The Interstitial Arts Foundation's Shameless Commerce Division (well, OK, it all goes to support a non-profit dedicated to tearing down genre boundaries, but I couldn't resist), headed by Auction Guru ktempest Bradford, is making an offer you'd be mad to refuse:

1. Browse the images of art and jewelry we’re auctioning off and pick 1 – 3 favorites. Then share these favorites on your blog or social network of your choice. Tell your friends and family why you chose the pieces. Don’t forget to include a link back to IAFAuctions.com.

2. To enter, post one comment in the AUCTION'S POST HERE (not my LJ post) for each of the places you mentioned your favorite pieces.

3. Recipients of the free books must promise to review them (honestly & without bias) on their blogs/websites.

For more details, links & instructions: Read the Fine Print in this Auction post - and while you're in there, check out all the amazing pieces coming in every day!

I know this means nothing to those who were not smitten at an early age with Alison Uttley's A Traveller in Time - but I am, I was, and (as reported earlier in this Journal) I am hoping to stay at "Thackers" in mid-September, as the original house is now it is a Bed & Breakfast! My heart was in my throat as I wrote to The Manor Farmhouse, Dethick, Derbyshire - especially when they told me there might not be rooms available for our dates - but behold me dancing now that things have sorted themselves out! Such a lovely letter back from them, too - wanted to share it with other enthusiasts:

We have a double room available.... It... has a wash-handbasin in the room...plus a small sitting room.... We give you breakfast in the original Elizabethan kitchen – very atmospheric. [OMG!!!- that's the kitchen in the book where - where - O, I'd gladly eat dry breadcrusts & sawdust there. The letter goes on:]

I note your comments about the reviews [of Uttley's recently-pulished journals]. Alison was a very complicated character and there was a very dark side to her. I’m sure there’s a balance – her love and understanding of the countryside was prolific. It’s difficult to equate how a physics graduate could believe in fairies all her life. [It is?] Have you read Denis Judd’s biography? He met her several times, as did a local writer and expert who lives very close to here.

We are hoping to run some 2/3 day Alison Uttley events here each year at which Denis Judd has offered to come and speak. It’s a shame you don’t live in the UK – there will be ample time for open discussion about her life.

If you need to know anything else about the B & B which is not on our website, please get in touch. We hope you will want to come and stay with us.

Very best wishes
Gilly Groom

I'll be there in 2 weeks.

We are watching the entire old Granada TV series of Brideshead Revisited. I'm amazed at how much of it got into The Fall of the Kings, considering how different they are. I was passionate about that series first time around; I guess it just got into my authorial DNA.

Is there anyone else out there who was obsessed with Alison Uttley's A Traveler in Time?

Delia & I are going to England for much of September: starting out in Devon at a wedding, then planning to drift around Wales & visit friends in Knighton, Bristol & Oxford before finishing up in London. I realized this is almost the first time I'll ever have been there with both a car and a little unscheduled time. At dinner out I'd been telling friends how passionate I was as a teen about wanting to go to the places I'd read about in books - but that now I've either lost the passion or been to them already! When I got home, I suddenly remembered Thackers, the Derbyshire manor where the Babington family lives in Traveller in Time. Was it a real place? In her introduction, Uttley tells us it is:
( quote )

- but is that just part of the fantasy? Is there an old Babbington manor somewhere in Derbyshire? Could one visit it - or at least spy on it from behind a hedge? I had to know!

It's real. It's there. And it's a Bed & Breakfast.

The website says the room that looks out on the church is already taken for that week. But I have written to ask about the other one.

(And, yes, I hope to see many of you on our travels, especially in London. Would anyone like to help set up a signing in a cafe, and/or a party in a pub, so we can all meet up? Planning to be there +Oxford, Sept. 17-22. June Tabor concert 18th. Need a shul for Rosh Hashanah 19th.)

