Wolkenvolk-Trilogie

So here's my daughter, Maya's, latest visual offering, inspired by Kai Meyer's Wolkenvolk-Trilogie:

Pretty cool, huh? I'd love to read these books! We can't, though, as they're not in English - and that's a limitation for us, sadly. Kai sent us the comics, though, so the kids enjoyed taking a visual journey through the story.

Really wish these novels were published in the US...

Readercon: The Bad and the Ugly

That title comes from a post by Genevieve Valentine. Have you heard about this? It's one of those stories that's ripping around sff fandom at the moment.

I love Readercon. Every time I miss one (which I've had to do several times the last few years) I'm bummed. But they're not perfect...

The issue Genevieve is writing about is sexual harassment. I know Genevieve. She's very cool, and I've no doubt about taking her word on this. If she says this guy was crossing the line, again and again, then I'm sure he was. I don't know what the appropriate actions are in response. (I mean, I don't know the Con's actions necessarily should be. My own actions, had I been there... those I can well imagine. Anyway...)

It does seem to me to be a problem when the conference has a stated policy of zero tolerance for harassment, when they've banned people for life in the past, but then... in the case of an influential member of the community they veer from their own policy to give a much lighter response.

I'm no expert on any of this. I wasn't there. If you're interested, google the topic. There are plenty of people writing intelligently about this. Or go to Genevieve herself. She has three post about it:

The initial one.

A follow up.

And a final one after the conference committee took action. (Kind of.)

Clarion West 2013

The line up of instructors at Clarion West for 2013 just got announced. It's a doozy:

Elizabeth Hand, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Justina Robson, Ellen Datlow, Samuel Delany.

Wow. That's a line up. Neil would skew things all by himself, but the entire list is super human.

Apply in December!

Also, please note that Clarion's Write-a-Thon is in it's final weeks. Take a look HERE and please support this stellar program!

Update

Hiya. I've been quiet for a while. That's mostly because I've been intensely busy. Just got back from the Stonecoast MFA's summer residency. It was great fun, as always. Jeff VanderMeer was one of our visitors, which was very cool. Very pleased with the quality of the new round of students. And sad to see the graduating students go...

I think I'm recovered now, and counting down the days until August 1st - when we'll get back into our actual house! The red shack has been great, but there's no place like home.

I'm sitting on a couple of pieces of news, things I can't quite announce yet but hopefully will be able to soon. I'll post here as soon as I can.

Glimpse of the cover, by Todd Lockwood.

One thing I can mention is that Shawn Speakman has enthusiastically accepted my short story contribution to his anthology, Unfettered. It's a story called, "All the Girls Love Michael Stein". If you ever read it, you'll find it something of a departure for me. It's about a newly deceased cat that sets out to help the grieving girl he loves. Go figure. In addition to writing it for Shawn's anthology, I gave it to my daughter on her thirteenth birthday. So, it's very much for her as well.


That's it for now. More soon!