The Extraordinarily fine Arts Auction, and Interfictions 2

The Auction is on now, and a marvelous assortment of handmade books, wearables, and other inspired pieces can be yours—or ultimately possessed by the recipients of these one-of-a-kinds that would make great gifts.

See, for instance, this gorgeous being below, by the artist C. Jane Washburn. (This is only one view. The site shows many other views.)

Auction #12: The Ordinary Made Alien

The Child Empress of Mars by C. Jane Washburn
Based On:
“The Child Empress of Mars” by Theodora Goss

in Interfictions 2 edited by Delia Sherman & Christopher Barzak, published by Small Beer Press, and reviewed by amongst others,
Bibliophile Stalker Charles Tan. Although all of the reviews have been laudatory, and I enjoyed every story in the book, I am mentioning Tan's review because of what he says about my personal favourite—Elizabeth Ziemska's "Count Poniatowski and the Beautiful Chicken".

Although the stories in this anthology are said to be "Delving deeper into the genre-spanning territory explored in Interfictions", I must disagree in the case of this story.

Only recently, when prospecting in two rich fields, that of food-in-literature and animals-in-literature, I found a seam that contains both. Since I found it, I claim the right to name it: Chooklit

But even though "Count Poniatowski and the Beautiful Chicken" deserves a place in some forthcoming genre anthology "The Best Chicken Tales of All Time", I'll ignore that fault as I should for several other stories in Interfictions 2, and (1)—stories that could themselves, be the basis of new genres, the borders of which could be the "hot-button issue" basis of delightfully obscure future wars.

A Pocket Book

This pocket-size book is doing very well on Asteroid *, though the astroidians have no clothes nor the teachings of sin.

They do now understand, however, the purpose of clothes: Clothing with no pockets is like a home with no books.

Hunger, Fear, and The Novel Surplus

The advice was free, so I'm sure he hasn't taken it and I don't have to feel guilty for possibly killing a Great Someone-to-be in his own womb. I didn't know him. He just came up and started talking to me. He looked so unhappy, he said he was ("always") "so depressed". He told me that in a few days he was going to have his second nano something after his first, only a year ago.

Anything nano sounds suspicious at the least. His eyes squinted in at the nose with what looked like dread, or was it raw fear—of what? I imagined some cutting-edge foray into the guts of him in which nanowarriors slash at hordes of cells that must have repopulated him after the first war last year, and was anyway, going to kill him soon—or would it be the nanoslashers he feared more than the disease? Whatever, the prognosis didn't look good, and I really didn't want to get to know him well enough to ask his name, as I'm overbooked in sympathies—but curiosity made me want to know more about the warriors inside his body—or his brain.

"Nano—?"

"You don't know?"

Someone touched my arm. "They have to write 50,000 words in 30 days."

He nodded. "For National Novel Writing Month."

"I feel so depressed all the time," he said. "Every day I sit there . . . "

Eventually I asked, "Do you have anything you want to say?"

"No." He not only didn't elaborate, but seemed to have run out of words.

"Do you get out and observe?"

"How can I? I've got to write." He told me that everyone in his writing group agreed. That he felt such a failure. All the time. That he wakes up every day feeling like a failure.

I told him to quit trying to write the novel. To live, get out and listen, observe, feel, think, engage himself in the world and stop thinking of himself as a writer in any form, to stop thinking of himself any more than a real journalist should—at least for a while. I told him to, when he feels refreshed by the act of being in the world, learn to write haiku. That then he could learn the power of a few words, and the lack of being able to write a good haiku if there is nothing to say, but only words to state. I told him (me being in full unproductive rage, and unable to control myself then. If only I could have kept myself to say, 25 words or less—not that free advice is taken no matter how many words misspent) that while writing haiku, he could next begin to learn how to write something else harder to write than a novel: a short story.

Not that I was raging against him. He was as hard not to adopt as a sweet dog from a bad home, at the pound. I just hate the way the prevailing culture smothers what is natural in all of us—curiosity, the ability to be quiet so we can listen, watch, and learn; to reflect and deliberate instead of communicating either in reactions (often group-determined) as if the brain were a leg meant to kick when the knee is hit with a hammer, or "writing" with the purpose of putting as many words as possible out and writing fiction just to do it (plot? no matter. a reason for a story? to write—a circular reason if there ever was one), because the technology to do it, exists.

We all, humans that we are, have such a wonderful gift, and all the great stories that move us stem from the storyteller using this: the ability to climb out of the first person (and the present tense), to think and feel, What would it be like to be this other person (or life-form) living this other life?

We didn't get into the advice he's probably also following or feeling a failure about because he isn't tw'ing. Even though we humans haven't translated what birds say, their twitters are far from mere comforting noises, and come in endless variations, even from birds with brains smaller than the thought that goes before the average sms.

