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The Allure of Orpheus and Eurydice
The tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice — the lover who visits Hades to rescue his love, only to falter at the end — has inspired artists for millennia. We'll look at why the story has resonated for so long, favorite adaptations and whether Orpheus could ever NOT look back.
Constance Fay, Greer Gilman, Kate Nepveu, Tom Doyle (moderator), Sophia Babai

panel notes

In my introduction, I described this Tumblr poll which was then at the top of my Bluesky account.

someone's introduction talked about the story as when unshakeable faith is required and when it can't be maintained.

We started by Tom asking Greer whether Orpheus could ever not look back.

Greer: tells story of Sir Orfeo, upshot of which is that Orfeo has no conditions placed on his recovery of his wife, Heurodis, and gets everything back. Feels like Shakespeare in Winter's Tale, tired of tragedy

(this telling involved Heurodis being replaced by a gray stone, and suddenly I realized that Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell probably is related to this or some related myth in some way)

Tom: is this the same story?

Sophia: fundamentally not. the condition is key, it's like Lot's wife

Constance: (my notes here say, "character or moral? Orpheus' lack [of faith, I think] = character. story not the myth." this is much less illuminating than I would like at this point and this panel was only two days ago, on Saturday morning! apologies)

Tom: find core of story incredibly frustrating, it's an unavoidable trap and I hate it. it's not cathartic, why can't I shake sense into Orpheus

Tom: asks Sophia about Hadestown.

Sophia: gives premise, including that about miners. notes that audience gasps every. time. he turns around. about cycles, perseverance in activism.

Tom: asks about adding the miners to the story.

me: I did not listen to Hadestown all the way through before I went to see it. two things really surprised me: first, that Eurydice chose to go to Hadestown because she and Orpheus were starving and he was too wrapped up in composing to help. Second, when Orpheus discovers this, he despairs and asks "If It's True" ... and the workers, who to this point had been the chorus, respond and ask, why can't we stand with him? And then it becomes about Orpheus, Eurydice, and the workers: Eurydice is going to follow Orpheus, and they are going to follow Eurydice.

Sophia: the gods are having very normal marital problems, but because of the power they have, it's destroying the world, and the workers are caught in it. so apt.

Greer: interesting that hell is pervading the upper world here, parallel to Oberon and Titania in Midsummer Night's Dream

Tom: asks Constance about Kaos on Netflix

Constance: Riddy (Eurydice) is not as into Orpheus as he is into her. she goes to Underworld and falls in love with someone else, finding herself in death. crux of Orpheus & Eurydice is that the stakes are very unbalanced: him, possession and loss; her, life and death. Does Eurydice really want to leave or is she "song-roofied"? in Kaos do come to terms with differing desires.

(me, sotto voce to Tom: now would be a great time to ask me about Harrow the Ninth!)

Tom: asks me about Harrow the Ninth =>

SPOILERS for Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth

me: apologies for spoilers. at the end of Gideon the Ninth, Gideon kills herself to save Harrow. when Harrow opens, there's a thread that's Harrow after the first book, and there's a thread that's a retelling of Gideon ... except without Gideon. and it's because Harrow cannot accept Gideon's death, so has literally excised Gideon's existence from her brain, which for magical reasons means that Gideon is not truly dead yet. and Gideon's big mad about it: she wanted to give Harrow her death! Harrow won't take it! they are all kind of messed up and I love them for it.

me cont'd: but to me, the three interesting things about Orpheus and Eurydice stories are: why does Eurydice die? why can't Orpheus look back? and why does he fail? and Hadestown and Harrow both give answers to the first and second, and Hadestown also to the third (he's removed from community as well as from Eurydice).

Constance: like Buffy, was also happy being dead. Orpheus always has to look back, but maybe Eurydice isn't always following.

Tom: L’Esprit de L’Escalier, by Catherynne M. Valente; I Never Liked You Anyway, by Jordan Kurella

Greer: The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie

Sophia: where you have consistent weather patterns, water, less war: stories about gods are primarily benevolent tricksters. inverse: stories about gods are, why is the world like this. inexplicablity is the point.

audience: is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead an Orpheus and Eurydice story? also has cycles, inevitability, author's choice of hell (this was clearly a reference to something from early on that I failed to note down, sorry)

Sophia: feels much more Hadestown than Orpheus and Eurydice, the point of Orpheus and Eurydice is that it's a one-time thing. but Shakespeare may be like myth in terms of the audience's sense of knowledge and thus sense of repetition.

Greer: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have no choice from the beginning.

audience: re: choice of hell, do Orpheus and Eurydice retellings land differently when they're from a Christian-pervasive society where it's Hell, rather than an Underworld that everyone goes to?

Constance: Moulin Rouge, the "underworld" is the seedy music scene, but it's all about perspective, if you're not dying from consumption it's much less bad (possibly even welcoming?). also Kaos is much more Greek and has a whole society in the Underworld

Sophia: "other" doesn't have to be "under" in the place you go, refers to Greer's mention of Faerie in Sir Orfeo. also Christianity also gets into ideas of cleanliness re: the "other" place, and that almost fits better with the woods. See also the rescue of Sita

Constance: Farscape, Aeryn Sun, can't go back because been exposed to other worlds/peoples

Greer: Scandinavian versions where Eurydice goes under the sea based on who stole her

audience: Severance, Underworld self has no awareness of other

spoilers for Severance S2

Constance: Mark is both Orpheus and Eurydice: rescues and doesn't, stays and goes

audience: always thought the story was about the denial of death, not the loss of faith: the understanding that it's never going to work. therefore always liked versions that took on that question, that are about grief and not getting life back after a death. recommendations?

me: Harrow

Sophia: this is awful and I apologize, but: my work-in-progress

Greer: interested in stories that complete the myth and have Orpheus torn to pieces (I know this happens in the Sandman)

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kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
[personal profile] kate_nepveu

The Joys (and Perils?) of Reading Deeply
In general, people are more likely to read widely (some books by many authors) than deeply (many books by one author). Panelists will discuss the joys, rewards, and even downsides of going deep with a particular author, series, or subgenre — and what led them to it.
Barbara Krasnoff, Gregory A. Wilson, Lark Morgan Lu (moderator), Rebecca Fraimow

panel notes

Barbara asked for the panelists' deep read with their intros.

Rebecca: Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones podcast.

Barbara: tend to deep read a lot of 19th century lit repeatedly, or SF dense enough that resembles

(me, in my notes: have you heard about The Fortunate Fall??? (I will come back and link when I make the post about that panel, but it was in the last slot of the con, so it'll be a little bit.)

Gregory: podcast began with deep dives. current: Murderbot; repeated: Lord of the Rings (and now teaches) and everything surrounding, taught importance of seeing layers even decades later

Lark: how exactly do you deep read?

Rebecca: hard to do on first read, can't see shape of whole book, so has to be on second read. have page of notes or Google Docs with quotes, end up with kind of red string theory about book as whole

Barbara: Dickens fan. when first read as young, for plot, skipped over boring parts. now every time read very prose-heavy books, find something new. naturally quick reader, will force self to sound out each word to slow down. Aubrey-Maturin, do need secondary sources for ship terms etc. but usually just rereading

Gregory: very similar. in academic work, obviously, eye toward teaching. when doing deep reading "on my own," not doing that: like waves passing over at beach, absorb something new every time. recently starting teaching [one of this year's Readercon Guests of Honor] P. Djèlí Clark: initially read because interested, before started teaching started picking up inter-book connections, which are either intentional or designed to make it appear so: valuable for own writing

Rebecca: yes, valuable to deep read into not just book or author's work, but broader context; really helpful for themes and ideas within the work itself

Lark: so downsides?

Barbara: two offhand: not spending time finding new authors; hit book 5 or 6 and suddenly realize that you don't like it.

Gregory: that's the bargaining stage. risk of tunnel vision. if after Murderbot, go to another series where voice is not as prominent, "this would be awesome if it were Murderbot!" though sometimes breath of fresh air; example of Dune and then the Witcher series, much different prose speeds. wants to downplay slightly risks of this, because value: get one of greatest joys, understanding of how sausage is made, which can be not just valuable but moving

Rebecca: doing Eight Days means has to put a "nickel in the Diana Wynne Jones jar" every time refers to. but another peril, become glutted with it: read bunch of Guy Gavriel Kay in row, started feeling like could finish sentences for him. haven't tried to push through that feeling, probably possible but ...

