character has rather taken a beating from Sir Thomas Malory onwards. I’ve always rather liked him though, so…
Serpent Rose is high Arthuriana, set in the imaginary world of tournaments, heroic knights, quests and castles, rather than in a pseudo-early mediaeval context. It has a companion piece already written, which focuses on Gareth’s wife (Lyonese/Llinos) and her story, and there are a couple more planned.
I shall be at the Dublin worldcon, having missed last year. You can find my schedule on the convention’s programming App, Grenadine, via their website, which is here: http://dublin2019.com/whats-on/programming/
I will be reading from new work, as well as doing several panels. I hope to see some of you there.
Hi there!
You can find me on Facebook these days, for updates on what I’m writing and what I’m doing.
Mancunicon, the British National Science Fiction convention, is approaching rapidly and I have my schedule. I’m particularly looking forward to interviewing Aliette de Bodard on Saturday and to the Tanith Lee tribute item. I hope to see at least some of you there!
Revealing History, Revealing Now
Friday 17:30 – 18:30, Room 8&9 (Hilton Deansgate)
We think of historical fantasy and alternate history as changing the past: but can they be used, instead, to reveal it? How do the tools of SF and fantasy enable writers to tell stories that allow us to think differently about our understanding of history? How can such stories help us to better understand the present? (And which “us” is defining “our”, in any case?)
Susan Bartholomew (M), Jacey Bedford, Aliette de Bodard, Kari Sperring, Sarah Walters.
A Tribute to Tanith Lee
Saturday 14:30 – 15:30, Deansgate 3 (Hilton Deansgate)
Tanith Lee was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award, for Death’s Master (1980). She was nominated for and won various World Fantasy Awards, and wrote over 90 novels, 300 short stories, poetry, a children’s book and episodes of the TV show Blake’s 7. Her work explored feminism and sexuality. In this discussion, five of her literary “nieces”, who all have a short story in an anthology dedicated to her (to be published by Storm under the title Night’s Nieces), enthuse about her works and what made her such a critical figure in female and British Fantasy until her untimely death in May 2015.
Storm Constantine, Kari Sperring, Sarah Singleton, Freda Warrington, Liz Williams, John Kaiine
Guest of Honour Interview – Aliette de Bodard
Sunday 16:00 – 17:00, Deansgate 2&3 (Hilton Deansgate)
Aliette de Bodard was born in the USA, and grew up in London and Paris, where she now lives and works. She began publishing short fiction in 2006, and gained rapid notice, particularly for work in her Xuya setting, including the Nebula Award-winning stories “Immersion” (2012) and “The Waiting Stars” (2013), and the Hugo-nominated novella On a Red Station, Drifting (2012).
Her first novel Servant of the Underworld, published in 2010, began the Obsidian & Blood series of Aztec mysteries. Her most recent book is The House of Shattered Wings, a BSFA Award nominee this year.
Kari Sperring (M), Aliette de Bodard.
Historical Fiction and Fanfiction
Sunday 17:30 – 18:30, Room 8&9 (Hilton Deansgate)
Historical fiction is set in the past. Fanfiction is produced by fans, for fans, using famous people or source texts as an inspiration. Frequently the worlds overlap. This panel discusses the overlaps, benefits and pitfalls of them. The overlaps include writing fanfiction about historical fiction, setting fanfiction in an alternative universe by placing the narrative in a different historical era, fanworks about real-life historical figures (Historical RPF), or historical fanworks – any fanwork set in the past.
Amanda Baker (M), V Allan, Kari Sperring, Zoe Sumra, ickle_tayto
Science Fiction Criticism – Masterclass 1
Sunday 19:00 – 20:00, Room 10 (Hilton Deansgate)
Every Summer the Science Fiction Foundation holds a Masterclass in Science Fiction Criticism with world-renowned critics, academics and authors. This session provides a taster. Participants are required to sign up in advance (at Ops) and should read the short story assigned for the session. There is a limit of ten participants. This session will be looking at Liz Williams, ‘The Banquet of the Lords of Night’, which can be found online at http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/williams
Tony Keen, Kari Sperring.
