Amal El-Mohtar

Barely three months after reaching their Kickstarter funding goal, Lynne M. Thomas, Michael D. Thomas, and John Klima have released the full Table of Contents for Glitter & Mayhem, as well as the awesome cover by Galen Dara, and made it available for pre-order.

I have a story in it. I am very happy about this.

Table of Contents:

Introduction by Amber Benson
“Sister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster” by Christopher Barzak
“Apex Jump” by David J. Schwartz
“With Her Hundred Miles to Hell” by Kat Howard
“Star Dancer” by Jennifer Pelland
“Of Selkies, Disco Balls, and Anna Plane” by Cat Rambo
“Sooner Than Gold” by Cory Skerry
“Subterraneans” by William Shunn & Laura Chavoen
“The Minotaur Girls” by Tansy Rayner Roberts
“Unable to Reach You” by Alan DeNiro
“Such & Such Said to So & So” by Maria Dahvana Headley
“Revels in the Land of Ice” by Tim Pratt
“Bess, the Landlord’s Daughter, Goes for Drinks with the Green Girl” by Sofia Samatar
“Blood and Sequins” Diana Rowland
“Two-Minute Warning” by Vylar Kaftan
“Inside Hides the Monster” by Damien Walters Grintalis
“Bad Dream Girl” by Seanan McGuire
“A Hollow Play” by Amal El-Mohtar
“Just Another Future Song” by Daryl Gregory
“The Electric Spanking of the War Babies” by Maurice Broaddus & Kyle S. Johnson
“All That Fairy Tale Crap” Rachel Swirsky

My story features genderqueer Peri, cabaret, and a Tuckerization of my friend Emily the Slayer whom I love with a great many loves. Instrumental to the story’s composition were Karen Meisner, for the provision of a roller derby t-shirt and shimmery lipgloss; Neil Williamson, for cabaret-consultancy; Adam P. Knave, Wednesday Burns-White, Marianne Kirby, and Caitlyn A. Paxson for beta-reading; Stu West for hand-holding and cheerleading; Rose Lemberg for long-distance folklore translation services; Brit Mandelo for consultation on identity politics; and my super fantastic family for allowing me to spend a day shunning them in favour of tightly deadlined rewrites. Also Lynne, Michael, and John are super fabulous and I couldn’t ask for a better or more patient team of editors.

I also want to shout out to Bert Finkle & Markee de Saw, Vendetta Vain, and George Speirs, as I’m deeply indebted to their performances at Glasgow’s Spangled Cabaret for affecting me to the degree that it was impossible not to write them into a story.

I can’t wait to read this whole anthology, you guys! I’ve read Seanan’s “Bad Dream Girl” and loved it, which makes me all the happier to see my story snuggling up to hers (as she pointed out, our stories are having a slumber party, which, YES) in the ToC. Gosh I hope people like it.

Finally, I have re-read the ToC enough times that it has become a sort of poem in my head:

Sister Twelve: confessions of a party monster
apex-jump with her hundred miles to Hell.
Star dancer of selkies, disco balls, and Anna,
plane sooner than gold subterraneans the Minotaur Girls.
“Unable to Reach You” Such & Such said to So & So, “revels in the Land of Ice.”
Bess, the landlord’s daughter, goes for drinks with the Green Girl.
Blood and sequins; two-minute warning; inside hides the Monster.
Bad Dream Girl? A hollow play,
just another future song, the electric spanking of the war babies,
all that fairy tale crap.

My Glaswegian, being the splendid fellow he is, recently surprised me with tickets to see Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer open for Karine Polwart at Celtic Connections, a winter music festival in Glasgow. I absolutely fell in love with Mitchell’s Hadestown, a folk opera retelling the story of Orpheus and Eurydice as set in an American Depression-style  setting, with Hades as boss of a company town; in addition to reviewing it at gushy length for Black Gate, it has become so entwined with my family’s life that my sister and her then-fiancé chose to open their wedding ceremony with “The Wedding Song.”

All this to say that when I learned that Anaïs Mitchell would be interpreting some Child Ballads (with cover art done by the inimitable Peter Nevins, likewise of Hadestown–find a an interview with him here, courtesy of the fantastical CSE Cooney), I was eager to own the album. Getting to hear the songs live first, though, was incredible.

We were a bit late arriving, finding our seats after the close of “Riddles Wisely Expounded.” But no sooner were we seated than Anaïs began to introduce her version of “Tam Lin.”

A word about “Tam Lin”: I have somewhat accidentally become a collector of different versions of it. I say somewhat accidentally because I never set out to do this, and yet, before this evening, I had eleven: Fairport Convention, Alison McMorland & Geordie McIntyre, Anne Briggs, Coyote Run, Mediaeval Baebes, Pyewackett, Current 93, Steeleye Span, Tempest, Frankie Armstrong, and Tricky Pixie. They are all tremendously different from each other, and lately whenever I hear that someone has tackled the ballad I get excited in part because I know that here will be a new one to add to the collection.