* * *

"I do find life difficult at times … and I behave childishly too, do foolish things, unworthy … I don't think one can have great imagination and great wisdom. Can one?" -- Alison Uttley, Diaries (published 2009!)

Added: DAMMIT! This was actually a post about the Fallen Princesses Project & also Lev Grossman (who pointed it out to me)'s new book The Magicians. Bad, bad, stupid cut-and-paste has failed me. Gone, gone, never to be re-undone. The links alone must suffice.

Here's what got pasted in instead (a comment I made to yesterday's Urban Fantasy post, but you should probably see it here, too):

* This 2008 Library Journal article by Nanette Wargo Donohue - footnoted in the Wiki "Urban Fantasy" listing - is spot on. Poor L. Miller's got no excuse!( Read more... )

Congrats to the high bidder on the inscribed first edition (and believe me, we checked - not only first edition but first printing) copy of TPoTS in the Brenda Novak auction - and thanks for bidding on such a worthy cause! I'm always happy to sign books in public, too, at no extra charge: I'll be at Readercon in July, at WorldCon (Montreal) in August, and World Fantasy in November. (And I'll be at all of deliasherman's upcoming Magic Mirror events, of course - just slip me a volume, don't be shy.)

But if you're not where I am, why not order signed books from some great indie stores wiht mailorder service? I recently signed stock for: Books of Wonder and Dreamhaven. Borderlands Books might still have some signed stock from back when. All 3 of them will help you avoid #AmazonFail. (Books of Wonder also has copies of Troll's Eye View signed by Delia, Holly, EDatlow & me.) If you're a bookstore with signed stock by me, that I've lost track of, sorry - and please add yourself to the comments!

A Letter from founder & owner Peter Glassman:

Dear Friends,

Over the years, many of you have asked me if there was anything you could do to help us at Books of Wonder. Well, actually, there is! Books of Wonder has been nominated for a Parents' Picks Award as Best Bookstore for Children in New York City.

This award is based on votes given at the website, www.parentsconnect.com, which is the Nickelodeon Channel's parenting website. You can vote once each day from now till July 15th, when the voting ends.

We are one of 7 bookstores nominated. Some very loyal customers have worked hard to make sure we are vying for first place, but we are in a tight race against a bookstore owned by a large publishing company -- a store which only sells books published by that company -- and they have apparently asked the entire publishing company staff to vote for them!

Now I have nothing against a bookstore promoting it's corporate parent's publications, but to suggest that such a store could be the best bookstore for children in NYC -- without stocking all the great books for children published at other publishing houses -- seems to me to be ridiculous. [italics mine - ek]

So I am asking each and everyone of you to vote for us. Today and everyday! You can vote once each day till the contest ends on July 15th -- so please do so! And feel free to ask your friends and families to do so too! This would mean so much to me and my staff -- and, of course, anything that helps in this bad economy is a welcome blessing!

To vote, you can try going to this direct page:
http://gocitykids.parentsconnect.com/parents-picks/new-york-ny-usa/best-new-york-city-book-store

Thank you to each and everyone of you for your help! My staff and I greatly appreciate it!

Best Wishes,
Peter Glassman
Books of Wonder
--------------------------------------------------------------------

There are lots of really good bookstores on this list. Bookstores that I love, that have really good kids' book sections. But it's clearly mano a mano, a duel to the death between Books of Wonder & - here, I will go ahead and name names; it's my blog, after all - The Scholastic Store (35%) and BoW (39%) - all the others are in the single digits.

Also, I feel a strong personal loyalty to BoW. Not only do they keep a fantastic stock of books old & new, but they are the [Wild] Rumpus Room of all the NYC children's & YA authors. I run into colleagues there all the time - it's kind of our personal Club (with cupcakes). Part of what makes us feel welcome there is that Peter & his staff generously throw parties & signings for us all whenever something new comes out. Last Sunday, we had a fabulous Troll's Eye View reading/signing there (see photos here). On June 30th, Delia will be reading/signing The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen! So maybe this is a good place to point out that you can order from them online - including personalized signed copies from upcoming events....

