tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69383094666371516892024-03-13T20:21:35.320-07:00Manuscript GalThe Personal Website of Author, Editor and Academic Helen MarshallSpeculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-76121862266315520902011-11-26T09:29:00.000-08:002013-06-18T12:40:19.053-07:00Poet, Author and Editor Helen Marshall<div class="MsoNormal">
Helen Marshall is an author, poet, and bibliophile.<br />
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Her poetry and fiction have been published in <i>ChiZine</i>, <i>Paper Crow, Abyss and Apex</i>, <i>Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet</i>, and Tor.com among others.<br />
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She released a collection of poems entitled <i><b><a href="http://skeleton-leaves.net/">Skeleton Leaves</a></b></i> from Kelp Queen Press in 2011 and her collection of short stories<i><b> <a href="http://www.manuscriptgal.com/p/sample-short-stories.html">Hair Side, Flesh Side</a></b></i> was released from ChiZine Publications in 2012.<br />
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Currently, she is pursuing a Ph. D in medieval studies at the University of Toronto, for which she spends a great deal of her time staring at fourteenth-century manuscripts.</div>
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<b><u>On <i>Hair Side, Flesh Side</i> (available <a href="http://hairsidefleshside.com/" target="_blank">here</a>)</u></b><br />
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<b><i>Hair Side, Flesh Side</i> has been short-listed for a 2013 British Fantasy Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer, a 2013 Aurora Award for Best Related Work and it has been long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize. </b><br />
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<b>“No Ghosts in London” will be reprinted in <i>The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: 2013</i>, ed. Paula Guran.</b><br />
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<b>"The Book of Judgement" will be reprinted in <i>Imaginarium 2013: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing of 2012, </i>ed. Sandra Kasturi and Samantha Beiko.</b><br />
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. . . Sometimes a book comes along that is so original, so vibrantly alive, so beautifully imagined and so much a law unto itself that the only comment or advice a reviewer can offer is to say: go read it. Hair Side, Flesh Side is one such book, and having experienced it I am left with a genuine sense of excitement, thinking about where Helen Marshall might take us next.<br />
—Nina Allan, <i>Strange Horizons</i>. <a href="http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2013/02/hair_side_flesh.shtml" target="_blank">Read the full review</a>.</blockquote>
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. . . Sometimes you hear people talking about the new face of horror. Well huddle closer, children. Hair Side, Flesh Side is it. . . . Marshall’s stories are frightening, touching, quirky, sexy and deeply lyrical. The 15 stories each seem deeply grounded in reality, making the otherworldly explorations all the more real.<br />
—“Best F/SF Books of 2012,” <i>January Magazine</i>.</blockquote>
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<b><u>On <i>Skeleton Leaves (</i>available<i> <a href="http://skeleton-leaves.net/" target="_blank">here</a>)</i></u></b></div>
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<i>Skeleton Leaves</i> won the 2012 Aurora Award for Best Poem, presented by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association.<br />
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“Helen Marshall’s sinister and elegant vision permeates this beautiful book, leaving the reader feeling like they have somehow been transported to Neverland and back, bringing with them the shades of lost boys and their spectral mothers, trailing words flying from between dark stars. Gorgeous and heartbreaking.” --Sandra Kasturi, author of <i>The Animal Bridegroom</i> (Tightrope Books, 2007).</blockquote>
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<b><u>On Editing</u></b><br />
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"In close to 30 years of being a published writer--as journalist, novelist, film screen writer/producer, comic book scribe--I have seldom had the pleasure of working with an editor so diligent, so thoughtful, so committed to the work at hand as Helen Marshall. No one is perfect, but Ms. Marshall comes darn close. I want her to edit all my work until I die." --Philip Nutman, author of <i>Cities of Night</i></blockquote>
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Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-86868148155264620652011-11-21T10:55:00.000-08:002011-11-21T10:55:36.499-08:00Award Season!Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the 2011 Aurora Award ceremonies at SFContario in Toronto. Months ago, I was thrilled to learn that I had been nominated in the newly initiated Poetry Category for my poem "Waiting for the Harrowing" published by <a href="http://chizine.com/">ChiZine.com</a> as well as with Sandra Kasturi in the Fan Organizational Category for our work putting together the <a href="http://specfic-colloquium.com/">Toronto SpecFic Colloquium</a>. The ceremony was well-attended, with an excellent introduction by Toastmaster Karl Schroeder on the importance of community, particularly for writers, as he reflected on growing up isolated from other science fiction writers in Manitoba until he discovered that several well-known authors got their start in his hometown.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> In award you could poke your eye out with...</td></tr>
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Community is very important to me: when Sandra and I put together the first Toronto Specfic Colloquium, our motto was that the first rule of Canadian speculative fiction is that we don't talk about Canadian speculative fiction. Which is a bit facetious and tongue-in-cheek, of course. But we don't always. Or when we do talk about it, we talk about it as a series of exceptions to the rule (the likes of Robert J. Sawyer and Guy Gavriel Kay come to mind, the big guns who made internationally) or as a kind of endangered species that has to be protected. Or fed crackers in a zoo. Or we fight over whether Canadian speculative fiction matters outside of grant applications. Or stories about aliens playing hockey. Sandra and I wanted the 2010 Toronto SpecFic Colloquium to be a forum for ideas; we wanted it to do something different from the typical fan convention. We wanted a conversation, we wanted people talking to each other, we wanted people talking about it what it is we are all trying to do. And we wanted <i>that</i> to be the way we talked about what Canadian speculative fiction is--because, ultimately, it's about what we are doing right now, together, through institutions like the Aurora Awards and the Sunburst Awards, through anthologies like <i>Tesseracts</i> and magazines like <i>OnSpec</i> and <i>Ideomancer</i>.<br />
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Sandra and I worked stupidly hard on the Colloquium. Neither of us had run an event like that before and we started thinking it would be quite easy, only to discover that fan organizations work on the iceberg principle: the results you see account for about 5% of the work that went into making it happen. And we had some fantastic people helping us, a ragtag group we assembled as we went: Laura Marshall, Clare Marshall, Sam Beiko jump to mind. And we had some truly fantastic authors who kind of got what we wanted to do and ran with it, blowing our minds again and again: Julie Czerneda, Tony Burgess, Karl Schroeder, David Nickle, Claude Lalumiere, Gemma Files, Michael Rowe, Bob Boyczuk, Kelley Armstrong, Peter Watts and Guy Gavriel Kay. <a href="http://www.specfic-colloquium.com/apps/videos/">Go look at the videos, seriously!</a><br />
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And so Sandra and I were delighted to win in that category! Truly delighted! I believe Sandra spent the first thirty seconds swearing in surprised--we had both figured we were the underdogs for the category.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sandra and I duel with our new awards!</td></tr>
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And then I was equally delighted when Carolyn Clink took the Poetry Award. You might think that's just me being gracious. It would have been nice to win. Of course, it would have. But at the same time it was so genuinely lovely to see Carolyn recognized for her brilliant poem that I didn't mind so much. And she had the longest applause at the ceremony. It's nice when you see these things going to the right people. Even if that person isn't you. (Go <a href="http://www.sfpoet.com/">read her poem</a> if you haven't already--it's great stuff!)<br />
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So thanks to everyone who voted for us. Thanks to everyone who helped make the event possible. And congratulations to the other winners--a particular shout-out to Erik Mohr who took the Best Artist award because, well, he rocks. Seriously.<br />
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Good night all, I'm off to harpoon some baby seals...Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-45115980231501093132011-08-16T16:00:00.000-07:002011-08-16T16:03:28.329-07:00A Chill in the Air<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I'm terribly pleased to announce my first <b>really real</b> public appearance as an author...</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGVNKQ4orlT1vVwAtJsCPAgeLuCsIk-6UpRD_wzZ3u_yt6gzHQ8Bb_-QqE9ws1NVNcJMAb6VqoiLvz6ltNT0XSvXFaEKF_UkYGcHmjRXaZ40cox8PtkXBVF8XJktBmxx4Gwx6WVMEal0/s1600/ChiSeriesrannu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGVNKQ4orlT1vVwAtJsCPAgeLuCsIk-6UpRD_wzZ3u_yt6gzHQ8Bb_-QqE9ws1NVNcJMAb6VqoiLvz6ltNT0XSvXFaEKF_UkYGcHmjRXaZ40cox8PtkXBVF8XJktBmxx4Gwx6WVMEal0/s200/ChiSeriesrannu.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Please come! Please please please!</td></tr>
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Wednesday September 14, 2011 8PM - 11PM<br />
