GWENDA BOND

Katharine Weber Gets Pivot-ed

Before the Aussie day posting starts, let's see what Katharine Weber -- whose Triangle is all the rage over at the LBC this week -- has to say to the Bernard Pivot Questionnaire. (Inspired by the ladies of Seven Impossible Things, I asked Nicola these questions last week, you'll remember.) Katharine's answers are absolutely delightful (especially #5).

   

1. What is your favorite word?    
       Lunch.

2. What is your least favorite word?    
    Moist.

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?    
    Echoes and integrity.

4. What turns you off?    
    Dishonesty and ugliness.

5. What is your favorite curse word?    
    Fuckwit.

6. What sound or noise do you love?
    The shuffling of a deck of cards.

7. What sound or noise do you hate?
    Other people's television.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
    Psychotherapist.

9. What profession would you not like to do?
    Manual disimpaction technician.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
      Love your work!

And the LBC Goes On (+ Always Redux)

The feisty and fabulous Melissa Moorer has weighed in on Always, and I don't want y'all to miss it. So consider this a brief Always Week revival. Among the things she has to say is:

So, since I'm in a brain cloud, I'm going to do what shouldn't be done and talk about the queer thing. I realize that this is a no-no. There's the fear that this will somehow ghettoize these books (and therefore doom them to mediocre sales) and Yes, I know, we're supposed to be talking about the writing, the structure, the characters, but Aud's gay! And strong! And this is (surprisingly) not a combination I see very often. In fact, I've seen the argument repeatedly that we shouldn't want strong female characters to be gay (I've seen this argument most around Starbuck, and typically made by lesbians) because that would somehow stereotype all strong women as lesbians. Why is this so terrible? Apparently it is. Most of the lesbians in media are very...well, they certainly couldn't kill anyone with a flashlight. In fact, I'm pretty sure they couldn't change a tire or make a fist either. They're almost always stripped of strength, power, and anything that signifies butch and or even queer. They read as straight girls (and I mean that in the worst possible, hyper-feminized way)...who just happen to like other girls. And the tough women? They're almost always straight (Starbuck, Ripley, The new Bionic Woman, Faith, Buffy, Sydney, Veronica Mars). I've even seen people argue vehemently that Vasquez in Aliens was straight, which completely breaks my brain, but it's not like there's any concrete evidence to the contrary.

You'll really, really want to go read the rest.

Meanwhile over at the LBC, Levi Asher has taken over the discussion reins and is doing some fun stuff in honor of Katharine Weber's Triangle. Don't miss: this excellent interview, her 5X5 books, and some thoughts from Scott Esposito.

Don't Miss Friday!

And Always week wraps up today with a podcast by the Amazing Carolyn Kellogg aka Pinky. Music and talking from Nicola! (And embarrassing babbling by yours truly.)

And yesterday Hannah Wolf Bowen posted a nice review of the book you should check out.

Thanks to all y'all for commenting and following along. Please, if I haven't convinced you yet, buy this book and read it. I'll try to round up all the festivities in one big post over at the LBC tomorrow for easy revisiting.

Nicola Griffith Gets Pivoted

One of my very favorite blogs in the world is Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. They do these lovely, long interviews, which they always finish with the Pivot Questionnaire -- you may know it from The Actor's Theatre (which must be pronounced theat-ah). Inspired by Jules and Eisha at SITBB, I asked Nicola these questions while impersonating James Lipton. If these were not paricularly what you wanted her to answer, well, she's over at the LBC today guest blogging and you can bring your own. Here we go.

1. What is you favorite word?
    Mine!

2. What is your least favorite word?

    Share.

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

    Focus, clarity, enthusiasm.

4. What turns you off?

    Wittering and whingeing.

5. What sound or noise do you love?

    Wind in the trees.

6. What sound or noise do you hate?

    The yapping of small dogs.

7. What is your favorite curse word?

    Fuck.

8. What profession other than your own would like to attempt?

    Something to do with flow, literally or emotionally. In science, studying wave mechanics or surface tension. In arts and crafts, pot throwing or bronze sculpting. In corporate life, the fostering of innovation -- idea flow.

9. What profession would you not like to do?

    Driving a school bus.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

    Fancy a pint?

Don't Miss Wednesday

• The marvelous Gavin J. Grant has the reins at Bookslut this week and he has a little interview with Nicola over there today. (He's also apparently about to get Cheney's back gun mag collection, but you'll have to read the roundtable to get that not-joke.)
• And over at Metroblogging Seattle, Melissa Tyler has some lovely things to say about Always.
• The full roundtable extravaganza is up: part 1 from Monday, yesterday's part 2, and today's final installment.

Don't Miss (updated)

• Nicola's 5X5 Books today over at About Last Night courtesy of CAAF.
• There's also the roundtable extravaganza, with great convos going on in the comments so far: part 1 from yesterday and today's part 2 today.
• And see Kassia's meditations on genre and when readers cross the aisle (which I already linked to once here!). We'll be talking about some of these same issues in the final installment of the roundtable.

Updated:

Really, really, really don't miss Nicola's guest essay at Booksquare about the difficulties (and joys) of writing a series character who changes and genre expectations and the whole ball of wax. A snippet:

I hadn’t set out to write a series character (I was halfway through The Blue Place before I understood the novel was merely the first act of the play that was Aud); I’d never really considered how it might be to write more than one book from first person. I wasn’t ready. So when I sat down to write Stay in the same bullet-train, cold-edged, urban-metaphored style as The Blue Place, I was shocked that it wouldn’t work. Aud was not only in a different geographic and emotional place, she persisted in seeing and responding differently. I kept writing then throwing away chapters, and then one day, duh, it hit me: change the metaphor systems, change the focal length, change the expectations. That is, change the voice. Just don’t change it too much.

Always Roundtable Extravaganza

The following folks did a flat-out fascinating roundtable on Always -- Matt Cheney, Colleen Mondor, Meghan McCarron, Kassia Krozser, Dave Schwartz (and me). The first installment is up now at the LBC.

Oh, and, please drop me an e-mail or a comment if you're posting about Always or Nicola Griffith this week, so I can include it in a daily round-up I'll be doing.

Pre-Always Weekdom

And my post about Always is up at the LBC site. Always week kicks off next Monday.

Always & Forever Awesome

Over at Bookslut, Colleen Mondor has given a rave review to Nicola Griffith's fabulous Always. As you might recall, it's my pick for the LitBlog Co-op for this round, which is coming up very, very soon. In earlyish August, actually, we'll kick off the discussion. If you'd like to be in on that, either with a post at your own site or some other grand or teeny plan, please let me know. Drop a comment here or send me an email (link up and to the right). Danke!

And if you haven't read it yet, there's still plenty of time to do so and join the talkity talk.

DeNiro Week at the LBC

Hey, y'all, head over to the LBC this week where we will be celebrating the wonder of Alan DeNiro's fiction.

Read This!

So, y'all head over and check out Pinky's big announcement that this quarter's Read This! pick is the one and only Alan DeNiro's wonderful debut collection Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead. I couldn't be more excited about the opportunity for a bunch of smart people to converse about these stories.

See also Pinky's post at her own site about her MFA classmates' lukewarm reception to the title story. I can only respond by calling those in question boobyheads.

Read This Crow

From the increasingly frigid northeast, I wave you all over to the LitBlog Co-Op, where Carrie Frye (in tangerine muumuu, of course, and Groucho Marx glasses, of double course) extolls the virtues of the fabulous, fat Wizard of the Crow, our Read This! pick for Winter 2007.

Literary Rats

Over at the LitBlog Co-Op Ed talks about why he nominated the latest Read This! selection: Sam Savage's Firmin. (This is a charming, thoughtful little book* that was pretty much neck and neck for my affections with nominee Manbug, which Matt Cheney will post about on Wednesday, I believe.) And it comes from the truly awesome Coffeehouse Press. So, check it out.