Lark: disagree slightly with Gregory: John Wiswell's talk on "How I Wrote Someone You Can Build a Nest In," mentioned that had very minimal edits: would like to have not know that, remain furious that book love so much just came out that way (Lark later made super-extra clear that this was a joke)

Rebecca: things wish I didn't know about favorite books: reading deeply can lead to realizing that don't like as much. Witch Week: DWJ essay explaining it as metaphor for racial bullying, reaction: oh this doesn't work. think a different way about book and now have more complicated enjoyment

Barbara: had that with Dickens, Oliver Twist: Fagin, okay going to pass by problems with character because love book so much. then reading more, learned that friend of Dickens' pointed out problems, wrote Our Mutual Friend with "good" Jewish character (Rebecca: he was doing his best)

Gregory: this is why biographical criticism is dangerous. authors are not accurate always about impact of work on wide audience. Tolkien was wrong about Lord of the Rings not being about WWI. also sometimes write beyond what they as people are like (Shakespeare being able to write more nuanced characters than his personal prejudices likely would have indicated)

Rebecca: sometimes have to read as deeply what authors are saying about own work, as read the work itself

Lark: what's difference between being a deep reader and being a Trekkie or Swiftie for whatever you're reading? just being a huge fan?

Gregory: very dangerous question to answer. couple of responses. being a huge fan is extraordinarily valuable because reflects passion and identification. not minor, important. largely come to reading for emotional impact first. that said, can be uncritical acceptance, thinking everything from artist is equally good. deep reading is trying to really engage on own terms, not just author's, which often means critical in analytic sense. nuance: doesn't invalidate deep love of the work. and can be both at different times.

(me: life is a rich tapestry, my brain is always being analytical, cannot make it stop even when I want to)

Rebecca: part of deep reading is looking at it past your own emotional response, maybe that's the difference.

Barbara: somewhat disagree with Gregory, Trek fans can wildly disagree, not uncritical. may disagree with self in half hour, but not sure that so much different

Gregory: does this happen even within an individual book? my father always thought that Twain suffered failure of nerve in Huck Finn when Tom Sawyer reentered narrative. engaged with it as a fan because so good until that point: hit speedbump, thrown off; deep reader asks, why did he do that.

Rebecca: hard to become a deep reader if not already a fan!

Gregory: no hate deep reads?

Rebecca: not done hate deep reads, but "I didn't quite get this" deep reads, come back a year-ish later, other people liked and I don't see it

Gregory: Fargo, watched 4 times, can't stand it

Barbara: next year's panel, things everyone likes but you

(it's now in my list of things to send in!)

Rebecca: brainwashed self into liking Frankenstein by reading 4 times, now very protective of (the monster, I think)

Gregory: book that rewards deep reading

Rebecca: a book that you can have an interesting fight with will always reward deep reading

Lark: would you want someone to deep read you??

Gregory: yes please! if was intending layers, nice that noticed; if not, emotionally invested that want to engage in process, amazing. what authors don't want is apathy

Barbara: what he said. one of favorite memories is someone saying, you meant to do x, y, z; no, didn't, but great that brought own experiences

Rebecca: huge compliment to be thought worth fighting with. would love it as authors if our attitude were, yes come fight with me

Lark: but not fistfight! we at Readercon do not condone physical violence on-site!

Rebecca: once dreamed that Madeleine L'Engle was coming to punch me in face

Gregory: of all authors, least surprised

audience: professional deep reading versus that might do as "ordinary" "fan", "just a reader" (quotation marks are mine)

Gregory: "professional" involves going through for targeted reasons, particular elements to bring up in class and so forth. when fully invested in work and rereading—example of his father's books, where he annotated emotional reactions (meet Gollum in The Hobbit, "don't trust him," answering riddles ahead of time). but also making connections to other works etc.

Barbara: only kind of deep reading I do is personal

Rebecca: if just for myself, not podcast or book review, tend to hyperfocus on what interests me: running list of all best insults in Iliad just to share with friends

audience (me): risk that will have opinions about author as person? I have Diana Wynne Jones opinions just from listening to the podcast

Rebecca: high. risk that hearing the ghost of author standing next to you saying things, not just work itself. not sure that mastered that challenge

Barbara: depends on author. it's my problem. Dickens: then found out how treated wife, relatively recently, but couldn't stop enjoying, so invested in literature: will use to reinterpret but not stop reading. other authors, would not enjoy works if found that were problematic. some Heinlein books "make me absolutely insane." not very consistent

Gregory: probably true for me too. okay to understand that going to form opinions, as long as doesn't substitute for work you're reading. can struggle to get back into work for author because still around. doesn't teach Gaiman any more. but important for students to understand that can write beyond self, that individual circumstances are not predictive of work can produce.

Rebecca: death of author is so much easier when author is literally dead.

audience: just done 4th reread of Terry Pratchett, love spending time with him. have discovered that certain books don't wear as well as others. when done deep read of favorite writers, ever say "I loved, past tense, this"

Rebecca: that's called the Suck Fairy (see A Visit from the Suck Fairy and A Visit from the Context Fairy). every book is created between reader and text

Barbara: find most often re: children's literature that read as child, especially 19th century. sometimes think should not go back and reread

Gregory: conversely, delight when things hold up. but: Dragonlance, don't hold up. however, when read, mattered to you in the way that they did, spoke to you: don't cringe, did best could at time

Rebecca: even if book itself doesn't hold up, understand what about yourself at that age that spoke to you

audience: apply this to poetry?

Gregory: don't know why this has become a my father panel, but he ran a small poetry press. most moving poems are ones that revisit, and engage with in similar way

Barbara: don't tend to deep read poetry, totally emotionally thing

Rebecca: feel intimidated by prospect, think doesn't understand way constructed in same way as fiction, but having conversations with poet who has same feelings has been very useful.

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kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
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"Nice Review You've Got There..."
On the Hugo-winning blog Lady Business, book blogger Renay noted that negative and even mixed reviews of books have become rare, thanks in large part to the potential unpleasantness and dogpiling that can ensue when authors and fans become upset by negative reviews. Can the revival of blogs and newsletters foster a comeback of critical commentary, or has our social media culture doomed us to "good vibes only" book reviews from here on out? What can fandom do to encourage critical work that's occasionally, you know, critical?
Andrea Martinez Corbin (moderator), Gregory A. Wilson, Ian Muneshwar, Michael Dirda, Sacha Lamb

panel notes

Ian: fiction writer, also criticism; Strange Horizons essay on Poe and gun violence. interested in this question especially contrasted to literary ecosystem

Sacha: active on Tumblr and was before published, and keeping same blog during that requires renegotiation of boundaries. also worked as reviewer in very small literary space, never more than 2 degrees separation

Michael: book reviewing and criticism most of adult life. as editor, founded Washington Post's SFF coverage, with help from friend Joanna Russ.

Gregory: professor and author. for about 15 years, reviewed for then-largest theater review website.

Andrea: love criticism and having ecosystem that talks about books in critical way

Andrea: let's start with: what are we actually even talking about? what is criticism, negative review, bad review? think all different things, and panel description kind of switches between them

Michael: distinction between criticism and reviewing, though fairly porous. reviewer to introduce book to world, must be aware of spoilers; critic talking about book out in world and in much more open way. context and medium: write for newspaper, addressing general audience, be in some fashion entertaining so people will read it. essence of review not judgment or evaluation but description actually (which can convey your impressions as well). avoid superlatives, will date you like nothing else.

Ian: review as reaction to particular piece, either description or opinion about whether successful. criticism offers lens on how piece functions, maybe historical, literary, philosophy; assessing in relation to a tradition

Sacha: as authors, tempting to get feelings very hurt by "a bad review," which is very subjective thing. critical, not necessarily bad, to have pointed out that tried to do a thing and failed. likes reading critical review where someone has given thought to book, why might and might not be interested in reading, should have level of objectivity in review that lets reader determine

Michael: always distinction between bad—poorly written or thought out—and negative—where book is criticized severely

Gregory: what critics ultimately have to provide is context, how fits relative to other things in the field. best criticism rises to art itself because taking meta view of field.

Michael: important for reviewers to know earlier works by author, field in general, so book can be located in larger context. slogan as critic from Henry James: "be one on whom nothing is lost."

Andrea: shifting to ecosystem, structures, places where can find or make room for criticism. read a lot of criticism recreationally but almost all litfic because can find it in standalone venues. are there spec-fic venues dedicated to, as opposed to having column, that don't know about. if not, why so few and far between compared to litfic? (which has NY Review of Books, Book Forum, etc.)

Michael: magazines, newspapers, gatekeepers, focused on mainstream. does social media and blogs etc. take up all energy (that would otherwise go into creating a dedicated venue, I think)? doesn't look at it. (emphasis added) [hypothesizes that] all becomes conversation and therefore personal. drawback of lack of gatekeeper, screening for conflict of interest/relationship re: reviewer. tells anecdote about gleefully trashing Judith Krantz in print (at Wayback Machine), so easy to do, gets a lot of attention online. Clute can be very negative but people are grateful because so thoughtful and analytic (though also hard to read).

