Speculation, Fact and Fiction

I've hit a sticky patch with the work in progress, the next Green Man book, as I'm unsure of the best way to manage the transition from this point in the plot to the following episode.

Happily, I have the line edits for a non-fiction piece to go over, so I'll do that today. A change is frequently as good as rest in this writing game. Hopefully my subconscious will come up with a way forward while my forebrain is doing something else.

Given the appalling ongoing everything, with particular reference to the deterioration of social media elsewhere, I'm aiming to start posting here again and checking in more frequently.

If you've been thinking about reading The Green Man's Heir, but the book budget just hasn't been there, now's your chance!

It's a Kindle Daily Deal - today only in the UK - and you can buy it for 99p. Click here.

Amazon US are matching that price, so US readers can grab it for $1.26.

Go for it!

And all signal boosting will be very much appreciated :)

This year I'll be taking part in the “Read For Pixels” 2018 Google Hangout campaign (Fall Edition), in company with a veritable host of other authors supporting this non-profit fundraiser backing initiatives to end violence against women.

Google Hangout sessions will run on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings from September 1st to September 30th 2018. Each session will feature an author reading from one of their books and discussing women and girls in their books, why they support ending violence against women, and women in the media, geek culture, and popular culture. Each session will also include a live moderated Q&A session for fans and book lovers to ask their favourite authors questions in real time. My slot will be 4pm UK time, on Sunday 2nd September.

You can find the full schedule here, along with tech instructions, if you've yet to get the hang of Hangouts.

The first Read For Pixels Google Hangout live panel session will tackle Trashing The Rape Trope: Writing Violence Against Women in Fantasy. Martha Wells, Kate Elliott, and Jim C. Hines will be discussing violence against women in the Fantasy genre and techniques for tackling the subject without dehumanising female characters. There will also be a live Q&A segment for writers and fans interested in writing about female characters and approaching themes such as misogyny, sexism, gender, and violence against women with depth, empathy, and accuracy.

There are giveaways and gifts to be had from Adrian Tchaikovsky (with Macmillan Books UK), Aliette de Bodard, Ann Aguirre, Charles de Lint, Jodi Meadows, Ken Liu, Leigh Bardugo, Peter V. Brett, Steven Erikson, Susan Dennard, Juliana Spink Mills, and more. These include swag bags and book bundles, signed first editions or special editions of participating authors’ books, a chance to be a minor character in someone's upcoming books, and more. Katherine Tegan Books at HarperCollins and award-winning NewCon Press are each donating a Mystery Book Box. Donations begin at as little as US$5 and the goodies are available to donors as “thank you” gifts and perks depending on the donation amount. I'm donating three book bundles; The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution trilogy, the Hadrumal Crisis trilogy, and my two Wizard's Tower Press books, The Secret Histories of the River Kingdom and The Green Man's Heir. I'll cover the postage worldwide.

Fundraising will take place on Rally Up in tandem with the Google Hangout series over the month of September 2018. Authors involved include Alison Goodman, Brandon Sanderson, David D. Levine, Fonda Lee, Fran Wilde, Jay Kristoff, Julie Czerneda, Marie Brennan, Richard K. Morgan, Sarah Beth Durst, and Tananarive Due.

For more information about Read For Pixels, contact Regina Yau at info@thepixelproject.net or visit: http://is.gd/Read4Pixels.

Well, that was an interesting experience. Last Friday I was alerted to the fact that my Wikipedia page had been flagged for deletion. Well, I say my page but one of the few things I know about the whys and wherefores of Wikipedia is that the subject of a page is not allowed to actually edit it. Anyway, I clicked a few links and established that the argument for my deletion was that I was not notable, and had not created a notable body of work. There was apparently a dearth of evidence that I was in any way a notable person, and as such, I had no place on Wikipedia.

