An Unconvincing Narrative

Last Fall I got to read RA MacAvoy’s latest book four months ahead of publication and then interview her. (I’d last met and talked with her in the early eighties.)  It was published in this months Lightspeed Magazine.

R.A. MacAvoy’s first novel won the Locus Poll’s First Novel Award and hooked her the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Tea With the Black Dragon (1983, Bantam) is a contemporary fantasy, a hard-boiled detective mystery, and a love story. Its protagonists are a middle-aged musician and a centuries-old dragon now in human form. Tea was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Compton Crook, World Fantasy, and Philip K. Dick Awards and received a special citation from the Philip K. Dick jury. It was selected for David Pringle’s Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels, An English-Language Selection, 1946-1987.

In this genre, that is what’s known as a “good start.”

Interview: R.A. MacAvoy by Steven Gould | Lightspeed Magazine.

One of the best things about being good friends with great writers is the ability to read books before the general book-buying public gets access to them.

I read this several months ago (and have reread it since) and I strongly urge you to do likewise.

The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells.

I’m serving on the 2011 Jury for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. We don’t get to choose who wins but we can add a book or two to the ballot. If you’ve read some YA published in 2011 that you thought was award-worthy, especially if it hasn’t gotten a lot of attention because it was published by a small press, or in odd formats (including Graphic Novels), or if it was YA but not published as YA, (Middle Grade, for instance!) let me know.

If you are a YA author published in 2011 and you want to bring your work to the attention of the Jury, contact any of us or the Jury as a whole at: nortonjury@sfwa.org

Chickens appreciate modern sculpture.

The daughter went to the Halloween Dance as Caroline. Noone got it.

I did, though.

I have been on the New York Times best seller list (once), I’ve been an answer on Jeopardy (once), but I’ve never been had someone hand knit a hotpad before based on a book I’ve written.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 7th Sigma hotpad.

Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine: 7th Sigma — Steven Gould.

Very nice review.  One more vote for YA:

It’s clearly a YA novel even if it’s not being marketed that way, but it’s something anybody can enjoy.

And one more vote for Western.

Too bad the title Cowboys and Aliens was already taken, since it would have been a pretty good one for this book, except that there aren’t many cowboys in evidence and maybe no aliens.

You should definitely check out Bill’s books, especially the Sheriff Dan Rhodes mysteries.

Steven dos Santos – Ixnay on the Gay: The Gay YA Controversy: A View from the Trenches!.

While I am extremely grateful that this topic has been brought up and started a dialogue, I’m a little dismayed that the focus has now become mired in she-said/she-said, finger-pointing, and questioning the veracity of either party. In a nutshell, all of the bickering is irrelevant. This problem is very real and I should know. I’ve faced it myself.

More about the Gay Ya controversy.  The issue is real and is wide spread.

I am very happy to have a story in the upcoming YA anthology, After, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling (Hyperion 2012.  After: Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Tales.) It’s been officially turned in and the table of contents is finalized so here!

Introduction
“The Segment” by Genevieve Valentine
“After the Cure” by Carrie Ryan
“Valedictorian” by N.K. Jemisin
“Visiting Nelson” by Katherine Langrish
“All I Know of Freedom” by Carol Emshwiller
“The Other Elder” by Beth Revis
“The Great Game at the End of the World” by Matthew Kressel
“Reunion” by Susan Beth Pfeffer
“Faint Heart” by Sarah Rees Brennan
“Blood Drive” by Jeffrey Ford
“Reality Girl” by Richard Bowes
“Hw th’Irth Wint Wrong by Hapless Joey @ homeskool.guv” by Gregory Maguire
“Rust With Wings” by Steven Gould
“The Easthound” by Nalo Hopkinson
“Gray” by Jane Yolen
“Before” by Carolyn Dunn
“Fake Plastic Trees” by Caitlin R. Kiernan
“You Won’t Feel a Thing” by Garth Nix
“The Marker” by Cecil Castellucci

I can’t really adequately express my delight at being in a book with Jane Yolen, Garth Nix, Nalo Hopkinson, Carol Emshwiller, and Nora Jemisin (Viable Paradise Represent!)

