Domestic Horror

Don't you hate it when people let months, even entire years go by without updating their blogs?

Me, too.

*ahem*

When I moved to New York City in 1996, I never intended to leave. About a year and a half ago, the fam and I moved to a small town in New Jersey. Most New Jersey small towns within a one-hour drive of New York City are considered suburbs, and ours is no exception. With housing prices in Brooklyn showing no sign of coming down any time soon, and with my husband working in Secaucus, moving seemed like a resigned evil.

So here we are.

That first summer in our new house -- like, a real house with a backyard and basement and a mailbox that doesn't require a key -- the kids were not in any kind of camp or daycare, I was working from home part time, and blogging seemed like one more chore to drag down my mood.

Then the kids started school and things got really hectic. There were issues. There was drama. There were problems. Getting us all through each day felt like a marathon. I kept waiting for that moment when everything would click into place and I'd finally feel like this was home, this was our life, and this was fine. Everyone kept telling me how happy I should be. So I kept waiting.

I also picked up a Shirley Jackson book.

Every once in a while I go on a book-buying freeze because I find that my to-read pile has grown out of control. Whether they were given to me, I won them, or bought them and forgot, when I find I have more than two dozen unread books in my house, I force myself to read those before I buy any more.

Years ago I had attended Book Expo America and since it was the last day of the convention people were giving away free books. I picked up "Come Along With Me," a collection of Jackson's short stories and lectures. And then I forgot about it.

Reading this book at the exact moment when living in small town suburbia felt more like the American Nightmare than the American Dream tapped into something deep down in my psyche that I couldn't put my finger on. Of course stories like "The Summer People" and "The Lottery" resonated with me, but what really piqued my interest were the details of Jackson's life and her personal essays. I followed "Come Along With Me" by reading "The Haunting of Hill House" and "We Have Always Lived in the Castle," and I felt like, "Where have these stories been my whole life?" It was like finding my literary True Love.

After "We Have Always Lived in the Castle," I bought and read "Life Among the Savages" and "Raising Demons," both collections of Jackson's personally essays on raising children in small-town America. And though those stories happened over five decades ago, they resonate with me today with their timeless themes of stubborn children, household chaos, and small town weirdness.

Now we've settled in to our "quaint" little piece of the suburbs just fine: the kids have friends and get invited to birthday parties; my husband and I have game nights with other couples; we've been to enough restaurants to have favorites; we all have library cards. Sometimes I don't hate it here, and I'm no longer scared to drive. The summer camps are much cheaper, the schools are amazing, and I know where to find NYC-worthy bagels. But it still feels weird to me and probably always will. I'm a city girl. I feel safe in cities, with their crowds and anonymity. Growing up in Miami and living my entire adult life in New York City, I've never felt out of place as a Jew; here, I'm definitely a minority. My kids went from a school in Brooklyn where at least a dozen other children had their same Hispanic last name, to being the only ones with that name here. And though our town is known for its enormous, fancy houses, we live in a smallish house on the less-desirable end of town and on my really good days I don't feel self-conscious about that.

I've written three new stories in the past three months, and one flash piece before that, all with the same theme: the horror within our own families. I call it "domestic horror," and I fully admit I am inspired by the Shirley Jackson. My flash piece, "I Forgot to Lock the Door," was written during that first summer here when I kept waiting for the "good for families!" part of our new town to show itself and felt, instead, like we had made a huge mistake in moving here.

So yes, it's been tough at times but it's getting easier. And yes, blogging seemed like the last thing I wanted to do for a while. At least now I feel less alone, both in my real life thanks to the friends I've made, and in my inner life, thanks to Shirley Jackson.

#SpecFicByWomenOfColor

This year I focused the bulk of my reading on books of the speculative fiction genre written by women of color (WOC). Why? Here is what I posted at the beginning of the year.

I didn't get to read as many as I'd hoped, for various reasons: some books I started but couldn't continue because the writing was just not good; I had some reading promises to keep to others; and, then, once in a while I found something else I wanted to read that just so happened to be either not spec fic or not by a WOC.

After certain recent events, I researched online ways I could support small, Black-owned businesses. On one website with a list of Black-owned online retailers, an idiotic commenter asked, "What about a list of White-owned businesses?"

The answer to that is, I think, similar to the reason why I focused this year on spec fic by WOC: Because White is already considered the norm, especially White and male. I'm betting that anyone reading this can name, offhand and without a lot of thought, at least five White, male fantasy/sci-fi writers. I know I can.

