Mothers & Other Monsters – Limited Edition

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Poems | Reviews

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Mothers & Other Monsters – Reviews

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Mothers & Other Monsters
Maureen McHugh

Story Prize Finalist
Book Sense Notable Book

“All the gorgeously crafted stories in Maureen McHugh’s Mothers & Other Monsters have in common a profound understanding of the intricacies of human relationships, to which McHugh adds a touch of the fantastical. But here the fantastical seems so normal, so part of our everyday experience, that we simply accept McHugh’s premises, odd as they might be when you consider them independently of the tales themselves. The adjective that best represents this collection is ‘unsettling’. How else to describe stories in which a young woman meets a man she’s attracted to at a dog obedience class and discovers that she dreads introducing him to her dead brother (“In the Air”); “Ancestor Money,” in which a bequest entices a woman to leave her comfortable home in the afterlife for a visit to China; or “Laika Comes Back Safe,” the story of two teenagers who are drawn together by the fact that both have unhappy home lives, but whose friendship is doomed because one is a werewolf. Whether it’s alternative history that seems so real you start to question your own knowledge of the past (“The Lincoln Train”) or a tale of the horrifying end of a utopian colony (“The Cost To Be Wise”), McHugh shows that what many people might dismiss initially as genre fiction can become transcendent in the right hands. I was so impressed by these stories that I immediately went back and read McHugh’s first novel, China Mountain Zhang, which I had somehow missed, and enjoyed it thoroughly.”
– Nancy Pearl (Book Lust) on Morning Edition, “Books for a Rainy Day“

“Unpredictable and poetic work.”
– Cleveland Plain Dealer (Recommended Summer Reading)

“[McHugh] cherry-picks subtle magical or futuristic elements from the expansive genre library.”
– Angle

“McHugh’s prose style is unique.”
– LEO (Louisville Eccentric Observer)

“McHugh is enormously talented…. [She] has a light touch, a gentle sense of a humor, and a keen wit.”
– Strange Horizons

“Passion and precision.”
– Locus

“There’s not a single story that isn’t strong, and most are brilliant.”
– Ideomancer

“Clear, bright, and honest.”
– New York Review of Science Fiction

“Each story in this collection meditates in its own, odd way on the dynamics of families and the vagaries of being human. “Ancestor Money”" considers the demands of the afterlife and the expectations of the living; “The Lincoln Train” describes an alternate ending to the U.S. Civil War, in which former slave owners are shipped westward on crowded trains. “Nekropolis,” the germ of McHugh’s novel of the same title, gives a slightly different flavor to the origins of the story common to both versions. Other stories occur in settings closer to the known world and the tensions of families in it. In “Eight-Legged Story,” a stepmother comes to terms with being a replacement parent, and in “Frankenstein’s Daughter,” a woman deals with the health problems of her daughter’s clone, while her teenage son tries to show off to his friends by shoplifting. McHugh’s stories are hauntingly beautiful, driven by the difficult circumstances of their characters’ lives — slices of life well worth reading and rereading.”
– Booklist

“The 13 stories in McHugh’s debut collection offer poignant and sometimes heartwrenching explorations of personal relationships and their transformative power. In “Presence,” a woman helps her husband through an experimental therapy for his Alzheimer’s disease and, by the story’s end, is less his spouse than a nurturing mother to his developing personality. “In the Air” bridges three generations with its account of the different emotions a woman wrestles with as she anxiously tracks her wandering senile mother and her rebellious teenage daughter by means of biologically implanted homing devices. “Laika Comes Back Safe” represents so believably the feelings two school friends share about their lives in dysfunctional families that the revelation that one occasionally transforms into a werewolf seems entirely within the realm of possibility. Whether writing an alternate Civil War history in “The Lincoln Train” or a tale of extraterrestrial anthropology in “The Cost to Be Wise,” McHugh (Nekropolis) relates her stories as slices of ordinary life whose simplicity masks an emotional intensity more often found in poetry. The universality of these tales should break them out to the wider audience they deserve.”
– Publishers Weekly

“In this collection of stories, Maureen F. McHugh explores the subject of technology and identity, demonstrating that technology can only be a lens for what defines us as human, that is, our intimate relationship with the world around us and all the beings with whom we share that world. It is not technology which transforms us into monsters, but the danger of losing our sense of compassion toward ourselves and others in the face of monstrous choices.”
– Greenman Review

“Stories that abjure future or alternate-history settings for a here-and-now (sometimes problematically so) in which women, most of them mothers (though again often problematically) seek to negotiate landscapes for which their lives thus far have left them unprepared.”
– Tangent Online

“Moving.”
– Shortform

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Praise for McHugh’s previous books:

On Nekropolis:

• “Exquisite.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
• “This luminous tale of forbidden love in a near-future Morocco explores the evolution of human nature in a world where technology has redefined the meaning of the word human. . . . Speculative fiction at its best.” — Library Journal
• A New York Times Notable Book
• A Book Sense 76 Pick
• Amazon Best of the Year

On China Mountain Zhang:

• “McHugh’s achievement recalls the best work of Delany and Robinson without being in the least derivative.” — New York Times Notable Book
• Winner of the Tiptree, Lambda, and Locus Awards.

On Mission Child:

• “McHugh delivers another astonishing, compulsively readable novel.”–Booklist (starred review)
• “Fans of Ursula Le Guin will find much to admire in McHugh’s intelligent, carefully wrought novel of a world that is familiar yet very alien.” — Publishers Weekly
• “Beautiful . . . outstanding . . . McHugh is one of the finest U.S. fiction writers working today.” — Minneapolis Star-Tribune
• “Emotionally compelling . . . immensely satisfying . . . wonderfully structured and beautifully achieved . . . a splendid science fiction novel . . . McHugh makes an alien world and an imagined society feel compellingly real, and uses this setting to say something significant about being human.” — Cleveland Plain Dealer
• “Mission Child is an epic map of voice meeting voice, world meeting world–tragic, heartfelt, and vibrant with life.” — Jonathan Lethem, author of Fortress of Solitude

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Magic for Beginners – Reviews

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magic for beginners: stories
kelly link

Best of the Year Lists:

• “Link’s stories … play in a place few writers go, a netherworld between literature and fantasy, Alice Munro and J.K. Rowling, and Link finds truths there that most authors wouldn’t dare touch.”
  – Time Magazine
• “Link’s writing shimmers with imagination.”
  – Salon
• “A mind-bending blast, as funny, disturbing and poignant as anything I’ve read this year.”
  – Capitol Times
• “The storyteller’s mantra — “It gets better” — come to life and multiplied.”
  – Village Voice
• “Link’s powerful prose places this collection into a class of its own.”
  – Boldtype (2005 Notable Books)
• San Francisco Chronicle.

Story Prize recommended reading list.

Reviews | UK reviews

“One of current fiction’s little-known treasures.”
– Time Magazine

“Dazzling…. One to savor.”
– Entertainment Weekly (A, Editor’s Choice)

– Washington Post Book World

“For Kelly Link, life is suddenly magic.”
– Detroit Free Press (Hillil Italie, AP)

“Magic for Beginners (Harvest, $14), is worth picking up. Doing so will put you in the hands of a true conjurer.”
– Vikas Turakhia, Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Kelly Link is the future of American short fiction.”
– Alexis Smith, Powells.com Staff Pick

“Fierce and witty.”
– Cleveland Plain Dealer

“These stories shimmer like impressionist paintings.”
– Montreal Gazette

“Kelly Link is the best short-fiction writer working in science fiction and fantasy today, and her new collection, Magic for Beginners, proves it.”
– Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.net

“Link’s stories are delightfully playful, almost precocious, as she creates palimpsests of secret passages, hidden doors, quiet pulses of deeper meaning…. Link is fast becoming a major talent.”
– Boston Globe

“Fresh and unaffected, yet honed to the essential.”
– Salon

“Advanced alchemy.”
– The Believer

“Sinister and sublime.”
– Boston Phoenix

“Exuberantly eccentric.”
– Time Out New York

“Link’s powerful prose places this collection into a class of its own.”
– Boldtype

“Spellbinding.”
– Time Out Chicago

“Kelly Link writes from way out in left field.”
– Charlotte Observer

“A complete delight.”
– Rich Horton, Locus

“These tales are every bit as remarkable as those in her first collection.”
– Gary K. Wolfe, Locus

* “Not only does Link find fresh perspectives from which to explore familiar premises, she also forges ingenious connections between disparate images and narrative approaches to suggest a convincing alternate logic that shapes the worlds of her highly original fantasies.”
– Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“Cult-favorite fabulist and Shirley Jackson-esque master of the short story, returns with an eagerly-awaited new collection of thoughtfully strange tales that sprinkle the mundane with pixie dust, a dash of old-fashioned tragedy and a bit of gallows humor.”
– The Ruminator Review

“Truly magical, with masterfully crafted stories that are as dark as they are delightful….Sometimes hilarious, sometimes disconcerting, Link’s stories demonstrate her wicked sense of humor and genius wit.”
– Bookpage