Times are hard. We need books - and booksellers need us. Thanks!

NYC's Books of Wonder has put up a rather splendid announcement & poster for our TROLL'S EYE VIEW event there this Sunday (1-3pm).

blackholly, deliasherman, ellendatlowand I will, it seems, each "speak about their contribution to this new book, answer questions from the audience, and then sign copies of all their wonderful titles."

If you can't be there in person, the store does a brisk mail-order business, and encourages pre-ordering signed copies, so don't be shy. (I don't see a way to specify that you want a signed copy on their order form, though - maybe you need to phone that in.) They hand us a stack of little slips and say, "Please sign it to So-and-So."

BTW, I've now got an e-mailing list for my NYC live events. You can subscribe to it here: http://groups.google.com/group/ekannounce-ny/subscribe

I've got one for Boston, too, but I'm not sure of the URL - I'll find out. Nothing upcoming there except Readercon, though, so no e-blasts in the near future.

Maybe not - but my newfound friends on Twitter (@ellenkushner) sure are sweet!

I came home (from seeing Joe Turner's Come and Gone again, and once again bawling my eyes out) to find a royalty statement in the mail, informing me that as of Dec. 31, 2008, Bantam was willing to admit to 81 Electronic Book copies of Swordspoint having been sold. I thought this was the sort of trivia that plays well on Twitter, so tweet I did.

To my surprise, several people immediately chirped back wondering where to get an e-copy. I have no idea - I've never even seen one - so I offered an Extra Ration of Rum (the traditional offer in my family since childhood) to whoever first sighted one.

Honors go to @neuromantique, who offers:
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780307418357.html
All my other titles are there on e-book, as well. So buy, enjoy - just don't expect me to sign your microchip.

OMG! Small Beer Press is having a giant sale on some unbelievable titles ($1! $1! $1!!!) , including works by Carol Emshwiller, Maureen McHugh, Naomi Mitchinson, John Crowley, Elizabeth Hand, Sean Stewart, and the 3rd book in Laurie J. Marks' "Elemental Magic" series, Water Logic!

Other books are a bit more, but still a steal - including a mere $9 for the stunning hardcover of The Privilege of the Sword (usually $35). And, hey! Interfictions is just $9, too!

Order on this page only, to get these jaw-dropping prices.

ADDED: In the $1 pile is also Kate Wilhelm's Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop. You probably need it. If you don't believe me, read the excerpt "My Silent Partner" ("Your silent partner is amoral, it has no real esthetic sense, no chronological sense, no relative worth sense; a pebble is as good as a pearl to it. Also it does not know anything you have not taught it through your life experiences...").

HOPE-IN-THE-MIST
The Extraordinary Career &
Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees
by Michael Swanwick
Preface by Neil Gaiman
Original frontispiece illustration by Charles Vess

Hope-in-the-Mist will be published 10 July 2009 at Readercon in Burlington, Massachusetts. Swanwick will be there, his usual affable, erudite & interstitially entertaining self, and Mirrlees will be the "Memorial Guest of Honor" (the "live" ones will be Elizabeth Hand & Greer Gilman, herself no slouch at expounding on Mirrlees & her work).

Got this note from blogger Ron Hogan, containing info of interest to New Yorkers but also to anyone anywhere who wants a really great place to send her/his overstocked romance novels:

I [Ron Hogan] wanted to remind you quickly about Lady Jane's Salon, a monthly reading series for romance novelists that I began hosting earlier this year.

The readings are fundraising events for Share the Love, a non-profit organization that donates "gently used" romance novels to domestic violence shelters, women's prisons, and other institutions serving women in need.