Now, can you name five women?

Can you name five women of color?

When you come from a place of privilege it's easy to have a blind spot when it comes to the "other." As a White woman I felt it my duty to make the conscious effort to expand my literary world.

Between the hideous and utterly misogynistic "social movement" Gamergate and the Ferguson, MO court ruling, I think that right now is the perfect time to support female writers (and all lady geeks!) and geeks of color. Female writers don't have cooties; they don't all write romance (my short stories have 0% romance in them, and only one of my novels has a romantic relationship in it, which is more of a side plot than the feature); they don't all write about periods and babies and shoe shopping. Writers of color don't only write about how hard their lives are, or how exotic their native lands are, or how much they hate White people. Certain things are universal, and that's the main takeaway I found in this project: Alienation. Longing. Acceptance. Fear. Growth. Guilt. Redemption. Regret. And yes, love. Love is not a woman thing. It's not a girly thing. Even men need love in their lives, whether it's romantic or something else...something more.

Black writers do not write only for Black people. Women do not write only for women. To think so, and to go through life enjoying only books that match your demographic, is to miss out on some of the greatest, most interesting and entertaining works out there. And, that's also sort of missing the point of being into spec fic, isn't it?

I'll be keeping this list in the column to the right up on my blog for the foreseeable future, and as I go forward and read more spec fic by WOC I'll add them to the list. For now, here are some resources I have been using throughout 2014 to find books to read, as well as some other links I like.

The Carl Brandon Society works "to help build further awareness of race and ethnicity in speculative literature and related fields." http://carlbrandon.org/index.html

Worlds Without End's Award Winning Books by Women Authors. You might have to dig a little to find the WOC, but they're there. https://www.worldswithoutend.com/lists_women_winners.asp

The Nerds of Color. Just an all-around great geek site. http://thenerdsofcolor.org/

An article on Asian spec fic writers. http://carriecuinn.com/2013/06/18/list-94-asian-speculative-fiction-authors-with-links/

Another good all-purpose list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculative_fiction_by_writers_of_color

This list is YA-heavy, but hey, there is some damn fine YA out there. https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/36880.Speculative_Fiction_by_Women_of_Color

For 2015 I will not be focusing on authors; rather, I'm going to attempt to put a dent in my rather large pile of unread books I already own. Some of them might be by writers of color; some are by women of color. I'll keep you posted. 

Spoilers!

Spoiler alert: This post on spoilers contains spoilers.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about this phenomenon of "spoilers" and what they mean to us as writers, readers, TV and film watchers, and members of social media. Three instances in particular -- a book and two TV shows -- have raised the questions: Are there "rules" when it comes to spoilers? Are there statutes of limitations, and if so, how long are they? What is the responsibility of the spoiler-er vs the spoiler-ee? And what, exactly, is a spoiler?

Even River Song saying "Spoilers" here might be a spoiler!

A "spoiler," basically, is when you learn a twist or ending you usually didn't want to know about, usually before you've read/watched something you enjoy. Posting publicly the details of a last episode of a series, or the major twist of a movie, is a spoiler.

But what about that grey area -- people's reactions without details? I'm talking specifically about last week's "The Walking Dead" season 5 opener. Because we don't have cable, my husband and I watch TWD a day late. I know that a lot of my friends on Facebook watch TWD the night it airs, and so I was wary of going online last Monday, lest my eyeballs accidentally see a "spoiler" one of them may have posted. While I didn't see any details that would ruin the episode for me, I did see a lot of "OMG!" and "Best season opener ever!" and "Way better than I even expected! You outdid yourself, Walking Dead!"

Do those count as spoilers?

This image from the season 5 opener, "No Sanctuary," was
all over the internets long before the episode aired, leading
many diehard Deadheads to wonder if it was, in fact, a giant
spoiler, and with a legion of Daryl Dixon fans threatening
to riot if he was killed off the show.

I say no. Anyone familiar with the show knows that each episode is white-knuckley to a greater or lesser degree, and that most episodes contain some sort of twist or surprise. I knew the first episode of season 5 would be epic, and so my friends' reactions in no way ruined my enjoyment of seeing that episode for myself.

What about responsibility? Does everyone online have a responsibility to post "spoiler alert!" before posting details? How long can that go on? For TWD's first episode, I gave everyone I know, who may not have seen the episode yet, the benefit of the doubt and listed some questions I had under the heading "spoiler alert," with some space between that and my questions so that they'd be hidden to anyone who didn't want to accidentally read them.