“KELLY LINK has an uncanny knack for casting spells over her readers, for luring them into the dark places — the attic, the underworld, a realm beneath a hill. Her first collection of short stories, Stranger Things Happen, was published by Small Beer Press, a tiny independent publisher in Northampton founded by Link and Gavin J. Grant that, according to its Web site, is “committed to publishing short story collections and novels by authors we feel are slipping through the cracks.” These stories bend and transcend genre as Link stirs together myth, mystery, horror, and fantasy. Her second collection, Magic for Beginners (Small Beer Press, 272 pages, $24), is due out in July and promises the same mix of the sinister and the surreal. But the stories — more suggestive than they are descriptive — shouldn’t be pigeonholed as only for sci-fi and fantasy fans. Because for all Link’s use of fairy tale and phantasm, she roots her stories in the life that we know. The narrator in “The Faery Handbag,” for example, tells the story of her grandmother’s magic bag — a bag so black it feels like “when you stretch out your hand at night, to turn on a light, but all you feel is darkness” — which if opened correctly leads to a secret realm, and if opened incorrectly leads to a howling, hairless Cerberus-like dog. The story begins in the Garment District, in Kendall Square; there’s a sly reference to the Star Wars prequels; and, beyond the handbag, it’s a story of young lost love. Fairy tales and myths may be timeless, but these stories are of this moment.”
–Nina MacLaughlin, Boston Phoenix

“Link is the purest, most distinctive surrealist in America.”
– Booklist

“These nine stories are the kinds of stories for which literary phrases like “surrealism” and “magical realism” were invented, and I guess they’ll do, although they seem pretty stale and pale in the face of Link’s boundlessly creative prose. Let’s just say that nobody mixes the fantastical and the ordinary together quite like Link does, spinning tales that are both funny and disturbing, straightforward and elliptical, unreal and real.”
– The Capital Times

“One of the most fascinating writers practicing the craft today.”
– The Simon

“Wishful thinking on the brink of disaster.”
– Village Voice

“Magical realism meets horror meets postmodern absurdism. Very fresh and funny.”
– Michael Knight, Knoxville Metro Pulse Summer Reading Guide

“A bizarre and enchanting read, worth reading and re-reading.”
– Daily Nebraskan

“A wonderful rattlebag of fantastic tales from far beyond the concrete sidewalks and convenience stores we know. Like her first collection, Magic for Beginners uses humor as the main prism through which the author views her mostly hapless or at least happy-go-lucky characters. The strange attraction of Link’s fiction is that even when you’re not really sure what’s going on you’re having way too much fun reading to stop and rereading these tall tales is a positive pleasure.”
– Rich Rennicks Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, Asheville, NC

“The stories in Magic for Beginners make their own strange, perfectly formed sense. Link creates these familiar, spooky, sometimes funny worlds with cats parented by witches, or a cheerleader hanging out with the devil, or creepifying rabbits. I’m always a little tense reading these stories. In the very best way, I never know what is coming next. If she only parcelled out one elegant sentence at a time I would beg for each one.”
– Pam Harcourt, Women & Children First, Chicago, IL

“I am in love with Kelly Link’s new collection of stories, Magic For Beginners, just out in hardcover. This book is a fairly complete list of my favorite things. She sort of summarized it best when she signed it for me: “Love, Magic, Zombies!” It’s fantastical, whimsical, and dead serious and it makes me interested in short stories again.”
– Alexander Chee, author Edinburgh, in Books To Watch Out For

Tiger Heron

UK reviews

“This is one of the most extraordinary and wonderful books of the year.”
—Time Out London, Mar. 27, 07

“Possibly grimmer than Grimm.”
—The Herald, Feb 2, 07

“Beautifully written short stories; eccentric and dark, the collection is an Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups.”
—Dazed and Confused

“Link’s writing is bold, tender, mischievous and unsettling.”
—Cork Evening Echo, Feb 17, 07

“These are weird and wacky tales, each with their own barmy internal logic which draws you in, flips you on your head and leaves you dizzy with disbelief…. Link’s extraordinary use of language is as haunting as the tales themselves. She blends fantasy and reality into an irresistible melange that, at its best, becomes a powerful metaphor for the unreliability of perception.”
—Jane Wessel, Venue (****)

“Link’s magic is to show the extraordinary in the ordinary and vice versa: no mean feat.”
—RTE Guide (*****)

“Just when you think you’ve read all the best magic and fantasy stories, along comes Link and the dull world is enchanted all over again. Her imagination floats free into her very own twilight zone.”
—Saga, Mar 07

“Whether she’s writing about a suburban family haunted by rabbits or a grandmother who keeps a world hidden in her handbag, Link’s stories are witty, moving and sometimes scary.”
—The Gloss Magazine, Feb 07

“A collection of nine stories from a talent to watch, this is a lyrical fantasy where the ordinary is made extraordinary.”
—The Bookseller, Oct 06

Advance Praise

“Kelly Link owns the most darkly playful voice in American fiction since Donald Barthelme. She is pushing the American short story into places that it hasn’t yet been pushed, while somehow managing to maintain a powerful connection to traditional forms and storytelling values.”
– Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

“The dream-logic of Magic for Beginners is intoxicating. These stories will come alive, put on zoot suits, and wrestle you to the ground. They want you and you will be theirs.”
– Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

“A wonderful rattlebag of fantastic tales from far beyond the concrete sidewalks and convenience stores we know. Like her first collection, Magic for Beginners uses humor as the main prism through which the author views her mostly hapless or at least happy-go-lucky characters. The strange attraction of Link’s fiction is that even when you’re not really sure what’s going on you’re having way too much fun reading to stop and rereading these tall tales is a positive pleasure.”
– Rich Rennicks Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, Asheville, NC

“The stories in Magic for Beginners make their own strange, perfectly formed sense. Link creates these familiar, spooky, sometimes funny worlds with cats parented by witches, or a cheerleader hanging out with the devil, or creepifying rabbits. I’m always a little tense reading these stories. In the very best way, I never know what is coming next. If she only parcelled out one elegant sentence at a time I would beg for each one.”
– Pam Harcourt, Women & Children First, Chicago, IL

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Alan DeNiro

by Alan DeNiro

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Alan DeNiro was born in Erie, PA. He received a BA in English (College of Wooster) and an MFA in poetry (University of Virginia). His fiction has appeared in Crowd, One Story, Minnesota Monthly, Fence, 3rd Bed, Polyphony, and has been shortlisted for the O. Henry award.Alan has: taught writing at the University of Richmond and the Loft in Minneapolis; reviewed regularly for Rain Taxi; written two text-based computer games, The Isolato Incident and Ogres (how to); founded Taverner’s Koans, a poetry journal and resources website; published poetry inWillow Springs, Cimarron Review, Can We Have Our Ball Back, as well as two poetry chapbooks, The Black Hare, (A Small Garlic Press, 1998) and The Atari Ecologues; and co-founded the Rabid Transit series of fiction anthologies. He is currently working on a novel, tentatively entitled Total Oblivion, More or Less . He is a proofreader at Fallon Minneapolis, an advertising agency, and lives outside St. Paul, Minnesota with his wife, Kristin, and three cats. Read reviews of Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead

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Download author photo for print. Author photo credit: Maria Erikson.

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Naomi Mitchison

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August 2005: We are reprinting Travel Light as the second title in our Peapod Classics series. Small, cute, collectible!

NYTimes obit — including hilarious spelling: “An obituary on Saturday about Naomi Mitchison, the British writer and early feminist, misspelled the surname of the Labor Party leader at whom she once threw a half-plucked partridge. He was Hugh Gaitskell, not Gaitskill.”

Books in print as of October 2002:

• The Corn King and the Spring Queen
• To the Chapel Perilous
• When the Bough Breaks, and Other Stories
• Solution 3
• Buy Naomi Mitchison’s books in the UK

Interview with Naomi Mitchison, April 1989

Here’s a short essay on one of Mitchison’s young adult novels, Travel Light, that ran in F&SF in June 2001

My staff pick for BookSense.com in March 2001

Naomi Mitchison Bibliography

Find books by Naomi Mitchison on BookFinder.com

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This page is a placeholder. (Submissions welcome.)

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Naomi Mitchison was born in Scotland in 1897 and died at the age of 101 in 1999. In the USA she isn’t too well known, but I recommend her, even if you have to search for some of her books. Judging by the number of times it’s been brought back into print, the most popular of her historical novels is The Corn King and the Spring Queen. Soho Press have put it out under their Hera Series which includes novels by Cecilia Holland and Gillian Bradshaw.

If historical fiction isn’t your thing, don’t turn up your nose quite yet, she also wrote science fiction (Solution 3, [Feminist Press], Memoirs of a Spacewoman), some of the most enjoyable autobiographies I’ve ever read (You May Well Ask, Small Talk), children’s books (including the wonderful Travel Light), plays (with Lewis Geilgud), poetry, essays, short stories, and biographies; over 70 books in all.

Mitchison was born in Scotland because her mother wanted a woman to attend her at the birth which was difficult to find outside Edinburgh. Despite her proto-feminist leanings her mother never managed to get beyond her Tory beliefs and it wasn’t until Mitchison was older that she realized that she shared her deep Socialist views with her father. Socialism has a long and respectable history in Scotland and does not carry the same negative connotations that the media and populace seem to fear in the USA.