(from context, I think that the Krantz anecdote was supposed to be cautionary, but I didn't really get that vibe)

Sacha: point about everything conversation once social media involved, important: tempts reviewer to have snappy shareable things that gets people involved, but can take away from honest assessment of the work. then snowballs because readers have feelings about mean reactions, etc. at some point have to say, maybe not worst thing in world if someone's writing is kind of cringe. but very difficult to say to big group that everyone has to set own boundaries

Gregory: snarky one-liner is inversion of the critic's job versus the author, critic isn't supposed to be noticed for cleverness. if critic doesn't want to be fished for pull quotes, don't provide them. criticism is a service, but needs context

Ian: to return to Andrea's question re: SFF specifically: proximity of critic to author, do think that needs to be some amount of distance. litfic in some ways much larger community able to support critics publishing books of critics. are too many potential critics too close to objects?

(me, in my notes: fascinated by the focus on reviewers not audiences or authors)

Andrea: panel description re: blogs and newsletters: is fracturing of media support structures (editors, legal team, feedback before publishing) a problem?

Gregory: don't know if they're answer but may gesture toward that direction. game world, TTRPG journalists and critics, Rascal, cooperative or collective, think doing interesting work but difficult to sustain. blogs started were, I've got stuff to share, not criticism. can we set a tone of something that's more serious and people who are checking each other?

(me: there is the Hugo-awarding-winning Abigail Nussbaum)

Michael: can panelists name a critic or three that particularly admire?

Andrea: Strange Horizons, not only for long-running review column, but podcast.

Ian: Andrea Long Chu (litfic critic), not only because fascinated by way looks at things, but way writes expands own conception of writing

Sacha: only thinking of litfic, Elif Batuman (I think) re: Russian masters. in children's literature, have anonymous trade reviewers, thinks some benefit to that, though does need to have people choosing and overseeing

Gregory: Paul Weimer and others on Skiffy and Fanty podcast. Amal El-Mohtar at NY Times, very gifted at teasing out emotional resonances of piece, countering tendency to be very academic. re: anonymous thing: here there by dragons. major issues have with, can be misused.

Sacha: whole peer review issue, can tell who everyone is because such small field

Michael: where did you as critics and reviewers learn your principles?

(I don't know if no-one answered this or if I just didn't hear, but usually I note to myself when I give my hands a break or I know I missed something, and I didn't here.)

Andrea: what can fandom, readers and writers, do to foster where criticism taken seriously? encourage longer view?

Gregory: publicly advocate for it, support works already out there, point to it and give them money

Ian: work on knowing how to love something and be critical of something at same time, that being critical can expand your love

Michael: build trust through familiarity in reviewer

Gregory: critic's obligation not to get you to agree but to show working of mind to get there

Sacha: one star review gives as much as information as five star

audience: opinion on extreme author reactions to reviews? got two books cancelled

Sacha: half-serious answer is that authors should stop going on Goodreads, it's not for us. some friends can find constructive critique there, but you have to know if you're the kind of person who will take offense at 4 star review. relies on each individual author so not great solution

Gregory: hyperreactivity not good idea, but a little bit of asymmetry if reviewers/critics with certain amount of vested authority are not responsible and misrepresent, and authors are supposed to just ignore

Sacha: editors and agents need to support authors through that and take point on reaching out re: factual errors

audience: used to be New York Review of Science Fiction, don't we think it's time to revive that

Gregory: was David Hartwell's. needs funding, resources, group of people pushing for it

audience: was there a time when saw critical review of own work and learned something from it?

Sacha: Kirkus had some problems with my last book, didn't understand what I was doing, but I didn't convey that to them, so next time write sarcastic narrator, will make clearer the distinction

I found this panel frustrating, as you may have been able to tell.

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kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
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Tragic Endings and the Catharsis of a Bad Time
The protagonist has no mouth and must scream, Othello believes Iago, and some days we can't—or don't want to—imagine Sisyphus happy. Why do stories that end in despair have such enduring appeal? How can writers of deeply unhappy endings achieve their goals, given that readers usually expect happy endings? And what stories are so bleak that they wrap around to being comforting?
Delia Sherman, Emmett Nahil, John Clute, Shariann Lewitt, Tom Doyle (moderator)

panel notes

Tom: in 1960s, 1970s seems like more tolerance, or joy, for really bad ending. why that and why feel like it's changed?

John: easy answer, resistance to being told certain kinds of truths from stories when want something else, can get bad endings anywhere in 2025 (I'm not sure I followed this)

Emmett: sees polarization rather than general preference

Shariann: society changed, then was more economically egalitarian, so idea of everything falling apart was titillating rather than terrifying, or just momentarily terrifying. now, can be satisfying but as reflective of way have to deal with lives. sometimes want something that takes away from what have to face, looks at world from different direction (even if still bad)

Delia: depends on what kind of book, written for so many different reasons. trained by Disney to think fairy tales/folklore ought to have happy ending; expect romance and children's books to have happy endings as well. [me: that's definitional for one of those examples] have seen SFF that's very dark all the way through, reaction: satisfaction, it's an arc and finishes the way supposed to. been like that in 1960s too, always been sad endings. that said, tragedy is narrower, person you can see making consistently bad decisions and bringing upon self

Shariann: Greek tragedy very different definition, choice between two right things that can't be reconciled. find that fascinating challenge, way to delve into character.

John: got distracted, but talking about different kinds of Shakespeare tragedies, inward-facing like Othello, or world-facing where world kills us like in Lear (I think). SFF proclaims itself to be interested in stories where world changes

Tom: asks Emmett about horror.

Emmett: by proclaiming itself as genre about tragedy, self-selecting audience. emotional catharsis comes from sole survivor's redemption, or that there will be a kernel of something that remains. but also all stripes of endings in genre.

Tom: unremittingly grim stories. any favorites among? how explain where no optimism at all? haunted by end of 1984.

Emmett: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, one of most grim and nihilistic movies, love it, something about acknowledgment of anxiety and worst-case scenario, seeing that played out, was emotional catharsis.

Tom: Hadestown explicitly asks, why the sad stories?

Delia: tremendously human. should think about choices, shouldn't make promises can't deliver on. repeating story, keeps idea of hope and frustration of hope alive. gives empathy which deepens understanding of means to be human.

Tom: marketing aspect: Shariann was told could sell more if had happier endings. also thinks of Peter Watts.

Shariann: I'm not in control. if built world right and characters are truly the characters, can't push them into doing something else.

Emmett: matter of making juice worth the squeeze, journey feel worthwhile.

John: writers hoping to attract and please audience are necessarily becoming skilled in art of counterfactual. people don't want unrealistic, but don't want depressing, but world is so complicated don't know where we are let alone in a story. (I think that's what he was saying.) very difficult to know how to read any story we encounter, have to give great praise to any writer who tries

Tom: protagonists are commoners now unlike classical tragedies, good examples?

John: character in Cities in Space (I think I must have mis-typed this for the Cities in Flight series by James Blish), what happens to him?

Delia: maybe strange example, but Lord of the Rings ending is not exactly what might call a jokefest. one of things about, is persistence in face of despair. experience never leaves Frodo, but world has possibility of healing.

John: what makes us feel that world is going to be better?

Delia: the Shire, we're shown it. also appendices.

(I was not sure what this exchange was about, as it hardly seems possible that John Clute does not know the ending of LotR)

audience: black comedy, The Day of the Locust for example, satire. can something be truly tragic if find it funny?

Tom: "A Boy and His Dog," Harlan Ellison.

audience: Gilliam's Brazil.

John: when get into satire, very likely to be transgressing genre expectations; Handful of Dust (I presume this is the Evelyn Waugh novel?)

audience: "Hell Is the Absence of God," Ted Chiang

audience: fascinated by bad endings that anticipate and come true: Shute, On the Beach. then, Night of Living Dead, where bad ending is surprise, doesn't seem deserved, yet fantastic movie because of that ending.

John: generic (genre-ic) thing. Beach: pleasure of having expectations fulfilled very well.

Emmett: sudden abrupt ending serves to jolt audience out of complacency. Night of Living Dead, signposts social commentary that had been throughout story.

Tom: historical fiction, tension of foreknowledge

audience: as readers, what are elements in tragic endings that keep thinking about or make you come back—your reader patterns

Tom: Beneath the Planet of Apes when blow up planet, can't stop fighting each other even though causes it

John: King Lear, doing everything possible to make the world that the play faces absolutely real, terrible, completed rather than gestured at

Emmett: endings in which brought to care so deeply in main character. Alien.

Shariann: Antigone. might have been in part because it was a girl. but still held own power and held true to herself.

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Readercon: Empire and Complicity

Jul. 21st, 2025 02:01 pm
kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
[personal profile] kate_nepveu

Empire and Complicity
On an episode of the Coode Street Podcast, Emily Tesh discussed how recent authors (including herself, [Ann Leckie], Yoon Ha Lee, Arkady Martine, and Tamsyn Muir) have turned the space opera into an exploration not merely of classic themes of empire and rebellion, but of much more complex questions of complicity. We see characters who not only revolt against the evil empires they inhabit, but also contend with their own roles in building and maintaining empire, and the ways in which the evil empire has benefited them personally. What works have best threaded this needle, and what does this trend in storytelling tell us about our current literary moment?
Alexander Jablokov (moderator), Carl Engle-Laird, Constance Fay, Kate Nepveu, Tom Greene

I took a lot more notes on this one because I wasn't moderating.

panel notes

I noted in my introduction that Ann Leckie was very definitely mentioned on the podcast.