Somewhere between startled and baffled, I noted this on social media. Consequently, I have learned a whole lot more about the whys and wherefores of Wikipedia. First and foremost is their idiosyncratic definition of 'notable.' This means statements about a subject must be backed by citations, by which they means links to material elsewhere on the internet to prove that a person has not merely done stuff but other people have written about them doing it, to establish proof. Not all online material is acceptable however. Blogs are not. Amazon reviews are not. Goodreads pages are not. These things are all deemed too likely to be unreliable.

Given my work on issues around representation and diversity, one thing in particular immediately strikes me about such insistence. This desire for verification is wholly laudable. It is also indirectly and unintentionally discriminatory. The fact that this discrimination isn't deliberate in no way excuses it.

When 60-70% of all review coverage, media mentions and other online material that provides these verifying citations goes to white western male authors, then women, writers of colour and LGBTQ+ authors are always going to find it harder to provide 'evidence' and their pages will be much easier to challenge, given our consequent far greater reliance on our own blogs to publicize our activities and other special interest blogs and websites that won't appear in a cursory search, looking for example at Google News reports.

It seems Wikipedia is aware of its systemic bias, as detailed in this article. Read this, and related pieces, and I imagine many of you will note, with the weary contempt of familiarity, the repeated insistence that it's up to women themselves, and other under-represented groups to do all the hard work here. Though I haven't found anything addressing the issue I raise above, explaining what we're expected to do when sufficient acceptable citations simply do not exist, and those references that do exist are not deemed acceptable. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

On the plus side, I have learned that there are dedicated groups of female and other special-interest Wikipedians spending considerable time and effort updating and expanding pages, intent on correcting this bias. Mind you, I also learned their work is frequently challenged and even undone by other Wikipedians applying the all too prevalent and far too often white western male logic of 'not of interest to me personally = not of interest to anyone'. And of course, such challenges can very easily be a thinly veiled cover for actively discriminatory behaviour. Having read the Wikipedia page on handling tendentious editing, I am not in the least reassured that this is in any way satisfactorily addressed.

So what do we do? Give up and leave Wikipedia to perpetuate its skewed world view, further erasing women, writers of colour and LGBTQ+ authors?

How about no, we don't?

A couple of constructive ideas emerged from last Friday's conversations. The first was having panels at SF conventions where experienced Wikipedians could explain the idiosyncracies and intricacies of editing and updating to people like me who are, for example, unaware of the specific ways in which Wikipedia defines 'notable' and 'citation', and the vulnerability of certain groups to deletion and challenge.

The second suggestion was making a time slot and space available at conventions for Wikipedians and fans to get together to update and expand author and other SFFnal pages. That would definitely help out all those authors, not only women, writers of colour and LGBTQ+ folk, who don't have personal assistants, web-elfs or other people who can routinely do this without being struck down as a biased source.

At least as importantly, informed and engaged fans are going to be able to find acceptable citations that a cursory websearch simply will not locate. My updated and now apparently acceptable page is a prime example of this. When I flagged up this issue last Friday, online pals rallied round and crucially, since they already knew all about the many things I've done over the years, they used specific and targeted searches to find Wikipedia-acceptable material to link to.

Get a bunch of like-minded fans together at a convention and I'll bet that adding their knowledge together will prove extremely productive, as someone flags up a Best Of, or Recommended Reads list online that other folk are unaware of, just by way of one example.

How about we try this?

All fans of ZNB's fabulous anthologies will be thrilled to learn that this year's three wonderful projects will now be released on June 15th rather than August as originally scheduled :)

For those of you in the US, this means copies will be for sale at the various summer conventions where ZNB are in the Dealers Room (or equivalent), so do check in with them on social media, to find out where they'll be.

Kickstarter supporters will receive their copies in customary fashion, and everyone else can pre-order the ebooks online, and the trade paperback via ZNB's online store.

