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Sunday recs: Sf with a dash of fairytale

Published on by Sara Norja

Happy Sunday, everyone. It’s a grey, mushy one over here, with something unpleasant falling from the sky (ugh, sleet, whyyyy) and the lovely snow turning to slush. I have to go out in a moment, into that mess, but before that – here are some recs again.

First, the fairytale: Houdini’s Sister by Christine Hamm. A lovely prose poem, a praise of fairytale heroines.

Now for the science fiction.

Dysphonia in D Minor by Damien Walters Grintalis. A bittersweet love story about people who sing bridges and buildings into being. I really enjoyed this, especially the structure.

And then, oh, then. Gravity by Erzebet Yellowboy. Earth is covered in ice; a group of people set off towards the sun. This story made me ache so much by the end. Gorgeous, devastating. And such language! Of Mercury: “A dead god has scrawled its name there in a language we have forgotten.” And: “We become Ouroboros in twenty-five days, when the head of our orbit eats its tail.” Brilliant stuff.

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I edited 10 pages of an old novelette yesterday and did sundry other useful things. Today’s mostly for social activities. Which is lovely, but oh, I just wish I had more time! I have so many things I want to write – stories, poems, an academic article – but time slips through my grasping fingers and February rushes onwards.

I really need to finish one poem project soon, though, because submissions to Interfictions end on the 28th. Will have to set aside time for that.

Sunday recs: anagrams etc.

Published on by Sara Norja

Here’s a sundry bevy of recs:

If Poets Wrote Poems Whose Titles Were Anagrams of Their Names. Some more here and here. I especially enjoyed Eliot, Dickinson, and William Carlos Williams. The WCW parody made me giggle out loud. 😀

Here are a couple of my favourite poems from February’s Snakeskin. Fat by Beccy Pert: such luscious language. And House without Windows by Grace Andreacchi is absolutely gorgeous!

A story: Hwang’s Billion Brilliant Daughters by Alice Sola Kim. A different kind of time travel.

ETA: And some nonfiction too: Eleanor Arnason writes about authenticity, cultural appropriation, and writing outside your own experiences in sf/f.

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Also, today I sat down to write an all-new short story and actually finished the first draft in one go! First prose piece of the year, incidentally. And wonder of wonders, it’s actually short, too. My stories have the tendency to expand, but this one stayed at around 2000 words. Huzzah! It’s about an alchemist bartender, and I rather like it. Perhaps at some point it will be time to submit stories too, not just poems. 🙂

Sunday recs

Published on by Sara Norja

Here are three stories I’ve read and enjoyed recently:

Selkie Stories Are for Losers, by Sofia Samatar: a gorgeous contemporary take on selkies.

The Flying Woman, by Meghan McCarron: a delightful atmosphere, an aching and haunting story.

And Their Lips Rang with the Sun, by Amal El-Mohtar: a lovely, poetic piece, strange in a good way and with a great narrative voice.

All three of these happen to be from Strange Horizons. What can I say? – they publish brilliant stories there.

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And what of my own writing? Well, I just realised that I haven’t written any prose at all yet in 2013 (although I’ve written more than 15 poem drafts), so I should work on that soonish. There is that one novelette that needs to be finished and then edited; and I should edit the snail story. Also, there’s one burgeoning short story idea that I should get out at some point.

As for what’s left of today: I should clean my flat, do the dishes and various other useful household tasks. But earlier today I started a long poem – fragmentary, linguistic and deeply personal – and to be honest, I want to work on that more than I care about my home being spotless. I always care about writing more than cleaning.

But we’ll see. I’m tired enough now that it may be that my brain’s not in the mood for poetry any more. In which case, dishes and hoovering, perhaps some fiddle practice too. But first of all: tea.

Linkses

Published on by Sara Norja

Some links for this cold Sunday!

Story rec:

* Go and read Carmen Maria Machado’s amazing story Inventory at Strange Horizons. Note: it’s somewhat sexually explicit, just in case you want to read it at work or something. 😀 But a wonderful, gripping story.

Stuff I’ve been meaning to link for the past age:

* A great post by Kate Elliott about the male gaze in sf&f. (Incidentally, I recommend reading Kate Elliot’s Spiritwalker series – wonderful worldbuilding and great characters. I’m eagerly awaiting the next instalment.)

* A Magical Words post by David B. Coe about the impostor syndrome in writing. Magical Words is a great specfic writing blog that I regularly follow – lots of great posts about the craft and life as a writer. In this post, David B. Coe deals with something that’s all too familiar to perfectionist me: the “impostor syndrome”:

Impostor Syndrome is the belief among people who have accomplished something — anything — that their accomplishment is in some way a fluke, a mistake, or the result of a random act of charity from someone in a position to advance their career. It is the belief that, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, they do not belong, they have not truly earned their success. They are, this syndrome leads them to believe, impostors who are merely pretending to be skilled or talented. Any moment now, others will see through their deception, and they will be subjected to abject humiliation before being thrust back into the dim obscurity that they so obviously deserve.

I’m trying to get over the Impostor Syndrome. Most of the time, I can see myself as a “real writer” (and did even before I got published). After all, I write. But insecurity combined with perfectionism too often leads to the sort of questioning that David writes about in his post.

* Theodora Goss writes about writers and families: how the people closest to a writer relate to their writing. I’m going to take this moment to say: Dear family and other close ones, in case you happen to read this: even when I draw inspiration from a real person or event, it’s usually always fictionalised. Sometimes something that seems to be inspired by my real life is actually just my imagination. Sometimes something that seems imagined is actually real. Eh. This is all disjointed; I blame the weird allergic sniffles and sneezes I’ve been suffering from all day. Perhaps this: writing is writing; and I am me. Sara the writer is partly the same as Sara the person you have dinner with. We overlap, we’re the same person, but what the writer writes is certainly not always what the person thinks.

Was that confusing enough? 😀

edit: Just found this amazing story in the form of footnotes: Footnotes, by C. C. Finlay. I love using non-narrative genres to convey a story. Also, ♥academia♥.