152 Augusta Avenue, Toronto<br />
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Join the <a href="http://chiseries.webs.com/">Chiaroscuro Reading Series</a> for a night of deliciously chilling stories featuring Katherine Govier, Helen Marshall and Mark Sedore.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD2skak5PEsqzTMg5wdU4nOQ2heD23YqQHMXt10rK7YOSbcd-rpvo6eTkU1k3w3UQEhVVWhSRLU0ku74uhDFOOLuIQeFhE_hmbLb1z4NGwmie8Zlv72YmCSc30LhpdeJEL8_KAVxWrpiQ/s1600/GovierAuthor05-200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD2skak5PEsqzTMg5wdU4nOQ2heD23YqQHMXt10rK7YOSbcd-rpvo6eTkU1k3w3UQEhVVWhSRLU0ku74uhDFOOLuIQeFhE_hmbLb1z4NGwmie8Zlv72YmCSc30LhpdeJEL8_KAVxWrpiQ/s200/GovierAuthor05-200.jpg" width="145" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now this is an author shot...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Katherine Govier is the author of nine novels and three short story collections. Her most recent novel <i>The Ghost Brush</i> is about the daughter of the famous Japanese printmaker, Hokusai, creator of <i>The Great Wave</i>. Her novel <i>Creation</i>, about John James Audubon in Labrador, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2003. Katherine's fiction and non-fiction has appeared in the United Kingdom, the United States, and throughout the Commonwealth, and in translation in Holland, Italy, Turkey, and Slovenia. She is the winner of Canada's Marian Engel Award for a woman writer (1997) and the Toronto Book Award (1992). <i>Creation </i>was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2003.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-2BAe1KFLC9TgkD4eLqkGlA-OVqI0MsLHLkNySbwiCizZrBdbK-rgSbPcCRKIp4Mgd9bRaKupgs7_qlFGEObg3nOmQxbalPJ9UCDlCKsIa7867Z6LZXmF9LRrOrser4NNo76XvTuIjSE/s1600/zombiehelenprofile.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-2BAe1KFLC9TgkD4eLqkGlA-OVqI0MsLHLkNySbwiCizZrBdbK-rgSbPcCRKIp4Mgd9bRaKupgs7_qlFGEObg3nOmQxbalPJ9UCDlCKsIa7867Z6LZXmF9LRrOrser4NNo76XvTuIjSE/s200/zombiehelenprofile.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me dressed like a zombie.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Aurora-nominated poet Helen Marshall (manuscriptgal.com) is an author, editor, and self-proclaimed bibliophile. Her poetry has been published in <i>ChiZine, NFG, Abyss & Apex</i> and the long-running <i>Tesseracts </i>anthology series. "Mist and Shadows," published originally in Star*Line, appeared in <i>The 2006 Rhysling Anthology: The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Poetry of 2005</i>. She recently released a collection of poems entitled <i>Skeleton Leaves</i> from Kelp Queen Press and her collection of short stories <i>Hair Side, Flesh Side</i> is forthcoming from ChiZine Publications in 2013.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">He wrote <i>Snowmen </i>in three days. <br />
Seriously. I'm impressed.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Mark Sedore is a professional writer and a graduate student. He has an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Toronto and a second in Communication and Culture from York and Ryerson Universities. Mark has worked as a writer for the mayor’s office in Toronto and he currently works as a staff writer for the University of Toronto. <i>Snowmen </i>is his first published novel.Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-39432803425966421542011-06-10T05:50:00.000-07:002011-06-10T05:50:33.493-07:00Toronto's Geekiest Theatre Company<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://monkeymanproductions.com/site/wp-content/gallery/godzilla/GoS2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="http://monkeymanproductions.com/site/wp-content/gallery/godzilla/GoS2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b0b0b; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 22px;">Photos from both productions of ‘Godzilla on Sundays’, the show that brought Brad, Tim, Marty & DJ together into one Voltron-like creature!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>There are few things I like more than monkeys and handsome lads dressed up as Godzilla. That's why I feel the need to pass on to you the newly launched website of Monkeyman Productions...<br />
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<blockquote>Since 2008, Monkeyman Productions has created postmodern theatre with real relevancy to a culture informed by comic books, monster movies, and video games. We speak in the language of an audience that has most truly found its voice in the meme-ridden YouTube-obsessed depths of the Internet. We draw from popular culture in the way that Shakespeare drew from the common culture of his day – these are our mythologies, our tales of comedy and tragedy.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>Through the development and performance of work which examines our obsessions and preoccupations in the 21st Century, we hope to discover the ways in which we truly have changed, for better or worse, and the ways in which we remain the same – with a definite eye toward the absurd, but also a corresponding empathy for a subject matter that, in the end, encompasses all of us.</blockquote>Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-42417248603275274602011-06-05T07:45:00.000-07:002011-06-05T07:45:06.439-07:00Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www2.gr.cl/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/locke-key-1-welcome-to-lovecraft-hc-196x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www2.gr.cl/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/locke-key-1-welcome-to-lovecraft-hc-196x300.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-V-Welcome-Lovecraft/dp/1600103847?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Buy it from Amazon -- Seriously!</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1600103847" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;">I first discovered Joe Hill’s writing last summer in Oxford. He had just done an appearance at the Merril Collection in Toronto shortly before I left, and his name was starting to pop up everywhere. I read </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;"></span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Horns-Novel-Joe-Hill/dp/0061147966?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Horns</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0061147966" style="border-bottom-style: none !important; border-color: initial !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-width: initial !important; cursor: move; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;">, and found it clever, insightful, chilling and very tightly paced; then I picked up a copy of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Book-Best-New-Horror/dp/076243841X?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Best of the Best New Horror</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=076243841X" style="border-bottom-style: none !important; border-color: initial !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-width: initial !important; cursor: move; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;"> from Stephen Jones, and read </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/20th-Century-Ghosts-Joe-Hill/dp/0061147974?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Twentieth Century Ghosts</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0061147974" style="border-bottom-style: none !important; border-color: initial !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-width: initial !important; cursor: move; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;">—magical. Joe Hill writes exquisite, darkly dreaming prose that lodges itself in the brain like a tumour, the kind of thing that frightens even as it causes flashes of something beautiful. Reading his work inevitably sets my itching for a pen and paper.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; color: black;"></span>I sweet-talked a fresh-faced Diamond employee for about three days at Book Expo America in order to snag myself a promotional copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-V-Welcome-Lovecraft/dp/1600103847?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Welcome to Lovecraft</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1600103847" style="border-bottom-style: none !important; border-color: initial !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-width: initial !important; cursor: move; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, then read them both straight through on the long drive from New York to Toronto. I wasn’t disappointed. Hill’s story reminds me very much of Nail Gaiman’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sandman-Vol-Preludes-Nocturnes-New/dp/1401225756?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Sandman </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1401225756" style="border-bottom-style: none !important; border-color: initial !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-width: initial !important; cursor: move; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />series with, perhaps, a tight narrative arc and a touch of Michael Chabon’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Adventures-Kavalier-Clay/dp/0312282990?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0312282990" style="border-bottom-style: none !important; border-color: initial !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-width: initial !important; cursor: move; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />—certainly, the title <i>Locke and Key</i> evoked Kavalier and Clay’s Escapist for me in imagery if not in sense.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-V-Welcome-Lovecraft/dp/1600103847?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Welcome to Lovecraft</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1600103847" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /> is a story about grief and fear, isolation, what it means to grow up: violence shatters the Locke family after a deranged high school students murders the father and the family relocates to Keyhouse in Maine. Tyler and Kinsey, the two eldest children, find themselves haunted by their memories and their newly discovered status as outsiders, their tragedy creating a barrier between them and the normal life of their high school peers. Bode, the youngest, discovers something altogether different: a door which allows him to shuffle off his mortal coil, temporarily, and a well housed by spirit hungry for freedom and desperately, desperately dangerous. To give away too much of the story would be a shame, and I recommend encountering it as I did: enthused but without preconceptions. You’ll discover storytelling of the highest magnitude, coupled with fantastic artwork from Chilean artist Gabriel Rodriguez (Clive Barker's<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Clive-Barkers-Great-Secret/dp/1600101216?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"> The Great and Secret Show</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1600101216" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" />). <br />