“Rust With Wings” is set in the early days of the bug infestation of  7th Sigma. It takes place twenty or so years before and, for those who’ve read the novel,  includes a familiar character

Books 2 Film: Jumper By Steven Gould

Saturday, Oct 1 2:00p

at Headquarters Library, Fayetteville, NC

Teens, ever wish you could travel around the world in a millisecond? Davy can do this and more. Join us as we watch the acclaimed movie based on the novel Jumper by Steven Gould. A short book discussion follows as part of Banned Books Week. For more information call Marsha Mims at 483-7727 ext. 317.

Venue: Headquarters Library at Pate Room

via Books 2 Film: Jumper By Steven Gould at Headquarters Library, Fayetteville – Fayetteville Observer.

Los Alamos County
Mesa Public Library

Thursday, September 22, 7pm
in the Upstairs Rotunda

AUTHORS SPEAK SERIES PRESENTS
AN AUTHORS SYMPOSIUM

INSPIRATION AND PERSPIRATION: A CONVERSATION
MODERATED BY
CHARLIE KALOGEROS-CHATTAN

Panelists:

Robert Benjamin, playwright
Jane Lin, poet
Shirley Raye Redmond, children’s author
Steven Gould, Science Fiction author

Library Events – Inspiration and Perspiration: an authors….

I have numbers! Stats on LGBT Young Adult Books Published in the U.S.

Malinda Lo digs deep into her inner stats nerd and produces charts and figures.

As you can see, 30% of LGBT YA is published by non-big 6 publishers, with Simon & Schuster leading the pack of the big 6. However, this data doesn’t conclusively prove that S&S is the the most gay-friendly publisher, because it doesn’t take into account the percentage of LGBT YA published by a publisher in relation to the total number of YA titles published by that publisher.

(This is a further development on my previous link to the YesGayYA controversy.)

Cabinet of Wonders: Whose Ideal Was This, Anyway?.

Heather McDougal has a fascinating essay (with pictures) on the evolution of the ideal shape (female and male) over the last century and a bit.  It went up at her Cabinet of Wonders site back in July so I’m late to the party but it is well worth the reading.

Heather was one of our students at Viable Paradise XI back in 2007 and is a very talented writer.

Authors Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith were offered representation on their jointly written YA novel IF:

The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay character straight, or else remove his viewpoint and all references to his sexual orientation.

Authors Say Agents Try to “Straighten” Gay Characters in YA « Genreville.

Everyone Can Promote Equality In Genre Writing | SFX.

Because this matters. If you don’t think so, why are you reading SF, fantasy or horror? The genre has always challenged unthinking, accepted ways and confronted bias. It’s the voice of those out of step, who so often end up leading the future.

– Juliet E. McKenna

Mi gallinas lay green eggs and tan (which I do like, sam I am) but this morning’s gather included a blue one.

I’m thinking…dragon.

I was returning the audio books I’d listened to driving back and forth to the Reno world con and I glanced at the shelf (as one does) for my books.

Worn, well-read books.

I was talking with Brent Bowen, co-host of Adventures In Sci Fi Publishing podcast. We’d done an interview the day before and, though we’d talked about ebooks, he thought of another issue/question. Cat Valente had recently brought up the concern that rapid growth of ebooks will cause a disparity between those who can and cannot afford e-readers.

I just want this to get out in a public forum with a date on the post so that when I’m proved right, I can point back at it.

I am always concerned when disparity in the availability of a technology makes an underclass, but the same thing was said for cell phones and now, throughout Africa, it’s cell phones that bring not only phone service to areas that don’t even have electricity, but internet into those same places. I think there is a danger of some people being cut off from certain books in the very short run, but I think ebooks will benefit people in the long run.

Prediction. We will see under $50 eReaders within two years. We will see under $25 eReaders within five years.

By the way, I participate in a project that allows my ebooks to be used in Africa on Kindles that come preloaded with hundreds of books and targets poor communities without access to libraries. See Worldreader.

Gosh.

I have never been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal before. Color me chuffed!

One thing that Gould, Heinlein and Kipling would all agree on is that a clever kid beats a fool adult any day. A young mind can absorb skills, techniques and practical knowledge—those are the basis of civilization, not metal and gadgets.