From an early age Mitchison seems to have been very self aware. Excerpts from her early diaries in The Nine Lives of Naomi Mitchison (Virago, 1997) by Jenni Calder and in her own autobiography show her as a learned companion to her older brothers as they study science and try to keep up with their father’s work. Her family lived well. Her father, J.S. Haldane, was a respected scientist and her uncle, Richard Haldane, a cabinet minister during World War I. She lived variously in Scotland and England until moving back to Scotland in 1937 with her husband, the politician Dick Mitchison. She was politically active all her adult life and came to the USA in the 1930′s to see how the working class, poor and minorities were faring. She also was well-connected in the arts and political world and put her time into campaigning in support of her beliefs. She believed in sexual freedom, women’s rights and social justice. She was successful enough in her own lifetime to be consistently published but despite that and her family money problems plagues her well past the usual retirement age.

This first ran in Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop’s Annotated Browser.

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Partial Bibliography – Howard Waldrop

by Howard Waldrop

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From Howard Waldrop’s own bibliography.

“The Ugly Chickens,” Universe 10, edited by Terry Carr, Doubleday, 1980
Dream’s Edge, edited by Terry Carr, Sierra Club, 1980
1981 Annual Year’s Best SF, edited by Donald Wollheim, DAW, 1981
Best SF of the Year #10, edited by Terry Carr, Pocket, 1981
Best SF of the Year: 10th Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois, Dutton, 1981
Nebula Award Stories 16, edited by Jerry Pournelle, Holt, 1981
Best of Universe, edited by Terry Carr, Doubleday, 1982
The Legend Book of Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois, Legend (UK), 1992
My Favorite Science Fiction Story (chosen by Harry Turtledove), edited by Martin H. Greenberg, DAW, 1999

“Der Untergang des Abendlandeschmenschen,” Chacal # 1, 1976
Mammoth Book of Vampires, edited by Stephen Jones, Carrol & Graf, 1992
Book of Vampires, edited by Stephen Jones, Barnes and Noble, 1997
System Shock, comic book adaptation, forthcoming

“Ike at the Mike,” Omni, June 1982
Best of Omni SF #1, edited by Ellen Datlow, Zebra, 1984
One-act play adaptation, Minicon 1991
Elvis Rising, edited by Kay Sloan and Constance Pierece, Avon, 1993
Mondo Elvis, edited by Richard Peabody and Lucinda Ebersole, St. Martin’s Press, 1994
We Could Do Worse (4 cassette audio collection), edited by Martin H. Greenberg (read by Yancy Butler), New Star Media, 1999

“Dr. Hudson’s Secret Gorilla,” Shayol #1, November 1977
Rivals of King Kong, edited by Michel Parry, Corgi (UK), 1977

“… The World, As We Know’t,” Shayol #6, December 1982
The Norton Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Brian Attebery, Norton, 1993

“Green Brother,” Shayol #5, April 1982
Dinosaurs!, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, Ace, 1990
Also published as Weird Business, graphic story hardback edited by Joe Lansdale, Rick Klaw, and Ben Ostrander, Mojo Press, 1995; adaptation by Steven Utley, art by John Lucas.

“Mary Margaret Road-Grader,” Orbit 18, edited by Damon Knight, Harper & Row, 1976
Best SF of the Year: 6th Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois, Dutton, 1977

“Save A Place in the Lifeboat for Me,” Nickelodeon #2, September 1976

“Horror, We Got,” Shayol #3, Summer 1979

“Man-Mountain Gentian,” Omni, September 1983
The Year’s Best SF: First Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois, Bluejay, 1984
Omni Book of Science Fiction #5, edited by Ellen Datlow, Zebra, 1987

“God’s Hooks,” Universe 12, edited by Terry Carr, Doubleday, 1982
Bestiary!, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, Ace, 1986
The One That Got Away, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Charles G. Waugh, Bonanza Books, 1989
Modern Classics of Fantasy, edited by Gardner Dozois, St. Martin’s Press, 1996

“Heirs of the Perisphere,” Playboy, July 1985
Nebula Awards 21, edited by George Zebrowski, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987
Playboy Book of Science Fiction, edited by Alice K. Turner, HarperPrism, 1998

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Trampoline – Images

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Trampoline: an anthology
Edited by Kelly Link
First a picture from the Quail Ridge reading (Dave Shaw & Richard Butner):

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then the Joseph-Beth reading (Christopher Rowe, Kelly Link, & Christopher Barzak):

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A window display created by Greer Gilman for a bank in Harvard Sq., Cambridge, MA, July 2003.

All over the country home insurance companies inquire, “Do you have a Trampoline?”

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Original Trampoline webart:

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Click the book cover for a larger image. Painting by Shelley Jackson.

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Trampoline – Reviews

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Trampoline: an anthology
Edited by Kelly Link

“Exceptional visions in which the authors aren’t afraid to take chances with how they deliver the stories to us.”
– F&SF

“No unblinkered, gloveless reader can resist the stream of associations unleashed by Ford’s story and the rest of Trampoline: influences as disparate as science fiction, magic realism, pulp, and Twilight Zone morality plays.”
– Village Voice

“In short, Trampoline is yet another unique source of powerful, exciting, new approaches to fantasy and interstitial fiction. It is flexible enough and fresh enough that I hope it proves to be the beginning of a series. It occupies its own rather beautifully fragile place in the fantastical fiction milieu.”
– Jeff VanderMeer, Locus Online

“The editor should be commended, not only for an intriguing compilation…but that she manages to stay out of the way of it. The only thing that intrudes here is her taste in the story selection and ordering. There’s no tiresome manifesto here, no chest-beating about movements or genres or rants against publishing mediocrity and how some merry band of rogues is going to revolutionize anything. She understands that the role of editor is to let the work speak for itself.”
– SF Site

“Trampoline does what most other anthologies only dream of–it manages to be both significant and eminently readable. Link brings together some of the top names working in fantasy, science fiction, and horror today, as well as some up-and-coming talents who deserve wider recognition. All of the stories push the genre boundaries, creating a collection on the cutting edge of modern genre fiction.”
– Peggy Hailey, Book People, Austin, TX

“A major anthology…. Most impressive is Greer Gilman’s “A Crowd of Bone”, a huge novella, all but unclassifiable…told in Gilman’s difficult but rewarding allusive, poetic style, sheer joy to read…. The images are striking, the prose rhythms are perfect, and the slowly emerging story is moving and starkly bittersweet.”
– Rich Horton, Locus, 8/03

“What constitutes ‘unusual’? Some recent anthologists have tried to tackle the question…but Link is content to show, not tell.”
– Faren Miller, Locus, 8/03

“Fabulous Tales”
– Washington Post, July 27, 2003

– Pathetic Caverns

Books Under Review — oddly organized due to Google Ads

Trampoline: an elastic mattress-like contrivance on which acrobats, gymnasts, &c. leap.

Trampoline: an original anthology edited by Kelly Link, the award-winning author of Stranger Things Happen, and co-editor of the zine, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

Trampoline: twenty astounding stories by Christopher Barzak, Richard Butner, Alan DeNiro, Carol Emshwiller, Jeffrey Ford, Karen Joy Fowler, Greer Gilman, John Gonzalez, Glen Hirshberg, Samantha Hunt, Alex Irvine, Shelley Jackson, Beth Adele Long, Maureen McHugh, Susan Mosser, Ed Park, Christopher Rowe, Dave Shaw, Vandana Singh, and Rosalind Palermo Stevenson.

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Storyteller – Writers on Clarion

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Memories and lessons learned at the Clarion Writers’ Workshop:

Gordon Van Gelder | Jeff Ford | Kit Reed | Jim Sallis | Cory Doctorow |Gregory Frost | Nancy Kress

Gordon Van Gelder:

Nowadays when I teach Clarion (I’ve had the pleasure a few times), I always wind up describing various anecdotes and lessons that Kate imparts in this book: You are not your story, the criticism is tough-minded because people care about your story, first-person viewpoint is the hardest p.o.v. for a new writer to handle. (Maybe that one’s not in this book, in which case, go read Those Who Can, ed. Robin Wilson.)

Last summer I found myself repeatedly describing one other anecdote. It was told to me by Nicola Griffith.

Nicola went to Clarion as a student, learned some good lessons in the first four weeks, and generally got nice feedback from the instructors.

Then in week five, in her individual conference, she heard Kate say, “Nicola, you’re a good writer, you seem to be learning some lessons here, I’m sure you’ve gotten nice feedback, but I’ve read your stories and I don’t see anything of you here. I feel like I know nothing more about you from reading your stories. What are you hiding from?”

Nicola gave a hollow answer, probably said she wasn’t hiding from anything. After the conference, she went back to her dorm room and trashed it. Overturned the mattress, threw things at the wall — did a real Johnny Depp on the room. (Or was that Alec Baldwin?)

Because, of course, Nicola had been hiding, hadn’t wanted any of herself to come out on the page, and she’d thought that if her craft were good enough, no one would notice. A dozen years after the event, when Nicola described it to me, she said, “That was the turning point for me. That was what I got out of Clarion: an idea of what I was about as a writer.”

You can read this anecdote — quite rightly — as an example of Kate Wilhelm’s prowess as an instructor. You can take it as an example of how a book like the one you’re holding in your hands can never fully replace the process of experiencing Clarion for six weeks. But I offer it primarily as advice to a new writer: don’t hold back. Put yourself into your work. Lay it out there. You’ll get feedback that hurts, but you’ll find the feedback will help you grow.