So it was with delight that I turned to my Glaswegian, grinning my anticipation at him as Anaïs spoke her introduction.

“So, if any of you know this story, you’ll know that it’s basically lousy with fairies. There are lots and lots of fairies in it.”

I gave my Glaswegian an ecstatic two thumbs up. He smiled indulgently.

“…But there are no fairies in our version.”

My jaw dropped. My Glaswegian chortled.

“No, see, we’re American, and we just aren’t as down with the fairies thing, and we thought the story worked fine without them.”

I made this face: ಠ_ಠ

But then their guitars kicked in and they started singing and by gosh they worked it and it was amazing and I have been listening to the song on infinite repeat while composing this post. It’s mesmerizing, full of roses green and roses red, managing somehow to hold on to the magic while having banished the fairies, which is, as Messrs. Strange and Norrell will tell you, no easy feat.

It was definitely my favourite piece of an excellent performance, and having since acquired the album, it remains my favourite song on it, though they’re all excellent. Mitchell and Hamer’s voices blend beautifully. I’d never heard “Sir Patrick Spence” before, and the tune sounds remarkably close to the version of “McAlpine’s Crew” I have, by Catherine Crowe. But even if I hadn’t loved the songs I’d have picked up the album for the art alone, especially as I’ve since discovered that there’s a stunning, eminently frame-able insert illustrating six of the songs on the album (with the cover art being the seventh–scroll to the right to see them all). The hard part will be choosing which side-of-three to display, but since they’re also going to make prints of each image, I can at least wait a while until I have to make any decisions.

Which, as it happens, is precisely the kind of respite that this version of “Tam Lin” allows me, as I can’t really imagine listening to anything else for a while.

(Karine Polwart was, of course, as ever, utterly brilliant, funny, and charming. Traces is a wonderful album and I highly recommend it too.)

It is award season, and through a number of surprising turns of events I find myself eligible to nominate works for the Nebula, Rhysling, AND Hugo this year.

I want to be reading everything that is not my own rehashed, revised, reworked, rewritten Coleridge chapter, but there’s no way around that at present, and I won’t be able to do so until next week. Still, I figure I should make this post now to say, please post to me your eligibilities in comments! At the moment I can’t quite deal with the thought of being e-mailed stuff, but if you indicate in the comment that you HAVE something to e-mail to me that isn’t available online, then I’ll have a handy list to refer to come next week.

Below are my own eligibilities.

Award: Nebula!
Deadline: Wednesday, February 15, 23:59 PST
Who Can Nominate: All active and associate members of SFWA in good standing.

My Eligible Work:

SHORT STORY category:

- “To Follow the Waves,” in Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories. The link is to Marguerite Croft’s gorgeous reading of it on PodCastle, but I can send the text to SFWA members on request.

- “The Singing Fish,” in The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities. Likewise, I can send the text on request.

Of the above, I’m proudest of “To Follow the Waves,” and would be most happy to see it and Steam-Powered (1 and 2!) getting more attention. If you enjoyed either story but don’t want to nominate them, going to the SFWA Forums and suggesting them (my goodness the new forums are gorgeous and easy to navigate! It’s like clicking “Like” on Facebook!) would be deeply appreciated.

Award: Rhysling!
Deadline: Wednesday, February 15th, 23:59 PST
Who Can Nominate: Members of The Science Fiction Poetry Association in good standing.

My Eligible Work:

SHORT category:

- “Pieces,” in Stone Telling #4

- “In Search of a North Countrie,” in Apex #29

- “Stairs in Her Hair“, in Welcome to Bordertown (link is to the song on Youtube, text available on request)

LONG category:

- “Biting Tongues,” WisCon Chronicles vol. 5, text available on request.

Of the above, I personally feel like I got the most right with “Pieces.”

Award: Hugo!
Deadline: Sunday, March 11th, 23:59 PST
Who Can Nominate: Members of Renovation (last year’s Worldcon), Chicon 7 (this year’s Worldcon) or LoneStarCon 3 (next year’s Worldcon, but must become a member by January 31).

Ferret Steinmetz has a good post about why getting a supporting membership, if you can afford it and enjoy e-books, is good value for money in addition to giving you the chance to influence the field.

My Eligible Work:

SHORT STORY:

- “To Follow the Waves,” as above.

- “The Singing Fish,” as above.

And that’s that! And, because it’s just such a good expression of all the tensions and anxieties and hopes that go into this time of year, here is A Softer World, telling it like it is: