Blog Posts

My Eastercon Schedule

26/3/2018

Victorian Fantasy (Sat 1.30-2.45) So many of the forms of fantasy were first created over a hundred years ago, by authors such as Lord Dunsany, Lewis Carroll, E Nesbit and M R James. Our panel discusses the early growth of the genre. With Kevin McVeigh (M), Marcus Rowland, Ramsey Campbell and Ms Jan Siegel.

Electric Athenaeum Launch Party (Sat 4.30-5.45) The Anglia Ruskin Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy is excited to announce the launch of its new online SFF magazine, Electric Athenaeum, which will feature short fiction, articles, poetry, and interviews. The first issue of EA, going live this month, explores the theme For Future Generations with stories and articles about generation ships. Join us for our launch to hear more about this endeavour and to meet the Editor in Chief, Powder Thompson, and one of the directors of the Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy, Dr Tiffani Angus.

Rapidfire Infoshots (Sat 10-11pm) Based on a recent Buzzfeed article about a "Drink/Talk/Learn" party, Rapidfire Infoshots will feature as many audience-wowing 3-minute presentations as we can fit into an hour. Your topic doesn't have to be SFF-related: just entertain and astound us with something you want to share or rant about. Bring a USB stick with .ppt or .pdf slides (PC compatible), or draw visuals on a flip chart. Going over 3 minutes earns a punishment, witty heckling from the audience is allowed, and there will be a prize for the best presentation. There will be brainyness, there will be booze (if you are so inclined), but there is no room to be boring!

Where are the tampons? Chatting about the end of the world....

9/3/2018

So, last year at Worldcon and again at Fantasycon I gave a presentation on my current research into the representation--and estrangement--of women's bodies in apocalyptic fiction. I'm still finishing the final touches on turning it into an article, but I was recently asked by the amazing women at the Breaking the Glass Slipper podcast to join them to talk about my findings.

The podcast went live yesterday, on International Women's Day! You can find out more and listen here. As soon as the article is published, I will update!

Talking about Sub-Genres

26/1/2018

I, along with several other authors, was asked to discuss sub-genres over at Pigeon park Press's site. You can find me talking a bit about historical fantasy here. There are also descriptions of other sub-genres, from grimdark to steampunk to (yes) literary fiction.

From there, we are going to go a bit deeper into hashing out genre designations, how they work, who decides what they are, and who they help (or hinder).

In other news, soon I will be doing a podcast, talking about my "Tampons int he apocalypse" paper. Stay tuned for news of that!

In other other news, the new semester starts in a few days, my job has eaten my life, and I'm on a deadline for a short story. So, yeah, January.

Where are the tampons?

14/10/2017

So, a few years back, after reading Station Eleven, I got into a conversation with a fellow academic about the lack of tampons in the book. This led to me thinking about how women and their bodily functions are treated in fiction--and especially apocalyptic fiction. And THAT led to a research project in which I looked at over 40 books from eight decades of SFF and did some math and some close reading. The result? My presentation: "Where are the Tampons? The Estrangement of Women's Bodies in Apocalyptic Fiction." I gave the paper/presentation at Worldcon in Helsinki and recently at Fantasycon in Peterborough, and next week I will be giving it at my work as part of our Open Lecture series.

The question is, what do I do with it next? While I could alter it to be a regular academic essay, it's image heavy. I *could* trim it down to just the charts I made to show my reading survey, but I like it with the Walking Dead and Mad Max references, and I think the audience finds it more interesting that way, too. Any advice or ideas?

Milford Writing Workshop, 2017

3/10/2017

This year was my fourth visit to the Milford Workshop, held in northern Wales, in a village with no pub--not that that matters, because there are always at least a few of us with cars who can make a daily trip to the co-op.

The week is spent critiquing your 14 workshop-mates' stories and novel excerpts. It's also spent sleeping, eating (good food! all cooked on site, most of the ingredients sourced from the site's own fields), walking in the mud, and, unfortunately for me, reading. I had hoped to have the week to write, but I was so far behind with prep that I had to spend each almost each evening and morning before critique circle reading and writing feedback. By the end of the week, i only got to spend two whole hours writing: one hour was spent on a new story due in November (I honestly might have to bail on that invitation, alas); the other hour was spent on a new story due in February, which I will NOT mess up.

My track record at Milford is pretty good: for each of my previous three visits I've sent two pieces for feedback and published one of each pair. This time I sent only one piece: the first 15,000 words of the newest novel. The feedback I got was fab, but a full first draft is, right now, a bit of a pipe dream. I am hoping to have one done by next summer. FINGERS CROSSED.

Interview with my alma mater

25/7/2017

Because of the column I wrote for the Dayton Daily News a few months back after the Manchester bombings, my alma mater, Wright State University, contacted me for an interview. It just went live today and can be found HERE. I talk about my journey as a writer, what I learned doing my BA and MA, my writing now, and what advice I give to new writers.