<br />
A must for anyone looking for a new graphic novel series to sink your teeth into.Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-16200785191650707142011-06-03T08:51:00.000-07:002011-06-03T09:29:12.171-07:00SKELETON LEAVES: A CollectionI'm very pleased to announce that my collection of poetry SKELETON LEAVES--a dark retelling of J. M. Barrie's <i>Peter Pan</i> to be published by <a href="http://www.kelpqueenpress.com/">Kelp Queen Press</a>--has been sent to the printer!<br />
<br />
Thanks so much to <a href="http://sandrakasturi.com/">Sandra Kasturi</a>--poet, friend, and publisher--and to Chris Roberts of <a href="http://deadclownart.com/">Dead Clown Art</a>--artist extraordinaire, who with very little prompting brought the collection to life. Ordering details once I have them.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFg8FQJjmJ1mTbWPrvnz9sI1fQoIT5uo-SqeYU5SOrHdRINbykATCycrDd6AXIwln2ulQPzDeU81oNzTXKsVHRZIKf_tZLB-qwXz2arMk7W5c5N5LjCbtqU8FuOr2DW6r43C265Qp4cgs/s1600/skeleton_cover_lowres+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFg8FQJjmJ1mTbWPrvnz9sI1fQoIT5uo-SqeYU5SOrHdRINbykATCycrDd6AXIwln2ulQPzDeU81oNzTXKsVHRZIKf_tZLB-qwXz2arMk7W5c5N5LjCbtqU8FuOr2DW6r43C265Qp4cgs/s400/skeleton_cover_lowres+%25281%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cover Art by the wickedly talented Chris Roberts (<a href="http://deadclownart.com/">deadclownart.com</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<br />
<blockquote><i></i><i>“He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth…”</i></blockquote><br />
What is a skeleton leaf?<br />
<br />
The image is haunting for its juxtaposition of eternal life and ever-present death, its treatment of the loveliness of the child’s form, the undeveloped rawness of youth, the baby teeth grinning in a tiny, impish mouth.<br />
<br />
But what is a skeleton leaf?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5iTPMwE0sFuZkpF8hzdheL-ZPZod7oyieZuGypZ5pB0sspJJJvL9LipLL44CCvdTZYlx0qJxFpV8nvFOCYrksR47Eq7IsyJtyHzh_ozpHRRc8FhRgVMBcqxAjpbl-v1J9O3AUHOm04MA/s1600/shadow_flat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5iTPMwE0sFuZkpF8hzdheL-ZPZod7oyieZuGypZ5pB0sspJJJvL9LipLL44CCvdTZYlx0qJxFpV8nvFOCYrksR47Eq7IsyJtyHzh_ozpHRRc8FhRgVMBcqxAjpbl-v1J9O3AUHOm04MA/s320/shadow_flat.jpg" width="182" /></a></div>Perhaps it is the autumn-brittle husk of a dead leaf, having shed all matter but the tightened network of veins. Or is it something else? A leaf. A folio. We write on the bodies of trees now, pulped and pressed flat. Do the ghosts of redwoods and pine haunt our poems, dropping skeletal traces of themselves into the fabric of metaphor and simile?<br />
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For me, the phrase reminds me of days spent at the Bodleian pouring over fourteenth-century manuscripts lovingly inked when we wrote on real bodies, the skins of goat, sheep, calf—and, in some rare cases, man. It echoes parchment rotted down to the barest filaments of skin and sinew—the lost leaves of history. Prophecies of the Cumaean sibyl burnt to dust for the stinginess of a Roman king. Chaucer’s <i>Book of the Lion</i> and Shakespeare’s <i>Cardenia</i>, both surviving, perhaps, but as of yet undiscovered.<br />
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What does it mean to wrap yourself in the leaves of dead books? At what point does the flesh of a goat become the new skin of a boy? Of a prince? Of a monster?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5SXEBaauG9KiCEgk9dO2rzGcp9vHh6snV0t24UOzB_TmdGfNfAsku3cfFX9ST0AtyDW8DyLw2rP73oZiP16KF4w2r_99AqyIE1MczchkpU-AYz_30bICfOCwuDA1D8WRp-aLWVa_QO3M/s1600/house_flat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5SXEBaauG9KiCEgk9dO2rzGcp9vHh6snV0t24UOzB_TmdGfNfAsku3cfFX9ST0AtyDW8DyLw2rP73oZiP16KF4w2r_99AqyIE1MczchkpU-AYz_30bICfOCwuDA1D8WRp-aLWVa_QO3M/s320/house_flat.jpg" width="182" /></a></div><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The Peter I first knew was an inextinguishable ball of light blazing across my childhood imagination: fighting pirates, rescuing Indian princesses, and acting every inch the schoolyard tyrant among his friends. The Peter I see now—in almost Nabokovian obsessive detail—is the lonely sociopath who kidnaps children from their parents and kills the Lost Boys when they reach a certain age.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Like a good mother, I love both these children equally.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">This collection is not quite a retelling of Barrie’s <i>Peter Pan</i> in the traditional sense. Rather, it takes the original as a palimpsest—a text whose surface can be scraped off and rewritten, both stories held simultaneously within the same writing space.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">You may recognize bits of the original text, overlaid or interspersed throughout these poems. You may also recognize other writers interspersed throughout. But perhaps you will also see something new. I would call him my Peter, my Pan, but if Peter has taught us anything, it is that he is untamable by would-be mothers, lovers and authors alike.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><br />
For more information, sample poems, and the awesome cover and interiors go to my <a href="http://www.manuscriptgal.com/p/poetry.html">Skeleton Leaves</a> page.<br />
<div><br />
</div>Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-71025212604936815152011-05-29T08:57:00.000-07:002011-05-29T08:57:26.355-07:00Helen's Super Cool News<b>I'm delighted to announce...</b><br />
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My collection of short stories tentatively titled <i><b>HAIR SIDE, FLESH SIDE</b></i> has been contracted by<a href="http://chizinepub.com/"><b> ChiZine Publications</b></a> for 2013 with world-wide distribution -- assuming we still have bookstores in 2013, you'll be able to pick it up at your local one! I'm absolutely over the moon about this, and since Brett Savory sneakily put the contract in my hand, I've been writing like a fiend.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu3fBcp_2SZWCiVAc2qbkXHxof06nL-IPpYG-Crk0EXhy4_Zg8tMjQ187SKZ86qIv3w0Xk88Z0ddOijC8eFWRH-4rF_u-FxtTJ2dZ3e9gFsT0lkstCmC5GvzWhhuxt90u5jjXIdCTRkwE/s1600/old_books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu3fBcp_2SZWCiVAc2qbkXHxof06nL-IPpYG-Crk0EXhy4_Zg8tMjQ187SKZ86qIv3w0Xk88Z0ddOijC8eFWRH-4rF_u-FxtTJ2dZ3e9gFsT0lkstCmC5GvzWhhuxt90u5jjXIdCTRkwE/s200/old_books.jpg" width="156" /></a><i><b>HAIR SIDE, FLESH SIDE</b></i> is a book about books. The collection has been inspired in part by my work in medieval studies on fourteenth century manuscripts. The usual material for writing on in medieval books or documents was parchment made from the skin of sheep, goats or calves. When the treatment was complete, the hair side of the animal skin (the part originally on the outside of the animal) could be distinguished from the flesh side (the part on the inside). The short stories of the collection pick up on the themes of history, permanence and what it means to make art -- <b>with some funny, sexy bits in between</b>.<br />
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2013 seems like a long way off, and so I'm also really chuffed to announce that I'll be releasing a poetry chapbook entitled <i><b>SKELETON LEAVES</b></i> from <a href="http://www.kelpqueenpress.com/">Kelp Queen Press</a> later in the summer. The chapbook, featuring art by the crazy talented Chris Roberts of <a href="http://barcodeart.netfirms.com/">Dead Clown Ar</a>t, offers<b> a dark retelling of J. M. Barrie's</b> <i><b>PETER PAN</b></i>, and will be available from myself and from Kelp Queen directly.<br />
<br />
That's about all from me -- it's been zero to one fifty in the last month or so. I just wanted to end by saying thanks to all of you for your support, for your commitment to great fiction, and for just being awesome folks.<br />
<br />
PS: Since I'm here, I should probably mention that my poem "<b>Waiting for the Harrowing</b>" has been nominated for a <b>2011 Aurora Award</b> in the <b>POETRY </b>category. You can read it <a href="http://chizine.com/waiting_for_the_harrowing.htm">here</a>. Voting begins i<b>n early June</b> at the Aurora Award <a href="http://www.prix-aurora-awards.ca/wordpress">website</a> so I highly recommend you check out the nominated works -- there have been some absolutely stellar productions this year, and the poetry category, newly introduced this year, has drawn attention to some amazing work by <b>Sandra Kasturi, Carolyn Clink, Colleen Anderson, and Robert J. Sawyer.</b><br />
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PPS: I know, an annoying plethora of good fortune, but Sandra Kasturi and I have also been nominated for <b>BEST FAN ORGANIZATIONAL</b> for our work on the <b>Toronto SpecFic Colloquium.</b> Last year was a great event, and we've got even more scheduled for <a href="http://specfic-colloquium.com/">2011 with Guest of Honour Mike Carey</a>!Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-20669230824870229982011-05-27T15:29:00.000-07:002011-05-27T15:29:27.722-07:00Book Expo America -- What a show!I had been initially reluctant to travel to Book Expo America with ChiZine Publications' publisher Brett Savory because it would have capped off a busy two months traveling to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cancun, Austin and Kalamazoo -- with another trip to England scheduled for late June. No, this wasn't my book tour -- though it should have been. These were a series of research and conference trips (and maybe a vacation) to look at medieval manucripts, learn more about a Stanford-based project to develop tools to view and transcribe digitized manuscripts, and to present on medieval puns. Fun stuff, but unfortunately I blew out my ear drum sometime around my third plane trip and I've been hobbling toward a slow recovery ever since.<br />