( Details about NYC event April 6th )

I'm on the Circlet Press author mailing list. No, I've never written hot genre erotica under another name (darn!), so don't get all excited - I think it's because I wrote the introduction when Circlet's glorious UltraViolet Library of reprints of queer-themed fiction reprinted deliasherman's first novel, Through a Brazen Mirror (which I still think is the Worst Title Ever - she was going to call it The Famous Flower of Servingmen, which is, of course, the ballad it was based on - but for some reason, Ace Books thought that wasn't a crowd pleaser . . . . It's actually how we met. Did I ever tell you that story?)

ANYHOW, editor Cecilia Tan's latest e-blast said:

I am in dire need of a few more gay male and lesbian vampire stories for my Ravenous anthologies, plus the lesbian book just got bought for reprint by Alyson Books. Meanwhile, all five of the anthologies Circlet is reading for are closing in the next 30 days, so if you have erotic stories themed with steampunk, classical mythology, superheroes/supervillians, sex magick & erotic ritual, and good old BDSM, we're eager and awaiting your submissions.

And I asked her if it would be OK if I blogged this. Her answer, for those who are shy:

Ooooh, thanks a bunch! I'm sure that will be useful. [....] Thanks for helping to spread the word. You never know where that one really brilliant story is going to come from.

So do an old pal a favor, and crank out something sweet for her - and get published & paid for it! I've got a lot of time for Cecilia. When she was just a sprout, I remember her announcing she was founding her own business, to publish sf/f erotica, mainly by and for women, and she's made a real go of it over the years as a publisher & businesswoman, against all odds. She's hardworking, and you should be, too.

If you want to keep up with Circlet's needs & offerings,ceciliatan also pointed out that Circlet Press has its own LJ community page, with specs for the 5 books they're reading for right now: http://community.livejournal.com/circletpress/11639.htm

I am actually working on a vampire story, but it's not really up to Circlet's standards. It's about history.

Check out mount_oregano 's explanation of why she is translating the banned medieval fantasy that drove Don Quixote to the windmills . . . . and then read her translation!

My cousin Susan, the jeweler, sent me a link to Anne Choi's handmade beads with words on them, thinking I'd like them. She was right! I bet you will, too. (My favorites, of course, are Out of Stock.) Need more jewelry? Aragona (remember Aragona?) is having another Blue Moon Sale!

Lessee, what else . . . . Came back from Santa Cruz with a headcold. A very mild and pleasant headcold, consisting only of a stuffy nose. When's the last time I had a cold like that? Can't even remember. Colds the past few years have been accompanied by such miserable sore throats, coughs, aches and pains . . . I was beginning to think I had made up the kind of cold you could just bluff your way through with decongestant. Or that age had robbed me of the ability to endure. Ha. (Snort.)

But I relish the excuse to lie around and read, and I took it. As a result, just finished two really, really terrific books, which I am glad to recommend to all! The first is Flora's Dare, sequel to Flora Segunda, by Ysabeau Wilce. Best YA fantasy I've read since Philip Pullman, and fills me with similar delight, for entirely different reasons. Or maybe not: world an entertaining sidestep or two away from our own; tangled, sparky (& in this case, hilarious) heroine . . . . not to mention a City. How I love cities. Unlike me, Ysabeau has named hers. And I want to go there. (But not when there's an earthquake caused by giant underground squid.) The other book is We Are Gathered Here by Micah Perks (who, as the head of the Writing program, was our host at UCSC). I can't wait for Delia to read it: it's about Victorian women's friendship between a "lady" and her "maid," but set in the Adirondacks, and includes visits to a Gypsy camp, a Shaker women's settlement, and a miners' strike. Perks has also written an essay about her inspiration, Searching for an Ending, which is worth reading. Actually, there's a third novel I read, out at Big Sur: The Scarlet Rider, by Lucy Sussex, in which an Australian scholar tries to find identity of a 19c woman author from the Outback. Both Scarlet Rider & We are Gathered Here include lesbian couples - not as a big deal, but as part of the landscape of the protagonists' lives. Interesting to note that both first appeared in 1996. Yay. And 'bout time.

Hope you get some happy reading! But without the headcold.