After that I think it's fair game. If I take my time watching a show, I'm grown-up enough to know what I'm getting myself into when I go online. Beyond a reasonable grace period -- a night or two for others to catch up, longer for first and last episodes of a season -- I think posting spoilery details should be fine. If you are that afraid of your eyeballs accidentally seeing something -- a comment, a Facebook or Twitter "trending," or something on a forum or message board -- then it's easy enough to avoid those spaces. We all have reasons why we might not watch a show live, or the next night, but that doesn't mean the whole rest of the online world has to wait for you to catch up. If I'm too busy to watch my favorite prone-to-spoiler shows, then I'm probably too busy to spend a lot of time online, as well.

Spoiler? I don't care. Cute as fucking hell.

What about another grey area of spoilers? I read all of the Harry Potter books before the movies came out; I also read all of the Hunger Games books. My husband read neither of those series, but we were already coupled up when I read the last of the HP books and the entire HG trilogy. As I read, I'd tell him what was happening in the books; what I liked about them; what I didn't like; what I agreed with; disagreed with. I'd tell him plot details. I'd tell him the endings.

Did this ruin his enjoyment of the movies? Not at all. I'd say that unless you are a die-hard fan of something, knowing the outcome in advance does not ruin your enjoyment of the work. Sometimes the journey, the getting there, is the important part. Did anyone think that Harry would not defeat Voldemort? Did that make the final battle less exciting? Were the deaths of some of our favorite supporting characters any less heartbreaking? Does knowing that Katniss must win the Hunger Games in the first book make her story any less amazing to read?

You'd have to be living under a rock not to know what was coming.

In other words, which is more important: wondering whether or not Frodo will destroy the One Ring, or reading three books/watching three movies that chronicle his journey, and the other events taking place in Middle Earth?

I came late to the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" world: I didn't start watching the show until seven years after it went off the air. Going in, I already knew certain major show events: I knew about Angel and his soul, I knew about Buffy's mom, I knew about Buffy and Spike, and I knew about Willow. Even knowing all those things going in, I can honestly say I did not like the series any less. In fact, I loved it quite a lot.

Which brings me to historical fact. As a fan of historical fiction, sometimes the outcome of a show or book is already well-known. I'm currently reading Helen Hollick's wonderful novel, "I Am The Chosen King," about the famous 1066 Battle of Hastings. I already know the outcome of that event; and anyway, 1000 years is well beyond even the most liberal statute of limitations on spoilers. The ending of the book will not be a surprise for me. What I'm interested in are the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings. The politics, the machinations, and especially the people. The real people behind the famous names. The Battle of Hastings did not happen out of the blue. It did not come out of nothingness. In this case, no spoiler alerts needed.

1000-year old spoiler courtesy of the Bayeaux Tapestry, circa 1080ish.

What about slightly less well-known history? My husband and I recently watched all three seasons of Showtime's "The Borgias," a family he and I know very little about. In this case, despite the passing of more than 500 years since the events depicted in the show, we had to avoid looking up any real-life Borgia family member to avoid show spoilers. But had we accidentally come upon some historical fact that might give away a meaningful event in the show, well, how angry could we get, really? It's been 500 years!


What do you think of spoilers? Do you post details on social media? Do you label them? How long do you give others before saying, "Not my problem anymore?"

Reading Project: 2015

A few years ago, my husband decided to dedicate an entire year to a specific theme in his reading. His first reading project was to choose a book from each decade of the 20th century. Some books he enjoyed; others he did not. Either way, he was glad to have chosen a theme in which to pick his books, and he opened his mind to some of the great works of the last century.

Inspired, I've spent this year reading genre books by Women of Color. Not exclusively, but still making an effort to include as many as I could find. In fact, had I not taken a break from my project to read "Sword & Sorceress 29," I never would have discovered Rabia Gale. Some books were easy to get: Octavia Butler is a pretty big name in speculative fiction. Others were tough: I still have "The Bone Whistle" on my to-read pile, and so far it's the only spec fic by a Native American woman I've been able to get my hands on. Other books were a pleasant surprise, like the recently read "Rainbird" by Rabia Gale.

Other books, which I will not name, I started and could not finish because they were just not good, and my desire to support non-white female authors within the speculative fiction genre was not great enough to overcome the truly awful writing.