<br />
I don't normally travel like that. Except, well, recently.<br />
<br />
so I initially said that I needed some time to recover, sleep and work on my writing. But Brett used his publisher puppy dog eyes, and so I reluctantly agreed. What a experience!<br />
<br />
Imagine a city of people who love books.<br />
<br />
Imagine they eat, sleep and breath books -- librarians, agents, sellers, buyers, readers, writers -- all jostling through aisle upon aisle of pavilions stocked with faux carpets, lava lamps, couches, and mile upon mile of books. Imagine all your favourite authors hanging out, just handing stuff out to people who happen by. Imagine Richard Curtis, agent to Harlan Ellison, Greg Bear and the like, handing you his card and saying he'll shoot an e-mail your way. Imagine getting a newly signed Chuck Palahniuk novel with a similarly signed pack of jalapeno pepper seeds inside. Imagine walking past Flava Flav and Tyra Banks and John Lithgow just because they are there.<br />
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Cool stuff, kids, really. I'm hooked.<br />
<br />
And that's just in the convention. Other trip highlights include telling ghost stories and writing a musical set in Beaver Kill, NY on the long drive down with Halli Villegas and crew, having Nicholas Kaufmann explain what a scrod is and why it's not so strange to eat it, and watching the talent Brett Savory break dance in Times Square.<br />
<br />
<i>Welcome, my friends, to the greatest business on earth...</i>Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-21552642886648216522011-05-16T12:49:00.000-07:002011-05-16T14:49:29.647-07:00Welcome<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Helen Marshall is the Managing Editor for <a href="http://chizinepub.com/">ChiZine Publications</a>, and the co-organizer with Sandra Kasturi of the <a href="http://specfic-colloquium.com/">Toronto SpecFic Colloquium</a> and the <a href="http://chiseries.webs.com/">Chiaroscuro Reading Series</a>. Her <b>poetry </b>has been published in <i>ChiZine, NFG</i> and <i>Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales</i>. "Mist and Shadows," published originally in <i>Star*Line</i>, appeared in <i>The 2006 Rhysling Anthology: The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Poetry of 2005</i>." "The Gypsy" and "Crossroads and Gateways" both received honourable mentions in the 2009 Rannu Fund Contest, and "Waiting for the Harrowing" has been nominated for a 2011 Aurora Award. Her collection of <b>short stories</b>, <i>Hair Side, Flesh Side</i> is forthcoming from ChiZine Publications in 2013.<br />
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</div>Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-47757432852453143472010-10-04T09:10:00.000-07:002010-10-04T09:10:41.128-07:00Upcoming Publication -- Fallen: An Anthology of Demon HorrorI'm very pleased to announce that my short story "Lines of Affection" will be appearing in the upcoming anthology from <a href="http://northernfrightspublishing.webs.com/">Northern Frights Publication</a>s -- Fallen: An Anthology of Demon Horror.<br />
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This is my <b>first<i> </i></b>short story publications (I've had lots of poetry) so I'm very pleased with it. <br />
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The story to be included "Lines of Affection" is not an explicit demon story -- there will be no rending bodies nor spilling of viscera. It's something a little more subtle, and, in my own mind, far creepier. It's the story of a kid whose parents are divorced, and how she feels about the strangers they bring into her home.<br />
More on this later...<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span>Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-53346135356308579032010-09-12T07:51:00.000-07:002010-09-12T07:51:41.599-07:00Living in the Genre GhettoGentle reader,<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmrXmJxQLvdwVILqNqLjqV6RexPHf1SuTRiX1V6qaHkP1A-vL4ALli9V6lSmqXtlVcYUe8AAihK1eQPaptgPYplHxsJLlRJFfhvoJGwDQQijIIigtfjqk2Pxaed3VgKTpu_O3aT2PR9lM/s1600/SpecFic+Ad+small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmrXmJxQLvdwVILqNqLjqV6RexPHf1SuTRiX1V6qaHkP1A-vL4ALli9V6lSmqXtlVcYUe8AAihK1eQPaptgPYplHxsJLlRJFfhvoJGwDQQijIIigtfjqk2Pxaed3VgKTpu_O3aT2PR9lM/s320/SpecFic+Ad+small.jpg" /></a></div>I work on any number of projects for ChiZine Publications, but here is a big one that I've spent lots of time and energy on: <a href="http://specfic-colloquium.com/">The Toronto SpecFic Colloquium</a>. I know, you're asking: "What do we need another Toronto-based convention for?" The thing is at most conventions it's very difficult to engage in any kind of sustained dialogue about the state of speculative fiction. In many ways, this is a very exciting time. E-readers are opening up the potential for new avenues for publications, and, no doubt, will radically alter the way the books are created, distributed, and purchased. Canadian authors are receiving international recognition for their work in their own right -- not simply as adjuncts to the American market. At the same time, the recession has meant there's less money for new authors and for publishers, both small and mainstream. The successes of <i>The Da Vinci Code,</i> <i>Twilight</i> and <i>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</i> have encouraged publishers to seek out and promote bestsellers rather than nurturing new talent. As Leisure Publications suffers major setbacks and funding issues threaten the Sunburst Awards, there's also a growing sense of the challenges to be faced over the next few years. Feelings of energy and enthusiasm, of new possibilities are mingling with fears for the future and what kind of publishing landscape might emerge...<br />
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Sandra Kasturi and I wanted to capitalize on the sense that we are living, industry-wise, in "interesting times" by bringing together a number of local authors -- new and experienced -- to share their thoughts on where Canadian speculative has been and where we are going.<br />
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The colloquium, a one-day event to launch the Chiaroscuro Reading Series, will deliver lectures by major names in the field on topics such as urban fantasy, cognitive science, queering the genre, and how Canadian science fiction is taking over the world, nicely. The lectures will be followed by readings that showcase emergent and experienced Canadian speculative fiction writers.<br />
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Guests include Kelley Armstrong, Julie Czerneda, Guy Gavriel Kay, Tony Burgess, Gemma Files, Karl Schroeder, Peter Watts, David Nickle, Michael Rowe and Claude Lalumière. <br />
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The Toronto SpecFic Colloquium will take place on Saturday October 23, 2010 in the Debates Room and Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle. We've only got limited space so I encourage you to register at <a href="http://www.specfic-colloquium.com/registration.htm">http://www.specfic-colloquium.com/registration.htm</a>.<br />
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For further information about the Toronto SpecFic Colloquium, visit <a href="http://specfic-colloquium.com/">http://specfic-colloquium.com</a>.Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-1835662901056602842010-07-18T02:19:00.001-07:002010-07-18T02:19:52.914-07:00Ethics and the After-Shudder in Horror Writing For the past four days, medievalists from around the world have been gathering in Siena, Italy to drink chianti and discuss literature, history, and the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. As a Ph. D student at the University of Toronto, I've had the great pleasure of joining them I'd like to recount one event in particular that really struck me.<br />
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Siena has been going through a nasty heat wave, and to cope a number of us graduate students spent Friday night drinking prosecco in our pool twenty kilometers from the city centre surrounded by the Tuscan countryside (hard work, I know!). Come Saturday, we discovered to our horror that all the air conditioning had been shut off. Sweltering in my first panel -- a distressingly packed classroom where we were all breathing too-warm recycled air, nursing hangovers, and trying to focus on what the smart people at the front of the room were trying to say -- I found myself in one of those dozy, dream-like states. Bruce Holsinger stood up to speak, and he began by recounting the recent work on parchment genetics, where scientists were analyzing the genetic make-up of parchment for dating purposes and to track herd changes. (Before the rise of the printing press in England, all books including ones of literature were written by hand on parchment or vellum, that is, the skin of sheep or cows.) He then told us that his colleagues had discovered something remarkable indeed -- all the books of Geoffrey Chaucer had been written on<i> human skin.</i><br />
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As I said, I was drowsy and it took me some time to process this. Human skin? I was shocked, horrified. The stuff that I had spent the last two months research in archives, touching, smelling, handling, studying -- it was the skin of people! It was only once the wave of tired laughter rippled across the audience of academics that I realized this was a ploy, a brilliant rhetorical move. I had bought it hook, line and sinker.<br />
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His point was that, ultimately, there exists a whole history of animal genocide beneath the production of literature at its earliest stages in English history. The point that registered most deeply for me was that he had to use a <i>story</i> to get his point across. Dry scholarship wasn't enough to produce an ethical inquiry, even if it was only a personal one, to the fact that a single book could require up to five hundred dead sheep to produce. In many ways, it is monstrous. And he begged us to consider -- was it worth it? Was (one of) the formative moments in English literary history worth the slaughter of so many animals?<br />