Wondering what on earth I'm on about? Here's what's on offer for your reading pleasure -



Second Round: A Return to the Ur-Bar:

For thousands of years the immortal Gilgamesh has presided over the legendary Ur-Bar, witnessing history unfold from within its walls. Some days it is a rural tavern, others a fashionable wine shop. It may appear as a hidden speakeasy or take on the form of your neighborhood local. For most patrons it is simply a place to quench their thirst, but for a rare few the Ur-Bar is where they will meet their destiny.

Join R.K. Nickel, Rachel Atwood, Kari Sperring, Jean Marie Ward, Gini Koch, Jacey Bedford, William Leisner, Garth Nix, Diana Pharaoh Francis, David Keener, Mike Marcus, Kristine Smith, Aaron M. Roth, and Juliet E. McKenna as they recount all new tales from the Ur-Bar. From humor to horror, from the Roman Empire to Martian Colonies, there’s something to please everyone. Just remember to beware when the mysterious bartender offers you the house special …

Preorder SECOND ROUND here:
Trade Paperback
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Nook
Kickstarter Edition (limited)

The Razor's Edge:

One man’s insurgent is another man’s freedom fighter…

From The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to The Hunger Games, everyone enjoys a good rebellion. There is something compelling about a group (or individual) who throws caution to the wind and rises up in armed defiance against oppression, tyranny, religion, the government—you name it. No matter the cause, or how small the chance, it’s the courage to fight against overwhelming odds that grabs our hearts and has us pumping our fists in the air.

Win or lose, it’s the righteous struggle we cherish, and those who take up arms for a cause must walk The Razor’s Edge between liberator and extremist. With stories by Blake Jessop, William C. Dietz, D.B. Jackson, Gerald Brandt, Sharon P. Goza, Walter H. Hunt, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, Kay Kenyon, Steve Perry, Seanan McGuire, Christopher Allenby, Chris Kennedy, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Alex Gideon, Brian Hugenbruch, and Y.M. Pang.

Preorder THE RAZOR'S EDGE here:

Trade Paperback
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Nook
Kickstarter Edition (limited)

Guilds & Glaives



Stop right there!

If you like your fantasy filled with fellowships and noble quests, this anthology is not for you. And if you love lengthy tales of politics and power, then it won’t be to your taste either. But if you like a little intimacy with your evil, and your vengeance short and sweet, with perhaps a pinch of silliness in the witchcraft, then these fourteen delicious sweetmeats of sword and sorcery will prove right up your alley. And it will be a dank, twisting, fetid alley, too.

In this book you will find no high elves (only low), no politics (unless assassination is involved), and certainly no nobility. Join Lawrence Harding, Howard Andrew Jones, Esther Friesner, Jenna Rhodes, Gini Koch, Violette Malan, Leah Webber, David Farland, R.K. Nickel, Ashley McConnell, D.B. Jackson, James Enge, Jason Palmatier, and Amelia Sirina as they explore the perilous streets and clashing blades found in GUILDS & GLAIVES.

Preorder GUILDS & GLAIVES here:

Trade Paperback
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Nook
Kickstarter Edition (limited)

Purchase links - ebook edition
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Barnes & Noble - Nook (US only)
Google Play
Kobo

The paper edition is also available, though be prepared for the unaccountable delays that afflict small press books from Amazon that aren't actually published through them. You should be able to order it from any bookstore and the ISBN is 978-1-908039-69-9. Do remember that ordering physical copies through actual bookshops does encourage them to stock small press books.

Provided we can sort out the logistics, there will be copies available for sale at Follycon, the UK Eastercon 2018. For other sales and availability information, see Wizard's Tower Press.

In some ways, this book is very different from my previous novels. As I’ve learned from my own experience, and through advice from countless eminent authors, the best way to grow and develop as a novelist is to continually challenge yourself with something new. In other ways, it reflects many of the same interests as my previous writing, even if they’re examined from new angles here. The story also stems from the broad scope of my reading which has always gone well beyond epic, secondary world fantasy, across the whole spectrum of speculative fiction and into thriller, crime and mystery novels.