Carl: complicity one of two threads saw in SFF from 2010s until very recently; the other is empire perpetrated against people and fighting back from outside. very generally, these were split on racial lines. Neon Yang's Tensorate series is example of one that's both

me: thank you for not making me be the first person to mention race. I was willing to have that be my role, but. (edit: I see on looking at con bios, while looking for Bluesky handles, that Tom Greene is biracial)

Constance: offered two authors more on romance side, who I believe were Jessie Mihalik and Jennifer Estep.

Alexander: what is it about space opera as a background for stories of complicity?

Carl: equivalent to epic fantasy; scale makes it hard to avoid empire; larger organization leads to little cogs in machine struggling

Constance: the remove makes it easier to absorb the message

me: one of failure modes for me of general stories about systemic oppression: take a real-world problem, make a very clear magical/science fictional analogue for it, and then solve that problem by fictional means. feels trivializing and frustrating. space opera doesn't give me that problem because it's an extrapolation of our world, not a parallel to or set in ours.

spoilers for Naomi Novik's Scholomance series

(I can't remember if I said this on this panel or somewhere else, but I've read Novik's most recent trilogy multiple times because it's very entertaining but taking the Omelas child, literalizing that into a magical device, and then fixing it is so not the point)

Tom: All Quiet at the Western Front and Dune are really subversive of their structure

Carl: Dune is revolution not complicity

Alexander: is this about edge versus center?

Carl: fantasy examples: The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson: Baru tries to take down system by becoming expert in the master's tools (paraphrased). Robert Jackson Bennett, Divine Cities Trilogy, core-periphery recently swapped, journeying between. can do that swap faster in genre because of implausibilities.

me: Some Desperate Glory: tiny space station of the few humans who didn't surrender after Earth destroyed by aliens, fascist leadership dangling return to their birthright of being in command

someone: and Ancillary Justice definitely starts at core

someone: says something about "critical theory-ish space opera" and asks whether the same audience is there for it

me: gets irked, says reductive to call it that, all example works are bangers. not only that but Locked Tomb is somehow New York Times bestseller, Leckie and Tesh are Hugo winners, etc.

Carl: cynical business take is that really commercially successful works get most of their success from their non-core audience anyway through snowball effect. also thinks on downswing of (idea that? books that?) think can do something about empire by writing about it. trend now for cozy and escaping. still some: a little in very popular Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros

me: thread in Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson, which is new book getting a lot of buzz around my circles

Constance, Tom: discussing Andor and how it shows why people cooperate with empire, how it starts out, the tendency of technical people to find purported technological solutions to problems and "order" appealing

me: other failure mode of complicity stories is too much about appeal of empire and guilt/helplessness for being part of it; which I don't think applies to examples, which I all like very much, but others can disagree. I look for genuine change at end to reassure self that not "just dazzled by the glittering tinsel of neo-fascism" (tm Bujold)

Carl: historically empires don't tend to fall to individuals (increasing inefficiency, slow degradation), which is problem for our genre with individualistic focus

me: yes; Imperial Radch, changes around edges, but still matter (which got me drive-by calligraphy!); Machineries of Empire, last book shows a lot of group work being done

audience: can't have enough tension if don't deal with both sides of complicity equation?

(I did not understand this question, but Carl appeared to)

Carl: is that: emotional tension by investing in oppressors and oppressed? sure. can go a long way by mechanisms that are non-personified or notional. Empire exists inside your head.

audience: does space opera require an empire? cites more anarchic seen in Delany.

Tom: also Le Guin, but environment naturally selects for it

Constance: space opera is about (? I think) expansion, so if you don't see an empire, maybe it's you ...

Carl: maybe no-true-Scotsman here, because there's no Platonic ideal of space opera And Yet ... also, on epic scale, expect to see ideology clashes.

me: I haven't read any of the Star Wars novel set during the High Republic, so I don't know whether Republic is actually not empire, but they exist. also C.J. Cherryh.

Constance: Farscape.

And that was time.

I'm not entirely sure what I was hoping for from this panel, but (though entirely consistent with the description) I didn't feel like this was it, and at the time, I didn't know how to get it into something more satisfying to me. Now, I'm still not sure; maybe more about how specific characters/stories portray complicity, what brings characters out of it, what the journey is like? Talk to me, do.

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kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
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All Stories Are Really About _____
Conflict, change, love, consumption, human nature, and so on: commentators throughout history and across the internet have argued that All Stories are Really About (this one thing they spend all their free time thinking about). Surely one of them must be right, and in this panel our panelists will sort out which one it is, once and for all.
John Clute, Karen Heuler, LJ Cohen, Stephanie Feldman (moderator), W.B.J. (Walter) Williams

panel notes

John: not going to come to conclusion unless decide that all stories are one story. thinks distinguishing characteristics of stories: "stories really really desperately want to get told." "next, they want to be twice told. no story wants to be a story that sits alone."

Karen: simple: conflict and resolution, but that's not very personal warm cozy explanation. sometimes think all stories are about death because ultimately progress to an end, what's at the end? horror, death; mysteries, death; a lot of things that can (be related to?) concept of death in stories

LJ: relationships. character's with other, place, idea, self, desire.

Walter: an exploration of mystery. mystery may be death, sex, relationship: but looks into great unknown and attempt to make sense of it.

Stephanie: also had idea that all stories are really mysteries in prior essay. answer for today: all stories about confrontation. not necessarily resolution, sometimes can end on unresolved note, just raises: confronting secret, truth. when do workshops, so often react that this story is about capitalism, which is another way of talking about power, hierarchy of relationships.

Stephanie: hearing: talking about story on craft/mechanical level, thematic level. is there any kind of craft thing necessary to make it a story instead of some other kind of work?

John: feel like a fox in coop here, find each of these interesting and appropriate in different contexts. each story is about something, seems to be second-order observation after what decide in heart what story is. story is grammar, which is amoral. until realize that raw undefinable circle in grass that is (something) about consciousness, not going to be able to come to answer (as probably comes across, I did not understand what John was saying here)

Karen: had been talking about tools. what story really requires is emotional investment from the reader.

LJ: what is purpose of story? why humans drawn to? impulse and absolute necessity of social communication and fact that we are meaning-makers, how we're wired. investment (I think, emotional investment), can have in a poem and don't think that is a story; other kinds of artistic expression, are they all story?

Walter: flip on head, recognize that all are questioning creatures, basis of how we learn. all true but ignores fundamental curiosity that brings reader to work, which is another form of exploration. allows works that don't have satisfying endings to bring you into deeper thinking.

Stephanie: do answers change depending on length of piece?

John: do seem to be talking about contemporary written or oral stories. but? almost every story that is told, is a retelling. deep itch that is being scratched may be that it's been retold. Kim Stanley Robinson talking about slingshot ending, which has two or three different endings and leads in multiple directions: that's a 20th century artifact. (then something, didn't quite get, about needing background to communicate against)

Walter: Jungian, ancient stories about historical figures turning into (I think) myth. all of us are too educated to create something truly original. (though Naked Lunch is)

Karen: fairy tales, very often retold: most are lessons on how to survive in society. is a story a lesson of some kind?

LJ: went through period of time where reading nonfiction books of the pattern, here is the story of world as told through salt, sand, dogs. could make argument that same with story, all of answers are correct, depends on lens viewing it

Stephanie: how do we choose lens at any given time, all said "well my answer today is". do you have a lens gravitated to at point in career, or chose for specific reasons?

Walter: need to have a deep theme

LJ: ideas are everywhere and cheap, but if story is only idea, doesn't go far, unless has character and relationship

John: in end what I see is rewriting, retelling, managed to get story partly told before. cannot think of successful story that close to that hasn't been birthed out of itself

Karen: but that's a good thing, been told before gives it more weight, recognizability, authority

LJ: like sourdough starter

Stephanie: fairy tales, relationships: are all stories really about our relationship with society? do answers shift depending on genre?

LJ: don't think stories differ based on, genre is window-dressing

Walter: ditto

John: as far as reading concerned, always looking for story in which final word is full recognition of what story is about. (self-described boast: contrived to do that in one novel that wrote)

Stephanie: any examples of stories that changed mind about what stories can do?

Walter: yes, if read a lot of Japanese stories discover not driven by conflict. Kafka on the Shore (by Haruki Murakami), very typical of 4-act kind.

John: anyone remember Seiun Awards, ceremony would present awards and then second half was rehearsal in reverse. works that have temporal movement spiraling to different place.

LJ: not sure exactly answer to question, book comes to mind was frustrating, Life of Pi (by Yann Martel): loved until last chapter which enraged because will go anywhere with author if they believe in story, "really all a dream". lack of trust in audience by author.