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Holsinger's paper sent a shudder down my spine, a genuine one, and it was something that never would have happened without the fiction he presented. But what was that shudder? How did it happen? Aranye Fradenburg gave a brilliant plenary lecture which introduced the concept of mirror neurons: mirror neurons fire, she argued, when we see a familiar action and automatically emulate it. Chimpanzees watching other chimpanzees cracking nuts fire off neurons that mimic the actions in their own brains. Fradenburg suggested that not only was this the basis of human empathy, it was also the basis of literature, for descriptive passages were just as effective at causing mirror neurons to fire.<br />
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It is an old adage that horror is an emotion not a genre; it is the shudder, the cold sweat, the puckering of skin and the raising of hair. What Holsinger did was to tell a horror story, and for me, a terribly effective one. That horror came because I could suddenly perceive the blank subject of my research -- the parchment of manuscripts -- as my own skin. The genocide of sheep and cows was vividly revealed, even if it was only for a moment before the laugh dispelled the image, as something <i>real</i> and personal.<br />
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My point is that there can be a kind of ethics to horror writing, because horror -- more than any other genre -- is about the human, the psychological, the affective. The point of horror writing should not just be to produce the shudder -- that's the first step, certainly -- but to use it, to make it do something. This is why, despite being a self -professed hater of horror, I still love the books put out by <a href="http://chizinepub.com/">ChiZine Publications</a>. Great horror -- the work of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Book-Best-New-Horror/dp/076243841X?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Ramsay Campbell</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=076243841X" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Under-Dome-Novel-Stephen-King/dp/1439149038?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Stephen King</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1439149038" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thief-Broken-Toys-Tim-Lebbon/dp/0981297897?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Tim Lebbon</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0981297897" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Love-Songs-Cynical-Robert-Shearman/dp/1844354601?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Robert Shearman</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1844354601" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Monstrous-Affections-David-Nickle/dp/0981297838?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">David Nickle </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0981297838" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Objects-Worship-Claude-Lalumiere/dp/098129782X?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Claude Lalumiere </a>-- takes that next step and shows that the genre is about more than just a shudder; it is the after-shudder, the moment of truth that occurs when the boundaries of civilization and flesh break down, when you look at the figure in fiction and say, "That is me -- one day that will be me. I am mortal. I will die. Now what?"Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-33120821077410764562010-07-12T03:29:00.000-07:002010-07-12T03:29:42.118-07:00So You'd Like to Get More Out of Amazon...<div class="post-header"> </div>I read a ton of books on marketing, PR and how to promote authors. Sometimes I like to share the tips that I find. Here's one that I learned about through <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Promoter%253a-Publisher-Won%2527t-Frugally-ebook/dp/B0011EK7PC?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What your Publisher Won't</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0011EK7PC" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> by Carolyn Howard-Johnson.<br />
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Everyone loves to hate Amazon, but the truth is that it offers some amazing opportunities for those willing to put in some time and effort. Since it's very easy to include links back to your author site, and to direct sales pages for your park, Amazon can be invaluable for assisting in your promotion.<br />
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One particular method I'd like to showcase is "So You'd Like to...", a system where you can key in articles on subjects and list up to fifty related books. This is a great place to recycle old articles that you still own the rights to. But, obviously, tailor your article to the angle you want to promote: don't just straight copy and paste. These articles, like everything on the web, are a way to introduce yourself to your fans. You want them to see, if not your best work, then at least something you don't mind putting your name to.<br />
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Here is the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=14279691">description </a>of the program from Amazon.com: <br />
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<blockquote><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/create">So You'd Like to . . . guides</a> are a way for you to help other customers find all the items and information they might need for something they are interested in. Maybe there is an indispensable set of reference materials that you'd recommend to a new college freshman wishing to study literature. Maybe there are several items you think are necessary for the perfect barbecue. As you create your guide, keep in mind that you needn't have purchased these items at Amazon.com. Each So You'd Like to . . . guide can cover all sorts of topics, and can be as specific or as general as you'd like.<br />
You can include any item from the Amazon.com store that has a 10-digit Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) or 13-digit International Standard Book Number (ISBN). An ASIN or ISBN is a unique number used to identify each item in the Amazon.com store. These unique item numbers are displayed on the product information page for each item. </blockquote><br />
Here are some handy suggestions for possible articles you could write!<br />
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<ul><li>So you'd like to scare your friends silly...</li>
</ul><ul><li>So you'd like to publish your first short story...</li>
<li>So you'd like to promote yourself as an author...</li>
<li>So you'd like to give good readings...</li>
<li>So you'd like to learn how to research for a novel...</li>
<li>So you'd like to learn how to edit a novel...</li>
<li>So you'd like to know how to put together your first collection...</li>
<li>So you'd like to know how to write and hold down a day job...</li>
<li>So you'd like to know how to write and ditch your day job...</li>
</ul>Remember, since you can share up to fifty books, spread the love around! Offer to include your friends in your post in return for them listing you in their articles. It's a great way to build a network of links that point back towards your book and to build up a community of supporters.Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-85373327601631557482010-06-23T15:08:00.000-07:002010-06-23T15:08:17.602-07:00This Sun of YorkMy studies bring me to interesting places from time to time. For the next four days, I'm in the city of York -- ostensibly to do research, but, upon examination of my enormous bed and beautiful bathtub, perhaps just to get in some proper relaxation.<br />
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Research-wise, I'm in York for two primary reasons. The first is a fourteenth-century hermit by the name of Richard Rolle, who used to wander the countryside around these parts acting as a spiritual guide and adviser for noblewomen and for anchoresses (women who locked themselves in tiny cells to become closer to God). He had a series of mystical religious experiences, and basically wrote a bunch of self-help books to teach his friends to do the same. I'm tracking down some of these books to see what they look like, how they circulated, and to get a sense of the way that his texts helped to build certain kinds of religious or literary circles of readers.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaBHC-IDqT4noZziUIFRakXRQj8T7IisG1iEpYAGIBWEaO9JNu_GqgdOFA73l-OY_p2Kk4S_St0Q5Cc0rNJIiyOtXyRnciqNeties5SnBUb4lH9LTA89I4sIcBFeD-uWwsexiMRyerEks/s1600/prickewindow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaBHC-IDqT4noZziUIFRakXRQj8T7IisG1iEpYAGIBWEaO9JNu_GqgdOFA73l-OY_p2Kk4S_St0Q5Cc0rNJIiyOtXyRnciqNeties5SnBUb4lH9LTA89I4sIcBFeD-uWwsexiMRyerEks/s200/prickewindow.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The second reason I'm here is for the Pricke of Conscience stained glass windows at All Saints, North Street. Middle English texts very seldom show up in stained glass, but here we have one about the end of the world. The Pricke of Conscience is a very fire-and-brimstone poem about sin and damnation, designed in order to prick people's conscience, to remind them of what's really at stake. The fact that it has been put into stained glass fascinates me because it's so rare. Who did it? And why? Where did they get their text from? So that's what I'm here to figure out.<br />