Jeff Ford:

In 2004 I taught in the last two weeks of Clarion East along with Kelly Link. We were in a sorority house without air conditioning somewhere in East Lansing, Michigan in July and it was hot as hell. By the time we arrived, the students had been there for four weeks already. They’d been working really hard and that along with the stress of being away from home and loved ones was starting to show. The group dynamic was a little frayed. We did a couple of days of what they’d been used to, and then Kelly and I had a meeting. Kelly was a veteran of past Clarions, but it was my first time and I was a little nervous as to whether I’d be helpful to the students. I had some writing exercises in mind I was going to roll out for her to see what she thought, but the first thing she said was, “We need to have a party with alcohol and music.” Well, this was something I’d had some practice at, so I readily agreed. Going along with this drift, I suggested we also give them two days off from the group workshop that was held everyday and have them write something very short for the next meeting we had. We decided on a 900 word story. In those first couple of days we’d been looking at some voluminous works whose quality dissipated in direct proportion to length. I thought this was as a result of the pressure of producing steadily at a breakneck pace for four weeks, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. When we announced these changes, a couple of the students seemed a little put out that we were screwing with the format and interrupting the pieces they’d been working on. But some of them got with it, and the party metamorphosed, at the suggestion of a couple of the students, into a cross-dressing party, so the men were to come dressed as women and vice versa. I showed up wearing a tiara, earrings and mascara. I was going for the Audrey Hepburn look. The women, god bless them, had really gotten with the party idea and transformed their rooms — one into a bar, one into a dance floor, and one into a lounge. Beds were dismantled, dressers were moved, lighting was adjusted. The party was a blast. Two days later, we saw the results of the 900 word stories, and many of them were very successful. The students were rejuvenated to the point where we could get some good work done in the remaining week and a half, and they’d had a chance to put what they’d learned into action on a piece that was short enough for them to really scrutinize. I realized that what we were seeing in the successful results of these short short stories was all of the wonderful work that their previous teachers — Andy Duncan, Suzy Charnas, Nina Hoffman, Nancy Kress, Gordon Van Gelder — had done with them.

In the two weeks I was at Clarion, I made friends, helped people with their writing, reinspected my own beliefs about writing and found quite a few wanting, missed my wife and kids, laughed a lot, saw some fine writing, shared in the amazing energy of new writers, and learned that when things get tight it’s a good idea to have a party.

Kit Reed:

Somebody called me up and asked me if I wanted to spend a week in Michigan, teaching at Clarion. I said yes because I thought it was Ann Arbor. Imagine my surprise! We landed in East Lansing: black squirrels, dozens of picture perfect Barbies and Kens pedaling down sidewalks at tremendous speeds, welcome to downtown Oz. Gigantic campus. Statues of Spartans, to say nothing of the canal. I never worked harder. Great group. Mikey, Lucius, Bob Frazier, Paul Witcover, to name a few, almost all then present are still being heard from in the SF world and that is cool. Extremely cool.

Jim Sallis:

As with so many other good things in my life, I blundered onto, or into, Clarion. As editor of New Worlds I’d had very little idea what I was doing; as a writer, I had even less; and as a teacher, I had no idea at all. A partial list of my students — George Effinger, Vonda McIntyre, Octavia Butler, Lisa Tuttle — attests not just to the quality of the workshop, but to the simple truth that sometimes fools like myself are allowed to stagger offstage without having done permanent damage.

Cory Doctorow:

Damon Knight has lost his hearing in the higher registers, so he couldn’t hear the alarm on his wristwatch that went off every day at 11AM sharp. He would sit there beaming at us all Zen, while we stared at each other and wondered if this was a Yoda-lesson: critique through the shrill pips! Someone worked up the courage to ask him about this teaching method and he laughed and said that he’d been pissed because the damn watch alarm hadn’t ever worked (i.e., he could never hear it). Rosie Savage’s high voice was out of his hearing range, but he adored her, and when she spoke, he would cross the room and stand before her, knees bent, hands cupped to his ears, beaming mischievously.

Gregory Frost:

What I learned both as a Clarion student and as a Clarion instructor is that you cannot necessarily point to the members of the class and say “This one will make it and that one won’t.”

Some people arrive with their talents fully formed — Athena has sprung from their foreheads and, really, you’re just there to point her in the right direction now that she’s loose. These people, however, are in the minority, never (in my experience) more than one or two per group.

The majority are still trying to figure out where they’re going with this, if anywhere at all. Most of the guidance, advice, and flat-out manipulation you bring to bear is for them. The greatest pleasure for me as instructor has been getting to watch someone’s craft catch fire right before my eyes; but even so, that person might go home and stop writing, and someone else who was groping in the dark throughout the six weeks will have an epiphany six months later and start producing the best work of all. You never give anybody short shrift, if only because later you’ll have the vicarious if self-deluded pleasure of thinking that you made a critical difference in their climb.

Nancy Kress:

I have taught Clarion four times, and each class has had its own distinctive character. But the class you remember best is the most recent one; like layers of rich soil, the class closest in time yields the freshest memories.

In 2004 the Clarion class held seventeen writers. Even talented beginners make basic mistakes, and by the end of the week I had said some of the same things so often that the class was starting to chant them with me:

“Don’t start your story with a large lump of exposition.”

“Story events should cost your characters something.” Or, more simply, “Things cost.”

“Show us, don’t tell us.”

“You have White Room Syndrome.”

“No sighing — there’s way too much sighing in science fiction.”

At week’s end the class gave me a wonderful gift: a basket of rubber balls, each one inscribed with one of those writing dicta. The idea was that in future classes, I could save everyone a lot of time by just throwing the right ball at the student whose story was being critiqued. I treasure this gift, both as memory of Clarion 2004 and as a profound underlying truth about our genre:

It takes (at least metaphoric) balls to imagine the future.

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Christopher Rowe – Trampoline Interview

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Trampoline: an interview

Christopher Rowe (The Force Acting on the Displaced Body)

Is your Trampoline story generally representative of the sort of story you usually write? To elaborate: is this story a departure in style or subject matter (or any other sort of departure, for that matter) for you? If so, what was different or new for you in the writing of this story? Do you think it is a new direction for your writing, or simply an experiment?

“The Force Acting on the Displaced Body” isn’t representative what my work has been, but I can’t way whether it represents a new direction or not. Yes, it’s a departure in style and subject matter — this was a much more personal story for me, and one of the first times I’ve used “real places” in a story set in Kentucky. I also radically altered my working method for this story. Most of my stories have extensive notes and research and I do a lot of “pre-writing.” I try to write very, very clean first drafts and tend to do most of my revision before the act of composition. This usually means that the notes for a given story usually total four or five times the word count of the final story. In this case, I did almost no planning and pretty much sat down and wrote it. I’m not very comfortable with that, but some of my peers have told me that I’d do well to loosen up my grasp a little.

What’s your favorite cocktail?

I drink beer or wine, mostly. When I drink liquor, it’s usually bourbon or single malt scotch, neat. So if a cocktail has to be a “mixed drink” then I guess my default favorite is gin and tonic, because that’s pretty much the only one I ever drink (and that rarely).

So, come out with it, already — you really believe in alien abductions. Don’t you? All sci-fi writers do…right?

I do not believe in alien abductions. All sci-fi writers, however, do.

Who’s been eating my porridge?

Cock Robin.

Where have all the flowers gone?

Ocala, Florida, USA.

Who cleft the Devil’s foot?

Which foot?

Does she or doesn’t she?

I don’t know about her, but her little sister sure does.

What’s the most favorable sort of weather for your creative process?

I usually write indoors.

When’s the last time you changed your mind about something? I think I mean a radical shift of personal values — regarding art (“Suddenly, I’m not crazy about Billie Holiday, in fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right”), regarding anything (“Actually, you can go home again”).

Right, I was actually talking about this with you (Gavin) on the phone the other day, when I was explaining why I haven’t seen Daredevil. I’m surprised and oddly disappointed that I have no desire to see that movie — I kind of feel like I’m betraying my teenaged self. I had every intention of playing Dungeons & Dragons and staying up late to watch Space:1999 marathons for my entire life (as a lot of the people I keep in touch with from high school still do, actually). And then there’s a couple of guys I knew in college who would talk about “pulling a Christopher,” by which they meant my (to them) annoying habit of talking up some book or movie or band and then after they got into it I’d lose interest. I did that with that card game, Magic. And earlier I did it to my high school friends with Dragonlance novels. I still think my life would be easier to manage if I played a lot of D&D and read Dragonlance novels. Not better, but easier to manage. Oh well, I still mix in a lot of goofy superhero comics in with the cool stuff Gwenda buys. And I follow professional bicycle racing, which requires a certain level of obsessive geekiness.

Maybe none of that answers your question, does it? Okay, how about this? I remember being at MOMA in the summer of 1998 and staring at Jackson Pollack painting for about thirty minutes and finally getting it. Reproductions don’t do him justice and I’m embarrassed to say that I’d previously been in the “I could do that” camp regarding his and some other non-representational painters’ work. That reaction drives me crazy now, especially in terms of the visual arts. “I could do that.”

First of all, you didn’t. Second of all, no you couldn’t, and it’s only because you’re a willfully ignorant, visually illiterate barbarian that you don’t see why some curator hung it in the first place. You want to bitch about paintings? Go to Paris (or St. Petersburg or London or New York or Washington, DC or Vienna — anyplace that has a lot of museums and galleries) and spend a year or two looking at a couple of thousand pictures. Then come talk to me.

Um. Okay, use the third and fourth sentences from the second paragraph in this section for my answer. I’m going to go get some more coffee.

