Donald and I will be at Arisia this weekend, telling everyone about the new Mysterion webzine (which is currently open to submissions–6 cents a word, y’all!). We’ll also be reading from our own fiction, and I’m on 4 panels.
Saturday, 11:30 pm, Hale (3W): Humorous Horror Reading
Kristin’s schedule
Friday, 5:30 pm, Faneuil (3W): Food and Fandom
Sunday, 11:30 am, Adams (3W): Writing Faith Into Your Fiction
Sunday, 7:00 pm, Hale (3W): Relationship Basics
Sunday, 10:00 pm, Hale (3W): Historical Fantasy and Alternate History Reading (this is a group reading–I’ll be reading “The Vanished Legions” from the forthcoming Tales of Ruma anthology)
Monday, 11:30 am, Douglas (3W): Does Science Fiction Hate Science?
Mysterion Party
Room 454: I just spent the day baking 4 different kinds of cookies, including a triple chocolate variety that’s always quite popular. There will also be a fine selection of local New England cheeses, grapes, a variety of chocolate bars and things covered in chocolate, and some fun non-alcoholic beverages (but I’m not doing mixed drinks this year, because that was just too much work).
Oh, and … I guess we’ll be talking about the webzine? Showing off the anthology? Sorry, I assumed you were mostly interested in the menu.
8 pm until around 1 am (or whenever we get tired and kick everyone out).
Well, posts here have been scarce this year. Apparently editing and publishing an anthology is a lot of work. Who knew?
I’m very excited to announce, however, that the anthology Donald and I have spent much of the last year working on is now available from Amazon and other fine retailers (specifically, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo). (Amazon has both the paperback and eBook; the others only have the eBook right now, although Barnes & Noble should eventually have the paperback as well.)
Our hope is that the book will be of interest not only to Christians, but to anyone with an interest in fiction exploring spiritual and religious themes. It isn’t “Christian fiction” in the traditional sense. We didn’t insist on “clean” content or that the stories had to uphold Christian beliefs and values. We did want fiction that felt authentic to our own experience of the faith, but we didn’t feel that every story had to portray Christianity in an unambiguously positive way.
If you do read the anthology, please consider reviewing it at Amazon and/or other retailers (or Goodreads, or your own blog, or…). Even critical reviews (thoughtful ones, at least) can help other readers decide whether they would like the book.
We’re thrilled to finally get this out into the world for readers to engage with!
Donald and I decided that our marriage doesn’t have enough conflict and neither of us has enough distractions from writing fiction. In a perhaps-foolhardy attempt to solve both issues at once, we’re going to edit and independently publish an anthology together.
For those of you who might be less familiar with publishing lingo, an anthology is a book of short stories by different authors, often on one particular theme or topic. (A book of short stories by a single author is usually referred to as a collection.) We’ll be inviting authors (including you, if you’re an author!) to submit speculative fiction stories (science fiction, fantasy, or horror) that engage meaningfully with Christianity: Christian characters, themes, or cosmology. Stories we select will be published in an anthology called Mysterion: Rediscovering the Mysteries of the Christian Faith. You can read more about it at www.mysterionanthology.com, and you can even sign up for our newsletter (for authors, Submission Guidelines and Theme Guidelines provide more information about the kinds of stories we’re looking for)! We pay 6 cents per word for stories of up to 10,000 words.
We’re open to submissions from October 15th to December 25th, and the anthology will be published sometime in 2016 in both paperback (print-on-demand) and e-book formats. (If you’re not sure what print-on-demand means, the short answer is that you’ll be able to order it from Amazon and possibly other online booksellers, and we won’t have to find room for 1000 books in our small apartment.)
Why are we doing this? Well, we’re both Christians. And, while we enjoy reading fiction written from a wide variety of perspectives, we often wish that we encountered more stories dealing with Christian beliefs and life in a way that feels authentic to our own lived experience. I don’t necessarily mean pro-Christian here. There are things that bother me about my own religious tradition, things that I’m skeptical of or uncertain about. That’s part of my authentic lived experience of Christianity, too. What I mean is, portrayals of Christians and Christian beliefs are often too much on one side or the other. Either Christians are the good guys, standing up against obviously wrong and stupid antagonists, or Christians are the bad guys from whose wrongness and stupidity everyone else needs rescuing. Neither side resonates with me. I like stories where no one’s really the villain, where it isn’t clear who’s right or wrong. And when there are Christian characters, if I squint a little and look at them in the right kind of light, I should be able to see a resemblance to myself or my friends or family members. Even when the likeness makes me cringe. Perhaps especially then.