Now that we're into the last quarter of the year, my thoughts have necessarily turned to my reading project for 2015. For a while I considered read genre and historical fiction outside my comfort zone. In genre, I gravitate towards urban fantasy, magic realism, paranormal, and dark fantasy/light horror. In historical fiction, I tend towards British Dark Ages/High Middle Ages (5th-12th centuries), the Japanese Samurai period, and early 20th century American. My idea was to branch out into other subgenres -- steampunk, space opera, alien invasion, high/epic fantasy -- and other time periods -- the Wild West, ancient China, pre-history, the American Revolution.

Then yesterday something caught my attention: several books in my bookcase I hadn't read yet. When I went through the shelves I discovered five print books I own, which I had not yet read. They've been on my shelves for at least a year. I then dove into my e-reader library and discovered twelve more unread books. That's seventeen books I own which I have not read.

Seventeen.

Ok, three of those -- one print and two e-books -- are part of my Spec Fic by Women of Color project. But even if I read those this year, that leaves over a dozen unread books in my to-read pile. Fourteen! Even taking a break to read other books, I should be able to finish those by the end of 2015.

The unread books on my shelves both virtual and physical break down as follows:

7 genre/spec fic
6 non-fiction (including a memior by Joan Rivers)
4 literary/classic fiction (including The Count of Monte Cristo)

Challenge accepted! My reading project for 2015 will be to read all the books I own which have languished unread in the ethers of my nook and the dusty shelves of my big bookcase. I vow to put myself on a book-buying freeze until I either finish them or declare them unreadable after the first three chapters/50 pages, whichever comes first.

Random collections of ghost stories, humorous essays on parenting, and ARCs I won from a "Fantasy & Science Fiction" magazine contest, here I come!

Influences, Part III

A while ago, I talked about the books that influenced me to become a writer, from Judy Blume to Marion Zimmer Bradley; I then discussed the works of speculative fiction I feel most influenced that aspect of my writing life. Today, I'd like to discuss the flip side of that: historical fiction.

After spec fic, historical fiction is my favorite subgenre. Non-fiction tends to put me to sleep; sadly, most of what I know about history probably comes from fiction.

My love for historical fiction began in two ways: first, my mother has always loved Arthuriana, and she passed that on to me. I found that "The Once and Future King" wasn't enough for me, and it didn't take long to find works of Arthuriana more rooted in the history of Dark Ages England than in fantasy. Second, my ninth grade world history teacher once assigned us to read a work of historical fiction; influenced, once again, by my mother, whose favorite book growing up was "Exodus," I read the 400+ page book in two weeks, at the age of 14.

And that's all it took. I fell deeply in love with historical fiction.

About 90% of what I read falls into the speculative fiction, historical fiction, or historical fantasy categories. The other 10% tend to be feminist theory or what's known as "literary fiction" recommended to me by my husband. The most recent of the latter was "White Noise" by Don DeLillo, which I found seriously lacking in dragons and/or zombies.

Here, then, are the works of historical fiction I have found to be most influential in my writing life.


Exodus, by Leon Uris

You know when you read a book, and you love it so much that you pretty much never stop reading it, even when you're with friends, and you tell your friends about the book so much that even they can't wait to hear what happens next, and for years and years later and probably the rest of your life scenes from the book will just pop into your head? Yeah, that's "Exodus" for me.

For my mom, who grew up Catholic and went to Catholic school for 12 years, reading this book at the age of 13 helped her make the decision to convert to Judaism when she was 20 years old. 

When my husband and I first met and began dating, I gave him this book (and another, below) as gifts, and even he loved it. I loved it so much I read it again, 12 years after I first read it in junior high.

"Exodus" centers on Israel's struggle for independence, a topic which resonated strongly with me fresh off my Bat Mitzvah and my first trip there. It was also the first book I remember which was told in multi-person POV with long, lingering flashbacks. This set the stage for a lifetime of appreciating stories told from a wide variety of character points-of-view.

Also? The movie version has a young and hot Paul Newman in it as our moody, flawed hero (swoon!) Ari Ben Canaan. So, there's that.

I mean, come ON!

Here Be Dragons/Welsh Princes Trilogy, by Sharon Kay Penman

I bought this book because I liked the title; it has the word "Dragons" in it, and that was all it needed to catch my attention. When I read the back cover summary and discovered it took place in 12th century England and Wales, I was reeled in. And when I started reading it, I was a smitten kitten.

If you'd asked me before I read this book, sometime in the late 1990s, whether or not I was interested in reading an entire trilogy devoted to the history of Wales, I probably would have said, "Put it in my to-do list." But I started reading the book anyway...and had to rush out to buy the next book in the series, "Falls the Shadow," and the last book, "The Reckoning." Once again told in multiple POVs, full of rich historical details without info dumps, and absolutely sweeping in medieval military strategy, I've never been able to hear the title "Prince of Wales" the same way again.