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I went into the church early this morning. I've seen a lot of churches in my time -- my mom loves English cathedrals and thinks I should visit them all for my own personal edification. This was a quiet one, next to what appeared to be a boxing club. It was out of the way, tucked off the Tanner's Street (which really would have been one of the smelliest streets in the fourteenth century since tanning involves the treatment of animal carcases with a variety of chemicals). I got inside, though, and it felt very different from the others I've visited. It was practically deserted. There was one man sitting in a pew, praying. As I wandered around, he began to weep, saying how much he missed his wife. It was such an intensely personal moment that I had no idea how to react. And then he left. I was completely alone in the church. But something about that man had shaken me up a little. I don't think you're supposed to witness those kinds of prayers. It gave the place a kind of power that most churches I visit get stripped of due to the influx of tourists. He wasn't there to snap pictures or to do research. He was there to pray. And no matter what I might believe about God, or religion, or faith (which is somewhat nebulously determined), I admit that for those moments it felt like a sacred space and I felt like an intruder.<br />
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Sometimes, it's easy to forget that the history I study -- the ideas, the people, the places, the texts -- are still in many ways real. It's both sobering and refreshing.Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-23080723727472350012010-06-22T03:28:00.000-07:002010-06-22T03:28:04.611-07:00My Very First Domain NameAfter building half a dozen websites now, I decided it was time to build my own. So, here it is! Some bits of poetry, a short story, a collection of narcissistic paragraphs about who I am.<br />
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Enjoy!Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-30472378493735233222010-06-01T01:07:00.000-07:002010-06-01T01:07:19.704-07:00Thief of CZP BooksHey guys,<br />
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We're doing a big contest over at CZP right now where if you buy Tim Lebbon's /The Thief of Broken Toys/ then you can win a subscription for our next year's line up! The thing is, it has to be today -- June 1st! I really do encourage you to check out this novella (which has the heart of a novel). It makes a great, if slightly chilling, Father's Day read.<br />
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"When a father loses his son and his wife leaves him, he cannot tear himself away from the small fishing village where the boy's memories reside. They're all he has left.<br />
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Thinking that his life is all but over, he takes to wandering the cliffs, carrying broken things that he always promised his son he would fix, but never did. They're a sign of his failure, and they keep little Toby close.<br />
And then he meets the thief of broken toys, and everything begins to change"<br />
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I copy-edited the book, and it's a really moving tale: beautiful language, a crisp and melancholy setting, and a little bit of magic thrown in to boot. <br />
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Here's the link of reviews and descriptions: <a href="http://chizine.com/chizinepub/books/thief-of-broken-toys.php">http://chizine.com/chizinepub/books/thief-of-broken-toys.php</a><br />
Here's the link for the contest itself: <a href="http://chizine.com/chizinepub/contests/thief-czp-books.php">http://chizine.com/chizinepub/contests/thief-czp-books.php</a>Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-51624513437027880642010-05-14T10:11:00.000-07:002010-05-14T10:11:57.126-07:00More Oxford Pictures!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOHLcqXYR8bmOhkRXmHKItOXvDHBBzFMPZeHuIhTFTFmx29xxAofHzeupNYHHqikXKVyqrr3MGppy8iXVSFvEXoBiuJ_2l_g-GldAP86DISOYeMcLUJAydpg1Kmqir4BVC5SuUWphms4A/s1600/Oxford2+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOHLcqXYR8bmOhkRXmHKItOXvDHBBzFMPZeHuIhTFTFmx29xxAofHzeupNYHHqikXKVyqrr3MGppy8iXVSFvEXoBiuJ_2l_g-GldAP86DISOYeMcLUJAydpg1Kmqir4BVC5SuUWphms4A/s320/Oxford2+003.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzeeY1d17UFcf552BsqEXdgveRfnBP25rs9xNvf2AXZutZ6oRgLbAXsoBsTQ2PMOeVsXIHO4wnbo_T8NGq0dP2Hq__6I_mSiYYQj1VBSo2zt61U7jXp1hJW-OSn0MTGPzd5JY8-1FXvJ4/s1600/Oxford2+057.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzeeY1d17UFcf552BsqEXdgveRfnBP25rs9xNvf2AXZutZ6oRgLbAXsoBsTQ2PMOeVsXIHO4wnbo_T8NGq0dP2Hq__6I_mSiYYQj1VBSo2zt61U7jXp1hJW-OSn0MTGPzd5JY8-1FXvJ4/s320/Oxford2+057.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_53MSKd-tqB6T064kd5cdydujnnA7ACMd9n5EMJ0r-NsO3RMExJBAzLXst2tHu1KNFt3ZWNNB8UTy54Bidu0OB9QRFDM_rDh4x9bJFYgVY_FXmwpkq6bZggEA7IiI6_cn39sO4ao9nW0/s1600/Oxford2+005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_53MSKd-tqB6T064kd5cdydujnnA7ACMd9n5EMJ0r-NsO3RMExJBAzLXst2tHu1KNFt3ZWNNB8UTy54Bidu0OB9QRFDM_rDh4x9bJFYgVY_FXmwpkq6bZggEA7IiI6_cn39sO4ao9nW0/s320/Oxford2+005.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcNeHND_8jKxvPOaqsWPAyjI7EOH3XKxOg7kmoFa0imIh2q2XAAExs-EeW9MzJqXIeJxN8xrLErYrHk0ujf4MTQbzUTanPsw84gpT5tksB1uGFb6NJ-w7tChNKrIInGAbYAt3hMekhhZM/s1600/Oxford2+018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcNeHND_8jKxvPOaqsWPAyjI7EOH3XKxOg7kmoFa0imIh2q2XAAExs-EeW9MzJqXIeJxN8xrLErYrHk0ujf4MTQbzUTanPsw84gpT5tksB1uGFb6NJ-w7tChNKrIInGAbYAt3hMekhhZM/s320/Oxford2+018.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1APtV8S3J-bMXg7Yb4USF8qISW4j_C2yVmiF0QNjeupRp7-90xz89nnD8BlOkREsOOF8_rwWXOCL9Ihu4mULaIq07FWlO6Xgs5abaGs0hJAKbAqjNrr4T7RFufANoa8bydb1EE_HTTo/s1600/Oxford2+022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1APtV8S3J-bMXg7Yb4USF8qISW4j_C2yVmiF0QNjeupRp7-90xz89nnD8BlOkREsOOF8_rwWXOCL9Ihu4mULaIq07FWlO6Xgs5abaGs0hJAKbAqjNrr4T7RFufANoa8bydb1EE_HTTo/s320/Oxford2+022.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzwzGPXLeGJ8rYqXQJEqGQTJHSufdTr4p3iAdA74vL8J9yyw20eEMwj6FMXABTzm3o5e0114M_562SrGrSXmtrtC2TumH9snYf8tCTMrCVt1m12dGKtG-9HGz9eKwhnpRBKp1WGc0EWkk/s1600/Oxford2+025.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzwzGPXLeGJ8rYqXQJEqGQTJHSufdTr4p3iAdA74vL8J9yyw20eEMwj6FMXABTzm3o5e0114M_562SrGrSXmtrtC2TumH9snYf8tCTMrCVt1m12dGKtG-9HGz9eKwhnpRBKp1WGc0EWkk/s320/Oxford2+025.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOlJ3dPutKM2y21FT777gzXNikV79Fp3U0HfYPoj-NxsgbWfxVKIIexSuXAOf_U-Wz8Kx6sHG_TbeiQ4VfugIaVJtCx9jqL9PP7EoKZsWAYLTX3H8b3NiY49gYCPrq1HQF2BhwlOvFlUg/s1600/Oxford2+032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOlJ3dPutKM2y21FT777gzXNikV79Fp3U0HfYPoj-NxsgbWfxVKIIexSuXAOf_U-Wz8Kx6sHG_TbeiQ4VfugIaVJtCx9jqL9PP7EoKZsWAYLTX3H8b3NiY49gYCPrq1HQF2BhwlOvFlUg/s320/Oxford2+032.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyWtFeQtSVMqEXGnGNbMAiw7w-daTek0d1ukvLsQJnKq7DxdyKTd0uZp4HLvHRMdhNdSjwkwLJwY0_yV7OMGkJS1u7gjcDiM-T2jZf_37qpBhE1zzRK7i_gusO_A2F6duVE_BYbmOAncY/s1600/Oxford2+042.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyWtFeQtSVMqEXGnGNbMAiw7w-daTek0d1ukvLsQJnKq7DxdyKTd0uZp4HLvHRMdhNdSjwkwLJwY0_yV7OMGkJS1u7gjcDiM-T2jZf_37qpBhE1zzRK7i_gusO_A2F6duVE_BYbmOAncY/s320/Oxford2+042.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXV2BHr_LNF2E-mbopd9_2go3gdWN6kYhHL-s712BmwikuMaNOzlJ19Ibrb2pOLg_m0VhFzEZSg_ifJflHPAectPqGVKkSW2puGrkiuyQmgOCrD_HKrusKMsYWVPy7L62w2adReR0PJGg/s1600/Oxford2+026.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXV2BHr_LNF2E-mbopd9_2go3gdWN6kYhHL-s712BmwikuMaNOzlJ19Ibrb2pOLg_m0VhFzEZSg_ifJflHPAectPqGVKkSW2puGrkiuyQmgOCrD_HKrusKMsYWVPy7L62w2adReR0PJGg/s320/Oxford2+026.jpg" /></a></div><span id="goog_848300935"></span><span id="goog_848300936"></span>Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-92071042330996963402010-05-10T04:24:00.000-07:002010-05-10T04:28:14.354-07:00Book ProductionIt's been a couple of days since I posted here, and the reason for this is, ultimately, that the process of staring at books (and my computer) all day means that once I have free time, the last thing I want to do is spend it staring at the monitor again!<br />
<br />
But as I've been working on this stuff, I've also been doing some work for <a href="http://chizine.com/chizinepub/">Chizine</a> -- copy-editing for bob Boyczuk's new book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nexus-Ascension-Robert-Boyczuk/dp/0981374689?ie=UTF8&tag=speculation06-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Nexus Ascension</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=speculation06-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0981374689" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />. And I've been working on a <a href="http://chiseries.blogspot.com/">SpecFic blog</a> (which is worth checking out...I made all the images myself!). The ultimate connection I've been thinking about is that start go-to trope for medievalists trying to explain their relevance: how medieval book production is kind of like the Internet.<br />
<br />
The model goes something like this. In the fourteenth century, you have people just beginning to write in English (previously they had been writing in Latin and French). Paper-making, the printing press are about a hundred years off. but before then you start having new ways of producing books--that is, they've moved out of the monasteries and are being icnreasingly picked up by the clerks and scriveners who are part of the court bureaucracy. So you see more "commercial" books being produced around London, York, the West Midlands (though that's still more monastically centred).<br />
<br />
Anyway, books are still really expensive so you buy one book and everyone uses it.<br />
<br />
This is kind of like the Internet in that you have a period of intense linguistic change tied to a new medium of communication. We have the Internet linked with mobile phones and texting. Obviously, technology is shaping linguistic change (just look at LEET speak or the whole codes developing around texting and chatting). We see increased code-switching going on outside of those media as the language gets picked up. I just recently saw a subway poster that had a bunch of reference like "omg" and "lol" in order to try to make the content seem fresh and relevant. It failed, though, because they offered little footnotes to translate. It's the same kind of process as a new set of linguistic codes are being implemented. But no one would want to read a novel in text-speak or LEET-speak, right? Right?<br />
<br />
That's the way it was in the fourteenth century. English was easier so everyone used it. Slowly it started getting itnegrated into books...mostly things like carols and songs because they were short, catchy, and a kind of easily shared and disseminated textual unit. <br />
