Spec fic writer, poet, autist
Here’s another announcement I have been late making! Augur Issue #1.3 is out, and my poem “How I Knew My Professor Was a Faerie in Disguise” is in it.
Augur is a Canadian magazine of literary fantasy and fabulism. The tagline of this issue is “From dragons to swans to Tim Horton’s.” Without giving spoilers, I’m pretty sure my poem is where the Tim Horton’s part comes from. đ
You can read the poem by purchasing the issue or subscribing on Augur’s website.
Last week, Angry Robot and the Czech publisher Triton agreed that THE OUTSIDE will be published in a Czech translation in the next 18 months.
This is my first foreign book sale, and I’m very excited!
Full story here:Â https://www.angryrobotbooks.com/2018/11/the-outside-heads-to-czech-republic/
(ETA: Yoon Ha Lee appears to have been misdiagnosed with autism, and has asked to be removed from Autistic Book Party.)
Today’s Book: “Conservation of Shadows,” a short story collection by Yoon Ha Lee
People who have read my reviews of Ninefox Gambit, Raven Strategem, and Revenant Gun will not be surprised that I am a big fan of Yoon Ha Lee’s writing, or that this fandom extends to his short stories as well.
“Conservation of Shadows” is an excellent collection which shows off Lee’s strengths as a writer while also displaying surprising breadth.
Lee is most famous for war-torn space operas full of wildly imaginative, magic-like technology, and these types of stories are certainly on display throughout the collection. Folded, origami-like papers come to life as battle drones (Ghostweight); a group of exiles compose music in honor of ships that have flown into a black hole (Swanwatch); a gun exists that will leave the person shot unharmed but erase all their ancestors from existence (Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain); a book contains the souls of the dead and can be opened to draw on those souls’ abilities (The Book of Locked Doors).
But Lee also strays skillfully out of that genre, from stories of pure high fantasy in which necromancers or demons battle, to the urban sci-fi fantasy of the story “Blue Ink,” in which an ordinary modern-day child is summoned to the end of the world.
My personal favorite stories include “Iseul’s Lexicon,” a longer tale involving strange, cruel, fey-like aliens, in which linguistics are applied defensively to a magical language; and the title story, closing out the collection, in which the myth of the Descent of Inanna is repeated again and again by artificial, far-future entities.
Fans of Shuos Jedao (and, let’s face it, who isn’t a fan of Jedao?) will also enjoy “The Battle of Candle Arc,” his first published appearance, in which we watch him win a space battle using clever tactics against ridiculous odds, and get a hint of the motivation that drives him all through the Machineries of Empire trilogy.
There is a hint of non-neurotypicality in some stories, including “The Shadow Postulates,” in which the protagonist briefly mentions wanting to stim by unraveling the tassels of a carpet, but refrains so as not to disturb her roommate.
But for the most part, non-neurotypicality isn’t highlighted in this collection. It’s simply a very good group of stories by a very good autistic author, and that should be reason enough to go check it out.
The Verdict:Â Recommended-2
Disclosure:Â I have interacted very occasionally with Yoon Ha Lee online.
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For a list of past/future/possible Autistic Book Party books, click here.
With all of the things going on, I’ve neglected to promote some of my new short work this fall.
STORY REPRINT: Minor Heresies
“Minor Heresies,” which first appeared in Ride the Star Wind, has been reprinted in Transcendent 3: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction. I was surprised that Bogi thought the story was “trans enough,” to be honest – but I am definitely not complaining about this lineup. (I am TOC-mates with Yoon Ha Lee, Shweta Narayan, Rose Lemberg, Rivers Solomon, AND Charlie Jane Anders! Among others. *heart eyes*)
“Minor Heresies” is set in the same universe as THE OUTSIDE, but occurs about 200 years earlier.
NEW POEM: singing teeth
In September I posted “singing teeth,” a new poem, on Patreon. It was exclusive to $5+ backers for a month, but now it’s free to everyone. This one is about finding one’s voice and having it be a more difficult voice to manage than one thought. Read it here.