This is a modern fantasy, set in the readily identifiable Peak District in England, although the towns and villages in this story are all invented. It’s an area I know well, and love, thanks to frequent childhood holidays with relatives living in Chesterfield, and subsequent visits with my own family. The area has a fascinating history reflecting the centuries of change that rural communities have experienced, with impacts that are still being felt, as I know well from living in the Cotswolds. The Peak District also has a wealth of local myths and legends, like so much of the English countryside. I’ve always drawn on myth and history in my writing, so using these sources as the foundation for a story was familiar territory.

Setting events in the everyday world was a wholly new challenge however. I soon realised I had to factor in everything and anything from the Internet and modern media to police procedure and the economics of the contemporary English countryside. Every invented name and place had to be googled, to avoid inadvertent libel or misrepresentation.

Modern, urban fantasy so often explores the interaction of mythical beings with contemporary towns and cities. Since so many excellent writers have already done that, I was drawn to exploring the challenges for a modern mortal human encountering rural mythical creatures and their very different, deep rooted concerns. Meantime, he still has to deal with the everyday demands of work, money and relationships, romantic and otherwise. So in that sense, this story is like my previous novels where I’ve explored the impact and demands of classic high heroic events on ordinary people and their lives rather than focusing on rulers and princes.

On the other hand, exploring the themes and conventions of urban fantasy was a whole new challenge for me, including but by no means limited to surrounding a human man with powerful, sensual female mythical beings, as an alternative to writing about a modern woman interacting with super-masculine supernaturals. Along the way I realised I was reflecting on various aspects of modern ideas of masculinity.

I hope that new readers and existing fans of my work alike will find this a satisfying and exciting read.

Alongside this fabulous artwork by Ben Baldwin, I thought I’d share some of the inspiration underpinning this new novel, coming soon from Wizard’s Tower Press.

I grew up with the folklore of the British Isles, by which I mean English, Welsh, Cornish, Irish and Scottish legends, from the Lowlands to the Highlands and Islands. These were stories of giants and witches and dragons and trolls and goblins and boggarts and serpents and will o’the wisps, to name but a few. There were all sorts of fascinating books in the library alongside The Hobbit and the Chronicles of Narnia. Publishers like Pan and Picador offered paperback collections of folktales, retelling the legends of Jack the Giant Killer, Jenny Greenteeth, the Lambton Wyrm and many, many more besides.

I saved up my pocket money and bought some of them; second-hand, dog-eared paperbacks that have somehow vanished over the years through umpteen house moves. That doesn’t matter. The stories have stayed with me and with the benefit of hindsight, I now realise those tales have had a lasting effect on my own writing. Most of them weren’t about heroes and princesses. They were about ordinary boys and girls finding themselves in extraordinary situations, and in very real danger. Getting out of potentially lethal trouble meant using your wits and courage to outfox and defy these mysterious supernatural beings. I still buy books on folklore, from scholarly examinations of the social and psychological underpinnings of stories of witches and fairies, to collections of local legends found in English Heritage, CADW, Heritage Ireland, and National Trust bookshops. I am still fascinated by that intersection between the everyday and the eerie that was part of everyone’s life for centuries.

So I suppose it was inevitable that when I found myself with an idea for an urban fantasy novel, it wasn’t going to be about vampires and werewolves. Those weren’t the creatures that lurked in the shadows outside the window when I was growing up. Similarly, the story wasn’t going to be any sort of urban fantasy, but a tale set in the countryside because that was where these legends took place, amid the forests, caves, rivers, stone circles and barrows that still link these islands to its mysterious past.

How might such ancient eeriness intersect with the modern world? I first started thinking about that when Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier invited me to write a story for an anthology they were editing, “The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity”. What would supernatural beings do in the 21st Century if, for instance, a local authority wanted to drive a new road through their grove or watermeadow? That made for a fun story. But the thing about authors is, once we start thinking about something like that, it can be very hard to stop...