I will also be working in Green Room (when aren’t I? My favourite place!) and helping out with the bid for Follycon, so this is shaping up to be a busy convention.
I’m one of the guests of honour at this year’s Picocon (which is number 32), alongside three great writers — Frances Hardinge, Ian MacDonald and Cory Doctorow., at Imperial College, London. I’m delighted to be asked — it’s the second time I’m been one of their guests and I’m glad I was interesting enough last time that they wanted me back. It’s one of my favourite cons: it’s run by the members of the Imperial College Science Fiction and Fantasy Society, who are mostly students and they put on wonderfully imaginative, entertaining programmes. I came up through student sf societies and university-based cons, and going to Picocon is like going back to my roots.
There’s more information on their website here: http://www.union.ic.ac.uk/scc/icsf/picocon/
I’m been invited to be Guest of Honour at Novacon 44, in Nottingham on 14 – 16 November at the Park Inn Nottingham. It’s a real honour and I’m delighted to have been asked.
You can find the details here: http://www.novacon.org.uk/n44/
So, The Guardian has an interesting article today about forgotten writers. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/10/literary-reputations-zero-hero-dj-taylor
Being me, I am of course certain that I will be forgotten myself (without having ever reached the heights of minor recognition, let alone ‘hero’) apart perhaps for some of my academic pieces. And that’s fine with me, too. Also being me, I’ve read at least 3 of the ‘forgotten’ writers mentioned here (Morgan, Dreiser, Wilson) and heard of all the others apart from Mary Mann. But I’m not typical, I suspect (I have a widely -read mother and I have been known to read historical literary criticism for fun and then tracked down the books.)
The article focuses on ‘literary’ writers. There are names it doesn’t mention — Rosamund Lehman, John Fowles, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Bowen — which I hope means people are still assumed to be reading them. There are, of course, far more ‘forgotten’ genre writers who were huge in their time — Weyman, Sabatini, even Michael Innes, who was A N Wilson under a pseudonym.
As the article shows in the case of Virigina Woolf, writers can go out of fashion and be rediscovered, or indeed rescued from obscurity entirely. Dumas has never stopped being read or being in print but he has only begun to be accepted by the literary establishment as more than just a ‘popular’ writer in the last quarter century or so. On the flip side, Dickens was canonised almost at once, despite his popularity, and remains so despite the problems of misogyny, classism and sentimentality in is work. (I do not like Dickens. If I’m going to read social realism of that period, I’ll take Balzac and Dostoyevsky.)
Who are your favourite forgotten writers? And who do you predict may be the writers canonised into fame by later generations? I’d like to see a rise in the recognition of Anne Bronte over her sisters, of Emily Eden, Rosamund Lehman and Rumer Godden. And, moving closer to now, Patricia Geary, Pat Murphy, Tanith Lee (who really belongs up there with Angela Carter already), Justina Robson, Judith Tarr and Zenna Henderson.
A quiet year so far: no that that’s a bad thing! I shall be heading up to Glasgow to attend this year’s Eastercon, Satellite 4. Hope to see some of you there!
Tomorrow morning, I shall be setting off to Brighton for World Fantasycon. I’m not as ready as I’d like — on the plus side, my hair has been cut and coloured — I have purple streaks!! — I have baked fairy cakes to take along (almost entirely lactose free [there are 4 with lemon curd in] plus some that are also gulten-free. All lemon flavoured, because, well, this is me.) I’ve done some packing. But I lost much of yesterday to a migraine and thus am behind. Bah.
Skirts are being selected (of course): green cord mini with deer print; teal and fuchsia flippy; beautiful batik beaded (by request of the marquis). I’m now havering between blue blurred flower print (just about my knee) and silky silver and lilac pint (floor length). These decisions are important 🙂
And I have programme:
Thursday 3.00 pm
Living in the Past: Writing Historical Fantasy
When writing historical fantasy, how important is it to stick to the facts, or is the past fair game for authors of fantastic fiction to manipulate how they wish?
Aidan Harte, Helen Marshall (mod.), Sophia McDougall, Mark Charan Newton, Tim Powers, Kari Sperring.
Friday 6.00 pm
Reading
I haven’t decided exactly what to read yet. Any suggestions?
I hope to see some of you there.