Since I can't remember well enough which of my friends are Sarah Caudwell fans to send them this link and not risk missing some, I post it here for all of you (with thanks to jonquil).

I am in California. There are lavender and rosemary plants as high as my waist growing on every other lawn. My little rosemary from NYC just died. They all die when I take them indoors for the winter. We bought a giant bunch of miniature narcissi at the Farmer's Market. It's still cold & rainy, but I care not.

Today's Question:

Have you ever read any books in the Terri Windling shared-world "Bordertown" series?

If you're a writer, do you think they influenced your work in any way?

If you're curious, here's Terri's Borderland page, the Wiki page with a list of all stories & authors, and the latest Borderland fan page, with links to lots, including an LJ community, "Bordertown's Journal."

It amazes me to realize that I had a story in every single one of the 4 volumes (while "Charis" has been reprinted most often, I think my favorite is "Hot Water," with "Mockery" a close second.) Will Shetterly & Emma Bull wrote entire Borderland novels. And there are even some who say that the current spate of Urban Fantasy (Division of Elves on the Streets) owes a lot to kids who read them at an impressionable age when they first came out. What say you?

from eegatland who got it from sovay

Grab the book nearest you. Right now. Turn to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post that sentence along with these instructions in your LiveJournal. Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

"Poor things, I thought, sweltering in their robes and veils!"
-- Mary Doria Russell, Dreamers of the Day

It's too bad I'm so scrupulously honest, as both the 4th & 6th sentences on p. 56 are much more interesting.

Actually, the whole reason this book was sitting on my desk so long after I finished it was that I was planning to type out a couple of passages for you here. Clearly, it is meant to be This passage is set in 1921; the narrator, Agnes Shanklin, a schoolteacher from Cleveland (whose sister, a missionary, was a friend of "Lawrence of Arabia"), observes some chitchat amongst British players in the Cairo Peace Conference:

"Arnold," Miss Bell was telling Colonel Wilson, "when we have made Mesopotamia a model state, there won't be an Arab in Syria or Palestine who won't want to be part of it, but they will never accept direct rule...."
( Read more... )

Miss Bell's first line comes directly from Gertrude Bell's actual writings - and I bet a lot else here does, too!

I also loved Mary's narrator ruminating on p. 137:
"Why do we travel, really? If we are of a thoughtful nature, we may wish to improve our minds, to examine the manners and customs of others . . . But is it really an education that we yearn to acquire when we travel? Or - be honest, now - do we more sincerely desire souvenirs? What tourist returns with lighter bags than those he packed at home?"

Ouch. She's got me there, dead to rights.

Well, now I can put the book away.

Note from Anne Groell, my editor at Bantam: "Thomas the Rhymer just went back to press for 2,500 more copies. Congrats!"

I must confess I am relieved - ever author lives in dread that the note is going to say that they're letting it go out of print and be remaindered. Thank you all, for keeping my work in print!

Small Beer Press, Gavin Grant & Kelly Link's glorious enterprise - the publisher who brought you the stunning limited edition hardcover of The Privilege of the Sword - are having a
huge sale of all their books
- including TPOTS hc for a mere $17!! . . . the amazing new Geoff Ryman novel, formerly unavailable in the U.S.! . . . and Interfictions: the first anthology of Interstitial writing . . . .free downloads of Kelly Link stories . . . .and . . . wait for it . . . The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories by Joan Aiken!

If the fabulous books on fabulous sale were not enough, SBP adds:
20% of the proceeds of this sale will be donated to Barack Obama's campaign for President of the United States of America. Next month in the USA we get to show the world that the mistakes of the last eight long years will not be repeated . . . .

And it is thanks to their fine blog that I found Chris Rowe's link to hear Ralph Stanley's fine take on Barack , as well. That voice, that voice, that voice! -- oh, and also Ben Rosenbaum's exegesis on Maurice Sendak and the True Meaning of Rosh Hashanah.