That price for this slender tome must prompt pause for thought. Well, I consider this book excellent value for Le Guin fans and for anyone interested in writing, irrespective of genre.

The titular Nebula Award winning story, The Wild Girls, is followed by an article ‘Staying Awake While We Read’, some poems, another article ‘The Conversation of the Modest’, then an interview ‘A Lovely Art’, followed by a bibliography and short biography. It’s soon clear that this eclectic material has been carefully selected and ordered for maximum coherence and impact.

The Wild Girls story returns fantasy to its folklore roots through clarity of language and the omniscient third person viewpoint so little used in these days of ‘show, don’t tell’ and too often reduced to an unconvincingly remote series of events. Le Guin manages this challenging style with effortless grace, engaging the reader’s emotions with the undeserved sufferings of the innocent and still more impressively, with those who cause such suffering. The intensely personal motives which drive these people enable us to understand them even amid their incomprehensibly archaic world.

While this brief tale of two kidnapped girls enslaved by a patriarchal society is written with lucid simplicity, it is not a simple story. The complexity of all the characters’ lives becomes apparent through successive revelations about the different societies of the city and of the nomads. Slaves do not necessarily bemoan or rebel against their lot. The elites can be imprisoned by the strictures of their caste. Not that Le Guin explains the origins of customs and superstitions any more than she outlines their wider world. There’s no need for this story’s purposes and moreover, this absence of knowledge draws the reader towards the underlying theme of the perils of ignorance. The story also shows how knowledge isn’t a prerequisite for recognising injustice. One doesn’t have to propose a coherent alternative to be able to say ‘but this is unfair’.

As the slave girls grow and marry in an absence of romance though not of love, they discover how they might influence those who control their lives. Thus Le Guin’s story meditates on the role of luck and chance in life as well as unintended consequences and whether or not individuals are rewarded or punished according to what they deserve. Punished by whom? What are our expectations of narrative as opposed to our expectations of reality? How does our experience of story inform our daily lives for good or ill? In forty five pages, this is one of the most-thought provoking tales I’ve read in ages.

The articles and interviews thereafter suggest answers to some of those questions while prompting readers to ask more of themselves. In ‘Staying Awake While We Read’ Le Guin explores mankind’s relationship with story through changing ages of education and literacy, making a compelling case against the commercialisation and commoditisation of books. Capitalism demands unbridled growth. In nature that means obesity or cancer. The consequences for the literary world are equally unwelcome.

While we’re reflecting on that, a handful of poems offer another master class on how much complexity of modern life can be distilled to essentials through the correct, carefully chosen few words. Not necessarily offering answers; I’m still rereading ‘Variations on an Old Theme’ in search of full understanding, while accepting it may not be there to be found.

‘The Conversation of the Modest’ explores the differences between modesty, humility and pride in relation to gender hierarchy in the modern west and also artistic endeavour and merit. If that sounds daunting and dull, never fear. It’s as articulate and entertaining as the interview by Terry Bisson where yet again Le Guin shows how to say so much by saying so little. As well she might. The concluding bibliography and biography summarise the breadth and depth of her work and rightly extol her many achievements. But only after her writing has spoken first.

Ursula K Le Guin The Wild Girls plus... PM Press 2011 Paperback $12.00 102 pages

Reviewed for Interzone 2012

... starting with why you didn’t read this yesterday. I thought about posting something but when I took a glance at the Internet, the first thing I saw was a SF&F row swirling around. I thought briefly about trying to determine where the lines between misunderstanding and bad faith might lie on either side – and then logged out to spend the day with my family instead. We can call that a New Year’s resolution, if you like. There’s more than enough negativity around at the moment, so I’m not interested in looking for more.

