Category: straw dog

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At WriteAngles, I met a science fiction author who is a newcomer to the Pioneer Valley. He asked if I was aware of any local meetups related to science fiction authorship and if I knew anything about SFWA. Below is my reply, slightly edited.

Unfortunately, I’m not aware of any good, local meetups specifically around science fiction, in spite of the number of authors that are here, with one exception: James Cambias (copied on this message) has an email list by which he occasionally organizes informal get-togethers at local breweries, wineries, or cideries. Perhaps he would add you to the list.

James is also going to be offering a workshop on Worldbuilding for Straw Dog Writers Guild at the North Amherst Library Community Room on November 9: https://strawdogwriters.org/event/worldbuilding-101 This would also be a good opportunity to meet him. And if you know other people who might be interested, please let them know as well.

Note that I also run a writing group, Straw Dog Writes (SDW), that meets online Wednesdays at 7pm via Zoom. We do introductions and chat for 15 minutes then write for 45 minutes, and repeat until 9pm. There are a few of us who are doing science fiction, but we also get poets, essayists, memoirists, etc. Let me know if you’d like to attend and I’ll send you the link.

When I was at Readercon, I spoke with another author in Northampton who expressed interest in trying to organize a speculative fiction meetup for the Pioneer Valley, so I think there’s more interest if we want to try to set something up. We could certainly organize something — perhaps monthly. I could participate if it were online, but probably couldn’t if it was face-to-face, due to my health circumstances. But I’d be happy just to know it was happening and would be happy to help organize/facilitate, if that would be helpful.

Regarding SFWA, the next big thing is Quasar, which is going to be an online event on Nov 15-16. https://membership.sfwa.org/event-6301796 The preliminary program is up and it looks pretty good. SFWA runs a “Writing Date” on Sundays that is just like SDW, except more well attended. (It was what I modeled SDW on.) And there are a number of committees that offer various kinds of ongoing meetups and programming. https://events.sfwa.org/upcoming-events/

The best way to stay current with SFWA is to get added to the Discord server. Email discord@sfwa.org for more info.

As I was writing this, I realized I was rather plugged into what’s going on in the SFF world — It’s like I’m some kind of socialist butterfly. Who would have thought!

I attended the Straw Dog Writers Guild annual conference, Write Angles, as a participant. I had a good time! They had invited me to serve on a science fiction panel. In addition, I attended several other panels during the conference and had the opportunity to meet a lot of people I had only met previously via zoom. Plus, I met even several new people (somewhat unusually for me). Overall, it was an outstanding conference experience.

The opening/keynote speaker was Franny Choi. She primarily asked us to consider what literature is for, especially in the face of the terrible events happening in the world around us: What use is poetry in a time of genocide? It challenged me to think about why I write escapist fluff and gave me a context for several good conversations throughout the day.

The science fiction panel, Writing the Future, was focused on near-term science fiction. I’ve written a few short stories like that, although most of my science fiction is set in some distant future — and I write as much or more fantasy than scifi. The panel was organized and moderated by Mark Schlack and included an outstanding and diverse group of writers: Allegra Hyde, Marisa Williams, and Andrea Hairston. We discussed the challenges of writing near-term science fiction and trying to go beyond dystopian fiction toward writing something more useful and optimistic. There were several interesting and thoughtful questions, including one person who said they had misread the topic and were hoping we were going to discuss the future of science fiction writing. That would be an interesting topic too.

I particularly enjoyed a workshop by Tolley Jones, a columnist for our local paper, on intersectionality. She described a technique she calls “writing from the middle” for moving from a personal experience to an essay that puts the experience in a context that others can understand and appreciate. After an introduction, she had us do a couple of writing exercises and share the results with a peer. Afterwards, she invited us to identify other kinds of identities (e.g. gender, race, class, religion, etc., etc.) and consider how our piece related to people with other identities or backgrounds. And if it wasn’t, why was that? It was a provocative question that got me thinking. She ended with a few concrete suggestions: Tell your story before you conclude anything. Don’t speak about others’ stories without input from that community. Be brave. Tell the truth. Consider your audience, but don’t protect them — don’t minimize your story to make it palatable.

After lunch, I attended a panel with three agents. Up to now, I haven’t tried to query for agents to publish my work and have been working with a small press. For my current work-in-progress, I’ve been planning to start querying to see if I can interest an agent in trying to find a publisher. I took a lot of notes. But was overall a little creeped out by the experience. When I described it to Phil, he immediately said it reminded him of how he discovered that Human Resources is not your friend. Yeah. Exactly. It’s not to say that you shouldn’t have an agent or try to get one. But remember to set boundaries and respect that it’s a business relationship — and primarily a relationship between your book — not you — and the publisher.

