Reading at Fantasy Matters

[pameladean]

So I went over on the bus to the University of Minnesota campus, where the Fantasy Matters convention is being held this weekend. I knew when I looked at the map that I was reversing east and west, and told myself sternly not to do that on the ground, but I still did. Luckily, the river was right there and I knew that I didn't want to cross it; also, the buildings are all interconnected, and the signage is surprisingly good. I was sad, however, that the tunnels were so bare and boring. Nobody had written quotations in purple pen on the walls, a longstanding tradition at Carleton when I was there.

Even though I was only going to be there for an hour, they gave me a T-shirt and everything. All the volunteers that I talked to were very nice and enthusiastic and sensible, a good combination. I was early, so I went and browsed the DreamHaven table and talked to Greg for a little while. The conference is being held in the Law School, and the room they gave me for the reading was a little daunting at first -- a lectern in a pit, with long tables rising in tiers into the distance, provided with chairs and electrical outlets for laptops. Jen Miller introduced me very kindly, and I read the first half of Chapter 5 from Going North. elisem and pegkerr both came to my reading, which was awfully good of them. My voice started to go during the last five or six pages, but I think the acoustics were fairly good. People didn't laugh as much as I'd hoped, except for Elise, who delighted me by snorting in several places. A savvy person sitting next to her asked me, during the question period, if, out of character, and world, and all the other aspects of fiction, dialogue came first for me. It does. This was an exceptionally talky chapter. There actually is description and action in other parts of the book, but they contain too many spoilers for me to be reading them to the innocent. I was also asked what made me want to write a sequel to the Secret Country Trilogy; and Elise brought up Zenna Henderson's books about The People, and the theme of exile, which was clever of her, because Henderson is a huge influence on The Dubious Hills, and both character threads in the new book deal with the topic.

I signed some people's books, including new copies of the Secret Country trilogy for a woman who had worn hers out and wanted to give some to her kids to read, which gratified me deeply.

I ought to have gone home then, but instead I went to hear Neil Gaiman's keynote speech. What he actually did, owing to an ambiguity in the program, was to read the first half of the first chapter of a wonderful-sounding book about a graveyard. He said that the very first scene was probably the most disturbing thing he had ever written. It was disturbing, but within a page of it, he had the audience laughing uproariously. Mike Ford was able to do that too, to walk that thin, thin line. I can't hear Neil without missing Mike. Mike introduced us. When the reading was done, Neil said that he could either take questions or give part of the talk he'd prepared before he thought he needed to do a reading instead. He was asked what the talk was about, so he got to answer questions AND do part of the talk. The part I liked was his saying that traditionally, world literature, the vast majority of it, is fantastical literature, and that a situation in which there is a special fantasy and science-fiction section in the bookstore is of very recent vintage.

I thought of staying around to say Hello, but common sense took over, and I came home to work on Chapter 23.

Comments

[beadslut.livejournal.com]

YOu are good and virtuous. Write write write

[pameladean]

I am grumpy and ill-tempered, but it doesn't seem to affect the writing.

P.

[beadslut.livejournal.com]

*passes you tea and lavender shortbread*

[pameladean]

Ooo, lavender shortbread! And in digital form, it won't make me sick! Yum. (Have done 500 words on Chapter 23 this morning.)

P.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

It sounds lovely overall!

[pameladean]

It was. Wish I could have attended the whole thing. Well, if I'd finished this book when I was supposed to, I could have.

P.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

It seems like it went very well! I bought the new mmpbs of The Secret Country four years ago because my old paperbacks were getting rather dubious themselves. I gave them to the Friends of the Library to sell, so I hope someone else enjoyed them.

[pameladean]

Oh, that's a great destination for one's former copies!

Your considered choice of adjective made me giggle.

P.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I give a lot of the books I replace (replacing my various-sized Jani Kilian books from Kristine Smith with the two SFBC omnibuses, for example) and the books I don't have room for or don't want to read again to the Friends. It brings in money they spend on the library -- a few years ago we got new carpet, tables, and chairs in the Community Room which is where we have bookgroup -- and it makes the donated books more likely to get to someone who's interested. The local second-hand shops take newer books than I'm likely to give (I'm about seven years behind in the to-read piles now, I think) so the Friends work out well for all of us.

[arkuat]

You told me when we were chatting just now that you'd already told me everything in your lj post, but your lj post was the first place I learned about the influence of Henderson. And one of the things that came through clearly in our chat that didn't come through so clearly in the lj post is that your current novel isn't really a sequel to the Hedge and the Sword, it's a sequel to /The Dubious Hills/, which just happens to have Ruth thoroughly and necessarily intertwingled into it--hm, I suddenly become spoiler-conscious--for reasons that will become apparent.

*hugs*

[pameladean]

I almost always forget to name Zenna Henderson if anybody asks me to come up with a list of influences. I don't know why. I read the People books as a teenager and then lent them out to a friend who lost them, so there's a big gap in my rereading; maybe that's it.

I should probably edit the entry to reflect my answer to the sequel question, shouldn't I? What I said was that I didn't actually want to write a sequel to WHIM at all, but I did to HILLS, and I'd already sent Ruth to Heathwill, so there it all was. What was really irresistible was putting Ruth and Arry in the same book.

*hug*

P.

[aedifica]

I'm glad it went well! I wish I could have gone, but I had a trombone lesson at the same time as your reading.

[pameladean]

That's got to be among the very best excuses for missing a reading! Not that you need one, but still.

P.

[careswen.livejournal.com]

the tunnels were so bare and boring. Nobody had written quotations in purple pen on the walls

The bareness of the tunnels has distressed me as well. What an excellent solution! I wish to make use of this at once! But there are cameras everywhere; we'll see how daring I am.

[pameladean]

Oh dear. I'd hate for you to get into trouble. I mean, obviously the U doesn't want people writing on its walls, whereas Carleton didn't mind, at least for years they didn't.

P.

[careswen.livejournal.com]

Alas, too true.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I thought you'd be tickled to know that La Daughter did indeed apply to Carleton. And Reed. (And a lot of other places, but she did decide to give the smaller funky places a shot!) We'll be doing the college visits *after* the acceptances; rather out of order, but this fall has been too insane to do it the other way.

[pameladean]

I am quite tickled about it. I can't recall when acceptances come in, so I don't know whether you'll see the campus in a guise that would seem benign to somebody who's been living in California, or rather in its cold aspect.

P.

[(Anonymous)]

Used to be early April, as I recall, so if that's still the case it could go either way. In my Carleton days, they were always planning an English Dept. picnic on Shakespeare's approximate birthday, and it always ended up snowing.

Helen