Something else about this round's books? There's only three, as there will be in every round from now on, and they're all short, which may never happen again.

*I first suspected I'd like it when I noticed Karen Joy Fowler blurbed it. I make it a habit never to quibble with Karen's taste.

Slammed (Updated)

Okay, I am beyond busy and have a little bit of a cold. But I have to say that Jeff Ford's first guest post at the LBC is FABULOUS. You must go read it. It's all about his experiences researching historical periods for his novels. A taste:

Here’s a little fact I found that will give perspective as to women’s standing at the time.  Women in mental institutions of the day were, each night, administered a warm whiskey douche.  Now, I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure this was not a treatment conceived of by a woman. Seems like an awful lot of trouble for one thing, and crazy in a kind of sexually perverted way for another.   

Updated: And the second one, about mystery and the meaning of life, is just as good.

More Jeff Ford Week Goodness

Today's one of my favorites so far over at the LBC. I asked several people if they wanted to write a little something about The Girl in the Glass or Jeff Ford for the discussion week. Jeff VanderMeer, Brian Overton, John Klima, Meg McCarron, Tim Pratt and John Picacio sent me fabulous responses, all of which are now up over at the LBC for your reading pleasure.

And tomorrow is author guest blog day.

Yay!

Cheerleader

Won't you mosey on over to the LitBlog Co-Op and read my post about Jeff Ford's THE GIRL IN THE GLASS? The discussion/celebration week for it will begin May 1.

Light Phenomena

Ander Monson is holding court about Other Electricities in most delightful fashion:

I can, however, speak to my intentions, and I see the voice as being either the mother (who is herself a mystery--probably dead, though possibly gone to Canada, and her postcards on the website serve, I hope, to complicate this--and maybe that's a metaphor regardless, Canadian as dead (at least to these characters--I should say I have nothing against Canada, since where I'm from we're practically Canadian, we get their TV, their sports, much of their culture, but the space North of the border is this big Other up there--white space, the unknown, my own personal Congo/Heart of Darkness or whatever). The voice of the mother (though again it's possibly some even weirder thing speaking, a sort of greek chorus in the book, or the place, or the town, or the Paulding Light, which is real, by the way (you can see a bizarro low-budget film in the style of the Blair Witch Project at:  Paulding Light.com)) (and sorry for my nested parentheses, which might be a bit ridiculous, but I like them) is one of the few times in the book where there's real solace offered to Yr Protagonist, or to the other characters.

Canadian(s), can you dispute this? And the Paulding Light is real. Who knew? Please consider this a plea for all writers to incorporate real mysterious lights into their books.

I will even forgive the fact that Ander Monson (b. 1975) makes me (b. 1976) feel like a 1991er.

Stat

Okay, so I just put up a post at Ye Olde LBC about Ander Monson's Other Electricities, which I actually loved, loved, loved. And I had to rewrite it and everything because Typepad ate it the first time. And I even included a short short from the book which is funny and sharp and excellent, just because I love you. So go read it and tell me why I'm a crazed lunatic. And check out all the other fine, fun stylings going on too.

p.s. I think I may possibly have cursed too much, but so damn be it.

And the nominees are...

The rest of the LBC winter nominees have now been revealed -- including my tie for favorite, Rupert Thomson's Divided Kingdom, which the lovely BookDwarf posts about very nicely at that link.

Exciting developments are in the works starting next week.

Read This Too

And the second nominee is announced. I really, really dug this one. I think more than many. Weather = Good.

(More discussion to come during discussion week.)

Read This

Dan Wickett announces the Winter LBC pick: Kirstin Allio's fabulous debut novel Garner. Yay!

In other news, don't expect more here until tomorrow. Ms. Link & Mr. Grant came for an impromptu visit and we are busy having fun and watching weird Russian movies.
 

