Travel Light – Chapters One and Two
Mon 15 Aug 2005 - Filed under: Free Stuff to Read, Novel Excerpts | Leave a Comment| Posted by: intern
Chapter 1
The Bears
It is said that when the new Queen saw the old Queen’s baby daughter, she told the King that the brat must be got rid of at once. And the King, who by now had almost forgotten the old Queen and had scarcely looked at the baby, agreed and thought no more about it. And that would have been the end of that baby girl, but that her nurse, Matulli, came to hear of it. Now this nurse was from Finmark, and, like many another from thereabouts, was apt to take on the shape of an animal from time to time. So she turned herself into a black bear then and there and picked up the baby in her mouth, blanket and all, and growled her way out of the Bower at the back of the King’s hall, and padded out through the light spring snow that had melted already near the hall, and through the birch woods and the pine woods into the deep dark woods where the rest of the bears were waking up from their winter sleep.
Travel Light
Mon 15 Aug 2005 - Filed under: Books, Peapod Classics | Leave a Comment| Posted by: intern
Now available as an ebook.
“A 78-year-old friend staying at my house picked up Travel Light, and a few hours later she said, ‘Oh, I wish I’d known there were books like this when I was younger!’ So, read it now—think of all those wasted years!”
—Ursula K. Le Guin, author of Gifts
The second novel in our Peapod Classics reprint line is Travel Light, the tale of a marvelous journey by the late Naomi Mitchison. We’ve been fans of both the author and this novel for years — although we never got to meet her. Back in June 2001 (long before this reprint line was ever imagined) Gavin J. Grant wrote a short piece for F&SF on Travel Light:
“A wonderful story that will transport you into Halla’s world where a basilisk might be met in the desert, heroes are taken to Valhalla by Valkyries, and a fortune might be made with a word to the right horse.”
This short and fabulous book transports the reader from a cave in the forest to a dragon’s lair to the wonders of early Constantinople. It’s dense and light, happy, deep, sad, amazing, and short enough that once it’s read all at once you’ll have time to read it again.
Read the new Introduction.
Read the first two chapters.
Reviews:
“A gem of a book.”
– Strange Horizons
“Every page is full of magic and wonder…. well worth seeking out.”
– Rambles
“Combines the best of Rowling and Pullman, being full of magic and fantasy with the hard edge of reality sharp at its edges.”
– The New Review/LauraHird.com
Advance Praise:
“Disarmingly familiar, like a memory only half-recalled. You will love this book.”
– Holly Black (Valiant, The Spiderwick Chronicles)
Praise for Naomi Mitchison:
“No one knows better how to spin a fairy tale than Naomi Mitchison.” – The Observer
“Mitchison breathes life into such perennial themes as courage, forgiveness, the search for meaning, and self-sacrifice.” –Publishers Weekly
“She writes enviably, with the kind of casual precision which … comes by grace.” – Times Literary Supplement
“One of the great subversive thinkers and peaceable transgressors of the twentieth century…. We are just catching up to this wise, complex, lucid mind that has for ninety-seven years been a generation or two ahead of her time.” – Ursula K. Le Guin, author of Gifts
“Her descriptions of ritual and magic are superb; no less lovely are her accounts of simple, natural things — water-crowfoot flowers, marigolds, and bright-spotted fish. To read her is like looking down into deep warm water, through which the smallest pebble and the most radiant weed shine and are seen most clearly; for her writing is very intimate, almost as a diary, or an autobiography is intimate, and yet it is free from all pose, all straining after effect; she is telling a story so that all may understand, yet it has the still profundity of a nursery rhyme.
– Hugh Gordon Proteus, New Statesman and Nation
About the Author:
Naomi Mitchison, author of over 70 books, died in 1999 at the age of 101. She was born in and lived in Scotland but traveled widely throughout the world. In the 1960s she was adopted as adviser and mother of the Bakgatla tribe in Botswana. Her books include historical fiction, science fiction, poetry, autobiography, and nonfiction, the most popular of which are The Corn King and the Spring Queen, The Conquered, and Memoirs of a Spacewoman.
Publication history
First published in the UK by Faber and Faber in 1952 (cover scan on the right).
Reprinted: Virago Press, 1985; Penguin, 1987.
Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop
Mon 8 Aug 2005 - Filed under: Books | 1 Comment| Posted by: intern
* Locus Award Winner
* Hugo Award Winner
* An alternate selection of the Science Fiction Book Club.
Read Excerpts:
- Can Writing Be Taught?
- Trivia Vs. Writing Real Stories now available at the Online Writing Workshop.
- My Silent Partner at SF Site.