O

Next – Dave Shaw

O

Read another Rowe story: “Sally Harpe“

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Trampoline – Index

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Trampoline: an anthology
Edited by Kelly Link

A partial index for this volume

O

Orange
“Sunrise colors faces of buildings”
“Far ahead, desert sunset spreads”
“sectional couch in Pearl Street”
“Her breakfast’s in a napkin”
“rolls unheeded from her lap”
“Will there be”
“See, that by thy pillow.”
“lying by a tarry hand”
“she held a scrawny”
“but dwindled out an”
“oil of”
“Coors Lite cans and”
“keep him in warm beer and fresh”
“frozen exhaust on”
“circle further up”
“County 14″
“Grove Mall”
“and the last of”
“in the fading light”
“and licking the”
“with long, tongues”
“lit with citronella”
“Your hair’s”
“and silver like the seething”
“a glass of”
“sliver in the sky”
“Nut meats and”
“in a bowl”
“sweet”
“glowing bright”

O

Tomato
” and tiny fried eggplants stuffed with”
“cans of…and kidney beans”

O

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Greer Gilman – Trampoline Interview

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Trampoline: an interview

Two more interviews: -1-, -2-

Greer Gilman (A Crowd of Bone)

Were there any particular writers or stories that influenced the writing of the story that will be appearing in Trampoline? If so, how exactly did they influence the writing of your story?

Folk songs and ballads, mostly, ravelled out and rebraided. Lots of Anon. Some formal poetry: Hopkins and the Gawain poet, for the hedge-entangled language; Andrew Marvell, for the mowers. And for the soliloquies, a slew of playwrights. It’s a winter’s tale, a late romance. I wrote it for the ear, as much as for the imagination. There are two sorts of voices here, in counterpoint: Cloudish vernacular and a high Jacobean iambic, endlessly enjambed.

I owe the vision of the Scarecrow/Hanged Man/Child Sacrifice to the late miraculous Lal Waterson. Her song, “The Scarecrow,” haunts me, and it has for years.

Oh, and Thea’s magic is inspired by the art of Andy Goldsworthy.

Is your Trampoline story generally representative of the sort of story you usually write? To elaborate: is this story a departure in style or subject matter (or any other sort of departure, for that matter) for you? If so, what was different or new for you in the writing of this story? Do you think it is a new direction for your writing, or simply an experiment?

I keep moving inward. It gets bigger.

What’s your favorite cocktail?

Chocolate.

Which of the seven deadly sins is your favorite these days?

Don’t know whose friends they are, but Sloth and Gluttony keep hanging around my kitchen playing cards.

What’s your favorite rule of thumb?

When you come back for it, it won’t be there.

Do you have any pets? How many? And if so, how do they affect your writing (if at all)?

No. None. Not at all.

What is the writer’s role in inhabiting the commercial spaces of publishing?

Waiting anxiously in hallways.

Best trampoline story you know (or, in lieu of story, rules for best trampoline game you’ve played).

The one with the castellated blancmange and the roller skates has seldom been attempted.

Where do you hope to haunt when you’re gone (or, I guess, when you come back)?

A kitchen table with old friends. A library. Woods in autumn. An English wood in spring. A winter hillside on a starry night. My desk when I’m writing well. The seacoast of Bohemia.

What are your favorite kids’ books? What was your favorite when you were a kid (say, 10)?

Say five, six, seven.

I always loved Mary Poppins and Irene’s Great-Great-Grandmother (in The Princess and the Goblin). They were my first intimations of godhead. Mary Poppins is Artemis. (“Is this a Nursery or a Bear Garden?”) Prickly, aloof, but a great protectress if she’s yours. And the sun, moon, and stars dance for her: she’s a strange attractor for the numinous.

But Irene’s Grandmother — ah, she indwells. I’ve been writing about the moon ever since. And threads and labyrinths and rings, and children lost in houses which are dreams.

Alice got into my warp as well. Everyone she meets is so rude. And that row of asterisks as she’s shrinking — chin to foot — gave me a sense of the magic in typography, of spell.

What else? I loved The Golden Almanac, which gave me my fascination with the turning year. October had “The Wraggle Taggle Gypsies, O!” in a whirl and tatter of leaves — so ballads keep for me that vivid restless melancholy.

Oh, and fairy tales. “The Snow Queen” for the shards of mirror and the puzzles of ice; for the winter hag who is fell and beautiful, the crones in their reeky hovels, and the robber girl. And “The Twelve Swans” and “The Dancing Princesses.” I loved the nettleshirts that bound winged creatures to the earth, the wood of silver underground.

The Oz books, alas, have faded for me, though I read them all with passion. I still have my Scarecrow and my Witch, but she’s indelibly Margaret Hamilton.

There are other children’s fantasies I love – The Wind In the Willows, Earthsea,and Green Knowe, stories by Joan Aiken and Diana Wynne Jones — but I found them long afterward.

And a little later on–at eight, nine, ten — I read and loved The Secret Gardenand A Little Princess; Hitty: Her First Hundred Years; all the Alcott books; Elizabeth Enright…All the girl books, and whatever I could lay my hands on. But the fantasies came first.

Tell me a little about when you left home to live on your own.

Oh, I just snailed away, carrying myself with me.

If you could have a writer of your choice come live with you, who would it be and what writerly stuff would you want to talk to them about?

Dear me. I wouldn’t dream of imposing my company on strangers. They have their own friends, or ghosts of friends; their own rooms on earth or elsewhere. Unless by chance we meet in that publisher’s hallway…? And then drift away for tea. I’d love to talk with Sylvia Townsend Warner. And Angela Carter. Hope Mirrlees? I’d be shy of Shakespeare, though I’d love to watch him in rehearsal. And I’ve always wanted to take Jo March to the movies.

When’s the last time you changed your mind about something? I think I mean a radical shift of personal values — regarding art (“Suddenly, I’m not crazy about Billie Holiday, in fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right”), regarding anything (“Actually, you can go home again”).

I do change my mind, but glacially. Hard to remember what I thought in the Mesozoic.

What book or books do you press upon friends?

Whatever book is Three-Bearically right for that friend. I get a huge kick out of perfect matches. I don’t press.

What can we, as a group, do to increase the popularity of multi-stage bicycle racing as a spectator sport in America?

Free lemonade?

I once had a creative writing teacher tell me that he didn’t understand why authors used science fiction or magical realism to tell a story or impart a theme. Why do you think we do, when good old realism might do the trick?

For the tang of it, the taste of Otherwise; for all the flavors of quark: not just Truth and Beauty, but up, down, charm, and strangeness.

My story has a semi-wild chimpanzee in it; does yours?

Alas, no.

Have you found that during the Reagan-Bush-Bush-Quayle-Bush-Cheney era the quality of your writing has gotten a little dodgier?

No. My life, maybe. Not my writing.

What, in your opinion, is the relationship, if any, between the so-called real world and your particular imaginary one?

Aslant. Their landscape is like the north of England; but their laws are otherwise. It’s as if the White Goddess and the Golden Bough were true, as if metaphor and myth were physics. Metaphysics. Cloud has the same stars as this world — our sky is their Wood Above — but their constellations are strange. Somehow this world is bound to theirs: the back side of their brighter tapestry.

Can I quote myself?

“Not that there aren’t quilt knots here and there, stitching heaven and earth. Houses, in the astrological sense; or sacred places, which are realer than the world, and have a way of disappearing like the egg in Alice. Woods, stone circles, sheepfolds. And the one long seam, the Milky Way.”

If you could live in a book, which one would it be?

Oh, I’d like to travel in many books. Sadly, I can’t envision stories while I’m reading them, so I’d dearly love to see a score of other worlds. And talk with their denizens. But here’s where I live.

Can you say something, particularly in light of these grave times, about the writer’s role or responsibility in the creation of work that is purely literary, that is the work of the imagination, as opposed to work that serves more overtly and directly as a voice of conscience?

With all respect for the voices of conscience, it would be a sad grey world without works of pure imagination. Wodehouse. Austen. A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.”

Gertrude Stein said: “I have destroyed sentences and rhythms and literary overtones and all the rest of that nonsense, to get to the very core of this problem of communication of intuition.” The relationship of form to content. Form as it facilitates communication, particularly communication of the remote, of the mysterious. Form as it permits the dramatization of states of mind. As it serves to make comprehensible the incomprehensible. What are your views on this subject?

Fugue, rhyme, rainbow — I love all sorts of patterns and forms. Conjugations and crystals. Self-assembly. Mathematics. I think people are made to make patterns, to see them with delight. Defy entropy!

O

Next – John Gonzalez

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Alex Irvine – Trampoline Interview

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Trampoline: an interview

Alex Irvine (Gus Dreams of Biting the Mail Man)

Were there any particular writers or stories that influenced the writing of the story that will be appearing in Trampoline? If so, how exactly did they influence the writing of your story?

This story has a little bit of each of the Beats in it, a touch of Phil Dick, and a bit of Kenneth Fearing. The alchemy of the interaction I don’t understand — mostly I wanted to write a story about people who like working a lousy job, and about the strangeness of strangers. And of course the whole thing started when I re-read The Time Machine and wondered what the hell really happened to the prototype.

What’s your favorite cocktail?

Tom Collins, for some reason

Which of the seven deadly sins is your favorite these days?

Sloth. Sloth seems elysian to me these days.

What’s your favorite rule of thumb?

Don’t take any wooden nickels. Mostly because I’m always waiting for an exception to come along and prove this rule.

