Interesting Links for the Week

John Winkelman

* Andrea Johnson, who is taking a break from her role as The Little Red Reviewer, has recently started a podcast called The Retrorockets Podcast, in which she talks with various authors and other creative folks about classic SFF. So far I have listened to her interview with Paul Weimer, wherein they discuss the works of Jack Vance.

* A town hall on The 1619 Project, on the Karen Hunter Show.

* Interesting Twitter accounts and threads for the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine (mostly harvested from Metafilter).
** Samuel Ramani on reasons Putin invaded Ukraine

A Moderately Hopeful March

John Winkelman

New books from the week of February 27, 2022

In the past week I have returned to working a few days a week out of the downtown office which, while mundane on the face of it, is a Big Deal ™ for me for a few reasons. First, after two years I finally get to be outside of my house for more than errands and martial arts practice. Second, in select narrow, carefully managed settings, it is possible to return to something resembling a normal, not overly pandemic-ey routine. And third, Spring is just around the corner, and the city is waking up from a winter and a long hibernation, and that is a fine time of year to be outside, wandering around.

First up is Marlon James‘s new book Moon Witch, Spider King, which I picked up from local wunderkind bookstore Books and Mortar.

Next is the March 2022 issue of Poetry Magazine. I still plan to read through all of my back issues of this excellent journal in the month of April.

In reading news, I am well into Seth Dickinson’s The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, and so far it is every bit the equal to the previous two books in the series, and I am in awe of the way Dickinson portrays this motley cast of deeply damaged characters.

In writing, I didn’t accomplish much this past week, due to being distracted by the goings-on in Ukraine.

Interesting Web Stuff for the Week

John Winkelman

Here are some things I listened to and read over the past week.

* Three Metafilter threads chock-full of good sources of news and information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Thread 1. Thread 2. Thread 3.

* I’ve been listening to the recordings of classes, lectures and performances from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics of Naropa University, which have been archived at the Internet Archive. Here are some highlights:
** “Honoring the Muse,” a reading which was part of a fundraiser for the Boulder County Safehouse shelter for battered women, recorded in June 2000. Part 1, Part 2.
** Amiri Baraka‘s class on revolution and art. Part 1. Part 2.

* Excellent panel on Critical Race Theory, with Kimberlé Crenshaw and Devon Carbado.

* Nikole Hannah-Jones, Kiese Laymon, and Michael Bolden in conversation about the 1619 project.

* The Possible Worlds Lecture with Kim Stanley Robinson.

IWSG, March 2022

John Winkelman

Riverside Park in Grand Rapids Michigan

Hi everyone. I missed last month’s IWSG post due to a combination of *multiple vague gestures at the state of the world*. I’m sure you can relate.

This month’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group question is:

Have you ever been conflicted about writing a story or adding a scene to a story? How did you decide to write it or not?

Much of what I write is in response to calls for submission to anthologies and themed issues of various literary and genre fiction magazines. I seldom complete those stories in time to meet the deadline, but even when it is obvious that the work will take months longer than originally estimated, I try to keep to the original theme. Constraints, I have heard, breed innovation.

But when writing to a theme, particularly if it is a type of story I have not written before, I sometimes find myself asking the question, “Did I put that thing I wrote into the story because the story demands it, or because the constraints of the theme demand it?” This can be a difficult knot to untangle.

Here is an example:

A few years ago, World Weaver Press put out a call for new interpretations of the Baba Yaga myth, for their anthology Skull and Pestle. My degree is in Russian Studies, and I have been to Russia, and continue to read Russian literature (in translation only; my language skills are quite rusty), so this seemed like a perfect fit.

I set the story in a village of Russian Orthodox Old Believers in northern Minnesota, near the Canadian border. The writing went well, with (I thought) good characters, good dialog, and good pacing, but when it came time to include Baba Yaga, I found that I couldn’t quite fit her into the story in a way that felt convincing. I went back and re-wrote the first third of the story (which kept getting longer), and by the time I found a way to transplant Baba Yaga from the forests of western Russia to the plains of the American Midwest, the deadline had long passed, and the short story had become a novella.

The troublesome scene, which would have brought Baba Yaga into prominence, was an act of bigoted violence against the Old Believers which, while all too plausible, felt gratuitous. Yet I couldn’t find a way through to the final act without that scene or something like it. So I left the scene in and re-wrote almost everything before it. Having done that, I found I needed to go a completely different direction with the last part of the story, and that is why it is still not finished.

Skull and Pestle is available here, and is quite good. I think all of the stories in it are better than whatever final form my own story would have taken, had I completed it in time to meet the deadline.

On a side note, I want to thank all of the members of the IWSG for your support and encouragement as  I round out my first year in this group. It has been difficult to stay motivated during the pandemic, and being part of this writing group has been a big help. In particular I want to thank Jean Davis for bringing the IWSG to my attention. You rock!