|
* See page 121 for the origin of “The Red Line of Death.” Table of Contents
In 2005 we donated $5 from each sale of Storyteller through our website to the Clarion Foundation. In early 2006 we sent in a check for $850 — thank you readers for helping us help future Clarion Workshop attendees. |
“There are many books of writing instruction out there, but what sets Storyteller apart is the sense that Wilhelm really knows students and knows how to teach them to craft a professional story.” “A useful, compact, and entertaining guide to writing that is neither bound to a particular genre or market.” “This book should be on the reference shelf of every aspiring writer. Not only is it a gift of insight and experience of a wonderful writer but it’s also a fine story of the growth of a renowned writing workshop. Highly recommended.” “Teaching writing is a balancing act between compassionate encouragement and firm, blunt criticism. Kate is a master of it. The book uses reminisces about the founding, development and running of Clarion to frame a series of practical, plainly stated lessons for the beginning (and professional) writer. I learned a great deal reading it — something that can be accomplished in a deceptively short time, for Kate is also a master of simply and clearly setting out complicated, muddy issues, a skill honed both in her award-winning fiction (Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is a personal favorite) and in her long years of teaching.” “Oh, but this is a lovely book…. Wilhelm fills Storyteller with lessons about how to write, and just as important, how not to write.” “Full of pithy, relevant advice for writers, amusing recollections of the field’s current giants during their early days, and the fullest published account to date of how a revered program was established.” Listen to an interview. |
For 27 years, Reviews for Wilhelm’s previous books:
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang:
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Hugo Award Winner
-
“Richly deserves the praise it won. . . . It richly deserves to be read—or read again—for its insights that remain startlingly fresh.” —L.D. Meagher, CNN.com
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“As well-crafted and sympathetic as it is scientifically rigorous.”—Nalo Hopkinson, scifi.com
-
“The best novel about cloning written to date.”—Locus
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“Wilhelm’s cautionary message comes through loud and clear.”
—The New York Times
Links
A page of Clarion Links
Credits
Cover image © Corbis.
Download for print.
July 8-10, 2005 — Guest of Honor: Readercon, Burlington, MA
May 26-29, 2006 — Guest of Honor, WisCon, Madison, WI
Kate Wilhelm
Mon 8 Aug 2005 - Filed under: Authors | Leave a Comment| Posted by: intern
Kate Wilhelm was born in 1928, is the author of more than thirty novels including Where Late the Sweet Bird Sang andThe Unbidden Truth. Her work has been adapted for TV and film and translated into twenty languages. She has been awarded the Prix Apollo, Kurd Lasswitz, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. In 2003, she was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Her short fiction appeared in landmark anthologies such as Again Dangerous Visions, Orbit, The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women, andThe Norton Book of Science Fiction.
A cofounder of the Clarion Writers’ Workhops, she continues to host monthly writing workshops in Eugene, Oregon.
Photo by Richard B. Wilhelm
Download for print.
Storyteller – Reviews
Mon 8 Aug 2005 - Filed under: Authors | Leave a Comment| Posted by: intern
Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop
Kate Wilhelm
* Hugo Award Winner for Best Related Book.
* Locus Award Winner
An alternate selection of the Science Fiction Book Club
“There are many books of writing instruction out there, but what setsStoryteller apart is the sense that Wilhelm really knows students and knows how to teach them to craft a professional story.”
– The Oregonian
“A useful, compact, and entertaining guide to writing that is neither bound to a particular genre or market.”
– Locus
“Its strength, I think, lies in some of the pointers she offers to beginning writers as to help them shorten the time it takes to get published.”
– New Pages
“If you are a budding writer, please spend $16 on this book before raising the money needed to attend Clarion. You’ll get much more out of the workshop if you do.”
– Emerald City
“For such a short book — just barely 192 pages — there is a lot here, and a lot that I’ve never found in other writing books, and it’s all on-point. It’s also delivered as part of the story of one of the most significant institutions in the history of science fiction and fantasy, as told by a true storyteller.”
– Green Man Review
“Satisfying in its own right, presenting an informative, and entertaining, blend of history, memoirs, and writing lessons.”
– Steven Silver
“This book should be on the reference shelf of every aspiring writer. Not only is it a gift of insight and experience of a wonderful writer but it’s also a fine story of the growth of a renowned writing workshop. Highly recommended.”
– SF Revu
“Teaching writing is a balancing act between compassionate encouragement and firm, blunt criticism. Kate is a master of it. The book uses reminisces about the founding, development and running of Clarion to frame a series of practical, plainly stated lessons for the beginning (and professional) writer. I learned a great deal reading it — something that can be accomplished in a deceptively short time, for Kate is also a master of simply and clearly setting out complicated, muddy issues, a skill honed both in her award-winning fiction (Where Late the Sweet Birds Sangis a personal favorite) and in her long years of teaching.”
– Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing
“Oh, but this is a lovely book…. Wilhelm fills Storyteller with lessons about how to write, and just as important, how not to write.”
– Strange Horizons
“Full of pithy, relevant advice for writers, amusing recollections of the field’s current giants during their early days, and the fullest published account to date of how a revered program was established.”
– Scifi Dimensions
Reviews for Wilhelm’s previous books:
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang:
- Hugo Award Winner
- “Richly deserves the praise it won. . . . It richly deserves to be read — or read again — for its insights that remain startlingly fresh.”
– L.D. Meagher, CNN.com - “As well-crafted and sympathetic as it is scientifically rigorous.”
– Nalo Hopkinson, scifi.com - “The best novel about cloning written to date.”
–Locus - “Wilhelm’s cautionary message comes through loud and clear.”
–The New York Times
And the Angels Sing:
- “An outstandingly fluent, sensitive writer.
Storyteller Excerpt: Can Writing Be Taught?
Mon 8 Aug 2005 - Filed under: Free Stuff to Read, Novel Excerpts | Leave a Comment| Posted by: intern
One of the questions Damon and I returned to often was simply: can writing be taught? There are many writers who say emphatically that the answer is no. I see their point. High school and college creative writing classes are too often a joke, taught by non-writers without a clue about the real world of publishing and what makes for a publishable story in contemporary markets. For most writers struggling alone, the learning curve from the first attempt to write to becoming an accomplished writer is very long; years in many cases. And all the while they are being taught by rejection slips, by trial and error; they are learning what works for them and what doesn’t. Even after they have published a few stories, often they can’t see why one story was accepted and not another.
- Small Beer Press on Facebook