I ended up slipping out a little early and didn’t stay for the last session. It was such a beautiful a day, it seemed a shame to spend it all indoors. But I will definitely want to attend again next year.

potsherds

I attended a craft workshop organized by the Straw Dog Writers’ Guild about translating poetry by Jesse Lee Kercheval. She’s Zona Gale Professor of English Emerit at the University of Wisconsin Madison. The workshop had to be rescheduled when she had computer difficulties several weeks ago, but it was still pretty well attended for a Zoom event on a rainy Saturday morning.

She talked a bit about her path to translating poetry. She grew up speaking French, but learned English in her childhood. For the past 15 years, she’s been going to Uruguay and learning about the language and literature of the region. She’s published both original poetry and poetry in translation.

She brought several examples to show the kinds of choices translators make when trying to share a poem from one language to another. They were fascinating and gave the audience the opportunity to discover how choices throw cultural and linguistics aspect of both the original and target languages into relief.

One poem, translated by her and by another poet was particularly fascinating to me, as I could see how the other poet created a more masculine take on the poem showing cultural differences in how men and women speak. It reminded me of how in Japanese, men use a much rougher, more clipped, kind of speech.

Another poem showed the challenges — and limitations — of trying to bring a cultural construct from one language into another without intersecting with different cultural biases in the target language. The word “barrio” has different cultural connotations in the two communities: do you try to translate it or leave it in? Even the title of the poem, which was purely metaphorical: do you translate it literally? Or try to capture a corresponding metaphorical meaning in English? Choices!

For many, many years, (more than 30!) I have been writing poetry in Esperanto and trying to translate it into English. I’ve also done some limited translation of English poetry into Esperanto. And as an undergraduate, I studied Spanish for many years. So this was just a perfect fit for my interests and needs. I’ve been thinking about making a new chapbook of Esperanto haiku and now I’m even more excited to get started.

One year ago this week, I ran the first session of Straw Dog Writes for the Straw Dog Writers’ Guild. And we’ve met basically every week since. I’m satisfied that it’s been time well spent. (It was also the week when my son’s boxer puppy, Tanuki, pictured above, came home for the first time.)

Two years ago, I helped the Program Committee conduct a survey of the membership to assess whether there were unmet needs among the community. One of the needs we identified was that members were looking for more opportunities to socialize and write together. There were also a substantial number of members who lived too far away, had health issues, or didn’t want to drive in the dark during the winter, that were interested in more opportunities for remote interaction.

I proposed Straw Dog Writes modeled on the SFWA “Writing Date”, which meets weekly via Zoom to socialize for 15 minutes, write for 45, then repeat. With the support of the Program Committee, I worked with the organization to set up the resources and agreed to coordinate and run the program.

In the past year, more than 50 people have attended at least once. During the winter, usually there were usually four or five participants ― occasionally as many as ten. Attendance was understandably lower during the summer. About half were pre-existing members and another half were new members who joined to participate. Participants tended to be evenly divided among writing fiction, poetry, and memoirs. One current participant is working on a graphic novel.

I tried to persuade the administrative assistant to create a webpage to advertise the program, but she refused, saying that she thought the website had “too many pages” already. That was a significant disappointment to me, as it made doing publicity significantly more difficult, since there’s no landing page — just individual calendar entries. That’s why there’s no link to the program on this page: there’s no place to link to.

I had originally hoped to recruit guest hosts to actually run the sessions, in part because it might be a useful hook to draw more participants. I did get a few members of the Program Committee to guest host and it was fun. I reached out to a woman who coordinates one of the other regional writing groups that offers paid consulting to see if maybe their instructors/consultants would like the opportunity to promote their programming to my participants. But she didn’t seem interested. Maybe I can do a better job of finding more guest hosts this year.

Most people who attend indicate they get a fair amount of writing done. I know I do. When I’m writing, I usually get more than a thousand words written. Once I got nearly 2000 words and one of these days I hope to reach it. But I sometimes use the time for outlining or revising, rather than just writing. (And occasionally even grading.) In any case, I’m happy to keep doing it just for myself, if no-one else. But everyone’s welcome. Join me!

This fall, I’ve launched a new program at the Straw Dog Writers Guild: Straw Dog Writes. Modeled on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association Writing Date, I offer a Zoom session where Straw Dog members can come for some light socializing and two 45-minute writing sessions. I’ve found this as a really useful way to enforce a little productivity and networking. I’ll be offering these at least through mid-December and then we’ll decide whether to continue the program into the new year.