Karen: Steppenwolf (by Herman Hesse), during reading it, decided had to have sex for first time, and did.

Walter: ... another good answer to what stories are about, sex.

audience: sounded like answers from Western tradition, other than Walt's answer, any additional?

John: didn't have room to make cartoon of what story does for human beings

Walter: why useful to go back to very very early pieces like Gilgamesh because where Western stories began to develop from

John: Gilgamesh, may have been written by first woman writer, also really fragments of it, but our instinct to intuit story highly relevant

Stephanie: answer in a negative form, reading Craft in the Real World (by Matthew Salesses), one of big critiques of The Workshop is its focus on individual triumph and individual versus world, very Western way of looking at world

audience: since story is so malleable, any thoughts on what is story's antithesis or definitively not

other audience: "This Is Not A Story," Denis Diderot

John: very hard, like vampires, can't stop seeing stories everywhere

LJ: our minds are good at holographical process, seeing little piece and filling in whole

Walter: only way nonfiction can succeed is as story

audience: thinking of own answer, which would ideally be correct across all genres and medium: pursuit of wants versus needs. then: does that make it a good story? new thought is depends on reader, what want to get out of. so question: what is one thing you are looking for, needs to be there, to find satisfying?

LJ: emotional journey

John: kind of always, when reading first time, looking for point where beginning to read it for the second, where feel like starting to get it.

Karen: opposite, if story stops surprising me probably going to put it down

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Readercon: Coherency in Storytelling

Jul. 21st, 2025 12:45 pm
kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
[personal profile] kate_nepveu

The first report from a panel I was on. I bring handwritten notes to my own panels and take notes likewise; but when I'm moderating, this unfortunately and inevitably means my notes are biased toward what I said, because I've got less opportunity for making notes on what others say. So while I always welcome corrections and expansions, I especially do for posts about my own panels—and especially this one, wow, my notes are almost nonexistent.

(Also, let's talk about it even, or especially, if you weren't there!)

Coherency in Storytelling
When Alison Bechdel sent her mother a copy of her frank memoir, Are You My Mother?, her mother's summary judgement was, "Well, it coheres." Most writing advice is based on the assumption that coherence of narrative is a paramount value in storytelling, but is that assumption borne out? Are there works of fiction that don't cohere, but in ways that still satisfy?
Kate Nepveu (moderator), Ken Schneyer, Richard Butner, W.B.J. (Walter) Williams

panel notes

I began the panel saying that I'd submitted the idea because I'd seen this Tumblr post and been enormously struck by it, but I didn't really have a strong feeling about the questions posed by the description as revised by the lovely program team ... until I got emails from the other participants that were—to exaggerate for effect—generally "coherence! who needs it!"

This led me to suspect that other people had a different definition of coherence, of something cohering, than I did. So I started by asking the panel their definitions.

Walter: people expect stories to have cause and effect. most recent work, Johnny Talon and the Goddess of Love and War, is deliberately Surrealist, exploration of subconscious as a way of detective work (compare Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective).

Richard: lacks coherence is different than, "this makes no sense." matter of writer and reader expectations. dream logic, e.g., David Lynch (my notes here are particularly unhelpful, sorry Richard)

Ken: all parts somehow fit together and are related. however, mind creates coherence because humans are pattern making animals, very hard to avoid it. impossible for work not to have coherence because coherence is something reader imposes.

me: like a ball of dough: may have different ingredients in it, but comes together into a single Thing. the Thing may be Surrealist or deliberately messy, but can point to various elements and say, I can see what this is contributing to the overall effect. however, I had a weirdly difficult time thinking of examples of a work whose problem was that it didn't cohere.

I believe at some point, possibly here, I asked for examples of works that didn't cohere

Walter: Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler, in light of its nesting frame stories and frustration of the reader, based on definition that is narrower than mine

someone I can't make out from my notes, possibly in the audience: works that can't cohere because creator never really finished making them, like Orson Welles' movies

there were almost certainly more but I don't have them in my notes.

some ideas I had for ways a work might not cohere under my definition, which were basically structural:

  • unwarrantedly large shift in tone, topic, etc. (some readers have this reaction to the second half of The Fortunate Fall)
  • too many balls in the air, some get dropped
  • amount of attention paid to different elements is unbalanced (e.g., we get certain details about the world; their logical implications are much different than the story suggests, but the story doesn't focus there)
  • this X seems like it's from a completely different book and I can't figure out why
  • (suggested to me by someone pre-panel) structure collapses on itself

(as a result, I disagreed with Ken about his idea that lack of coherence is impossible because coherence is inevitably created by the reader. I believe we eventually agreed that any given reader might not find coherence in a work?)

at some point someone mentioned Naked Lunch, which Richard noted depended in part on the author's public persona.

we had audience questions about how this varies by genre; how you find readers; and if there's an genre that gets its energy from asking questions rather than answering them. Walter suggested Haruki Murakami for the last one.

It seemed like a lot of audience members walked out of this one in the first half, so I felt pretty unsure about how it was going; and by the end, I was worried that I'd browbeaten the rest of the panel more than a little. One or two people did say nice things to me about over the weekend, so ... I just don't know.

(I do genuinely want honest, though not intentionally mean, feedback, on any of my panels!)

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The Body (of Work) Keeps the Score: Writing as Therapy
"Kill your darlings" is a common bit of writing advice. But how about killing your demons? Writing effectively often requires channeling emotional responses and personal memories, so it can also liberate them and be a cathartic experience for the writer. This panel will discuss works where the author was definitely working through some stuff, as well as the experience of using writing to exorcise one's inner antagonists.
Barbara Krasnoff (moderator), Melissa Bobe, Noah Beit-Aharon, Scott Edelman, Sophia Babai

panel notes

Barbara: start by talking about story you wrote where you were working through stuff

Noah: in current WIP, working through feelings re: loved one in abusive relationship, what it's like to feel like seeing person love but hearing person they're with through their mouth, so writing dybbuk story

Sophia: very rarely know what working through at time of writing. apologies for geopolitics but am Iranian, half of family is in Iran; writing story with ghosts djinn etc. but in real world in 2026. what I am experiencing now, protagonist did a year ago; helps empathize with protagonist who is kind of terrible, but also having future perspective really helps self

Scott: wrote essay "7 Things My Mother Told Me She Later Denied Ever Having Said" after she died, then realized should be fiction instead. could better work out feelings that way because in reality too worried about accuracy, fiction focused on themes. resulting story is on submission, now titled (approximately) "Inheritance Nobody Wants But Everybody Gets." nonfiction did not bring closure or forgiveness, but fiction did, would have thought other way around

Melissa: like that talking about form, because as thinking about this question, two books applicable are both short story collections, written in 2016 and 2020: something about ability to move through different places, settings, characters in one collection, allowed to explore complicated feelings

Barbara: father had cancer, wrote funny story about cancer; after he died, wrote funny story about death. lot of stories working through changes & losses in family, some of most successful probably because felt them more than just wrote them. question: do you find it's different when writing to exorcise political versus personal demons?

Sophia: personally, no, because have a lot of abstract rage/despair/disapproval, not writing fiction about those, writing threads on internet/news articles/having conversations. writing fiction is deeply personal things. don't really think possible to write compelling long fiction that is big and impersonal, really is about characters. regardless so much of politics is personal, people dying having debt etc., that's what makes a story

Noah: would also say that can be very hard, if even try, to separate between personal and political. writing about abusive people in this, the year of abuse, isn't going to come out apolitical. writing fiction when working through traumas or other deeply felt things, as opposed to nonfiction, nobody can fact-check your fiction. kind of freedom, about your feelings. can say, I think sucks, but not I think you're lying

Sophia: (well they can try to fact check)

Scott: when I write about "relative has undiagnosed anxiety disorder and making my life hell" can give myself closure; but writing about bigger pictures, did not make feel better

Melissa: thinking about some writers who say, want to write in space that's void of politics, because I need a break. do you stop existing as a person when you're writing, such that you don't have a political identity?

Noah: lots of people who don't want to think about politics as such, doesn't mean that their work isn't political, just don't want to acknowledge politics of what doing.

Barbara: if writing about specific person, how much feel need to disguise?

Sophia: wrote recent-ish short story that agent really liked, nervous because when writing, thought was writing about vampires, turned out to very clearly be story about my ex (audience rueful laughter)—yeah, you just learned so much from that sentence. no amount of fictionalizing will disguise that I had been in an abusive relationship, or that people will assume that was autobiographical—almost more nervous about reverse, adding fictional details that people will think are true.