Dreamland, by Kevin Baker

I cannot overemphasize the influence this book has had on my entire life. Not just my writing life, but my life. I read it during a period in the early 2000s when I was unemployed, single, and pretty much spent my days alternately writing and reading and watching Yankees games. 

Because my own family history includes Eastern European Jews arriving in New York through Ellis Island in the late 1800s/early 1900s, this book captured my imagination in a very real way, and never let go. Fourteen years after I read it, I still can't ride the Cyclone at Coney Island without thinking of Esther Abramowitz, and her wild ride. I took a class at NYU in the former Triangle Shirtwaist building where she worked, and some of my father's family lived in the same Lower East Side neighborhood where many of the book's scenes take place. How could I not be inspired?

When I met my to-be husband, I gave him this, along with EXODUS, and he loved it.

More recently, this book helped inspire me to write my own tribute to the immigrants who came through Ellis Island, THE HOLLOW QUEEN. 

Long live DREAMLAND.

The Known World, by Edward P. Jones

There are three specific reasons why I have to include THE KNOWN WORLD on this list.

1. This book beautifully combines what I consider the two parts of writing: craft and story. Some writers are more about "craft," trying to be clever with turns of phrase and tight prose. Others focus on story. I can forgive a lot of bad writing in the name of a good story. Thankfully, with this book I got both. Really excellent writing, and a truly mind-blowing story that kept me hooked from start to finish. It's pretty much a perfect book.

2. The story blew my mind. I'm the product of a pretty half-assed public school education, and so I never knew that there were black slave owners in America. I found Henry Townsend's story by turns horrific and hopeful. It does what I love most about historical fiction: highlights a little-known sliver of history that, once you know about it, you wonder why it isn't considered a bigger deal.

3. I read somewhere that it took Jones ten years to write this book. TEN. YEARS. Whenever I feel slow, or lose hope, I remember that, and remember how it was all worth it -- at least, for me, the reader.



The Kingmaking/Pendragon's Banner Trilogy, by Helen Hollick

I've mentioned before that my mother and I are deeply into Arthuriana. We're always looking for a good King Arthur story to read together. For a very long time we coped with books that didn't quite scratch that itch for us. I won't name names, but it included, among others, at least one entire series that we stuck with only because it involved an enormous amount of historical detail. Maybe too much detail. (I've since spoken with others who agree that this particular series could have easily been done in a book or two.)

Then, shortly after my oldest child was born, I saw this book on display at Barnes & Noble. I texted my mom, we both bought it...and were both in love.

Helen Hollick has a talent for building her world by highlighting the ways in which Dark Ages-era Britain was so similar to today's modern world, while including plenty of gritty details illustrating how very strange and foreign it was, too. She's a writer who has done her research and knows when to add detail, how to set a scene, how to make the 5th century come alive. Arthuriana is hard to do. These characters are so well-known, it's easy to fall into hyperbole or caricaturization. In this trilogy, Hollick brings the humanity to Arthur and Guenivere, following them from childhood to old age. There's no Lancelot. There's no silly love triangle. Arthur is a flawed hero with an amazing amount of depth: he's a philandering son-of-a-bitch who is too smart for his own good and too cunning for any enemy stupid enough to stand in his way. He loves his family beyond belief, loves Guenivere even though he has a pathological inability to stay faithful to her. Guenivere is strong-willed, proud, intelligent, and stands up for what she knows is right. She confronts her own rapist. She loves her children. She cannot help but forgive Arthur, again and again. These are real people, living real lives, told in a seamless tapestry of asides, POVs, and historical detail. This trilogy is the very definition of when we call writing a great lie, and in the middle of that lie is the truth.



What are your favorite works of historical fiction?

Spoiler-Free Book Review: "Rainbird" by Rabia Gale

Before I go into my review of Rabia Gale's novella, I take great pleasure in announcing that my short story, "Atheists in the Cemetery," has been accepted for publication in Burial Day Book's upcoming anthology, "Gothic Blue Book 4!"

*

Just as the halfbreed title character of Rabia Gale's 31,000-word novella "Rainbird" belongs to neither one world nor the other, the story itself is neither one genre nor another. It has elements of Steampunk, but isn't, quite; there's a great deal of future noir, but it isn't all that; and the story itself is very heroic fantasy, without actually being heroic fantasy. It's a hybrid, like Rainbird herself.

