Tag: nicola griffith

Coode Street podcast fun

Had a splendid time with the terrific folks of the Coode Street podcast! Maybe I’ve finally found my alternative to convention panels…

Nicola and I had the great pleasure last night of a lengthy conversation with Jonathan Strahan and Gary Wolfe on the Coode Street podcast, in which we talked about Hild and the boundaries of SF/fantasy, and corporate politics, and outsider stances. It was fun, and I’m only sorry we weren’t actually all around a table with drinks in hand.

I love the opportunity for this kind of conversation that the internet has made possible. It’s funny, because I generally dislike doing panels at conventions, but I’m quite happy to hang out on Skype and have a discussion that I know people will hear. Perhaps it’s because I prefer conversation to staking out positions and expounding (which is sadly my experience of most panels). At any rate, this was a terrific experience for me and I look forward to finding more like it. I hope you enjoy listening.

Thanks so much to Gary and Jonathan for inviting us!

Enjoy your day.

Local reading January 14. Drinks! Stories! Cool writers!

Reading in Kirkland on January 14 w/@nicolaz and @JFreemanDaily. Will be fun, so please join us.

I’m delighted to be part of the SFWA Pacific Northwest Reading Series with Nicola Griffith and Janet Freeman-Daily .

It is FREE. It is AT A PUB. We will read Interesting Stories that perhaps have not been read in public before… Really, how much more do you need?

Please join me, Nicola, and Janet at:

Wilde Rover Irish Pub and Restaurant
111 Central Way
Kirkland, WA 98033

Start at 7:00 PM, event finishes by 8:30 PM

If you know now that you’d like to attend, please take a moment to RSVP at this link. You do NOT have to RSVP to attend — if you find at the last minute you can come, please do regardless of RSVP status. This is just a way for the restaurant to get a rough headcount.

Any questions, let me know! I hope to see you there. It will be fun.

Enjoy your day.

The Outstanding Nicola Griffith

Nicola has won the Lambda Literary Foundation’s James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize. Because she is awesome and unique and a brilliant writer; a speaker of truth who tells beautiful, hard, joyful stories. It makes me deliriously happy that she has received this recognition.

25th-Annual-Lambda-Literary-Awards-300x123
And it means that we will be at the awards ceremony! And there will be a PARTY! So come, come, and raise a glass with us, and watch Nicola shine.

Enjoy your day.

Nicola and Kelley at Westercon

I’m thrilled that Nicola and I will be Writer Guests of Honor at Westercon 66 in Sacramento, CA from July 4 to 7. We will join Artist Guest of Honor Eric Shanower and Small Press Special Guest David Maxine, and Fan Guests of Honor Warren Frey, Steven Schapansky, and Chris Burgess (“The Three Who Rule“).

Westercon is the longest running general science fiction convention in the North American west. This means they know how to put on a convention. There will be fun! Programming of every variety. Nicola and I will talk, listen, discuss, meet folks, answer questions, park ourselves in the bar at various times, and generally hang out. There will be panels and interviews and presentations and readings, and a dance! (And I am happy to make a spectacle of myself on the dance floor because dignity is overrated. So really, it’s like extra value for your convention membership dollar.)

And perhaps we will persuade Nicola to bring her ukelele….

It’s our 25th anniversary of attending the Clarion Writers Workshop (and therefore, you know, falling in love etc.) and the 30th anniversary of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, of which I’m a board member. We’ll be celebrating these things and much more at the con. We hope to see old friends and make new ones. We love to meet people who love science fiction. And did I mention the fun? So please come to Sacramento and enjoy the weekend with us!

Nicola’s Hild has a publishing deal!

Those who read Nicola‘s blog know that she has worked fiercely and with deep commitment for years on her current novel Hild. Finally, we can share the news that pre-eminent US publisher Farrar Strauss & Giroux will publish Hild in fall 2013.

We’ve been doing the happy dance in our house these past weeks. Nicola has a great publisher in FSG and a terrific editor in Sean McDonald, and they have a singular, splendid writer in her. It is a good match.

I’ve read Hild. It is magnificent. It is supernova brilliant. It is the best book Nicola has written so far, and that’s saying a lot. It is powerful, lyrical and brutal, with fascinating characters in an unexpected, compelling story that will take you so many places. Oh my friends, you are in for such a treat.

I am so proud of Nicola I am about to explode. Do me a favor: go read her post about it and leave a well-wishing comment over there. It’s a big day for her. A joyful day. After all Nicola’s hard work, after all her faith and hope, after all her guts and grit, Hild has found a home.

Nicola, granted!

My sweetie just opened her mail and found a lovely letter from the Society of Authors informing her that the Authors’ Foundation have awarded her a grant to further her work on her current novel. And they sent a check (hmm, they are English, so actually they sent a cheque).

Many (zillions) apply for these grants, and few are chosen; and I have been yearning for her to get some love from the English Literary Establishment. In that world, there is no greater love than a) money and b) Big Awards with Fancy Dinners, which I fully expect to materialize as soon as this book — this lovely, granted book — is published.

I’m so proud of her I could burst. In anticipation of all those BAwFD’s-to-come, we are taking ourselves out to our neighborhood place for a proper dinner to celebrate our day of Irish radio and English literary love.

Nicola joins LLF

Nicola has joined the board of the Lambda Literary Foundation. I am hugely proud of her, and I think she will do many Good Things to help LLF grow and prosper.

The Foundation presents the annual Lambda Literary Awards and offers a variety of services and support to quiltbag (LGBT and otherwise queer) writers and readers. They have a committed and enthusiastic board. And I’m especially excited that Nicola has this opportunity to help queer writers grow and prosper and find their place at the literary table — there is no one in my experience who better combines clear-headed pragmatism about the business (and its bullshit) with absolute passion for writing, and the talent to help others make their work better.

My sweetie is made of awesome. I’m glad she’s sharing it with LLF!

Sparkle sputter

Well, I tried, but it turns out I have nothing of interest to say today. It’s a damn shame, but there it is. So instead I will share Other People’s Things in the hopes that they will be so interesting that you’ll think wow, that Kelley Eskridge sure does have interesting things to share! and not notice that they aren’t actually mine (grin).

This is my second favorite Far Side cartoon (actually, I have about 10 second-favorites, since I think that math is just as relative as everything else, but that’s another topic).

The Far Side by Gary Larsen

And if anyone has my favorite strip, I will be superfreakingrateful and publicly bow to your superior archival skills… it’s the split panel of a man and woman in separate beds, thinking what they’re thinking, and therein lies the punch line of “Same Planet, Different Worlds.”

And for the left side of your brain, this New York Magazine article takes a long and interesting look at the current state of publishing, which has interested me for a while, possibly because I am no longer playing by all the rules.

Back with more sparkle tomorrow, I’m sure. In the meantime, go talk to Nicola, she’s way more interesting than me today!

The wordlessness

Nothing I have to say today is more important or exciting than this:

Art is the need to reach out and touch the wordlessness and then to share it. — Nicola Griffith, talking about something wonderful

An artist goes the wordlessness within her and brings back whatever she finds, in whatever form is hers. Words, music, movie, paint, sculpture, dance… We translate the wordlessness as best we can and give it away.

But what happens when someone takes that art and dives with it into their own wordless place? What happens when people respond to art by making art of their own, and then give it back?

Something wonderful. A great mad gift. Thank you, Karina.