Scott: even if not relatives, think average reader assumes actually happened because don't understand where ideas come from

Sophia: I keep killing sisters, multiple critique partners assumed has one. no: have brother, nothing bad allowed to happen him ever, which is why only nonbinary siblings and sisters allowed to die in stories

Melissa: semi-flippant response: people care about are so humble that wouldn't assume it's about them, and people mad at, are too self-absorbed to notice. discusses readers without boundaries stalking romance authors and something I missed

Scott: my dad did not meet Donald Trump

Noah: my WIP, any loved ones will instantly know what it's about. if and when finish, think I do plan to publish if can, because it's that level of important to me to express, but even if don't, I am doing as description and writing as own therapy, essential to write as honestly as feeling. cross bridge when come to if feelings change in future and edit story as story

Barbara: wrote story once as revenge, did nasty things to character who was doctor mistreated father. had fun writing, looked at, lousy story. other examples?

Melissa: yes, not usually throwaways because doesn't do that, but set aside for long time to get distance, find thread where went off from catharsis to become narrative, pick up from there

Noah: more honest I am when writing, better it comes out for me

Sophia: journals a lot, also first drafts run long. but never had experience of wrote from deep emotion and therefore resulting story not very good; rather, story is too vulnerable for me. sometimes frustrating, don't always want feel like presented heart on platter

Scott: is this a story or just a primal scream that hasn't been transmuted yet? if reader can see that working issues out that clearly, not art yet, just 1:1 of what going through. pause, go to journal to work that out through circular nonfiction criticism of self

Barbara: asking Sophia, is cathartic angle more successful not just for you with editors and readers

Sophia: varies widely. sound like a brag but it's a thing: my prose comes out beautiful, never had to work at sentences; but structure is weaker. so then going to come down to how deeply do you feel the emotions of this. but sometimes anger etc. makes sentences sloppier. however don't go into thinking this is going to be cathartic, see it after

Noah: worthwhile to separate between different kinds of catharsis: saying what really mean and killing stand-in character are not the same. latter not necessarily going to yield something interesting. not same kind of emotional writing which think we mostly mean, writing from deep honesty

Scott: probably most cathartic writing session ever had, flying back from con, upset about bad actors in community, wrote almost whole thing in longhand. "Boiling Point," in anthology Long Division: Stories of Social Decay, Societal Collapse, and Bad Manners. read it out loud at conventions, people come up and say, "I don't act like that," feel like story is calling them specifically out instead of being a general warning. goes back to what Melissa said about people not recognizing themselves

Barbara: ever written more than one story about person/experience/personal demon/political thing, with each looking at it differently?

Noah: multiple Orpheus/Eurydice. as kid story bothered me, some itch have to scratch by retelling many different ways. more recent days, started to feel more like Orpheus, find once again going back to

Sophia: two answers, both answers are yes. am now writing third book in a row in which main character haunted by dead sister, again I don't have a dead sister. completely different every time, what she represents, relationship, but for some reason trope keep coming back to. second, swear do have traumas that aren't geopolitical, but family has survived three separate genocides, except for current book never set out to write about, but turned out to be. at certain point not that trying to process, but that only lens I've lived. personal, non-collective traumas, usually will write about one time and then I'm good, wrote what needed to write about that: not part of worldview, thing that had feelings about. suspect will figure out what dead sister thing about one day

Barbara: was thinking about stories wrote about her/partner's grandmothers experiences, successful stories but sometimes wonder if should not have written because can't possibly imagine what was really like to have lived through that. are there stories that should be told because others not around to tell them, but how qualified am I just by virtue of listening to them?

audience: ever written something in therapeutic mode and then realized something that completely surprised you?

Melissa: feeding into processing Barbara's previous. can't stop writing about witches, think because am the friend you call in middle night to tell worst thing, that has to go somewhere and not comfortable with writing literally about. don't think realized until this conversation

Scott: not him but others, author: "this is story that helped get over X." reader: "this? this is the most depressing thing ever read"

Barbara: funniest stories ever written are about tragedies. partly because both are about father who was very funny man.

Sophia: never done revenge catharsis story, realized that experiences have had with people who caused harm, always writing from their POV. healing from perspective of getting to walk in their shoes, sometimes compassion and understanding and sometimes how awful it must be to be them. sometimes surprised by depth of sympathy experienced.

audience: anyone have safety tips or strategies for navigating writing a story that is kicking you in ancestral memory

Sophia: yes! literally one of things I specialize in. really helps to have rituals before and after, to keep contained experience. closing ritual should help move emotions through body: if can, go outside and shake body. writing is just in your head, so didn't get to express in way that nervous system understands. when getting too much, as Scott said, pause and journal to self, you are feeling sad right now because (or from/to ancestor, like a letter)—in different way than fiction writing, handwriting if can.

Noah: blessed to have number of people can talk to about writing, being able to do that is own kind of talk therapy, and talking about writing is enough removed from trauma itself, not waiting until work is perfect

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[personal profile] kate_nepveu

I have, let's see, 16 panels to report on from Readercon this year. So let's get started.

(For those unfamiliar: if I'm in the audience, I bring my laptop and I type as I listen. I do not purport to transcribe, though anything in quotation marks is intended to be a direct quote. For posting, I spellcheck, expand abbreviations, lightly format, and add occasional links.)

Understanding Originals Through their Responses
An expected result of discovering books in conversation with each other is that reading the older book illuminates hidden aspects of the newer one. But what of the reverse case, when reading the response tells you something new about the original? Panelists will discuss the deeply satisfying experience of appreciating originals through the responses to them, including examples they've seen, what they learned from them, and how this shaped their experience of both books.
—Greer Gilman, Melissa Bobe (moderator), Michael Dirda, Rebecca Fraimow

panel notes

Melissa: any response or original that made panelists want to be on this panel?

Michael: uncertain about panel's focus, explain?

Melissa: immediately thought of The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein (by Kiersten White), fabulous re-imagining of Frankenstein; Hester Prynne's appearance in I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem (by Maryse Condé), which is brief but great

Michael: thought panel was about reading contemporary works and how affect precursors. essay by Borges, Kafka and His Precursors

If I am not mistaken, the heterogeneous pieces I have listed resemble Kafka; if I am not mistaken, not all of them resemble each other. The last fact is what is most significant. Kafka’s idiosyncrasy is present in each of these writings, to a greater or lesser degree, but if Kafka had not written, we would not perceive it; that is to say, it would not exist.

(quoted from a PDF article called "Re-reading 'Kafka and His Precursors'" hosted by the Borges Center)

Rebecca: how later memetic impressions affect. adaptation versus in conversation: get different things out of them. adaptation, what someone pulls out from original; go back and see, hadn't noticed that before. conversation, sometimes argument, His Dark Materials v. Narnia

Greer: film script for Little Women turned understanding of book, which has known for so long, on head. script branches Jo into one that's in the book and one who is writing the book Little Women. very odd way makes it science-fictional, branched off

Melissa: holds society in which Alcott was existing accountable in way. Mansfield Park film adaptation, fleeting but powerful moment that contextualizes it re: race & colonialism

Michael: is that unfair in a way? undermining book, making think that it is something that isn't

Rebecca: one of things that's really exciting about reading about books in conversations. reading a lot of Great Gatsby adaptations, now going back to original which hadn't read since high school: what people are pulling out that hadn't noticed when reading at 16. in Nghi Vo's The Chosen and the Beautiful, a character is actually paper: can see how that character in original isn't characterized. also see things that aren't being picked up by adaptations: there are three moments everyone does and some that no-one does, very interesting

Melissa: "fairness," such fraught word, how we dare read or write in these ways

Rebecca: we call it fair use

Melissa: Winnie the Pooh slasher film, definitely not what Milne intended, at same time, for those of us who thought kid in Giving Tree a horror show...

Rebecca: getting mad at responses can tell you something about original as well

Michael: matters what order encounter in. if read Tolkien first, then Old English literature: see where Tolkien got all ideas. other way: Tolkien seems like watered-down Old English Literature.

Greer: speaking of order, read Sir Thomas Browne before Moby-Dick. going back to Browne writing about sperm whale washed up on shore, he's trying to describe first contact. also realized that this is before they know how to use whales, sudden rush into world where weren't hunting

(me, to myself: also Moby-Dick was before Origin of Species, which makes the classification chapter read a lot differently!)

Rebecca: read Railsea before Moby-Dick, which contains riff where all captains talk about their obsessions and understand that white whale is a metaphor and an idea. then read Moby-Dick, yes, whale is a metaphor, I understand

(me, to myself, because I'm like that: yes, but also "for the last time the whale is real and it ate my husband")

Michael: are we saying that shouldn't read in context of time?

