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My Worldcon schedule!

Published on by Sara Norja

I can’t believe Worldcon75 is starting tomorrow! So much excitement!

I am already primed and ready for Worldcon, mostly because I spent the past few days in Uppsala at Reception Histories of the Future: A conference on Byzantinisms, speculative fiction, and the literary heritage of medieval empire. I will probably write another post on the Uppsala conference, but suffice it to say that it was transformative for me. I met so many amazing authors and writers, and for the first time felt truly a part of the SFF writers’ community.

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But so – WORLDCON! I’m participating in three panels, one of which I’m moderating:

Thu 10 Aug, 17-18: Polyamorous Relationships in Fiction (room 101d)

Thu 10 Aug, 21-22: Reimagining Worlds with Speculative Poetry (room 216)

Sun 13 Aug, 12-13: Why do Finns Love their Drabbles (room 103)

I’m moderating the poetry panel, which I suggested to Worldcon. SO EXCITED. The panelists are Julia Rios, Arkady Martine, and Mari Ness – I’m sure we’re going to have an amazing discussion. Here’s the panel description:

Speculative poetry contains multitudes: explorations of gender, queer readings of fairytales, far-off worlds where our social structures are subverted. How can poets coming from marginalised positions change the landscape of speculative poetry? Can speculative poetry reimagine our world and provide glimpses of a more inclusive one?

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You will find copies of Cosmos Pen (the magazine my story “Don’t Look a Wish Horse in the Mouth” is in) for sale at The Finnish Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association’s table (Suomen tieteis- ja fantasiakirjoittajat). Do pick up the magazine – it’s got lots of great stuff in addition to my wish-horse story!

I will be at the table on Friday from 17-18.

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Worldcon will also feature another project I’ve been working on this spring! A Finnish Weird anthology – Finnish SFF stories translated into English – called The Giants at the End of the World, edited by Worldcon75 GoH Johanna Sinisalo and Toni Jerrman. The anthology will apparently be given out to all Worldcon members!

I translated two stories for this anthology, by Tiina Raevaara and Jenny Kangasvuo. Translating SFF was a really great experience for me – challenging but rewarding. I’ve done a lot of translation work over the past 10 years or so, but translating fiction gave me new insights into the process because you have to pay so much attention to e.g. tone as well as just content. The anthology contains stories by lots of major Finnish SFF writers including Hannu Rajaniemi, Emmi Itäranta, and Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen.

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I will be in social mode during the con, so feel free to come and say hi anytime!

Cosmos Pen and Sunvault!

Published on by Sara Norja

I got my copy of Cosmos Pen: A Travel Guide to Finnish Weird today! Yaaay! The issue looks fantastic and I’m looking forward to reading all of it.

So, this special issue of the Finnish SFF magazine Kosmoskynä (which translates to Cosmos Pen) includes my story “Don’t Look a Wish Horse in the Mouth”. As I mentioned when I talked about the sale, this story has had quite a few rejections (although also good feedback), so I was very happy to have it accepted for Cosmos Pen. I don’t write a lot of stuff that could be considered “weird fiction” as such – but Wish Horse definitely counts. It’s set in my home town of Helsinki, and the first line pretty much tells you what you need to know re the weirdness:

When wishes became horses, beggars still couldn’t ride — for the horses were the size of Christmas tree ornaments.

I got the idea for this story, quite literally, as a fever dream many years ago. I was ill, unable to sleep, and suddenly the thought just popped into my mind. What if wishes really did become horses? But pesky tiny ones? I wrote the first version of the story in 2015, and revised it soon after to become pretty close to the published version. I’m proud of this ridiculous story and so happy it’s out now! I feel like I’ve captured some of my Helsinki in this story, too.

I think Cosmos Pen will be sold at Worldcon75, so buy a copy there if you can make it to the con! (A Worldcon post is forthcoming – I’m doing some exciting things there!)

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And then more publication stuff – Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk & Eco-Speculation! This solarpunk anthology – edited by Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland – features fiction and poetry from a lot of amazing writers, including Nisi Shawl and Daniel José Older.

My poem “Sunharvest Triptych” is a fitting companion to the wish-horse story in that it’s also set in Helsinki – but a solarpunk Helsinki.

I’m so happy to be part of this anthology. Much awesomeness – and what a glorious cover, too. Likhain is one of my favourite artists and it’s fabulous to be in another anthology involving her art! (An Alphabet of Embers was illustrated by Likhain.)