Do you have any pets? How many? And if so, how do they affect your writing (if at all)?

Well, this story wouldn’t have been written if I hadn’t actually had a dog named Gus who eternally wanted to bite the mailman. He recently went to the big hot dog farm in the sky, and we are currently petless. Not for long, though.

So, come out with it, already — you really believe in alien abductions. Don’t you? All sci-fi writers do…right?

Who told you to ask me this?

What has it got in its pocketses?

It’s holding, for sure.

Biographical sketch of someone you know:

Wes Graves grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota, and moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan with the encouragement of his high-school girlfriend, who dumped him the day he got there. At the time he owned an orange Volvo, which as far as anyone knows is still in the garage of a house near the Eastern Michigan University campus. He has been a baker, pinball-machine technician, and all around good joe. He nurses an inordinate fondness for guitar accessories, and now lives in Denver, Colorado.

Where do you hope to haunt when you’re gone (or, I guess, when you come back)?

I want to haunt a place that doesn’t exist any more, a sandwich shop in Ann Arbor called Drake’s that operated from the twenties until the early nineties under the ownership of a guy named Truman Tibbels. It was painted olive green, had wooden booths, two counters with candy in jars, autographed pictures of Blackstone the Magician. You could get ice cream or a sandwich named for a Big Ten university or just drink coffee all day for a quarter. Upstairs was the Martian Room, with trombones on the wallpaper and a constant atmosphere of furtive lust. In the back, an actual phone booth with a door that closed. A place from another time. Now it’s been turned into a Bruegger’s Bagels, which is an incalculable loss.

What are your favorite kids’ books? What was your favorite when you were a kid (say, 10)?

10, hmm. The Swiss Family Robinson, Space Angel, second time through The Lord of the Rings, the Earthsea books, baseball biographies, and a submarine book whose title I can’t remember by a guy named Robb White.

When’s the last time you changed your mind about something? I think I mean a radical shift of personal values — regarding art (“Suddenly, I’m not crazy about Billie Holiday, in fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right”), regarding anything (“Actually, you can go home again”).

I used to believe that football was manly. Then I started watching rugby.

What book or books do you press upon friends?

Jim Dodge’s Stone Junction, almost anything by Philip K. Dick, Charles Portis’The Dog of the South, good books by people I know.

What can we, as a group, do to increase the popularity of multi-stage bicycle racing as a spectator sport in America?

An anthology called Peleton, perhaps.

I once had a creative writing teacher tell me that he didn’t understand why authors used science fiction or magical realism to tell a story or impart a theme. Why do you think we do, when good old realism might do the trick?

Story, man. The first stories you hear as a kid aren’t about suburban adultery, they’re about mystical artifacts and dangerous monsters and all kinds of stuff that doesn’t exist but should. Those are the stories that you cut your teeth on, and those are the stories you (by which I mean me) want to read and write.

My story has a semi-wild chimpanzee in it; does yours?

You didn’t see it?

Have you found that during the Reagan-Bush-Bush-Quayle-Bush-Cheney era the quality of your writing has gotten a little dodgier?

I’ve only been writing during the last half of this unfortunate sequence, so I’m still new enough at it to hope I’m getting better.

If you couldn’t write what would you do?

Get better at chess, play the guitar more often, act in plays.

What, in your opinion, is the relationship, if any, between the so-called real world and your particular imaginary one?

In this story? None whatsoever, except the bit about frosting Danish.

If you could live in a book, which one would it be?

Huckleberry Finn.

O

Next – Beth Adele Long

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Trampoline – An Interview

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Trampoline: an interview

We asked Trampoline contributors to send us some interview questions. Then, trickily, we mixed up the questions and sent them out to the contributors. The questions range from serious, literate, ruminations on the writer’s place in society to rather less serious questions (What’s your favorite rule of thumb?).

The writers are appropriately bouncy in their answers: Enjoy.

Christopher Barzak
Richard Butner
Alan DeNiro
Carol Emshwiller
Jeffrey Ford
Greer Gilman
John Gonzalez
Alex Irvine
Beth Adele Long
Christopher Rowe
Dave Shaw
Vandana Singh
Rosalind Palermo Stevenson

O

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The King’s Last Song – Reviews

by Geoff Ryman

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The King’s Last Song
Geoff Ryman

“Ryman’s brilliant new novel, “The King’s Last Song,” is permeated by the theme of salvation through destruction. In parallel narratives, Ryman reveals the (imagined) memoir of 12th-century ruler and Cambodia’s greatest king, Jayavarman VII, and presents the history of 20th-century Cambodia, a story of endless and eviscerating civil war. In so doing, he vividly creates a portrait of individuals whose souls are fused with that of their country, both ravaged and beautiful…. Ryman – best known as a fantasy writer but one who proved his power as an author of nuanced, rich historical fiction in the unsung novel “Was” – has not so much created as revealed a world in which the promise of redemption takes seed even in horror.”
—Boston Globe

“The novel conveys not merely a story, but the light and darkness, despair and hope, tradition and Westernization that is Cambodia itself…. While peaceful William, war-consumed Map, and Cambodia-loving Luc could easily be flat, typecast characters, Ryman steers clear of such simplifications. Their interwoven histories are at times noble and at times horrifying, laced with profound emotions and punctuated with atrocities…. The King’s Last Song leaves one questioning preconceptions of good and evil, and conflicted between hope for and discouragement with the human race.”
—Rain Taxi

* “An unforgettably vivid portrait of Cambodian culture past and present.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“Ryman’s knack for depicting characters; his ability to tell multiple, interrelated stories; and his knowledge of Cambodian history create a rich narrative that looks at Cambodia’s “killing fields” both recent and ancient and Buddhist belief with its desire for transcendence. Recommended for all literary fiction collections.”
—Library Journal

“In the end, it’s the vibrant emotional lives of Luc and his friends that capture the tragic beauty of Cambodia.”
—Publishers Weekly

” Inordinately readable . . . extraordinary in its detail, color and brutality.”
—The Independent

“Sweeping and beautiful. . . . The complex story tears the veil from a hidden world.”
—The Sunday Times

“Richly layered, comparing past and present day Cambodia and is full of details and tidbits about Cambodian life that any reader will enjoy. It’s definitely piqued my interest in the country and I will be trying to find more books about it in the future.”
—S. Krishna’s Books

Many more collected here.

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Geoff Ryman Bio

by Geoff Ryman

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Geoff Ryman is a Canadian living in the United Kingdom. His first book based on events in Cambodia was published in 1985, the award-winning The Unconquered Country. The King’s Last Songwas inspired by a visit to an Australian archaeological dig at Angkor Wat in 2000. He has been a regular visitor since, teaching writing workshops in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap twice, and publishing three further novellas set in Cambodia. In Britain he produced documentaries for Resonance FM, London, on Cambodian Arts. He has published nine other books and won fourteen awards. He teaches creative writing at the University of Manchester.

Geoff Ryman’s books:

The Warrior who Carried Life, 1986

The Unconquered Country, 1986 (British Science Fiction & World Fantasy Awards)

The Child Garden, 1989 (Arthur C Clarke Award, John W Campbell Memorial Award)

Was, 1991 (Eastercon; Gaylaxicon Lifetime Achievement; short listed for the Impact award)

Unconquered Countries, 1994

253: a novel for the Internet in seven cars and a crash, Internet 1996, 253: the Print Remix, 1998 (Philip K Dick Memorial Award)

Lust: or No Harm Done, 2001

AZ, 2002

VAO, 2002

Air: or Have Not Have, 2005 (Arthur C Clarke; British Science Fiction Association; Sunburst; James Tiptree Jr Memorial Awards)

Tesseracts 9: New Canadian Speculative Fiction, Edited with Nalo Hopkinson, 2005 (The Prix Aurore)

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Ray Vukcevich – Interview

by Ray Vukcevich

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How long have you been writing?

“I remember what was maybe the first story I ever wrote. I was making the 125-mile trip home from Tucson, Arizona late at night. Since there was not enough room in the cab of the truck for everyone, the dog and I rode in the back. It was very cold. Huddled under a tarp with the dog licking my face, I imagined a story about the fetus in the womb of the woman in the warm cab of the truck (not my mother) sending spooky messages to man driving the truck (not my father) and the smug teenager in the middle who was not my sister. The girl kept saying, “eek!” The fetus could project glowing red eyes into the rear view mirror, and when the man jerked around to look, there was no one there!

I wrote stories in high school. I didn’t realize you were supposed to try and publish them. Since I lived 40 miles from the nearest town, I never bumped into anyone who might have tipped me off about that. I did a novel in pencil back then, too. We didn’t have TV until I was eleven and even then it was a weak black and white signal from far away. I’m so hooked into the Internet these days that it’s hard to imagine what it must have been like. The world must have been both much smaller and much bigger. Every little thing from the outside must have been very important. So much time to daydream. Going off to the big city for college was an eye opener. I’ve been writing ever since with time out for family, tragedy, laziness, false starts, and dumb mistakes. Finding the writing community here in Eugene was very important to me. I think most writers need a community.