Rebecca: put multiple lenses on a thing, very rewarding

Melissa: we are of our own time, never going to be able to put self perfectly in reader of time

Michael: why do we want to do these things? "distort"

(me, to myself: I truly cannot tell if he is genuinely objecting or is exploring ideas)

Rebecca: not distortion to lay two interpretations against each other and see where they differ. new Green Knight movie: half people I know considered it very medieval, half not. thinks movie's thematic concerns points out the (different) ones of the original

Greer: "things just happening" was a medieval structure. very difficult effort to get head entirely Gawain-poet's mind: bits of you that don't fit, weren't educated to have those feelings. can reconstruct them, "that's the worst dishonor in the world," but difficult--wonderful thing to try

Melissa: have been talking very much about contemporary re-imaginings of older texts, but lot of older texts did same with even older

Michael: it's also criticism. T.S. Eliot said (I think) that each new work shifts our understanding of works in the past, that's not static. once Raphael was considered great artist, but sentimental works after him make look him like kitsch

Rebecca: one of reasons excited about revisiting: if only seen kitsch, the shock of looking at original and finding that still has power. reading The Iliad for first time, not at all what expected to be

Greer: always been interested in artistic and literary fakes, constantly true that it looks great--at the moment. Kenneth Clark looked at Botticelli and said, "that's a silent film star," and it was, but at time was the ideal of beauty. [I think these two comments were not connected, since Clark seems to have been a critic rather than a forger.] sometimes places where you're standing, can't see what book or work of art is, have to be in it or further away for it. "the 18th century had some damn weird Gothic," that is what they saw [clearly I missed something here, sorry]

Melissa: Gothic chapbooks, or bluebooks, were frequently rushed copies of original higher-production texts, which permitted accessibility to public which didn't have to original. anyone who went to see Beethoven symphony when he was alive, would never hear again, transience. is that affecting how responding?

Michael: Milton was Christian epic poet, until Blake came along and turned Paradise Lost into romantic outcast story. happens all the time. book about a devastated city [title of which I missed] which turns into climate fiction (to a present-day reader)

Rebecca: also exciting when see thematic affiliation that was always there. Iliad: scene where throw up wall in one night; WWI poets always referencing that in making trenches. then Some Desperate Glory (by Emily Tesh) now is looking at WWI poets.

Greer: sometime an artist will go back to younger self, say, no, that's no longer my world. LeGuin returning again and again to Earthsea, asking self, where is the feminism. TH White returning to The Sword and Stone, now this is about fascism.

Michael: complicated. example comes to mind, Henry James, rewrote story to make much more prolix, some readers think original better. artist can decide what version want to send down to history, but is artist best judge? was LeGuin betraying younger self?

Greer: first three Earthsea books are things of beauty. Shakespeare went back to Lear and made it grimmer [note: I am not sure if this is, Shakespeare revisited King Lear in a later play, or Shakespeare was revisiting an earlier play in Lear, or Shakespeare was making the story of Leir grimmer]

Michael: Tehanu, powerful but didn't belong to the first few books.

Melissa: tension between us as consumers of texts and the rights the artists have to their opinion. never fact-checked professor who said that on opening night of Mother Courage and Her Children, Brecht was appalled because audience gave Mother Courage a standing ovation: he ran through audience boo'ing trying to get them to boo

(me: was audience applauding the performer not the character??)

Michael: does that mean he failed as artist, by not achieving his intent

Melissa: but we still read and perform. important: when respond, saying, this exists and should be read. kind of resurrection of work if fallen out of favor/public mind

Rebecca: theater opposed to novel. play always continually reinterpreted, always possibility. don't think that that's as far away from novel as might think. engagement and conversation is always happening, having a text to point you to that conversation is generous and valuable, invitation to join

Michael: are there are certain books that are strong, archetypal, have so many possibilities. The Odyssey. Little Women, so attuned to questions of gender, we want to make these texts fit our views. Shakespeare, should we perform as in Elizabethian times, have we lost something otherwise? very uncertain when came to panel

Greer: (comment about tug of war between something and artist's soul that I could not get down)

Melissa: Michael had asked earlier (in comment I didn't transcribe) if this question was something new, maybe that's what: aspects of text that weren't celebrated at time

Greer: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, turns it inside-out

Rebecca: doesn't take anything away from Hamlet that R&G exists. dream is to watch back to back with same cast

Melissa: Wide Sargasso Sea

Michael: asks Elizabeth Hand (in audience) to talk about her Hill House book, A Haunting on the Hill. what did you think about when decided to do this?

Elizabeth: first thing I thought was, "oh no." told Estate going in that not going to do pastiche, backstory, explanation. wanted to write an Elizabeth Hand novel set in Hill House, is that okay? yeah, go for it. otherwise would not have been able to write, because those characters were Jackson's characters; so was Hill House, but it was also archetype in way that humans are not, because they don't have iconic stature that house did. own characters inhabit House and riff off of Jackson's.

Elizabeth cont'd: listening to panel and thinking, why do we do this? return to work of others we admire? really don't know. fiction in last 20-30 years become much more malleable (like plays) than used to be, artists and writers and fanfic writers. very exciting time, I too enjoy reading all riffs on Great Gatsby

Rebecca: one of foremost ways to keep a work alive, responses to it. le Carré's son just put out new novel about Smiley, father said to him on deathbed, please keep people reading Smiley, so guessed only way to do it is write new one

Michael: Pratchett took total opposite approach

Melissa: q to Greer: did you read Little Women as child?

Greer: oh yes, very picky about it

Melissa; my theory is based on small children. anyone experienced a 3 year old, whatever book they land on, need to have backup copies and will be so sick of by time they're 4. but most comforting thing in world to them.

audience: response to Michael: modern mindset cannot see The Merchant of Venice in way original audience did. that said, The Tamer Tamed, written by Shakespeare collaborator 10 years later: frequently seeing those two performed together

audience: thinking about "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and its many responses: works that people find challenging and want to respond to, moves people, makes them want to think, wants to have conversations. hoping to hear about those kind of stories

Rebecca: if come away from book wanting to argue with, feel like has internalized better. thinks why a lot of works are in conversation with Dorothy L. Sayers.

audience: fanfic is entirely in conversation.

Rebecca: some fans of TV show The Terror have become fans of historical polar explorers. fandom helped find bones because read original journals after being mad about way portrayed in show. (note: a quick look hasn't turned up a link on this, can anyone help?) fandom can drive changing responses to original.

Greer: found Richard III, did not change narrative of Richard III in some people's minds

audience: when read good book, look at what author read to write that, works well. (separately:) took 15 years after watching Howl's Moving Castle to know that Diana Wynne Jones existed. as authors, how can we convey importance of works that are adapting. (examples cite are all films)

Greer: talk to Marketing?

(me, to myself: surely this is what author's notes are for)

Rebecca: wish books came with annotated bibliographies. reading about Alan Garner who over course of life, got more and more resistant to mentioning that was responding to something, felt was failure of work. in Owl Service, mentions the Mabinogion, but in Red Shift, have to know it's Tam Lin

audience: thinking about being in engineering school and taking science fiction class, reading "The Cold Equations", other student wrote about how stupid the engineering design was. really think about how see engineering now as opposed to when written. other works like that?

sadly, no, because we were out of time.

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Write Every Day: Day 20

Jul. 20th, 2025 06:05 pm
sanguinity: (writing - semicolon)
[personal profile] sanguinity
Intro/FAQ
Days 1-15

My check-in: Dinking around with the pod-together stories. Some, uh, research for possible titles? Which did not pan out, but so it goes.

Day 20: [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] sanguinity

Day 19: [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] callmesandyk, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] glinda, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] ysilme

Expandmore days )

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!

The highest and sharpest mountain

Jul. 20th, 2025 07:00 pm
newredshoes: neon sign, "If You Love Me, Let Me Know" (<3 | i need a sign)
[personal profile] newredshoes
The neighborhood is hosting the 18th annual BurgerFest, where you can get burgers made of gator, ostrich, bison, boar, lamb and virtually anything else you want. Gingko is madly obsessed with it, not just for the free smells and opportunities to make chaos, but also for the adoring masses who all want to know what kind of dog she is and remark on how chill she is. That is a ruse; she is a criminal mastermind and is straining to just go apeshit and devour all the display burgers on counters and the plates of fries little kids are pulling behind them in wagons.

It is making both of us wildly overstimulated, though, and I've spent the whole day trying to grab enough time to write down some thoughts on a show I started last night. It's called Our Generation, and I was only going to watch it because the leads are both fantastic — they have fabulously intense, deliriously delightful chemistry both in real life and in their previous project, The Princess Royal. I love a costume drama, but I don't so much care about youth dramas, and I fully expected this one to be sort of sentimental and sloppy, to be honest.

That's my prejudice against the genre. It's — incredibly moving, beautiful and unsparing. ExpandEveryone just calls her Cherry. )

It's on Netflix, for those who don't have Viki. I've only seen three episodes, but it's made a huge, strong impression on me. Even if you don't like youth dramas or realistic shows, this one already seems many cuts above. It's also only 24 episodes, versus the usual 40, so it's not as heavy a lift. I will be watching it for a while, probably, and thinking (and hopefully writing) about it for a long time.

vital functions

Jul. 20th, 2025 11:24 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Reading. ExpandWells, Lister, Tufte, Brosh, McMillan-Webster )

... I also technically started reading a little bit of Descartes, and more around Descartes, for the pain project -- but really not very much as yet.