NEW POEM: Held Tongue
A brand new Patreon poem for November, “Held Tongue” is still in its exclusive phase, but if you’re a $5+ backer (or want to become one) you can find it here. I’ll post again when it becomes open to everyone. Cheers!
Just in time for Halloween, Tor.com has revealed the AMAZING awesome spooky cover art for THE OUTSIDE!
I love this art SO MUCH, and I’ve been impatiently waiting for the reveal ever since my editor showed me the first draft version.
The reveal also comes with a short essay by me about mysticism and Lovecraft. You can read it here.
It’s been a busy, stressful summer, but that hasn’t stopped me from finding a few stories and poems that fill me with delight.
Half of it is from Twisted Moon. Don’t judge me.
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STORIES
Brooke Bolander, “The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat” (Uncanny, Issue Twenty-Three, August). This is a feminist velociraptor fairy tale and if the words “velociraptor fairy tale” don’t already have you bounding off to read it then I don’t know how to help you. It is SUCH fun. It is a thing of pure joy and I’m just a tiny little bit mad that I didn’t think of it first.
Beth Cato, “To This You Cling, With Jagged Fingernails” (Fireside, June 2018). This is not a horror story. It is quiet and domestic and melancholy and nothing scary happens. But it also is a story that captures one of the inherent horrors of adolescence, especially non-neurotypical adolescence (although it is not an autism story either), in a way I have never seen done this accurately before. I feel seen by this story.
Meg Elison, “Rapture” (Shimmer #44, August). This story is beautiful and amazing. I want to go to Elison’s afterlife-for-writers when I die.
Lavie Tidhar, “Gubbinal” (Clarkesworld, July). This is gorgeously alien (in the adjectival sense) SF with just the right little hint of cosmic horror. But what I most appreciate about it is the Boppers. If AI ever did run amok, become self-sustaining, and escape its creators, it would be vastly less likely to take over the world etc as humans understand it, and much more likely to behave more or less the way Boppers do. As a computational creativity researcher, I love them.
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POEMS
Alix Bosley, “Leda’s Womb” (Arsenika, Issue 3). YOU WANT SOME MYTHIC BODY HORROR POETRY? HERE’S SOME MYTHIC BODY HORROR POETRY. This gave me a very effective heebie jeebie without even talking about anything graphic or gross, just eggs and pregnancy and birds. Yipes. Well done.
Ceto Hesperia, “Io.” (Twisted Moon, Issue 4). Proving once again that I am a sucker for sexy astronomy poems.
Ariadne Makridakis, “Desert Skin in the Rainforest” (Twisted Moon, Issue 4). And this one! This is just so sensory in the best way.
Lynne Sargent, “Tasting” (Twisted Moon, Issue 4). Um. Speaking as a wildly unpredictable non-neurotypical person, I am pretty sure being in a relationship with me is EXACTLY like this poem. Again, I feel seen.
These past two months marked the release of Uncanny Magazine’s Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction! special issue, and many autistic authors appeared in this issue at the top of their game – both existing favorite authors of mine and at least one voice which is new to me.
