linkage

Easter recs

Published on by Sara Norja

Other people have written wiser words than me on the Hugo debacle, so I’ll leave that for now (suffice it to say I’m disgusted; here’s a pretty good summary of it).

Instead, let’s escape into beautiful words! Three poems for this Easter Sunday:

“Seeds” by M Sereno (in Strange Horizons): Oh, this poem calls to be read aloud. The words flow with such delicious force, like a drenching storm. Powerful stuff, very grounded in place.

“The Nagini’s Night Song” by Shveta Thakrar (in Mythic Delirium): More word-strength and beauty. The voice is so intriguing here and the story is achingly beautiful.

“Long Shadow” by Rose Lemberg (in Strange Horizons): A long poem utterly worth the reading. Several voices and interesting structures, word-magic and marsh-magic.

Sunday recs

Published on by Sara Norja

I probably should’ve spent this evening recovering from a busy three-day medieval studies conference and a day of active exploring. Instead, I submitted poetry to quite a few places. Not very restful, but useful – I’ve been lax with submitting poetry, or anything really, the past month.

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My recs for tonight:

Myrrha by Mari Ness (in Through the Gate): This poem made me feel tight-throated and aching. It’s based on a fairytale that I’ve written a novelette about (currently on submission), and so it somehow hit me extra hard. The rest of the issue is wonderful too.

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu (in Fantasy & Science Fiction): This is from a few years ago but I just read it a few days ago. So good, in an aching way. I love fiction about family and the challenges of immigration, and this story really delivers.

Arm’s Length by Rosemary Badcoe (in the March issue of Snakeskin that I had a poem in too): Beautiful vision of the end of the world, with an ending that touched me with its poignance.

Sunday recs: Fairytales

Published on by Sara Norja

Three fairytale-tinged recs for you tonight.

First, two tales from Daily Science Fiction, new takes on traditional tales, from points of view forgotten in the originals:

Beans and Lies by Mari Ness: an incisive super-short piece with a proper punch at the end.

Toadwords by Nathaniel Lee: a tale that really made me think about the consequences of words turning into slimy creatures or jewels.

Finally, a story that draws from many fairytales:

Hunting Monsters by S.L. Huang (in The Book Smugglers Publishing): a beautiful, epic tale with relationships between women as its focus.

Spec poetry article at Bookslut

Published on by Sara Norja

Bookslut has an article on speculative poetry by Sessily Watt, featuring a review of Stone Telling 11. (The existence of this piece was kindly pointed out to me by Carrie Naughton. Thanks, Carrie!)

I was pretty much over the moon when I saw that the article includes a discussion of my poem “Kuura (extract from a Finnish-English dictionary)”. This is the first time someone has analysed my stuff in such depth. I feel so humbled and excited by this!

From the article:

The poem gains a different reading from being placed within a magazine of speculative poetry, in which the unreal can be real. Just as the title invokes cultural crossings and dual-interpretations, the movement between Finnish and English, the speculative allows the descriptions to be both metaphor and real at once.

Literary analysis. ABOUT MY POEM. I squeed so hard when I saw this, it was a bit embarrassing but luckily it was at 2am and I was home alone. 😀

The article is a great perspective into speculative poetry in general, too: Sessily Watt, disillusioned by fiction, stumbled into the world of spec poetry and discovered she liked it. There’s also a good discussion of Ruth Jenkins’ awesome hyperlink poem Scales, in the same issue of ST.

Writing, submitting and perseverance

Published on by Sara Norja

Tonight I’m feeling inspired by Rose Lemberg’s great essay (originally published as tweets) on perseverance and the editorial process.

Rose talks about the importance of not self-rejecting your work, and of daring to submit, and re-submit to a publication that’s rejected your work before. The whole essay is very much worth a read for any (aspiring or published) writer! Especially if you (like me) suffer from some form of perfectionism and self-doubt.

It was such a huge leap for me to start submitting my poems in 2012. I’ve been writing (both prose and poetry) since forever, and my poetic voice has been getting stronger since 2009, but it took me so long to dare to submit my work. I was really afraid of rejection, of not being “good enough”. And those first rejections really hurt. I hadn’t developed a tougher skin yet; I felt like the magazines I submitted to were rejecting my whole self, all of my writing forever, &c. &c.

As time’s gone by, it’s got easier. I still feel a sting when I get a rejection, especially if it’s been a long time since an acceptance. But I understand better now that rejections a) are just one person’s (editor’s) opinion, b) can happen for any number of reasons, c) do not mean I’m a terrible writer. I’ve learnt to feel happy about personalised rejections, and the ones that actually give a snippet of feedback on my work make me feel good. I try to believe the editors when they say “please submit to us again”.