I’m currently appreciating my family, those nearest and those further away. 2017 saw some ups and downs but overall, both the sons and the husband are on an even keel, hopefully set fair for 2018. My parents and step-parents continue pretty hale and hearty – and long may that continue. I really appreciate being the off-spring of a teenage romance these days, now that so many good friends are supporting increasingly elderly and infirm parents with all the practical and emotional challenges that brings, up to and including bereavement.

Somewhat unexpectedly, 2017 also saw me branching out into editorial services. Two writers whom I’d taught on residential courses contacted me asking if I ever worked one-on-one with authors. Knowing that both were tough enough to take realistic appraisal of their writing, I accepted this new challenge, and it’s been very rewarding. They’re two very different writers, with two very different and interesting projects. Both have been applying themselves diligently to addressing the issues I’ve highlighted, drawing on my own twenty years in this business. Both projects are progressing and improving. And yes, this added income stream is welcome amid the ongoing flux of the book trade that sees author advances and earnings continue to fall. (And no, I’m not touting for trade – the time that I can spare for such work is currently fully committed.)

All such ticks in the plus column are all the more welcome against the bigger picture that’s been so uncertain and troubling throughout 2017. Here in the UK we have the divisive and destructive idiocy that is Brexit, whose equally destructive economic impact is only just beginning to be felt. Across the Atlantic, US pals have the horror show that is the Trump administration. If ‘administration’ is the right word for such a shambolic and nakedly predatory presidency.

All of which makes it very tempting to bar the front door, stop reading/watching the news, and opt out of social media beyond staying in touch with family and real-life friends. The thing is though, one of the last things 2017 handed me was confirmation that individuals really can make a difference. In December 2014 new regulations on the taxation of cross-border digital sales across the EU looked disastrous for the person-to-person digital economy. All the small traders who would be worst affected were told there was nothing we could do. I was one of half a dozen self-employed women who refused to take that for an answer and spent 2015 and subsequent years lobbying and campaigning for change. December 2017 saw the changes we need signed into law, effective 1st Jan 2019. In legislative terms, we achieved pretty much the impossible, far more quickly than might be expected.

Not without cost. For me and Clare Josa, it meant pretty much abandoning our own businesses throughout 2015 in favour of campaign work. It was the first year since 1997 that I didn’t write a full novel – though I wrote around two novels worth of words in blog posts, letters, reports, and submissions to organisations like the OECD and legislative bodies like the House of Lords. The other women of the EU VAT Action team similarly sacrificed time they’d otherwise have spent on work and family, according to the contribution they were able to make.

But we did it, and that’s something to take forward into 2018. We can make a difference and we can bear the cost. Let’s make our voices heard against the selfishness and greed that’s leaving so many destitute and desperate. Let’s reclaim the reins of power in the interests of the many, not merely the few. Write letters, make phone calls, protest.

What else will I be doing in 2018? Reading. A lot of reading. I’m serving as a judge for the World Fantasy Awards, which promises to be fascinating and demanding in equal measure.

I’ll also be reading for the background and research required for a new publishing project, of which more details in due course. After several years of primarily small-press and short-story publication, this New Year sees the prospect of my work on the mass-market shelves in 2019. As I say, there will be more news about all that later on. There’ll also be a few short stories from me here and there through the year.

Meantime, and more immediately, Wizard’s Tower Press will be publishing my next novel shortly. The Green Man’s Heir is a modern fantasy, drawing on the folklore of the British Isles, and prompted by looking at urban fantasy from a few different angles. Once again, I’m indebted to Cheryl Morgan’s technical and publishing expertise. Ben Baldwin’s artwork is fabulous, and Toby Selwyn has done a stellar job as the book’s editor. All of which reminds me of all the positive, supportive and constructive people there are in SF&F fandom, always there to far outweigh outbreaks of negativity and back-biting.

So I will get back to checking over the ebook version Cheryl has sent me, as my first task of 2018. Watch this space for more, and soon!