<br />
But as I start investigating how the web really works, how search engines rank pages, how text gets copied (credited or not), and re-disseminated, you start realizing that there are similar kinds of cultural networks playing out. Everyone wants content. You can tell content that is "hot" (culturally relevant) because it gets cut up and re-disseminated. Look at the Prick of conscience (early fourteenth century, massive compendia with a very fire-and-brimstone flavour). We think it's crap, but they loved it! Bits of it get re-used, re-cycled into other texts or into non-textual units like stained glass windows. Something like Pearl and Gawain and the Green Knight, only surviving in one manuscript, don't get the same kind of cultural relevance. The quality of the content has nothing to do with it. Points go to the writer with the best network set up and who can produce the most easily digestible, recyclable "sound byte" pieces. Something like a lyric has a huge potential for transference because it is short, snappy, easy to read and easy to integrate. Something like Pearl is dense, difficult to digest, and harder to re-use.<br />
<br />
Makes me think that we need to start re-evaluating our sense of cultural saturation and how literature plays into it. I think we'd find there's a lot missing from the fourteenth century.<br />
<br />
Now, I just need to write a dissertation about it...Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-85874212741867129302010-05-04T12:57:00.000-07:002010-05-04T14:12:11.846-07:00Settling InIt's been a couple of days now since my last post--most of these have been spent wandering around Oxford, finding bedding, finding more bedding, finding even more bedding (it's really cold!) and meeting up with folk.<br /><br />Rather than tell you everything that happened, I will simply post some pictures. Pretend you're here with me!<br /><br />Oh, right, except for lunch with Simon. That was kind of spectacular because I actually get to eat in the Senior Fellow's dining room at Magdalen College. In the hallway was your standard buffet table (much like Massey) but the dining room itself was sumptuous--exactly like what you expect when you read a Harry Potter novel. There was a little turn-table in the centre that held bottles of flat and fizzy water. And we had a separate room for tea and coffee. I bet there was port around. My Massey senses were tingling. But I did not find any. My housemates have invited me for a formal dinner at University College on Friday...here we go...!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP8BQRwwmkPBaftKOCWhahmXzMkQMw81OndBwHzEFpcAbo6CPyFbnLGUJTRo6qIZ8qqRvYl9L-YAazEcQ7Evi8i_5VG-d4z5rEJQcWrEWoKv3T3yUDlkQFsfzxHm50XT2oeMh3wXYyc00/s1600/Disney+and+Oxford+460.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP8BQRwwmkPBaftKOCWhahmXzMkQMw81OndBwHzEFpcAbo6CPyFbnLGUJTRo6qIZ8qqRvYl9L-YAazEcQ7Evi8i_5VG-d4z5rEJQcWrEWoKv3T3yUDlkQFsfzxHm50XT2oeMh3wXYyc00/s320/Disney+and+Oxford+460.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467507812704221042" border="0" /></a><br />One of my favourite shots of Magdalen College. Just can't get enough popes, I tell ya...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGvW-xMz2xFf7sc-OtUCtG7dHGsS9J6cA4QA22ItNswPDSPIoC8CJrr_wiaEVTpiqBjoBlA6jJ3FEkjvHbDD8wsrdMdz7gT_gu63P5qP-TIZaQxQGdVXicER53xaeYYdqVHdwNtEi1HJI/s1600/Disney+and+Oxford+464.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGvW-xMz2xFf7sc-OtUCtG7dHGsS9J6cA4QA22ItNswPDSPIoC8CJrr_wiaEVTpiqBjoBlA6jJ3FEkjvHbDD8wsrdMdz7gT_gu63P5qP-TIZaQxQGdVXicER53xaeYYdqVHdwNtEi1HJI/s320/Disney+and+Oxford+464.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467509952574110674" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Magdalen College again, I think, but a beautiful shot of the trees starting to come to life. Apparently, it's spring here. You wouldn't think so from the temperature of my room.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx9UwLZPB_QiIpnm5E9afambLfi6UGIRXYF9zGPOkXUQpw1qV_jzWGX0UO4s6jOYcNJq7-M7zdRnZxjGDDE6byUAZ0VwvsTpy0FJ23oo5Hjkl80uwg8gwk60ptPo-bCVVH2pD2cuLhfGI/s1600/Disney+and+Oxford+470.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx9UwLZPB_QiIpnm5E9afambLfi6UGIRXYF9zGPOkXUQpw1qV_jzWGX0UO4s6jOYcNJq7-M7zdRnZxjGDDE6byUAZ0VwvsTpy0FJ23oo5Hjkl80uwg8gwk60ptPo-bCVVH2pD2cuLhfGI/s320/Disney+and+Oxford+470.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467520635669236338" border="0" /></a><br />A shot of statues looking down from on high. Oxford is a place where you always feel like you're being watched.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl8VNYnri-SEappc24t062CA0MTOksUMWYzlBX8Tn3B8Ijpdr3KbiGC3d1Etxxwe7hkpuaEdPtj9GZI-uoiFyx_It5XDQZk3KJVakXMVZdgdUtMQBmWJ0afyxw3a0JalQUoZR-gkXCavc/s1600/Disney+and+Oxford+493.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl8VNYnri-SEappc24t062CA0MTOksUMWYzlBX8Tn3B8Ijpdr3KbiGC3d1Etxxwe7hkpuaEdPtj9GZI-uoiFyx_It5XDQZk3KJVakXMVZdgdUtMQBmWJ0afyxw3a0JalQUoZR-gkXCavc/s320/Disney+and+Oxford+493.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467523358669727874" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />I love this sign: "Members of the public are welcome to walk in the Fellows' Garden, but they are advised that there is no way out at the other end." You can come in, but you can't ever leave...and the picking of flowers is forbidden. Damnit!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy1Pf1thiMPVmWzBKkcF2hhHDgt4_2x8Q_XZfsOwSnR4hjTKo6LC_sblWvZu0dc8Mx3LE_oWNSnFIcMwoow8BnZsbYGt3R1nLU2DYDfEMK3diebzRchhSvMZcTqGXgy12Qv81Z3BFgMZU/s1600/Disney+and+Oxford+476.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy1Pf1thiMPVmWzBKkcF2hhHDgt4_2x8Q_XZfsOwSnR4hjTKo6LC_sblWvZu0dc8Mx3LE_oWNSnFIcMwoow8BnZsbYGt3R1nLU2DYDfEMK3diebzRchhSvMZcTqGXgy12Qv81Z3BFgMZU/s320/Disney+and+Oxford+476.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467521142029793250" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="on" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Add_Image" title="Add Image" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="addImage();" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);;ButtonMouseDown(this);"><img src="http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif" alt="Add Image" class="gl_photo" border="0" />And now we actually see some shots of the</span></span><span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="on" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Add_Image" title="Add Image" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="addImage();" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);;ButtonMouseDown(this);"> city proper. You can make out the Radcliffe Camera (the large roundish building) and what I think may be the Old Bodleian beyond it. This was taken on Catte Street where the medieval scribes used to work. Cool, huh?</span></span><span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="on" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Add_Image" title="Add Image" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="addImage();" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);;ButtonMouseDown(this);"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqFZysSwA7G7lo9R41QXKUmRV-_tQVTXHjLlkZuulk5nEk4oaOQvQRB7I4CKA_rxCCbFl9U_52Mxp-c5MZWF4Cs4uT_WkRiPtKPFZmC6-Rd3Qd6ttk90Z1WYggpgxzKS4er5sfeBgxPdM/s1600/Disney+and+Oxford+481.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqFZysSwA7G7lo9R41QXKUmRV-_tQVTXHjLlkZuulk5nEk4oaOQvQRB7I4CKA_rxCCbFl9U_52Mxp-c5MZWF4Cs4uT_WkRiPtKPFZmC6-Rd3Qd6ttk90Z1WYggpgxzKS4er5sfeBgxPdM/s320/Disney+and+Oxford+481.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467522510333336210" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="on" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Add_Image" title="Add Image" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="addImage();" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);;ButtonMouseDown(this);">I feel like I should know which college this is, but </span></span><span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="on" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Add_Image" title="Add Image" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="addImage();" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);;ButtonMouseDown(this);">sadly I don't. Look at those stormclouds</span></span><span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="on" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Add_Image" title="Add Image" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="addImage();" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);;ButtonMouseDown(this);"> though, huh? It's like zero to fifty over here--it can be bright blue and then cloud over at a moment's notice. Now, having been soaked through on two occasions, I will carry my tiny child's umbrella (thanks Laura!) at all times.<br /></span></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtJCpdbH9WDuyLHAvCqYFkPwqCNt4Seceg559YXXqCtFbApNJujbkIPI2NMIwhJS69CzL9VbN4uNWYBVmhRTimArG0n30QAbiAPXxELdezBqXZrJPEqO8C4Z9OvSSkrCRsxWhEgGqhzZQ/s1600/Disney+and+Oxford+514.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtJCpdbH9WDuyLHAvCqYFkPwqCNt4Seceg559YXXqCtFbApNJujbkIPI2NMIwhJS69CzL9VbN4uNWYBVmhRTimArG0n30QAbiAPXxELdezBqXZrJPEqO8C4Z9OvSSkrCRsxWhEgGqhzZQ/s320/Disney+and+Oxford+514.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467524211131550386" border="0" /></a><br />Last but not least, the mysterious Ben Fortescue poses next to a picture of his archnemesis, after explaining to me how he once almost assaulted Bill Clinton on his bicycle (Ben's bicycle, not Bill's).Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-68365318381134840602010-05-02T02:44:00.000-07:002010-05-02T02:56:14.996-07:00Life with the BritsI had never received any pictures of the place I was going to live in Oxford. I know, I know. Very stupid. But after spending several weeks hearing nothing back but Nigerian scam messages, I had been delighted to get an e-mail from someone on the Rhodes Scholar list (via Massey): a room in a student house with four other graduate students for only £240 a month! I figured, even if it was horrible, with the money I'd saved I could just go to a B&B intermittantly. I googled the place the night before I left to take a look around at the neighbourhood: it seemed quaint, cozy and very English. Everything here looks much more attractive than the buildings back home. (If you want to google it yourself, go to 13 Minster Road, Cowley, England and take a look at the street view.) I'll put pictures up anon, but I haven't taken the time to figure out my camera.