That’s my answer, at least. Donald may have a different one, if you ask him.
Are we a Christian publisher? We’ll probably never get onto the American Christian Fiction Writers Recognized Publisher List, even if we become successful enough (and publish novels). Apparently, Christian fiction has to be written from a Christian worldview and must not contain “profanity, graphic sex, gratuitous violence or other objectionable material, and must otherwise conform to generally accepted standards of the CBA [Christian Booksellers Association]”. We’re not necessarily looking for profanity, graphic sex, or gratuitous violence, but we’re also not publishing a book for readers who don’t want to encounter anything offensive or disturbing. We believe authors should use whatever words and situations they consider necessary and appropriate to tell a particular story. Besides, I’m not sure the Bible itself would meet these content guidelines. And, while we do want authentic portrayals of the Christian experience, and cosmology that fits into a Christian framework, we’re eager to consider stories from any author of any faith (or none).
So, if you’re a science fiction & fantasy reader and enjoy stories where faith and/or religion figure prominently, check out our website and subscribe to our newsletter! And if you’re a writer, send us a story (but only after October 15th).
We designed it because we wanted them for ourselves and couldn’t find ones we liked online. There was one, but it ruined the joke by explaining on the shirt that the traditional 2nd anniversary gift was cotton.
White t-shirts are shown, but you can get pretty much any color, any size, even a different style of t-shirt than the ones we used. You could even get our design on a t-shirt that isn’t 100% cotton. But that would be silly.
Hopefully if we sell a few t-shirts we’ll actually get some money, but I have to admit that I didn’t read the details of the agreement closely enough to ascertain whether any royalties will be paid in money, or Zazzle store credit. (No, I’m never that careless about signing contracts for my fiction!) Donald doesn’t think it really matters; he thinks we’re going to make so little money from this that we might as well use it to buy a t-shirt or mug. But I admit, I have grand dreams that we’re tapping into some hitherto unmet need for creative 2nd anniversary gifts. (My overactive imagination is very helpful in writing fantasy and science fiction.)
The traditional 3rd anniversary gift is leather. Hmm….
Donald and I will be attending the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto this weekend. This is like a science fiction convention, only for fantasy. It focuses on the writing and art of the genre, whereas many other conventions have a broader scope, including movies, gaming, costuming, and other aspects of the fantasy and science fiction world. Because of this narrower focus, it tends to have a higher concentration of writers and editors, so it’s a good place to meet and catch up with other people who write and publish fantasy fiction.
Donald and I will be co-panelists, discussing “The Real World in Fantastic Fiction” at noon on Saturday, along with Ian Drury, Geoff Hart, Christopher Kovacs, and Kenneth Schneyer. I’m not sure whether the people in charge of programming realized Donald and I were married when they decided to put us on the same panel. Seeing as how we don’t have the same last name. We haven’t decided whether to argue with each other, or gang up on the other panelists.
Here’s the description of the panel, from the program book:
Just because a story is set in a secondary world doesn’t mean its medical/legal/political/military systems cannot be grounded in some kind of reality. Inaccuracies can abound when authors try to incorporate procedures and systems that exist in the real world into their created worlds without paying proper attention to details. The panel examines why and how reality is all important, even in a fantastic world.
I think the description puts reality in fiction on a higher pedestal than I would, and that it’s possible to obsess a bit too much over details. On the other hand, even in an imagined world, most authors are positing that certain facts (how the human body responds to physical trauma, for instance) would not be different, and if things happen in your story that you’re not an expert on (someone gets hit in the head), it’s easy to get details wrong (they are immediately knocked unconscious, and recover 15-30 minutes later with no lingering effects), and it’s hard for someone who does know more than you about the subject (any medical professional, or anyone who’s been to a panel at a science fiction convention where a medical professional was speaking on this subject–I fall into the latter category) to continue to suspend disbelief sufficiently to enjoy your story.
Several of my friends are also scheduled to be on panels or do readings. Matthew Kressel is on “Faith and Fantasy” at 9 am on Friday, Rajan Khanna is on “They Call Me the Wanderer” at noon on Friday, Eugene Myers is on “Diversity and Difference in YA Fantasy” at 3 pm on Saturday, and Max Gladstone is doing a reading at 5:30 pm on Saturday. Matt and Raj both live in New York, so hopefully they’ll both be able to make it, but apparently airports in New York are still closed.