Recommended Reading

It'd been many years, pre-LitBlog Co-Op, since I had required reading. I'd forgotten how much the spirit can chafe against such things. In fact, last round, I sort of despaired at one point -- I didn't love any of the books and I just wasn't sure I could stick it out with the LBC over the long haul if such misery was required along with the reading. I don't mean that all the books were terrible or anything; I actually grew pretty fond of the Stern and especially the Gann. But I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of five new prospects arriving at the PO Box either.

You see, there's this stack of books a mile tall next to my bed that I also want to read. But these, these I had to rank and discuss. I had to read these. It instantly made every other book in the house more attractive.

Here's the thing. This time around was completely different. This time around the nominators announced their nominees and I was really surprised. Most of them I had completely missed. And they looked FANTASTIC. They showed up and they were a good-looking set of books aesthetically. They had promise. They were the kind of books you look at and want to read. (And some of the author photos are downright hot.) And they delivered. I didn't hate anything this time. I loved three of the books and liked the other two well enough. I didn't regret the time spent reading anything and I felt really lucky to be reading these books the vast majority of the time.

So, I'm excited about this next round. It's a strong crop of books, we're doing some new stuff (Podcasts! Ed rocks!) and if you think something else is a good idea, drop a line. In the meantime, I'm now weighing the books I've read in the last year to come up with my own nomination for the next round, due shortly. (If you feel really strongly about a book, drop me an email or leave it in the comments.)

Mostly, I just hope you'll all tune in on Monday and in the weeks ahead to read and discuss these five pretty wonderful books. Starting with the Most Wonderful of Them All on Monday morning.

Writer Appearances

Three of the writers whose books the LBC read this last quarter have put up excellent essays or answers to questions so far. There's a new one today, but on the off chance you skipped the others, I'm linking those again:

• Elizabeth Poliner on Mutual Life and Casualty (Not to mention a dead interesting convo in the comments of Kassia's post on this book, about women's fiction and domesticity.)
• Kirby Gann on Our Napoleon in Rags
• Steve Stern on The Angel of Forgetfulness

Kirby Gann Week

It's Kirby Gann week over at the LBC, where we'll be discussing Our Napoleon in Rags. I just threw up a starting post a few minutes ago. Stop by and join in. Should be fun.

(And I definitely expect to see you there, because I know you've read the book.)

Flurry O Posts

The posts are flying fast and furious over at the LBC as the boys discuss Lance Olsen's 10:01. Here's the first in the series by World Fantasy Award nominee Matt Cheney. Like Matt, I was heavily reminded of Geoff Ryman's far better 253 (which I urge you to read as soon as you finish all those posts):

What this book reminded me of again and again, and to its detriment, was Geoff Ryman's 253, which started out as hypertext and eventually was published.  253 can be both (or alternately) tedious and addictive, but I generally feel that the writing is better than in 10:01, perhaps because it is less intent on creating various voices, a technique I find cloying unless the writer is a particular sort of ventriloquistic genius. Comparing the two works is unfair on the whole, though, because they are quite different, but that's one of the dangers that comes with writing a book primarily driven by its structural concept -- it begins to look a lot like other books primarily driven by their structural concepts.

Next week's discussion is of Kirby Gann's Napoleon in Rags and I'll be participating in that one (because it was my favorite). That's probably it for this fine, blustery Friday. Good weekends all round.

Who hates hippies? Are you with me?

Then please go over to the LBC and help defend me against the ones who can't take a joke. Yeah, I finally posted about this round's selection. Also, some questions at the end (which will be clearer in context):

Are there any story-within-a-story books or American-Jewish fantasies any of you want to recommend or discuss? Writers left off the list? You hate Neutral Milk Hotel?

Y'all smarties go over there and weigh in.

This Week at the LBC

Definitely check out the LBC this week. Things kicks off with a discussion of Steve Stern's Angel of Forgetfulness, followed by late week appearances by the book's publicist, Ami Greko, and editor, Paul Slovak. Stop by and heckle the peeps.