All this reminds me of the time that I advised a smoker who'd stopped five weeks before, to smoke and live.

Overheard dialogue, October 2009:
Prospective novelist: "We try to top each other. I won with 10,000 words one day."
Novelist: (after about ten seconds silence) "I don't believe you."

The delighted osteologist

Life for the people in the fields of forensic bones and osteology might seem as if it's grim.


"Another face!" declared the osteologist."This one is definitely bemused."

Sorta

Two boys cycled past me on a dirt road today, and one said to the other:

" I sorta !jumped!
on it.

and All the gherkins.
and that?
!jumped! out the side.
and I was left!
with two slices
of buns ? "

The art of negative spaces

Many of the most delicate and beautiful works art are pierced work—not only small items such as Malaysian and Indonesian shadow puppets, but architecture that plays with light and hidden worlds.

My upcoming appearances related to the World Fantasy Convention

Readings and signings
Saturday, October 31, 8:45 PM – 10 PM. Crystal Room, Fairmont Hotel, San Jose, California.
To celebrate the publication of LOVECRAFT UNBOUND edited by Ellen Datlow. (M Press, Trade Paperback, $19.95), an appropriately un- "unofficial" sampling.
Ellen Datlow, and reading a snippet each: Laird Barron, Amanda Downum, Brian Evenson, Nick Mamatas, Michael Shea, Marc Laidlaw, Anna Tambour.

Sunday, November 1st, 4:00, Barnes & Noble, 3600 Stevens Creek Blvd., San Jose.
Rapid-fire readings from Interfictions 1 & 2, to celebrate the launch of INTERFICTIONS 2.
Ellen Kushner, K. Tempest Bradford, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Liz Zimenski, Amelia Beamer, Ray Vukcevich, Anna Tambour, and Delia Sherman.

Monday, November 2nd from 6:30 – 8:00 pm – World Fantasy Convention Group Signing at (the magnificent independent) Borderlands Books, 866 Valencia Street, San Francisco.
Their events calendar says: "With over a dozen distinguished authors and editors including Paolo Bacigalupi, Ellen Datlow, Nina Kriki Hoffman, Cecelia Holland and Mary Robinette Kowal, Monday, Laird Barron, Marie Brennan, Lynn Ceasar, Nancy Etchemendy, Cody Goodfellow, Elaine Isaak, Nick Mamatas, Diana Paxson, Mark Teppo, Tony Richards, Michael Shea, John Skipp and probably more!"

Tuesday, November 3rd at 7:00 pm, also at Borderlands Books – Celebration (with readings) of the launch of INTERFICTIONS 2 edited by Delia Sherman & Christopher Barzak. (Small Beer Press, Trade Paperback / ebook, $16.00)
Amelia Beamer, Delia Sherman, Ray Vukcevich, Anna Tambour.
Borderlands Books says:
"INTERFICTIONS 1 was the brilliant first anthology from The Interstitial Arts Foundation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the study, support, and promotion of interstitial art: literature, music, visual and performance art found in between categories and genres. INTERFICTIONS 2 meets the same standard of excellence, and we're delighted to host a reading with three of the contributors and one of the editors of this new volume! What could be a better match for Borderlands than a collection celebrating art that crosses borders?"








This year's World Fantasy Convention celebrates Edgar Allan Poe (and inevitably that celebrity raven). Somehow, this unsung (though gorgeous voiced) Lord Howe Island currawong slipped quothlessly into this post.

If haiku came from Australia . . .

'seasons' would mean something entirely different from the staid four, each with its list of characters, colours, actions.

The fall of leaves, bark, and tree limbs happens in the season of the drought. This season has lasted years in some parts of our island.

- forest floor -
spring in southeast Australia, 2009

Jellyfish refraction and magnification

unsung hero
with
no neck from which to hang an award

Not only are some types of jellyfish 'eyes' teaching us about advanced optics, but the bodies of many types of jellyfish must have played an important role that has not been acknowledged.

This is one 'glass' that our ancestors could have used to help find a splinter, and then disposed of as dinner.

Paper Cities now also e-book

Thanks to Matthew Kressel, publisher of Senses Five Press,
the Paper Cities e-book, Kindle edition is now available from Amazon.

Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy
edited by Ekaterina Sedia

Twenty-one original stories from Forrest Aguirre, Barth Anderson, Steve Berman, Darin Bradley, Stephanie Campisi, Hal Duncan, Mike Jasper, Vylar Kaftan, Jay Lake, Paul Meloy, Richard Parks, Ben Peek, Cat Rambo, Jenn Reese, David Schwartz, Cat Sparks, Anna Tambour, Mark Teppo, Catherynne M. Valente, Greg van Eekhout, and Kaaron Warren.

2009 World Fantasy Award Nominee

See the Table of Contents and read some stories at the Senses Five Press site here.