Mother's Revenge anthology now available in UK and on Kindle

25/6/2017

Mother's Revenge: A Dark and Bizarre Anthology of Global Proportions, which contains my story "Midwives", is now available in the UK and via Kindle. Soon to be available on Audible, too!

Publishing Update: Jan-June 2017

8/6/2017

The first half of this year has been a busy one for me. I've had 2 fiction pieces and 2 non-fiction pieces published:

My story "On Tradescant Road," which I first wrote in summer 2015 and workshopped at Milford that September, was published in the British Fantasy Society's Horizons #4. It's a story about a time capsule that doesn't travel the way it is expected to. It's also about memory and scent and holding on to possessions. And, strangely, I wrote it about a museum exhibit before the exhibit was announced.

A second story workshopped at that same Milford, "Midwives," was just published in Scary Dairy Press's Mother's Revenge: A Dark and Bizarre Anthology of Global Proportions. (Link to buy it is on the Writing page.) This story is about flower workers in South America and the invisibility of women. Both stories were inspired by my garden-history research, but for both I messed with reality a bit.

I've had my first ever academic paper published. The National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) has a yearly conference here in the UK. This past November, I presented a paper about performance in feedback in SFF writing workshops. The association has published the paper in their Writing in Education journal.

Finally, the fourth piece came about by accident. After the Manchester bombing, I wrote a mini-rant on my Facebook page, and my old boss (an editor at the Dayton Daily News) asked me if I wanted to expand it for the paper. Of course! I did so and then Wright State University (my BA and MA alma mater) picked up on it, and a representative has this week sent an email interview. They are going to print a profile of me, about my time at WSU and where I went from there. Another bit of serendipity is the fact that WSU and my university here in the UK have over the past couple of years forged a relationship and become quasi 'sister' schools. The world, she is small!

When Words Grow: Readers Are Listening

29/5/2017

In spite of attempts to eradicate it, I have a bit of a Fb addiction. I take it off of my phone in hopes of leaving the world behind for a while, but it's only a matter of time before I re-load the app so I don't feel out of the loop for too long.

ANYWAY, last week there was another terrorist attack here in the UK, this time in Manchester. It seems like not a week goes by without some new tragedy happening, and it is easy to let it become part of everyday life. The more I thought about it, the more angry I got. So I posted a bit of a rant on Fb. My old boss, an editor at the Dayton Daily News, sawit and offered me the opportunity to expand my soapbox in the paper (you can read it here). Unknown to me, my alma mater's Fb page got a hold of it and posted it. As a result, one of my former professors is going to talk to a higher-up there and they may contact me for a profile, a "where is she now" sort of thing to follow graduates. Which is a bit of serendipity because as of a couple of years ago, my UK university has forged a connection--a sort of sister-school link--to where I got my BA and MA in the US.

This reminds me that though I write, and publish some things, there are people out there reading. It's easy to forget that the words GO somewhere.

Eastercon 2017: My Panel Schedule

12/4/2017

Tomorrow morning I run away to Birmingham for Eastercon. I'll be on four panels, talking about academia, workshops, literature & films & TV, and even art! Here is my schedule:

Pedagogy and Speculative Fiction (Saturday from 1-2pm): Anglia Ruskin University, based in Chelmsford and Cambridge, is recruiting the first intake of students for their newly launched masters degree in science fiction and fantasy. In this session the centre director, Helen Marshall, along with colleagues and visiting lecturers will explore the significance of studying speculative fiction in this era of alternative facts, where George Orwell's 1984 has recently benefitted from a sales boost. With Helen Marshall, Val Nolan, and John Clute.

Writing Groups, Conferences and Workshops: Which Way to Go? (Saturday from 8.30-9.30pm--yes, likely clashing with Doctor Who!): Clarion West, Milford SF Writers' Conference, and Manchester Speculative Fiction are examples of creative writing groups. What benefit do writing groups, workshops, conferences and classes have? Are there down sides to them? Our panelists discuss their experiences and use their knowledge as participants and organisers to suggest which ones might be worth your while. With Val Nolan, Jacey Bedford, Peter Calu, and Helen Claire Gould.

You Want a Revolution? I Want a Revelation! (Sunday from 4-5pm): We live in a time of establishment, yet we exercise the fantasy of political rebellion in SF, Fantasy, and historical fiction including Rogue One, Outlander, and Hamilton. We return to historical rebellion at times of political atrophy and disillusion and fear – luring the unsuspecting and the recalcitrant in with a false sense of safety with the material by placing it in an unknown galaxy or a Highland glen. This panel focuses on grass-root movements led by diverse groups be they Black Lives Matter or the Women's March and asks questions such as when does civil-disobedience become violent rebellion? With Phil Dyson, Jan Siegel, Russell A. Smith, and Jeannette Ng.

Fantastical Art (Sunday from 10-11am): Fantastical art has a different aesthetic, purpose, and conceptual/philosophical underpinning than what we normally think of as fantasy art. Our panel of experts explore those differences and talk about what is the best of the fantastical art both in and out of the genre publishing world. With Judith Clute, Andrew M. Butler, Jackie Duckworth, and Meg Frank.