There does seem to be a high concentration of writers in Eugene…

Yes, there are so many wonderful writers in this town. There’s Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Past The Size of Dreaming) and Leslie What (The Sweet and Sour Tongue), Bruce Holland Rogers (Flaming Arrows) and Jerry Oltion (Abandon in Place), David Bischoff (Philip K. Dick High) and Alan Clark (Imagination Fully Dilated), and many others. There is probably a workshop going on every night of the week in Eugene. My own group meets on Tuesdays in a bookstore called Tsunami Books. I also attend a monthly workshop with Damon Knight (Humpty Dumpty) and Kate Wilhelm (The Deepest Water). I feel wonderfully nurtured in this place.

What is it about the short story form that attracts you?

Do you remember that old TV show “Name That Tune”? I’m not sure I remember the show itself, just the idea. There is something elegant and elemental about telling a story in the smallest number of words possible. I don’t mean minimalism. I mean no wasted words. It might take several volumes to tell some stories. Some of my favorite short stories are in the international volume of Sudden Fiction. My favorite Borges is in that book and my favorite Yourgrau. I discovered Clarice Lispector there. The first story in the book is the very wonderful “Falling Girl” by Dino Buzzati. More generally, there’s Barthelme, Bisson, and Lafferty. I like Aimee Bender, Paul Di Filippo, Carol Emshwiller, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ken Kalfus, Bruce Holland Rogers, George Saunders, and Leslie What. I’m reading Kelly Link’s new book (Stranger Things Happen) now. She is so amazing.

Your writing skips between seamlessly between genres (such as fiction, surrealism, fantasy, mystery, and others) in the manner of George Saunders or Kurt Vonnegut. Before writing a story do you any idea where it’s going?

For me the writing process is like Tourette’s syndrome. In fact, it may even be Tourette’s syndrome. Hey, I wonder if that’s one of the things Jonathan Lethem is saying in Motherless Brooklyn? I should go back and read it again with that angle in mind. Anyway, there is a linguistic deluge going on in my head all the time — “a mile a minute” as my grandmother used to say. Jabber jabber jabber, and when I write, I reach in and scoop some out and see what it looks like (or sounds like — maybe “scoop” was the wrong piece to grab in this case). I might know in very general terms where I’m going, but even if I’ve outlined (which I generally do when thinking in longer lengths) the outline probably just influences what floats by. I seldom think in terms of genre.

When do you write?

I try to get in a couple of hours in the morning before I go to my day job. Sometimes I don’t succeed. I try to make up lost time on weekends. Sometimes I don’t succeed in that either.

Name three good books.

Here are three strange and wonderful books.

The Mustache by Emmanuel Carrere
The Unconsoledby Kazuo Ishiguro
Humpty Dumpty by Damon Knight

They are very different books, but they’re grouped together in my mind. Someone should do a dissertation, a compare and contrast and come up with conclusions kind of thing. Not me.

Who are your favorite writers?

Today I’m thinking J. G. Ballard (my favorite Ballard is a weird little book called Concrete Island), Jonathan Carroll, Philip K. Dick, Umberto Eco, R. A. Lafferty, Jonathan Lethem, Patrick McGrath, Christopher Priest, Philip Pullman, and Kurt Vonnegut. Ask me tomorrow and you might get a different list.

Your novel, The Man of Maybe Half-A-Dozen Faces, was published by St. Martin’s last year. Are you writing more novels?

I am working on a couple of other projects. I don’t know which will be done first. I can never talk about unfinished work.

Ray Vukcevich was born in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and grew up in the Southwest. He now lives in Eugene and works as a computer programmer in a couple of brain labs at the University of Oregon. His short fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Asimov’s, Twists of the Tale, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Rosebud, and Pulphouse.His first novel, The Man of Maybe Half-A-Dozen Faces, was published in 2000 by St. Martin’s Press.

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Interfictions – Reviews

by Delia Sherman

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Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing
Edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss

“Odd, Deep, Delightful”
– Michael Bishop, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“This idea of playing with genre conventions is interstitiality’s charm and what makes it a movement for the hypertext age. We want words to do more now and for our time not to have been spent with just one idea.”
– Adrienne Martini, Baltimore City Paper

“Buy this book.”– Sean Melican, Ideomancer

“Playing outside the rules once again is Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writings (Interstitial Arts Foundation / Small Beer Press ; April 30, 2007 ; $18.00), edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss. In this case, Small Beer Press is the distributor, which means, as I said above, they’re bringing the world this collection, while the publisher is the very interesting Interstitial Arts Foundation. The mission is pretty clear: publish stuff that falls between the cracks, that lies outside of any single and perhaps all genres. They call themselves Artists Without Borders, so expect to find literature, visual arts, music and performance arts. Their list of contributors on the website is pretty amazing; Ellen Kushner, Gregory Frost, Heinz Insu Fenkl and Eve Sweetser; all these just writing essays. There’s a lot to look at and more importantly read, and they seem to have chosen to publish on line the sort of material one can read online.”
– Rick Kleffel, the Agony Column

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Sean Stewart – Bio & Reviews

by Sean Stewart

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Sean Stewart

Sean Stewart is the author of the innovative I Love Bees and Beast search operas, two short stories, and seven previous novels:

Galveston

Mockingbird – (to be reprinted by Small Beer Press)

The Night Watch — (to be reprinted by Small Beer Press)

Clouds End

Resurrection Man

Nobody’s Son

Passion Play

His novels have received the Aurora, Arthur Ellis, Sunburst, Canadian Library, and World Fantasy awards. He presently writes lots of things that have Non Disclosure Agreements attached so he cannot talk about them.

A little more:

Stewart is tall, energetic, uses big words easily, coaches his daughter’s soccer team, is a great reader, has taught writing, and lives in Davis, CA, with his wife and two daughters.

More on the web:
A few older interviews:

BookSense

Locus

Amazon

Davis Community Network

AC&S

Novel excerpts:

Mockingbird

Galveston

The Night Watch

Clouds End

Resurrection Man

Camera Obscura: a story written with Pat Cadigan, Kathleen Ann Goonan, and Paul Witcover

IMDB listing

Author photo by Biko.
Download for print.

Perfect Circle
Sean Stewart
available in hardcover and trade paperback
June 15, 2004

Reviews

“A cracking good read.”
– The Bookseller, May 27, 2005

“Stewart delicately balances humor with a strong sense of place and menace.”
– San Francisco Chronicle

* “All-around terrific.”
– Booklist (starred review)

“Heartbreaking and hilarious, peppered with satisfying pop-culture references (Battlestar Galactica, Tom Waits, Ramen noodles) and informed by Stewart’s twisted sense of humor and proud redneck sensibility, Perfect Circle delivers what the maudlin “Sixth Sense never did – a wicked good time.”
– Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Stewart’s compelling account of how DK comes to grips with his ghosts, both actual and metaphorical, is alternately poignant and hilarious, with some genuinely creepy moments and one or two powerful jolts…. Compelling … with strong potential for crossing over into the mainstream.”
– Publishers Weekly

“Stewart’s quicksilver wit makes Perfect Circle perfectly hilarious. And, a supremely skilled storyteller, he saves the best for last.”
– Texas Monthly

“His novels deserve to be more widely known than they are. He delicately balances humor with a strong sense of place and menace. Perfect Circle finds him in fine form and will leave readers eager for his next offering.”
– San Francisco Chronicle

“Sean Stewart delivers an urban fantasy that is the perfect amalgam of cursed past and haunted present, of classic ghost tales and up-to-the-minute cinematic riffs … Stewart’s mastery of Will’s first-person narration is unflinching and unfaltering. The voice conjured here is absolutely authentic and affecting, as is the portrait of Houston, Will’s stomping grounds. Will’s vast extended family of oddballs and losers and honest toilers imparts a John-Crowleyesque heft to the book. And his treatment of the ghosts — “Ghosts don’t do things to you. Ghosts make you do unspeakable things to yourself” — is truly eerie. Readers familiar with the quotidian spookiness of master English horror writer M.R. James will find similar frissons here, but married to the gritty demimonde in the novels of American noir writer James Crumley, resulting in a fusion of black humor and pathos, blood and ectoplasm.”
– Washington Post

“By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, Perfect Circle is … an impressive example of an author using genre resources to stake out a territory that, for the moment at least, no one but he occupies.”
– Locus

“A read-at-one-go novel…. Everything is both stated and understated, elegant, full of the mundane horror and fear that inform a normal, frustrated life…. And it is well, well worth the reading. A highly recommended work.”
– F&SF

“A hell of a book.”
– SF Site

“The kind of book that fatasy was invented for.”
– NYRSF

“By turns funny and sad…. Compelling.”
– New Trail

“When he isn’t peering into other realms, Kennedy meditates on rock music, Texas culture, and the nature of regret. There may be more to be had from a ghost story, but I don’t know what.” A
– Marc Sheehan, On the Town, West Michigan

“You can’t put the book down because you just have to know what is going to happen next. You can’t sleep if you don’t find out. Sean Stewart manages this brilliantly…. Oh, and the soundtrack is great too.”
– Emerald City

SF Revu

Advance Quotes:

Perfect Circle is a perfect read, exciting, unique, everything here but the Second Coming, but, Sean Stewart himself is the prize. What a talent. Write on, my man. Write on.
– Joe Lansdale, Sunset and Sawdust
A heartwarmingly sweet novel about what it’s really like to be haunted. Sean Stewart’s best yet.
– Sarah Smith, Chasing Shakespeares

Needy Ghosts, bar fights, concealed weapons, R.E.M., and ramen noodles –Perfect Circle is an irreverent Texas treat. Sean Stewart is one bright, funny writer.
– Stewart O’Nan, The Night Country