<br /><br />After hauling my luggage down the street, I was thrilled to discover I was not living in the tiny, decrepid bungalo down the road, but a reasonably sized place. I mean, it looks a bit like a student house. There's a TV on the porch and apparently a two-meter hole in the grass where they had a firepit that went wrong. But still it's no crack den. I was greeted at the door by Eoin (pronounced Owen) who was hungover from May Daying the night before. The tradition here, apparently, is that on the first of May the Magdalen College (pronounced Maudlin) choir will sing at 6:00 am from the roof of the college. So like a number of others, he'd been out under the premise that if he was still drinking by 6 he'd listen to it. He was. He did. I think he may have suffered for it.<br /><br />Anyway, Eoin showed me the ropes, got me Internet, offered me a cup of tea. Afterward, I hit the grocery store and bought some blankets and things to get my bed organized. It's freezing in here! Note to self: get more blankets. And a pillow. My plan of stuffing clothes into a pillow case was reasonably unsuccessful.<br /><br />In the evening Eoin took me to have curry at his friends' place down the road. Was lots of fun and good to meet some folk around here. I drank about a bottle of wine. I forgot what the drinking was like over here. Though, look ma, no hangover! Maybe it's the weather.<br /><br />So that's where we are right now. I've got two days to get myself oriented so I can hit the library on Tuesday with a list of manuscripts and a sense of purpose. Wish me luck!Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-21433211019253337612010-05-01T03:20:00.000-07:002010-05-01T03:28:27.235-07:00Unexpected DiscoveriesI've now been in London for about 24 hours and it was only in the last fifteen minutes that it registered that this is a foreign country--this is not (yet) home. Perhaps this is because I've been here enough that the superficial differences are starting to seem familiar00the colour of the apartments (dark brown brick with white windows and frames), the double-decker buses, the taxis, the bright green and yellow vests of police and generally official-looking people.<br /><br />But after dragging around two suitcases for about 45 minutes, up stairs, through crowds, stacked or side by side, and absolutely exhausting my pitiful arm strength (my trainer would be proud I survived!), I staggered on to the Oxford Tube and there it was. I was staring out, over a bridge, at the purple of lilacs and some kind of tree with pink flowers. I was too exhausted to do much but let me head loll against the window. We turn, and suddenly there's a monument of four raging horses, straining against the yoke that binds them to a chariot. Atop stands an angel holding a crown, unperturbed by the chaos that threatens to drag him forward. If he were not made of bronze, that is. A moment later, we turn again and there is a tiny park which the road winds around: inside, a huge, knobbly tree sheltering the statue of a man lost in thought. It's gone after only a moment, but those two images are enough to make this place infinitely strange. I remember that this England is a kind of fairy tale place, a Narnia. Not always, but sometimes.<br /><br />And so I stare out the window, and I watch the city alternately race or drift by me: statues, flowers, people in tights, chavs, rockers, businessmen, taxis, tourists, libraries, streetlights. And now I feel excited. This is the good part.Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-66155097403904269642010-04-30T05:28:00.000-07:002010-04-30T05:39:36.769-07:00ArrivalsThere's something particular about the smell of London that I always remember--a strange mix of oil and bacon. Maybe that's just King's Cross Station where I used to grab these awesome bacon sandwiches some mornings on my way to the British Library.<br /><br />I got in safely after a very pleasant trip via Air India. The service was great, the food was slightly better than normal, and the plane was absolutely deserted so I got to stretch out and sleep <span style="font-weight: bold;">properly</span> across three seats. It means I'm reasonably well rested right now, if still a little jetlagged. Still, it's great to be in the UK.<br /><br />I'm sitting in the lobby of the British Library, since the hostel I'm staying at tonight evidently charges for wireless (lie, Laura, lies!). But that's okay because the British Library is one of my favourite libraries in the world. Despite not looking at all like a medieval monastery or Harry Potter classroom. Last year, there was a Darwin exhibit on and so the main area was flooded with the sound of intermittent birdsong. I haven't yet checked out the exhibits, but they always have a couple of the really cool English manuscripts on display down below. Typically, there's the Pearl manuscript, which is a really adorable little manuscript with childlike drawings and some of the most beautiful Middle English poetry around. The famous alliterative Gawain and the Green Knight is in there. That manuscript and the Beowulf manuscript tend to trade places, so hopefully it will be Beowulf this time since I haven't seen that one.<br /><br />Anyway, off to do things British!Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-16232176725667918712010-04-30T05:25:00.001-07:002010-04-30T05:25:27.907-07:00DeparturesThere’s been so much hustle and bustle getting the apartment ready that I haven’t actually had much time to think about going. But the wonderful thing about passing through the security gates is that it kind of makes it all real. Brett (of CZP fame!) saw me off to the airport as did Laura who actually stayed behind to see me through security. Much to my surprise, it all went rather smoothly.<br /><br />Unlike the last of the apartment clean-up. The problem with living in the fancy end of town, apparently, is that they have much higher expectations of you. After Laura and Peter spent half a day cleaning the apartment (after the pre-moving, mid-moving, and post-moving clean), we still had to spent two hours this morning on our hands and knees with burning chemicals in order to avoid a $300 charge. Still. After I threatened to cry at our super, he let us off the hook so that I could get some relaxation in before the crazy. Laura and I went rock-climbing. We discovered both of our forearms are seriously out of shape after our two-month hiatus. But at least the physical exercise worked to get rid of traveling stress and panic. I feel quite relaxed right now. And I even avoided the $12 beers.<br /><br />But things have actually been so crazy I haven’t had a chance to write anything about what I’m actually doing here. Back in February, I received a big travel grant to do research at the Bodleian Library in Oxford under the supervision of the amazing (and terribly funny) Simon Horobin. My goal is to study over a hundred manuscripts to try to figure out what medieval book production had to do with making a text literary. I find this question particularly fascinating now that I’ve started working for CZP where I get to see the difference between books made well and books made badly. I’ll explain more about this later. For now, suffice it to say, readers can tell an awful lot of things about a book by the way it is made. We all judge books by their covers. And by the colour and feel of their pages. And by the quality of the type-setting. And by the resolution of the images. And the fame of the pull-quoters. In fact, typically, the last thing we judge a book on is what’s inside it...because that’s the big unknown, right? Unless you’ve read the book before, all you’ve got is the advertizing and the packaging. So basically I’m looking at the way medieval scribes put together books, the materials they used, the kinds of decoration, the layout in order to get a sense of what they thought about the literature inside—most of which was written in English and therefore only marginally considered to be literature.<br /><br />So that’s me. Lots of manuscripts. Lots of squinting. Likely, lots of drinking.<br /><br />After many close calls with Nigerian scam artists, I managed to find accommodations with a bunch of Rhodes scholars in Oxford. I’m actually pretty excited about that because it sounds like there’s a kind of “house” culture, if you know what I mean, rather than just a collection of individuals living together. Having been through a number of “house” cultures really rapidly, I figured this could actually be kind of fun.<br /><br />Anyway, I think it’s about time for me to drink my water, grab my bags, and get on the plane. Oxford, here I come!Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-2425454474237047892010-04-29T05:52:00.000-07:002010-04-29T06:25:27.108-07:00Last Minute DelaysToday's the big day. I still have a little over twelve hours, since I've got a very late flight out and that means a full day here. Laura and I still have to grab the last of our stuff from the old apartment (sniff!), get it inspected, and then try to go rock climbing. I've been itching to go climbing for...well...months at this point, but all my climbing buddies went out on injuries.<br /><br />I tried to do my web check-in with AirIndia but for some reason that didn't quite work out. So keep your fingers crossed that there's a plane for me, and on that plane is a seat for me, and in twelve hours, give or take, in that seat will be a sleepy Helen.<br /><br />I would write more, but, alas, the day begins...Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6938309466637151689.post-44651062768133081382010-04-28T10:27:00.000-07:002010-04-28T13:47:48.789-07:00Enter the NomadTwo days to go before my big trip: furniture is moved, apartment is being drywalled, volcano appears to be suitably dormant. It's a start anyway.<br /><br />Four months, six chapters, twelve libraries, and over one hundred fifty manuscripts to go. Will she make it? Will she survive? Right now, I'd say the odds are against her...Speculationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14448288868656670168noreply@blogger.com