It’s been harder with stories. Quantity-wise, I produce far less of them than poems, which flow out at a much quicker pace. Story rejections still sting more, and make me doubt my skills (“oh noes I am the WORST AT PLOTTING FOREVER”). But how will those skills develop if I don’t keep writing and submitting? They won’t. So I have to keep trying.

Because after all, my perseverance so far has got me a long way from where I was three years ago. I’ve been published in a lot of amazing magazines – and I still feel giddy when I think that my story is going to be in An Alphabet of Embers. I just have to keep on daring, even when I feel afraid.

Drive-by Sunday recs

Published on by Sara Norja

It’s technically not Sunday any more here, but I haven’t gone to bed yet, so this totally counts.

Three poems I’ve loved lately:

Entwined ‘Neath Stars and Empty Suns by Merc Rustad (in Liminality): A romantic, visionary space opera. Great stuff. I want more space opera poetry!

Red Daughter by Alena Sullivan (in Goblin Fruit): Lovely word-magic, excellent rhyming, delicious!

The Law of Germinating Seeds by Rose Lemberg (also in Goblin Fruit): Such beautiful treesong, it gave me the shivers.

Sunday recs: owls, fragments, pockets

Published on by Sara Norja

Just wrote a ~3,000-word story in two hours, yay! With some editing, I think this will be fine for submitting to Lightspeed’s Queers Destroy Science Fiction! special issue. It’s been so long since I came up with a story idea and actually wrote it in this short a time – I got the idea last night just before bed, and started writing today after breakfast. New story yay!

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And now for some stories I’ve enjoyed from others this past week:

The Truth About Owls by Amal El-Mohtar (in Strange Horizons, originally published in the Kaleidoscope anthology): This story is utterly wonderful. It contains many of my favourite things, such as multilingualism (Welsh, Arabic, yay!), Welsh mythology, and a solid emotional punch. Also, owls!

Pockets, also by Amal El-Mohtar (in Uncanny Magazine): A charming story with subtle strangeness.

archival testimony fragments / minersong by Rose Lemberg (in Uncanny Magazine): This is a poem, but it has a subtly developing plot that is just awesome. I highly recommend listening to C.S.E. Cooney’s reading of this poem in the Uncanny Magazine podcast – it gives the poem a whole new level of brilliance. I got shivers from the reading.

Sunday recs: I aten’t dead

Published on by Sara Norja

January went by in a bit of a rush – I’ve completely neglected to post even any Sunday recs. Turned out that the start of the year included tons of PhD work and other busyness, so I’ve been off the writing radar a bit. I’m getting the itch again, though: even though I’m currently still a bit sick (spent last night sleeping off a fever), I feel like I’d like to write something today.

Anyway, here’s some lovely poems I’ve read recently(ish):

To the Creature by Gillian Daniels (in the issue of Stone Telling that I have a poem in too): this is so good! A beautiful story and I love that it’s done in an epistolary format.

The Alchemy by Neile Graham (in the “Winter Is Sown” issue of Goblin Fruit): this is so amazing! Obviously I love alchemy-related fiction (because of my PhD topic), but otherwise too, this is just so magical. It inspires me to write more alchemy-related poems myself!

Earth Map by Rose Lemberg (in Mythic Delirium): a lovely prose poem, with the words flowing like water – I do so love Rose’s writing.

An Alphabet of Embers ToC!

Published on by Sara Norja

Rose Lemberg, the editor of the forthcoming anthology An Alphabet of Embers (which includes my story “The City Beneath the Sea”), has posted the full ToC on her website: check it out!

I can’t overstate how excited I am by this project! I’m really looking forward to reading the other contributions when the anthology comes out. And, of course, it’s totally awesome that this was my first pro fiction sale.

Sunday recs: Three stories and a novel

Published on by Sara Norja

Hi, this is me procrastinating! Soon, soon I will go and finish the zero draft of a story that’s been unreasonably hard to write considering that I know how it ends and all…

Anyway, here’s three stories I read sometime late last year and enjoyed:

Collector’s Item by Daniel McPherson (in Daily Science Fiction): a robot servant.

Sardines in a Tin Can by Wendy Nikel (also in DSF): robot slaves.

Dream Cakes by Kelly Jennings (in Strange Horizons): an awesome meld of SF and magicky things. No robots, though.

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Bonus novel rec: Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred is utterly amazing. It’s been on my to-read list for ages, and I finally started it yesterday morning. Well, I ended up reading it in two breathless, long sittings. It’s been a while since I read a novel in a single day! So worth it. Most other time travel novels suddenly pale in comparison…