Unless you’re a quantum physicist, that is. After years of listening to fantasy writers who haven’t studied any quantum mechanics using it to justify everything from magic to visitable alternate universes, my husband Donald (who did his PhD in quantum computation) finally wrote a blog post explaining how it doesn’t really work that way.
Donald and I went to Boskone in February, over a month ago, and I’m so woefully behind on my blogging that I haven’t mentioned it yet.
Boskone is Boston’s other annual science fiction convention. Arisia is much bigger, and a lot more people show up in costume. Besides books, there are also movies, and gaming, and fan lifestyle panels, and panels to discuss TV shows. Boskone is pretty much just books and an art show (okay, there’s some gaming and filk, too).
Since I’m more interested in the books than in any other corner of the science fiction and fantasy universe, I’ve usually enjoyed the scheduled programming more at Boskone than at Arisia. This year was an unusual exception. Arisia is doing a better and better job of putting together a great literary program, and I found that there weren’t as many panels at Boskone this year that I was really excited about. Of course, panels during the day are only a small part of a science fiction convention. I usually go more for what I sometimes euphemistically refer to as “networking”, but is really just sitting around drinking with friends. (Although my theory is that effective networking probably should consist mostly of socializing with people in your chosen field with whom you have common interests and whom you like, unless you want to be a tiresome bore who never stops promoting their own work and can’t be bothered being nice to anyone who can’t help advance their career. But I digress.)
Boskone was from February 17th to 19th, the Friday through Sunday of President’s Day weekend. Things got underway at 5:00 pm on Friday, and mostly finished up by 4:00 pm on Sunday. Here’s a list of the panels I went to (Donald also went to most of them):
How to Read Aloud
If you’re a writer, sometimes you have the opportunity to read your work aloud at a convention. Donald and I both feel we need all the advice we can get on this. We became writers so we wouldn’t have to talk to people in order to communicate. I thought the panel had some useful bits of advice about focusing your voice in different parts of your head and chest in order to differentiate character voices, though I’m not sure if I could actually keep this up for an entire reading. I didn’t find the exercises where they made the audience members stand up and try using their voices in different ways to be all that helpful, but that might just be because I don’t like going along with what everyone else is doing in public. I do think those sorts of exercises are probably more useful when it’s just you and a voice coach working together, though, because you can’t even really hear what you sound like when everyone else in the room is trying to make the same noise at the same time.
How Much Steam Is There in Steampunk?
Neither Donald nor I is really all that into steampunk (vaguely Victorian era or themed fantasy and/or science fiction, for the uninitiated. Although Donald has written a short story (as yet, unpublished) that could be considered steampunk. But Margaret Ronald from my writers group was on this panel, and also Stephen Segal, whom I know from other cons, so I wanted to go and hear what they had to say. (Maggie has written a bunch of steampunkish short stories that I really like, despite saying I’m not a big steampunk fan.) It was an interesting panel, though I’m still not convinced that the recent Scorcese film Hugo counts as steampunk just because it has an automaton and a lot of gears.
How Not to Produce An E-Book
Like many authors, Donald and I have self-published reprints of our own stories in Kindle format. Also, given the direction in which book publishing seems to be headed, I at least wonder whether at some point in the near future the only viable option for publishing a book will be self-publishing. So we hoped we might learn some tips about the e-book side of things. Unfortunately, I found the panel too advanced and technical to be of much use to me, but I think that’s my fault, not the panelists’. There’s a reason I’m using a standard WordPress theme for my blog and website instead of desigining my own.
Misuse of Weapons in Movies and on TV
Donald wanted to go to this one more than I did, but it turned out to be pretty entertaining. Some people from the Higgins Armory presented this, with video clips from Dr. Who, Star Wars, and The Princess Bride, among others. The only problem was that the lights in the room needed to be turned down low in order to see the video clips properly, and every time the door of the room opened, the lights would go back up. If you’ve ever been to a panel at a science fiction convention, you’ll know that people don’t put a high value on punctuality, and are constantly walking in late. If it were me running the panel, I would have stationed someone outside the door and not allowed any of the latecomers into the room, once it became clear that they were ruining the presentation for everyone else. But maybe that’s why people don’t let me run things.
Discarded Images: Astronomical Ideas That Were Almost Correct
This was a solo talk by planetary scientist Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory, discussing earlier theories about the solar system and universe, what assumptions the scientists and philosophers who came up with them made, and why they were wrong. Very interesting and informative, and often humorous.