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Rita Chen, “Ctenophore Soul”
[Autistic author] A poem about the central role of damage and injury in… well, all of life, and of choosing to live with the damage instead of trying to erase it. I love the sea imagery in this – I am a sucker for anything involving weird sea creatures and a ctenophore is a real thing. [Recommended-2]
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Rose Lemberg, “core/debris/core”
[Autistic author] This is a poem about skin disease, but also about aesthetics and shame, about the desire to write a future in which everything is clean and perfect, even though this denies and erases the reality of human bodies – particularly disabled human bodies, but also all of them. Angry and compelling. [Recommended-2]
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A. Merc Rustad, “The Frequency of Compassion”
[Autistic author] Ok so this story just happens to push, like, SEVENTEEN of my personal story buttons at once and I love it. “The Frequency of Compassion” is a first contact story in which Kaityn, a hyperempathic autistic astronaut, encounters a wounded member of an alien hive mind. I love the hive mind – a friendly entity/ies in which individuals remain distinct and valued parts of the whole – so much. I love Kaityn’s helpful AI friend Horatio. I love the way everyone respects each other’s pronouns and needs, how the alien makes mistakes with Kaityn’s mental boundaries and then apologizes and fixes them, how both the AI and the aliens respect and make adjustments for Kaityn’s needs, including the need for a few days of downtime after a stressful experience and for forms of sensory stimulation that aren’t overloading. I love how Kaityn is kind-hearted and interested in art, despite their need to withdraw from other people. I love how they are hyperempathic on a sensory level, but are also shown as deeply caring even when they don’t sense emotions directly – respecting the imagined boundaries of the moon they land on, for instance, with a characteristically (but un-stereotypically) autistic sense of animism. I just. I love almost everything about this. GO READ IT. [Recommended-1]
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Bogi TakĂĄcs, “Spatiotemporal Discontinuity”
[Autistic author] This poem shares some traits in common with Toward the Luminous Towers and other work of Bogi’s – depicting, not a real-life disability, but the experiences of a person in some other world who is modified for some sort of incredible journey through physical or conceptual space, and who has difficulty with ordinary embodied existence afterwards. Bogi’s writing about this type of techno-magic and its complex personal and social effects is always fascinating, and this one is no exception. [Recommended-2]
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Finally, while I do not review essays, there are interesting essays in this issue by Bogi, A.C. Buchanan –Â two by A.C. Buchanan, in fact – Ira Gladkova, and me.
Check out my new poem, “Spaceship’s Block,” up on Patreon!
This one was born out of my, ah, frustrations with my writing life while moving to a new home and starting a new job. I’m happy to report that this situation has improved since then. Slightly, at least. Enjoy!
In a couple of weeks, I’ll be back at my favorite Ontario convention, Can*Con in Ottawa. Here’s my schedule:
Friday, 4:00 pm: Star Wars, Heroism, and Society.
The galaxy far, far away has long been a reflection of societyâs views. How are changing concepts of heroism and the fight of good vs evil reflected in the new Star Wars canon? Are we just telling different stories, or has our view of what a group of heroes should be genuinely shifted? And what is the influence of whatâs âallowed on the screenâ today versus Hollywood norms forty years ago? Ăric Desmarais, Ada Hoffmann, A.A. Jankiewicz, Sylvain Neuvel, Evan May (Moderator)
Saturday, 1:00 pm: She Is The Slayer: Analyzing Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
More than twenty years since the television show debuted (and longer since the original film), Buffy the Vampire Slayer remains an enduring pop culture phenomenon â and the franchise is said to continue in the near future. What is so compelling about this series? How did it break tropes and barriers in storytelling (or not)? What has it influenced since? And if it returns, how could the next iteration of slayers reflect todayâs society?
Saturday, 3:00 pm: Career Paths in Short Fiction.
A lot of writers have made their mark on the industry or advanced their career into other streams by writing and selling short fiction. Where should you be looking if you want to level up with short fiction, and what tools are at your fingertips? Lex Beckett, Susan Forest, Ada Hoffmann, Rich Larson, Derek Kunsken (Moderator)
Sunday, 11:00 am: I Wrote A Novel! Now What Do I Do With It?
Youâve written âthe endâ on your finished draft. Now what? Is it as good as it can get? How do you know? If not, how do you improve it? After it is as *perfect* as you can get it, you kind of have three choices: (1) traditional publishers, (2) self-publishing, (3) trunking it. Jen Albert, Ada Hoffmann, Jennifer Carole Lewis, Rati Mehrotra, James Alan Gardner (Moderator)
Sunday, 2:00 pm: Reading.
Spoon Knife 3: Incursions, an anthology of neurodivergent authors writing about the ambiguous edges of reality, is out now from Autonomous Press, and contains a reprint of my popular autistic spiritualist lesbian dinosaur robot novelette, “The Scrape of Tooth on Bone,” which first appeared in GigaNotoSaurus. Enjoy!