 

Insecure Writer's Support Group BadgeThe Insecure Writer’s Support Group
is a community dedicated to encouraging
and supporting insecure writers
in all phases of their careers.

February 2022 Reading List

John Winkelman

Bools I read in February 2022

February was a good reading month. I made it through five books – one genre fiction, one nonfiction sociological text, and three books in translation – one poetry and two fiction. Like in January, I didn’t read any short prose. I guess that’s just not where my mind is right now. Maybe in March.

Books

  1. Chakraborty, S.A., The Empire of Gold (2022.02.04)
  2. Du Mez, Kristin Kobes, Jesus and John Wayne (2022.02.14)
  3. Brandt, Per Aage, If I Were a Suicide Bomber (2022.02.14)
  4. Karastoyanov, Hristo, The Same Night Awaits Us All (2022.02.20)
  5. Torres, Fernanda, Glory and its Litany of Horrors (2022.02.26)

Short Prose

February, Tired and Hairy

John Winkelman

The view east from the Skywalk in Grand Rapids

For the first time in two years, I walked to the office work twice in the same week. I discovered (1) that I really missed this small boundary between my work and home life, (2) Downtown Grand Rapids is much more quiet than I remember from past years, though the fact that it it still winter may have something to do with that, and (3) I am really out of shape when it comes to walking. The above photo is from a brief lunchtime walk along the Skywalk at the western edge of downtown Grand Rapids.

Still – it was really good to get out of the house, and on days when the weather permits the walk, I will once again be working from the office.

No new books arrived at the house this past week. Or rather, one did, but it was a duplicate of an earlier acquisition, sent in error as part of a Kickstarter fulfillment glitch. So it doesn’t count.

This past Sunday I finished Hristo Karastoyanov’s The Same Night Comes for Us All. It was great!

Yesterday I finished Glory and its Litany of Horrors written by Brazilian author Fernanda Torres and translated by Eric M.B. Becker. Also great, and somewhat bonkers.

After finishing the Torres I pulled down my copy of The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, the final book of the Masquerade trilogy by Seth Dickinson. Given how good the previous two books were, I have very high hopes for this one.

In writing news, I finally finished the short story I have been pecking away at since October. It left me feeling happy, satisfied and, somehow, restless. Like, now what do I do? I think what I do now is rustle up some other half-finished short stories and, well, finish them!

February Barely Scary

John Winkelman

Books from the week of February 13, 2021

First up is issue 7 of Tales from the Magician’s Skull, from a Kickstarter I backed this past October. It looks great, and I am eager to dive into it.

Next is Classic Monsters Unleashed, from a Kickstarter run by editor James Aquilone. This was another of the Kickstarters for which the reward was delayed by *gestures at everything*.

I like the coincidence of a magazine of classic sword-and-sorcery style stories arrived the same week as a collection of new stories about classic monsters. I appreciate the connection of the classic with the current, the exploration of how the old influences the new.

In reading news, I finished Jesus and John Wayne and it left me in a foul mood. The book itself is excellent, well researched and well written, but the subject matter – the white evangelists who are deliberately working to turn the United States into a militant christian patriarchal ethnostate – well, let’s just say I don’t agree with their works, message, or goals. I have a small review written up in my monthly reading list which will post on the first day of March.

To cleanse my palate, reading-wise, I picked up Per Aage Brandt‘s beautiful poetry collection If I Were a Suicide Bomber, translated from the Danish by Thom Satterlee and published by Open Letter Books. I originally acquired this book through my subscription to Open Letter Books, which I let lapse a couple of years ago because I had not read any of the books they had shipped me in well over a year. Now I am slowly working through my backlog of almost three dozen.

I finished If I Were a Suicide Bomber the same day I started it, as I had taken a sick day from work and a few hours is plenty of time for a leisurely read through a poetry collection. I loved it! The poems are sharp, insightful, and full of humor. Taken individually, there are some echoes of Charles Reznikoff‘s Testimony (though lighter), and taken as a whole I noted an occasional similarity to Notes From A Bottle Found on the Beach at Carmel by Evan S. Connell. Highly recommended.

Now I am reading The Same Night Awaits Us All by Hristo Karastoyanov, translated from the Bulgarian by Izidora Angel and also published by Open Letter Books. So far it is quite good, and would fit well on a shelf next to Andrei Bely‘s Petersburg,and perhaps a short distance from Umberto Eco‘s Foucault’s Pendulum, if only because they both involve small, quirky publishing houses.

In writing news, I didn’t accomplish much this past week due to the aforementioned sick day and the associated disruption to my schedule and routine. Perhaps next week will be a little more stable.