Sunvault is currently available for preorder, so go ahead and order a copy from your online retailer of choice!

Sunday recs: Just faerie things (and Uncanny)

Published on by Sara Norja

I promised Sunday recs, and then I went away and did other things and forgot about it till I was about to go to bed. It’s past midnight here now, but it’s still Sunday somewhere in the world! And there’s always time for recs. 🙂

The Woman Sings Her Marriage Into Being by Lev Mirov (in Through the Gate) – an utterly wonderful poem! Word-magic and a loving story contained within it. Such delicious words, I loved tasting them in my mouth when reading. The other poems in this newest issue of Through the Gate are lovely too – it’s a short issue but the poems work so well together thematically, birds and death.

Monkey King, Faerie Queen by Zen Cho (in Kaleidotrope) – a great melding of folklore/mythology from east and west. Trickster tales are such fun! The narrative voice here is full of cheeky humour and authorial insertions. I’m reading Zen Cho’s short stories so that I have some sense of her style before I get my hands on Sorcerer to the Crown – and based on this story, I really like her writing!

A Riddler at Market by Rose Lemberg (in Uncanny Magazine) – ohhh this poem is so happy and charming! I mean that in the best of ways! This is a comfort-read poem with glorious word use (as one expects of Rose’s writing!).

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Speaking of Uncanny Magazine, their Kickstarter campaign for Year Two of the magazine is still ongoing! A few more days to go. They’ve already reached their basic goal, but more backers will mean more stretch goals, including getting more unsolicited stories and poems! Go and support them if you can – Uncanny is amazing and I would love to see even more stories out there.

Award eligibility post (works published in 2014)

Published on by Sara Norja

Firstly: this feels so weird. Award eligibility is for real writers, right? Not me? No, shut up, evil!brain. (This post by Amal El-Mohtar is very relevant…)

Anyway, I have done my research and to the best of my knowledge, it appears that the following works are eligible for awards (for 2014):

Poetry (eligible for the Rhysling award short poem category)

Short stories (<7,500 words)

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.

Strange Horizons Fund Drive 2014

Published on by Sara Norja

Long time no blog! I’ve had an amazing although exhausting time of it lately, what with a trip to the UK to look at medieval manuscripts, plus two conference things. I was totally exhausted when I came home today, but then I ended up submitting several stories and poems anyway… Relaxation, so hard sometimes.

Anyway! To the point of this post! Which is to say that the Strange Horizons fund drive for 2014 is ongoing. SH is an amazing non-profit speculative magazine – and as can be seen from my rec posts, I often like the stuff they publish. Some of my SH faves from 2014 include:

It’s been a pleasure to have a poem published in SH (and another forthcoming), too, in the company of so many great writers. SH has been great to work with, and of course it’s pretty nice to be paid pro rates. 🙂

Please consider donating to help keep SH alive and publishing awesome, diverse stories and poems (reviews and columns too)!

Interfictions Online Indiegogo campaign

Published on by Sara Norja

Just noticed that the wonderful Interfictions Online (to be more precise, the Interstitial Arts Foundation) is running a fundraiser.

There’s still time to donate to enable the worthy stretch goals – the campaign page is here. Go forth and donate if you can, to help contribute to fascinating art and writing that live in the boundaries of genre and form &c.!

Poetry World Cup 2014

Published on by Sara Norja

The Missing Slate is organising a Poetry World Cup!

The competition involves 32 poems by poets representing 32 different countries. All of the poems have been previously published in the magazine. There’s a poetry match every day till July 13th, and you can help pick the winner each day by voting on the website. The world cup proceeds from first round to quarterfinals etc.

This is a super fun invention, and much more relevant to my interests than the football world cup. 😀 If you feel like reading good poetry from international voices, go forth to The Missing Slate and vote for your favourite.

Niteblade #28 is now online!

Published on by Sara Norja

Niteblade #28 is online here – titled after my poem 🙂

A snippet of my poem ‘Looking-Glass Lover’ is here. To get the whole issue free to read online, Niteblade relies on donations and purchases – so if you want to get the issue for everyone to read, consider buying yourself a super cheap .epub, .pdf or .mobi copy of the issue!

I’ll let you know when my poem is free to read in its entirety. But if you can’t wait, do get yourself a copy of the whole issue.