And I love it.

I first discovered Rabia Gale while reading Sword & Sorceress 28. Her story about a kite-maker and the children she helps was done so well, the writing so tight and so ethereal, I had to look her up. I found "Rainbird" on her site and bought it without a second thought.

"Rainbird" takes place in some undisclosed time, presumably in our world, though even that's neither confirmed nor denied. What is told to the audience is that there is no more sun. No giant yellow ball of gas in the sky to provide light, heat, and life. Instead, the role of the sun is played by a giant heat lamp of sorts called the Day Sun, which travels on a track called the sunway across the land.

Oh, and that track? Runs along the spinal cord of a long-dead, continent-sized dragon who fell to earth.

Yeah.

Did I mention how much I love this?

Rainbird is half-human through her father Petrus, and half a species called eerie, angel-like creatures who resent the humans and their sunway and their Day Sun. The eerie have very specific rules about half-breeds, and Rainbird's mere existence is not part of those rules. As such, Petrus keeps her in hiding as his assistant inspector. They live and work in the skeleton of the dragon, helping the Company to keep the sunway running.

I. Love. This.

There's nothing about any of this I don't love. Gale's writing itself is strong and descriptive. She knows when to crank up the action and when to let you breathe. She knows exactly how much detail to give, and when. She's created a fantastical, whimsical, dark, world that is simultaneously familiar and utterly strange.

I love halfbreed stories, and I love stories of underdogs who become the hero through chance and circumstances. I love the sunway on the dragon's spine, I love the black market on Rib Three, I love the egg and mushroom houses along the dragon's bones. I love that a dragon fell to earth and got used in this way. I love the eerie's snark.

And I love the ending. Not giving anything away, but with a story like this it would have been very easy for Gale to take an extreme: either a very happy, sappy ending, or a very dark and sad one. She chose neither, and I respect that and love the choice she made.

I look forward to many, many more quality works from Rabia Gale, one of my new favorite writers.

Post-Vacay Check-In

Hello world!

Last week the whole family went for a much-needed vacation to my parents' house in Miami. During that week, the husband and I drove up to Club Med in Sandpiper Bay, Port St. Lucie for four days and three nights of child-free time to ourselves, which we badly needed. I've posted some photos below to make you jealous. ;-)

While on vacation from Brooklyn, I also took a "reading vacation" from my 2014 reading project: Spec Fic by Women of Color. When I travel, I like reading travel essays, so this trip I read most of John Waters' hitchhiking book, "Carsick." I highly recommend it if you have a strong stomach: that man has quite an imagination. He's funny and a good sport, though, and reading his book has made me wish I could take a cross-country road trip just so I could pick him up.

Now that I'm back to Real Life, I'm ready to return to my 2014 reading project and to my writing. I've got my second novel to revise, two short stories to send out, and two works by my critique partners I have to edit; not to mention some more blog posts. Next week I have an interview with "Girl Out of Water" author Winnifred Burton, and in the next few weeks I'll have more sf/f influences, more book reviews, more Lost Scenes, and more Geek TV. Keep checking in!

Until then, enjoy the photos from Club Med: Sandpiper Bay!

Sunset over the St. Lucie River

Morning in Sandpiper Bay, Port St. Lucie, Florida

Our view at breakfast

Club Med has six Hobie Cat sailboats. Hubby and I had an
awesome time going for morning sails on the Port St. Lucie
River. One morning we went so far out we saw dolphins!

Hobie sail

Enjoying a well-earned mimosa after driving the Hobie Cat along the river

One afternoon it rained, so we drank rose wine at the lounge. Of course.

Spoiler-Free Book Review: "A Conservation of Shadows" by Yoon Ha Lee

I'm bad at math, and I don't mean that in a girlie-girl, giggly, "Tee hee, math is so hard!" hair-twirling kind of way. What I mean is, I think I have some sort of undiagnosed math learning disability. I struggled through pre-algebra, twice. In my junior year of high school I failed algebra II, despite the tutor my mom hired to help me, and had to go to summer school in order to graduate. The only math class I took after that was the one the College of Arts and Sciences at NYU required for gen ed; they might as well have called it "Math for Lit Major Morons." I barely passed with a "D."

So I'm a little bit in awe of people for whom math comes easily: my mom, my best friend of 26 years, and now, Yoon Ha Lee. I now have two reasons to be envious of her: she's good at math, and she's a brilliant writer.