Importance of Book Covers
This was another panel that Donald and I thought might be useful for any self-publishing we might need to do, but it turned out to be more about showing the recent cover art of some famous fantasy and science fiction artists whom we could never afford to hire, and giving them a chance to discuss how various covers developed from initial concept to final image. I thought it was still pretty interesting, though.
How Not to Lose the Plot
Donald wasn’t as interested in this one, so I went by myself. I think plotting is one of my weaknesses as an author. I have a tendency to make things happen for reasons of plot convenience, sometimes having the characters ignore really obvious issues or problems in the process. I don’t think I learned any helpful tips about how to not do this, though. But the panel was entertaining.
Surviving the Apocalypse
Another panel Donald wasn’t interested in. He went to What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics instead, because he did his PhD in that area, and one of his pet peeves is misuse of quantum mechanics by science fiction and fantasy authors (especially the ever-popular multiple worlds theory). Apparently, the guy presenting the panel made reference to some of Donald’s PhD work, so that was cool. The apocalypse panel was all right, but not what I’d expected. I’d been hoping to learn about useful resources for authors of apocalyptic fiction, not useful tips for surviving an actual apocalypse.
It wasn’t all panels, of course. We went out for the annual Legal Sea Foods dinner with other members of the Brotherhood Without Banners (George R. R. Martin fan club), and stayed up at parties on Friday and Saturday nights later than Donald wanted and not as late as I wanted. Of course, the advantage of staying at the hotel for a con rather than driving back and forth each day is that we don’t both have to leave at the same time. But that gets really expensive, so we don’t do that for local conventions. At parties and elsewhere, we also ran into most of the members of my writers group, BRAWL, various local friends who are into science fiction, and out of town friends like former Worldcon chair Rene Walling and my Clarion West classmate Jim Stewart.
I did think that Boskone this year had better parties than Arisia, but that may have been because I knew a higher percentage of the people there. But, like I said, I was less impressed by the panels. Which was surprising, because in the past, I’ve often liked the programming at Boskone better than that at any other convention, including Worldcon and World Fantasy. I’m not sure if it was me, or the programming, that was different this year.
One thing that I continued from Arisia was my new habit of crocheting during panels. I found that I can still pay attention while my hands are occupied, and I’m less likely to be annoyed if the panel gets boring for a while. I finished the scarf I’d been working on for a while. This is very exciting for me, because it’s the first crocheted item I’ve actually finished. Here’s a picture:
I’ve read that it gets less curly once you wash it and dry it flat. But I haven’t done that yet, because the label on the yarn says I’m supposed to use this special soap that I haven’t gotten around to buying. I’m also finding that I tend to make the foundation chain too tight, so one edge of the fabric ends up noticeably shorter than the other. Hopefully I’ll get over this habit with practice.
Here’s another view, so you can see the fringe at the end. Each end has a fringe like this. They need to be trimmed, though.
Here you can see the fringe
That scarf was made using all single crochet, which is the first stitch you learn. I think it’s supposed to be the easiest, but it’s smaller and tighter, and it takes much more time to produce a given area of fabric. For my next project, I’m going to make something with double crochet. So now I’m learning the double crochet stitch and making a test swatch, to see if I should use the hook size recommended by the pattern, or something larger or smaller.
My next project
Our next con will be Readercon in July, here in Massachusetts again. I look forward to catching up with friends, meeting new people, finding out about interesting new books, and, of course, getting some work done on my new green scarf.
It’s been over a month since I last posted. Shame on me! However, having not yet discovered the magic formula where I avoid distractions all day and get as much writing done as I think I should, I figured I would at least use the time spent sitting at my computer for actual fiction writing, rather than blogging about fiction writing (or about all the cooking I’m doing instead of fiction writing).
I would be remiss in my wifely duties, though, if I failed to mention that my husband Donald’s short story “Her Majesty’s Guardian” is now out in Daily Science Fiction, an excellent online magazine. If you’re already a subscriber, you would have received this in your email inbox a week ago, but now it’s live on the website for everyone to enjoy. It’s a great story, and very short, so I hope you’ll all have a chance to read it.
Here’s a picture of Donald for you to enjoy, from our Italian honeymoon back in May. This was taken in an ancient tavern in Ostia Antica, the old port of Rome at the mouth of the Tiber River.
Donald posing as an ancient Roman bartender
Speaking of ancient Rome, Donald and I are thrilled to be “embark[ing] on a culinary exploration of ancient Pompeii” tonight, with help from the Museum of Science. Donald is excited that all the courses include some sort of meat. I’m hoping that the wine pairings won’t be served traditional style (i.e., diluted 3:1 with water).