Recently on Mastodon there have been several interesting daily prompts for writers: #WritersCoffeeClub, #WordWeavers, and #PennedPossibilities. During the academic year, when my professional responsibilities give me limited time for writing, these are a fun way to reflect on my writing and let me feel like I’m still engaged.

I also write a lot short fragments on Mastodon, some of which find their ways into finished works. I credit writing the fragments with helping me improve my sense of story structure: writing a complete story in 500 characters really forces you to cut the story down to its essential elements. It reminds me of when I was a graduate student and writing haiku was a way to keep doing Esperanto in a small way. I have a lot of fun with the fragments and they often give me ideas for larger stories. I often post mine using the hashtag #vss365.

In mid-September, I delivered the final manuscripts for the Better Angels anthology: Tour de Force. It’s like a TRIPLE entendre. We spent a long time workshopping titles. I had been inclined toward “The Better Angels and Sixteen Seriously Sweet and Significantly Sanguinary Stories Set on the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy.” My publisher said, “Oh, great. Well, at least with that title we won’t need to worry about cover art.” The anthology should be out by mid-December.

I’m also working on the fix-up edition of Revin’s Heart. This will include the seven novelettes, but also three side-stories that tell stories where Revin isn’t present: Where There’s a Will (about how Will and Grip meet and fall in love), Curtain’s Rise (how Will and the Baron originally met), and Riva’s Escape (Revin’s transition). I’m currently writing pieces that will bridge between the novelettes. It’s giving me a chance to expand on things that readers have asked about, or expressed interest in.

I’ll be appearing in a local holiday market on November 18 at the Mill District in Amherst. I’ll have not only my own books, but also a selection of other books suitable as gifts. There are discussions about a winter market I may also attend. Stay tuned.

I’m hoping to appear at several upcoming conventions. But the current surge in COVID cases requires that I be cautious.

I had planned to attend LOSCon, but it’s looking less and less likely that I’ll be able to attend. The aren’t committed to masking and I had applied to be a participant, but they haven’t gotten back to me. time is getting short to buy plane tickets and secure housing.

I’ve applied to be a participant at Arisia (which is close by) and they’ve already committed to requiring masks. So, with any luck at all, I’ll be able to attend.

I’m hoping to attend Boskone this year. Last year, I was hospitalized and wasn’t able to make it. But, hopefully, this year will be different. I still haven’t heard that they’re requiring masks, however.

I will plan to apply to be a participant at Baycon. It’s fun to attend a conference that so many of my fellow Water Dragon authors can attend.

I’ve signed up to volunteer for Readercon. I will also apply to be a participant. I applied last year, but wasn’t accepted. Maybe by volunteering, I’ll get greater consideration.

I’ve already signed up to attend WorldCon in Glasgow in 2024. I’ve just filled out the survey to agree to be considered for participation. I had a great time at the WorldCon in Chicago and I’m super excited about going to Scotland.

Steven D. Brewer at BayCon2023.

I had an exciting summer! I drove cross-country to attend BayCon in July and then visited the tropical island of St. Croix where I did a lot of writing. But soon the fall classes begin and I will be swamped with academic work.

In December, the Better Angels anthology will come out. We’re still nailing down the title, but you can expect sixteen alternately sweet and sanguinary stories featuring everyone’s favorite non-human biological-android magical-girl singing-and-dancing idols.

In January, the compiled Revin’s Heart anthology will come out. It will include revised and extended versions of the novelettes plus three special side-stories, that provide histories for some of the key events leading up to Revin’s Heart. You won’t want to miss it!

I have a whole series of conventions coming up. I have registered to attend WorldCon2024 in Glasgow! I am super excited! I have been hoping to attend LOSCon in November, but with the appearance of new COVID variants, I may not be able to make it. My pulmonologist has given me orders not to attend public events that are not double masked and it is not currently listed as a “masks required” event. I’m hoping to attend both Arisia and Boskone this year. I didn’t make Boskone last year due to my hospitalization. I have my fingers crossed for this year.

I’m starting a new program for Straw Dog Writers’ Guild members: Straw Dog Writes. Members will be able to join a Zoom meeting Wednesday evenings at 7pm to write together. In a survey last year, a number of members were interested in ways to meet other members and write together. And were looking for events that didn’t require driving in the dark. I’m hopeful this will find an audience.

On November 18, I will attending the Mill District Holiday Market to sell books. I will have my own books plus a selection of other books people might want to purchase as gifts. In February, I’m hoping to arrange readings at local bookstores.