To my mind, math and literature are two separate animals, but Yoon Ha Lee - a Korean-American math major - manages to seamlessly weave the two together in beautiful, almost poetic ways. "Conservation of Shadows" is both the title of the collection of short stories, as well as one of the stories contained within. It took me longer to read than I had anticipated because some of the stories get quite detailed with science and technology, and those are not my native reading languages.

As with most short story collections, some are more hit and some are more miss. With a few exceptions, I tend not to read a lot of space opera. Because of this, the stories "Ghostweight," and "The Unstrung Zither" were not my favorites; I could not finish "The Battle of Candle Arc." Yet I loved "Swanwatch," and "Between Two Dragons," arguably both space operas.

The stories in the collection I enjoyed most were the ones that did away with fancy theories of space travel or complicated technology. "The Shadow Postulates" has a brilliant plot device in the form of living shadows on a university campus. "The Bones of Giants" I wished was a full-length novel, with such strong world-building I was sad when the story ended.

Four stories stand out to me as favorites:

In "Blue Ink," a young woman is faced with a parallel version of herself who requests her help in a war. I love the idea of parallel universes and of traveling between them to visit other versions of ourselves. What would we say? What would we do? Would we be shocked by our otherselves? Would we help them? Would they help us? It's such a rich topic, yet so hard to do well. In this story, Yoon crafts clever and creative answers to those questions.

"Iseul's Lexicon" is my second-favorite story, and probably one of the most intelligent works I've ever read. How would a conquering culture best erase all traces of the previous culture? By, quite literally, erasing their words from existence. Not only was this story hyper-creative and stunningly written, but as an American, with full knowledge of Yoon's Korean-American background, and with full knowledge of my nation's recent history and current cultural hegemony around the globe, it was hard to read this and not feel a potent mix of guilt and sympathy. I mean that in a good way; Americans should not shy away from difficult topics, and white people definitely need to not shy away from stories that present points of view told by the victims of empire and colonization.

I really loved reading "The Book of Locked Doors." It was one of those stories I could have read forever. In addition to the subject matter at hand - what, exactly, is "terrorism" when you are defending your own homeland and cultural identity? - I love the idea of a living book that talks to you, a sort of self-aware Book of the Dead. Again, this story speaks to Yoon's fascinatingly deep levels of creativity and intelligence.

The last story in the collection is the title story, "A Conservation of Shadows," and it is far and away my favorite. Written in gorgeous, but not flowery, prose, it reminds me of one of my favorite short story writers, Cat Rambo. The story, so I've read, was inspired by Yoon's love of the Sumerian myth of the Descent of Inanna, but, like most well-written stories, could be interpreted in any number of ways.

Although this is a collection of unrelated short stories, a few common themes unite them: civil war, military occupation, lost of culture and language. Many of the worlds in the stories have Eastern influences, rather than the usual Medieval European influence, which I welcomed with open arms. One of the reasons I embarked on my "Speculative Fiction by Women of Color" reading project for 2014 was to explore new world building and cultural influences, and I wasn't disappointed here.

I will absolutely be seeking out more of Yoon Ha Lee's stories. Maybe one day, when she invents time travel, she can travel back to the early 1990s and be my math tutor so I don't have to go to summer school in 1993. A girl can dream.

Guest Post: Tony Peak

As we know, writing can be a lonely, solitary process. Thanks to the magics of the interwebs, writers have more ways than ever of connecting with one another, learning from one another, and finding our "people" out there in cyberspace.

In the coming weeks, I'm going to introduce you to three of my writing people: my critique partners. I like the number three for critique partners; if just one person disagrees with me, I'm never sure whether they are right and I should change something, or whether they just didn't "get" it; with two, they may completely disagree with one another ("You should totally cut that scene out," "You should totally make that scene longer,"); with three there is always a tie-breaker, and if more than one -- or all three -- say the same thing about a particular scene or short story, I know I can trust them.

Having a good critique partner isn't easy. It's a give-and-take process that requires an enormous deal of trust, communication and respect. The three people I'm spotlighting are writers whose work I genuinely enjoy reading, who are somewhere around the same place I am with regards to experience and position in trying to get published, and whose advice I take to heart.

First up is Tony Peak, my longest critique partnership to date. We "met" in early 2011 over at Online Writers Workshop when we found each other's work on the posting boards. Tony's work spans the gamut of what falls under the "spec fic" umbrella: from epic space opera, to dystopian underworld grimdark (his "Meridian" short stories are absolutely not for those with a weak stomach), to what I've termed "proto-steampunk historical fantasy." He's extremely prolific with one of the best imaginations I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Please visit his website over at http://www.tonypeak.net, and follow him on Twitter at tonypeak78.