That’s it for now. Unless something extravagant happens in the next ten days, this may be the first month in a very long time where I read more books than I acquired. A few more decades of that and I might get to the point where have read every book I own.

February Ordinary

John Winkelman

Poe and Pepper Napping

Nothing new arrived at the house this past week, so here is a photo of Poe and Pepper, napping the afternoon away.

Maybe it’s the two new years happening only five weeks apart, but it does seem that there is more energy in the air than usual for late winter. It could be the recent (very slightly) sunnier and warmer weather, but I feel something akin to how I felt in the beginning of the new semester at college, with a renewed sense of optimism and vigor.

But the powers that be at work also seem to be affected this way, because I have been exceptionally busy since the beginning of the year, and the amount of energy I am putting into my work projects is beginning to pull from my leisure-time reserves.

In reading news, I am over halfway through Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, which is all about how the conflation of unapologetic racism, conservative Christianity and toxic masculinity has created, and still sustains, white evangelicals. Indeed, my copy is now sprinkled with side notes like “gleeful sadism,” “white supremacy,” “rape culture,” and “death cultists.” Though I still have over a hundred pages to go, it is obvious that the main driver behind the white evangelical virus over the past century, and the very reason they support catastrophic failure of a human being Donald Trump, is “daddy issues.”

Oh: and a fair bit of “predatory self-victimization.”

But I may be simplifying thing. A bit. A very tiny bit.

In writing news, this was an editing week so I spent my time reviewing tens of manuscripts in various stages of completion, performing triage where necessary, and making good use of my red pen. Though I experienced a slight lull in energy at the end of January, I am back at full strength and making excellent progress.

February, Quite Contrary

John Winkelman

New arrivals for the week of January 30, 2022

Though I have really only been trapped inside for a couple of months, and the weather has only truly been wintry for a few weeks, I feel the distinct mildewed talons of cabin fever slowly sinking into my soul.

The only reading material to arrive in the past week was the new issue of Poetry Magazine, which I hope to read before the end of the year. I have an idea that, instead of books of poetry, for National Poetry Month (April) I will read all of my unread back issues of Poetry and other literary journals.

In reading news, I finished S.A. Chakraborty‘s Empire of Gold, and it was fantastic! Definitely one of the best genre fiction reads of the past few years.

Having finished reading a six book run of fantasy and science fiction, I just picked up Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, by Kristin Kobes De Mez. Though I am barely through the introduction I can already see that this will be quite an informative and infuriating book.

In writing news, I am probably two hundred words from the end of the short story I have been working on for the past four months, and at over 7,000 words, it either needs to be trimmed by a couple of thousand, or turned into a novel. Or maybe both. Then the 7,000 word version can be the Director’s Cut.

That’s it for literary news for the week. Next week is Editing Week for the month, so I expect to find myself awash in heavily marked up piles of paper for a few days. Assuming I can keep up the momentum.

January 2022 Reading List

John Winkelman

Books I read in January 2022

January was a pretty good month for reading. I finished three genre novels, following the three I read at the end of 2021. Having my head in this space feels really good, and I find that my own writing is easier, and occasionally improved, by focusing on genre works for extended periods of time.

The down-side is that I spent so much time reading these books (and the ones which I did not finish by the end of the month) that I completely neglected to read any short prose other than news articles and blog posts.

Books

  1. Roanhorse, Rebecca, Black Sun (2022.01.06) – I really liked this book. Until now I had not read a fantasy story – or indeed any fiction at all, that I recall, that was centered in pre-colonial America. The characters are vivid and immediately interesting, the descriptions are both grand and intimate. Roanhorse writes very well and I look forward to reading the sequel, Fevered Star.
  2. Muir, Tamsyn, Harrow the Ninth (2022.01.18) – I loved this book! Harrow was as good a read as its predecessor Gideon the Ninth. It was a little slower-paced, but this was mostly due to the density of the world building and depth of characterizations. Muir is very good at exploring the mental and emotional states of her characters, and shows distinct empathy toward even the least sympathetic of the necromancers in this story. I definitely would not want to live in the universe of the Locked Tomb, but it is a fun place to visit on occasion.
  3. Mandel, Emily St. John, Station Eleven (2022.01.20) – I finished the Subterranean Press edition of Station Eleven while camped out in a hotel room the night before the 2022 ConFusion Science Fiction Convention. To read a story of the survivors of a pandemic touring the Great Lakes, while waiting for the start of a conference taking place in Michigan the middle of a pandemic, put my mind in an interesting place. Mandel writes beautifully. Her characters are well-defined and consistent, and the story immediately pulled me in. Moments of sharp clarity are mixed with hints of the state of the larger world, and the pages are full of the wonder and terror of living in a time when over 99% of humanity has suddenly died. Highly recommended.