Playing. A round of Hanabi with A & houseguest! We were playing with very different House Norms which led to some hilarious miscommunication, but A Good Time Was Had.

A good time was also had following the toddler around a playground, including some time On A Swing where we worked out How Legs Do. :)

Cooking. Several Questionable loaves of bread (mostly "too much liquid, ergo puddle"). Three more recipes from East, none of which were particularly interesting to us. (Piccalilli spiced rice; Sodha's variant on egg fried rice; a tempeh-and-pak-choi Situation.)

And Ribiselkuchen! I have been very very happily eating Appropriately Seasonal Ribiselkuchen.

Eating. A made us waffles for breakfast this morning. I had them with SLICED STRAWBERRIES and SLICED APRICOT and MAPLE SYRUP and also LEMON JUICE and VANILLA SUGAR and I was very happy about all of this.

Making & mending. It is Event Prep Week. There are so many potions.

Growing. ... I got some more supports in for my beans? I have just about managed to break even on the sugar snap peas this year (should NOT have eaten the handful I did...) and might yet manage to do a little better than that, with luck.

Squash starting to produce female flowers (yes I was late starting them). More soft fruit (which desperately needs processing; I will be sad if I wind up needing to just compost the jostaberries that have been sat in the fridge for ...a while, now). Many many tomatoes, none of which were actually ripe yet last time I actually made it to the plot...

Observing. Peacock butterfly at the plot! Tawny owl (audio only)! Bats (ditto)! The Teenage Magpie Persists!

Also a variety of awkward teenage waterfowl in Barking Park, along with a squirrel who was most unimpressed when our attempts to feed it mostly involved accidentally handing it an empty half-peanut-shell. It made it very clear (well before any of us had independently noticed The Issue) that it understood we were willing to feed it but that we were doing a terrible job at this and Should Try Harder. I was delighted.

2529 / Fic - The Pitt

Jul. 20th, 2025 10:30 am
siria: (the pitt - robby swag)
[personal profile] siria
how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
The Pitt | Jack/Robby | ~2100 words | Thanks to [personal profile] sheafrotherdon for betaing. Contains canon-typical suicidal ideation.

(Also on AO3)

Expand'How the fuck do you have wings?' Robby's back on the rooftop. )
bethbethbeth: An excerpt from a Marc Chagall painting (Art Chagall Winter (bbb))
[personal profile] bethbethbeth
On May 8th, I offered to read the first five books people recced - assuming they were available (preferably from the library) - and I'd give a short review [https://bethbethbeth.dreamwidth.org/701769.html].

This is the eighth recced book review.

The Book of Koli (2020), by M.R. Carey (recced by china_shop on dreamwidth)

I'm certain I can't count the number of post-apocalyptic dystopian novels I've read in my life, but apparently there are still new & engaging ways of approaching that genre.

Here's what I'll tell you: the protagonist is a young guy, growing up in an isolated village, and...no, you know what? I'm not going to share any of the specifics. I'm glad I wasn't spoiled at all before starting to read, and I think I'm going to share the spoiler-free experience with you.

Somehow, I'd never heard of this book or its author, so I didn't know there were sequels. I literally just finished book 1 a half hour ago, but I'm already looking forward to book 2.

Note: If you want trigger warnings, feel free to message me with questions.

Bleach fics

Jul. 20th, 2025 09:28 am
thawrecka: (Bleach - fighting is better back to back)
[personal profile] thawrecka posting in [community profile] anime_manga
Going Home (1756 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bleach (Anime & Manga)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ishida Uryuu & Kurosaki Ichigo
Characters: Kurosaki Ichigo, Ishida Uryuu
Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Post-Thousand Year Blood War Arc (Bleach), Family Feels, Cousins, group hug
Summary:

In the wake of the Quincy war, Ichigo drags Ishida home.



Asking the Question (1599 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bleach (Anime & Manga)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Abarai Renji/Kuchiki Rukia, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Ayasegawa Yumichika/Madarame Ikkaku
Characters: Abarai Renji, Kuchiki Rukia, Ayasegawa Yumichika, Madarame Ikkaku, Matsumoto Rangiku, Kurosaki Ichigo, Kurosaki Isshin
Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Marriage Proposal
Summary:

Renji asks for life advice and finds most of his friends unqualified to give it.



Piercing Moment (697 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bleach (Anime & Manga)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Abarai Renji/Kuchiki Rukia
Characters: Abarai Renji, Kuchiki Rukia, Ayasegawa Yumichika
Additional Tags: Piercings
Summary:

Rukia and Renji have a moment over an ear piercing. Yumichika is also there.

Write Every Day: Day 19

Jul. 19th, 2025 03:04 pm
sanguinity: (writing - semicolon)
[personal profile] sanguinity
Intro/FAQ
Days 1-15

My check-in: More work on the pod-together stories. Today was largely "what you need to know to enjoy this story" fandom summaries, but also a handful of titles and working out some of the posting details. ("A handful of titles," fml.)

Day 19: [personal profile] glinda, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] ysilme

Day 18: [profile] badlyknitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] chinashop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] glinda, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] nafs, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] ysilme

Expandmore days )

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!

all arms and legs

Jul. 18th, 2025 08:12 pm
musesfool: Wonder Woman against a backdrop of flames (walk through the fire)
[personal profile] musesfool
I mentioned I've been reading a bunch of DCU/PJO crossovers, and mostly I like it when nobody is related to the Waynes and no Waynes are secretly demigods and it's just Percy et al in Gotham and rolling with their weirdness (or vice versa, I guess, but I haven't seen any like that yet), though I have enjoyed those other types. For me, the big key to making the crossover work, aside from the fact that I want it to so I'm primed for it (i.e., buy the premise, buy the joke), is how Wonder Woman is handled (and to a much lesser extent, Wonder Girl), even more so than Aquaman and Atlantis.

Like, for me as a reader, you can't pretend that the Batfamily is totally ignorant of the Greek pantheon or demigods if you've got Diana around. And I realize that some folks are basing their Batfamily stuff on other people's fic (I'm not making that call - some of them state it outright in their notes), which may not contain any info on Wonder Woman or the Amazons etc. but Wonder Woman is not an obscure superhero! Even if you ignore the retcon that she's a daughter of Zeus (and you should! Even the comics have walked that back, though I can see why it might be interesting to work into this kind of crossover), she was made of clay and had life breathed into her by Greek goddesses.

I mean, it complicates things to some degree, because where was she during all of Percy's adventures, but 1. she was in space/another universe etc., or 2. she'd been stripped of her powers for trying to help, or 3. she was back on Themyscira, and unaware, or, or, or... And those are just off the top of my head. Mostly I've seen Percy and friends angry that she didn't participate and that's a fine way to go, but like, I feel like something has to be said, even if just in passing, unless it's set very very early in Batman's career and he hasn't met her/she isn't public yet. And the ones I've found so far are not set in that timeframe, because the fun of the crossover is having all the kids interacting with each other and with Bruce.

Anyway, I'm always interested in how other people make crossovers work, because for me, skipping over most of the nitty-gritty of trying to make incompatible worlds/magical systems etc. work together is the way to go - choose one or two details to set the vibe and handwave the inconsistencies.

***

Write Every Day: Day 18

Jul. 18th, 2025 04:29 pm
sanguinity: (writing - semicolon)
[personal profile] sanguinity
Intro/FAQ
Days 1-15

My check-in: Spent my writing time trying to figure out what the Thames Estuary looks like during the Vorkosigan Saga. At this point, I'm reasonably certain it's not an estuary at all...

Day 18: [personal profile] chinashop, [personal profile] sanguinity

Day 17: [profile] badlyknitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] callmesandyk, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] chinashop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] glinda, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] nafs, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] yasaman

Day 16: [profile] badlyknitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] callmesandyk, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] glinda, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] luzula, [personal profile] nafs, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] yasaman, [personal profile] ysilme

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!

some good things

Jul. 18th, 2025 11:41 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett
  1. Pilates. Managed to drag myself onto the mat, at gone 9.30 p.m., and wound up smiling to myself and the ceiling.
  2. COOL SHOWER. LOW ENOUGH HUMIDITY TO AIR-DRY.
  3. Listening to the bats as I type this up. (Less active than closer to dusk, but definitely still poking their heads out intermittently!)
  4. Local supermarket has resumed stocking an apple-and-pear juice, and I do in fact prefer it to the significantly more expensive stuff from the ridiculous fancy veg box people. HURRAH for Treats For Me.
  5. Played a round of Hanabi this evening. Enjoyed discovering a Clash Of House Styles, but nonetheless pleased with how we'd done. :)

(I have also made two extremely questionable loaves of bread -- the soda bread I managed to leave out half the flour, which meant it was... not quite inedibly salty, but... definitely Really Quite; the sourdough was just too high a hydration and Wanted To Be A Puddle -- and sent a couple of e-mails I was avoiding. And ordered a Small Treat.)

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