Take it away, Tony!

Reading for Inspiration

All writers read. Well, writers who expect their work to ever get published, that is. For a writer, reading another’s work not only keeps your mind sharp. Maintaining a grasp of good grammar and spelling isn’t the only benefit, either. Neither is it keeping up with what’s trending, or what’s bowling over the best seller lists. Sometimes, reading is for inspiration.

How so? Inspiration comes to writers like it does all other artists. The people around us, our everyday life, a certain song or film, even a botched order at a local restaurant (I said vegetarian fajita, not a chicken one!) can be mined for fiction ideas. [My idea for my current WIP came when my 5YO misheard something I said and asked what a hollow queen was. – MM] Another writer’s work can do the same: Tolkien has imbued countless authors with the need to wend through forests and dungeons with only a blade and a trusted friend; Stephen King has made us think twice about that sewer drain, or that beast of a dog the next door neighbor has. Nothing new to us who read and write. We all read the works of our favorite wordsmiths for inspiration.

But sometimes I think we forget what reading can truly do. When you read another author’s work, and you’re so caught up in it, you’re so lost in their world, wrapped up in their characters, that you forget you’re reading—that’s what I’m talking about. Anyone who likes books has experienced this. Yet there are times when a wonderful piece of fiction reminds us of what is possible. It raises the bar, makes us see just how far we can push our imaginative limits.

This happened to me recently. I’ve been a reader nearly all my life, and a writer for a significant portion of it. So I’m no rookie when it comes to my favorite genres and tropes. We writers tend to develop a sense of ‘I’ve seen it all’ and become jaded. Maybe we’ve read too many epic fantasy sagas, too many FTL/Hard SF trilogies, flipped through too many zombie stories. Add to this a writer’s constant wrangling and worrying over his or her own work, how it compares with what they are reading, or what’s selling. This is natural. It also leads to stagnation.

Sometimes we need a kick in the ass. I got mine lately from two science fiction classics: The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, and Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.

Bester’s book hails from the 1950s, but it influenced many subsequent works. Thirty years later, you can still read shades of it in William Gibson’s cyberpunk novels from the 1980s. The Stars My Destination is gritty, with a protagonist that commits heinous acts all in the name of vengeance. Regardless, I still felt compelled to continue reading. The lengths Gully would go to achieve his ends, how he’d use people, alter his body—nothing seemed off limits, and in the end, he implores the rest of humanity to look past the limits placed upon them by society and themselves. Like a phoenix rising from the flames of primal hate and selfish destruction, Gully is reborn into something that can literally think himself across space, thus hinting at the potential within all humanity. [Um, spoiler alert much, Tony? ;-) –MM] The stars really are our destination.

This book blew me away. Sure, these tropes were familiar—but this work was the progenitor of some of those tropes, and I could sense this as I read it. Once I finished the book, I was ashamed for not reading it years ago. It’s that good; that visionary.

It made me want to push myself to write something just as great. It’s been a while since a book has done that to me.

Next—as in, a half-hour after I finished The Stars My Destination—I started Solaris. While completely different in execution, style, and character, it still floored me at times. Kris’s anguish in dealing with his deceased lover, who has come back as a perfect simulacrum, raised many moral and ethical questions. Though some of the same questions are inherent to stories featuring artificial intelligence or clones, Solaris really made the simulacra feel alien. Frightening, even, without resorting to cheap horror tricks or gore. They are frightening because their originals are dead, the human characters know this, and struggles with getting too emotionally attached to a copy of a person taken from their memories. The dilemma presented, the vacant space station, the eerie, mysterious living ocean that creates those simulacra—these elements made Solaris intellectual and creepy at the same time. A real alien in all that word implies, made all the more so because it created things that looked just like our dead loved ones.

Like The Stars My Destination, this book made me want to write something immediately. I understood why there are three different film adaptations of it. I stayed up late to finish it.

This, then, is what reading truly does for us writers. It can rip down our preconceptions, force us to look at stories differently, and ignite a fire in our fingertips that can only be extinguished by tapping them repeatedly on a keyboard.  It’s rare to re-experience the virgin wonder of reading something great for the first time, but it can happen.

So don’t look at that next novel on your shelf or on your Kindle as merely another story, another badge of readership you can plug into your Goodreads account. See it for what it really is: an opportunity to reinvigorate your imagination, and your ability to transpose it into words.