Will Kennedy has some troublesome relatives. Especially the dead ones. Perfect Circle is Sean Stewart at his spooky, funny, sad, and haunting best.
– Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

Perfect Circle is a ghost story for grown-ups, frightening, funny, and finally redemptive. It kept me up way past my bedtime.
– Harley Jane Kozak, Dating Dead Men

I read it all in one gulp, by turns fearful and joyful for Stewart’s likable loser protagonist.”
– Cory Doctorow, Eastern Standard Tribe

If Oprah read science fiction…This quirky, engaging novel tells the story of William “Dead” Kennedy, a thirtysomething former punk rocker and down-on-his-luck divorced dad — who sees ghosts. After a visit to his haunted cousin goes horribly wrong, “DK” finds himself getting lots of attention — mostly the wrong kind – from both the living and the dead. Funny and thought-provoking!
– Carol Schneck Schuler Books and Music, Okemos, MI

My favorites among Sean Stewart’s books are those that hover on the edge of our reality. His characters, like William “Dead” Kennedy are much like my friends and relatives — although if any of my relatives are seeing ghosts, they haven’t mentioned this to me. Will leads a not-quite life in Texas, working in dead end jobs, and yearning to reconnect with his ex-wife, and trying to avoid ghosts. When a cousin calls with a ghost-busting request, his financial offer is more than Will can resist. But accepting the job opens Will up to a whole new level of darkness. Great prose (Stewart has some of the best metaphors going) and a melancholy mood, like music half-remembered.
– Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy Bookshop, San Diego, CA

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Reviews of The Ant King

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The Ant King and Other Stories
Benjamin Rosenbaum

“Lively, bizarre, and funny as well as dark, sinister, and sensual.”
—Boston Phoenix

“Give him some prizes, like, perhaps, “best first collection” for this book.”
—Booklist (Starred review)

“Featuring outlandish and striking imagery throughout—a woman in love with an elephant, an orange that ruled the world—this collection is a surrealistic wonderland.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Rosenbaum proves he’s capable of sustained fantasy with “Biographical Notes,” a steampunkish alternate history of aerial piracy, and “A Siege of Cranes,” a fantasy about a battle between a human insurgent and the White Witch that carries decidedly modern undercurrents…. Perhaps none of the tales is odder than “Orphans,” in which girl-meets-elephant, girl-loses-elephant.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Benjamin Rosenbaum is a talented short story writer whose fiction always seems modern even while employing the most absurd surrealism. Although he’s been up for awards, he’s remained a peripheral figure in the field. This collection may change that because in The Ant King and Other Stories Rosenbaum shows off an effortless talent. Whether he’s working with whimsical material as in the title story or creating a more serious tone as in “The House Beyond Your Sky,” Rosenbaum’s range is impressive.”
—Realms of Fantasy

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Kelly Link

by Kelly Link

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October 2, 2008 from Viking Penguin:

PRETTY MONSTERS

Kelly Link
HC: October 2, 2008 · 978-0670010905 · $19.99

Nine stories each with an illustration by Shaun Tan.

“The Wizards of Perfil,” “Monster,” “The Surfer,” The Constable of Abal,” “The Wrong Grave,” “The Faery Handbag,” “The Specialist’s Hat,” “Magic for Beginners,” and “Pretty Monsters.”

Order a signed copy and receive tattoos, stickers, and similar items of interest.

** News:

• “Pretty Monsters” in Pretty Monsters
• The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror 2008: 21st Annual Collection (with Ellen Datlow and Gavin J. Grant)
• “The Constable of Abal” in The Best Sciene Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Vol. 2
• “Light” reprinted in Best American Fantasy 2008.
• “The Surfer” in The Starry Rift.
• More

** Interviews:

• Redivider | Sybil’s Garage | Return of the Reluctant | Strange Horizons | Milk of Medusa | The Well | Salon.com | Beatrice.com |Locus (Order this issue: free shipping or free with subscription.)

Magic for Beginners

• Illustrated by Shelley Jackson.
• Hardcover | paperback | Limited
• Best of the Year: Time Magazine, Salon, Village Voice, San Francisco Chronicle, PopMatters.
• Reviews
• Free Download
• “Eerie and engrossing.”
  – Washington Post Book World
• * Not only does Link find fresh perspectives from which to explore familiar premises, she also forges ingenious connections between disparate images and narrative approaches to suggest a convincing alternate logic that shapes the worlds of her highly original fantasies.”
  – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

Stranger Things Happen

• Debut collection by Kelly Link. A Salon Book of the Year and Village Voice Favorite Book.
• Reviews
• Free Download
• Now in its sixth printing.
• Fifth Printing Note: We are sorry to say some copies of this printing have page 118 reprinted where page 188 should be. There are a couple of remedies. You can download the pdf of page 188here or you can email us.
  We are a tiny press and we apologize for our mistake. We hope the replacement page (or the book) will satisfy readers. However, if you’d rather, we will replace your book. Please email us if this is the case.
  How to identify if your copy is a 5th printing: On the copyright page it states “First Edition 5 6 7 8 9 0″
  Thank you.

Trampoline: an anthology of mostly original fiction edited by Kelly Link.

• Greer Gilman’s novella “A Crowd of Bone” was a World Fantasy Award Winner. Alex Irvine’s story “Gus Dreams of Biting the Mailman” and the anthology were also nominated.

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Laurie Marks Bio

by Laurie Marks

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Laurie J. Marks is the author of three Elemental Logic novels, Earth Logic, Fire Logic, and Water Logic, as well five other novels. She teaches at U.Mass Boston and lives in Melrose, Massachusetts, with her partner, Deb Mensinger.

For more see here.

Author photo: Deb Mensinger.

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Water Logic Reviews

by Laurie Marks

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Water Logic
Laurie J. Marks

“The war between the Sainnites and the Shaftali has ended with a Sainnite victory and a gesture of peace and reconstruction. As Sainnite General Clement renews her relationship with Shaftali cow doctor Seth, now a Councilor from her village, forces are working to undermine the peace and end the life of Karis, the new Shaftali G’deon, the woman who agreed to peace with her country’s enemies. When an earth-blooded prophet gets lost beneath the ice and is transported to another time, she finds that she holds the key to solving the problems of the “future,” if she can only discover a means of communicating through time. The third installment, after Fire Logic and Earth Logic, in Marks’s “Elemental Logic” series, explores the relationship of water, an element that travels through space and time, to those people who share its qualities or who oppose its power. Finely drawn characters and a lack of bias toward sexual orientation make this a thoughtful, challenging read that belongs in most adult fantasy collections.”
— Library Journal

“Frankly, it’s mind-bending stuff, and refreshing…. I haven’t read the previous two Logic books by Marks so this was like a flashback to my childhood. Interestingly, while there was some character history that I missed, from what I’ve seen of Marks’ writing style, I didn’t necessarily miss much explanation anyways. The world is presented as-is, and of course all the people in it know what is going on and why. I found the book quite intriguing, since Marks does have some unusual magic going on, and there’s certainly no overkill in the infodump department.”
—James Schellenberg, The Cultural Gutter

* “How gifts from the past, often unknown or unacknowledged, bless future generations; how things that look like disasters or mistakes may be parts of a much bigger pattern that produces greater, farther-reaching good results—such is the theme of Marks’ sweeping fantasy, which reaches its third volume with this successor to Fire Logic (2002) and Earth Logic (2004).”
—Booklist (Starred Review)

“This is a genuinely original and subversive work of fantasy literature. It’s the real thing: capable of changing the world, or at least the way you see it. Grittier and ultimately more satisfying than Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover novels, but with some of the same delicious sense of a world with plenty of room for queerness . . . there’s the depth and mythic sweep of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea novels, with a seasoned, mature sense of a world where adults make hard choices and live with them.
“Marks’s characters are real people who breathe and sleep and sweat and love; the food has flavor and the landscape can break your heart. You don’t find this often in any contemporary fiction, much less in fantasy: a world you can plunge yourself into utterly and live in with great delight, while the pages turn, and dream of after.”
—Ellen Kushner

“Picking up the threads left loose at the end of Earth Logic (2004), Marks’s third Elemental Logic tale weaves three story lines through her tapestry of a war-torn world whose elemental forces are dangerously out of balance. Clement, reluctant general of the Sainnite army occupying Shaftal, has made peace with Karis, the Shaftali G’deon, and now seeks to suppress insurrection in her ranks and legitimize the leadership role thrust upon her. Meanwhile, Clement’s lover Seth pursues an assassin who nearly murdered Karis. In the story’s most fantastic subplot, fire witch Zanja na’Tarwein [spoiler deleted]. Marks plays the fantasy of her unfolding epic more subtly here than in previous volumes, and the resulting depiction of intransigent cultures in conflict, rich with insight into human nature and motives, will resonate for modern readers.
—Publishers Weekly

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Ellen Kushner Bio

by Ellen Kushner

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Ellen Kushner is the host of PRI’s Sound and Spirit. She is the author ofSwordspoint, Thomas the Rhymer, and, with Delia Sherman, The Fall of the Kings. Her novels have won the World Fantasy, Spectrum, and Mythopoeic Awards, and been chosen as a School Library Journal Adult Book for Young Adults. She lives in New York City.

Full bio on the Sound and Spririt site.

Download author photo for print.
Author photo credit: TK.

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