Juliet E. McKenna

For those who couldn’t be in Oxford last Tuesday, the video of this year’s Tolkien Memorial Lecture is now available. Victoria (V.E.) Schwab gave a fascinating talk entitled ‘In Search of Doors.’ Set aside an hour for her thoughts and then the Q&A. It will be time well spent.

This an excellent series of lectures exploring many facets of fantasy fiction, as varied as the speakers who have delivered the talks thus far. You can find videos of the full series here.

Meantime, my life continues to be divided between World Fantasy Award reading, and my own writing. Along with being inordinately thrilled by how popular The Green Man is proving. 🙂

The WFA reading continues absorbing and yes, time-consuming. I am also writing and there’ll be news of new projects in the fullness of time 🙂

In other news, from Tor.com

On May 1, 2018, Lee Harris, Carl Engle-Laird, and Ruoxi Chen will be reading and evaluating original novellas. We are reading from May 1 around 9:00 AM EST (UTC-1:00) to May 15 9:00 AM EST (UTC-1:00).

This open period is intended for authors who have completed works ready or close to ready for submission. We will reopen slush a second time in July 2018 for authors who are actively working on (or beginning) something that would fit our list. In other words, don’t panic if you’re not ready to submit in May! We would rather see a polished novella in July than a rushed one in May.

Until the end of this open period, Tor.com Publishing will be considering novellas of between 20,000 and 40,000 words in both the science fiction and fantasy genres. If it’s speculative and fits the bill, we want to take a look at it.

Lee Harris, Carl Engle-Laird, and Ruoxi Chen all actively request submissions from writers from underrepresented populations. This includes, but is not limited to, writers of any race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, class and physical or mental ability. We believe that good science fiction and fantasy reflects the incredible diversity and potential of the human species, and hope our catalog will reflect that.

In addition to reviewing the guidelines, we also encourage you to take a look at our existing list to get a sense of the work our current authors are producing and Tor.com Publishing’s vision and tastes. Good luck—we look forward to reading your work.

Over at Mslexia

We are proud to launch the first Mslexia Women’s Fiction Awards – a stable of competitions that includes our popular Short Story and Novel competitions, our second-ever Flash Fiction competition and our all-new Novella competition in association with Galley Beggar Press!

As well as cash prizes, we also offer publication, mentoring, writing retreats, manuscript feedback and personal introductions to editors and literary agents for winners and finalists. As a result, many have gone on to see their work broadcast and/or published beyond the pages of Mslexia, and to achieve agent representation and publishing deals.

Open for entry now, and all with a deadline of 1 Oct 2018.

>Women’s Fiction Awards 2018: Flash Fiction Competition
>Women’s Fiction Awards 2018: Children’s Novel Competition
>Women’s Fiction Awards 2018: Short Story Competition
>Women’s Fiction Awards 2018: Novella Competition

For those looking for a SF&F writing course, check out The Arvon Foundation course tutored by Emma Newman, Peter Newman with guest author Gareth Powell.

SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
How to build worlds and develop your writing
Aug 20th – Aug 25th 2018
The Hurst

Science fiction and fantasy encompass a dazzling array of potential worlds and stories. The scope is so wide it can be hard to know where to begin. Designed for budding writers of SFF, this course gives you the tools to understand the opportunities these exciting genres can offer. We will cover specialised techniques such as world building, the creation of magical and technological ‘systems’, and a robust grounding in aspects of the craft – storytelling, character creation and writing style. This course also gives you the opportunity to examine and overcome your own writing blocks.
Single room price: £800

This August/September will see SECOND ROUND: A RETURN TO THE UR-BAR, one of three new anthologies from Zombies Need Brains. As with all ZNB’s anthologies, you’ll find stories by established and best-selling authors alongside new authors who’ve impressed ZNB’s eagle-eyed editors.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Ur-Bar, it’s a time-traveling hostelry where patrons are served by Gilgamesh. The Assyrians invented beer, after all…

(If you’re already intrigued, you can read the first anthology AFTER HOURS: TALES FROM THE UR-BAR, available from DAW Books in mass market paperback and ebook – Amazon US – Amazon UK)

The stories in this new collection are –

“Honorbound” by Russ Nickel

“Forest Law, Wild and True” by Phyllis Irene Radford

“The Wizard King” by Kari Sperring

“A Favor for Lord Bai” by Jean Marie Ward

“A Lawman, an Outlaw, and a Gambler Walk Into a Bar …” by Gini Koch (writing as A.E. Stanton)

“Make Me Immortal With a Kiss” by Jacey Bedford

“Bound By Mortal Chains No More” by William Leisner

“Welcome to the Jungle Bar” by Garth Nix

“But If You Try Sometimes” by Diana Pharaoh Francis

“The Whispering Voice” by David Keener

“Ale for Humanity” by Mike Marcus

“West Side Ghost Story” by Kristine Smith

“Thievery Bar None” by Aaron M. Roth

“Wanderlust” by Juliet E McKenna (…in which we go to Mars…)

Personally, I can’t wait 🙂 If you want to guarantee you’ll be reading these stories as soon as possible, remember this anthology and the year’s two other projects can be ordered direct in advance from ZNB.

Meantime, we can enjoy the fabulous cover art by Justin Adams of Varia Studios.

I had a splendid weekend at Follycon, the Eastercon up in Harrogate. Listening to Guest of Honour Nnedi Okorafor in conversation with Tade Thompson was a particular highlight, among many excellent programme items. Listening to Professor Farah Mendlesohn’s presentation on Robert Heinlein makes me increasingly keen to read her forthcoming book on the author. My own contribution included panels on the ways economics is handled and mishandled in SF&F, and a discussion of employment, present and future. As has long been the case, I find SF&F conventions pretty much the best place these days to find informed social and political debate based on sound analytical thinking.

Alongside the serious stuff there was plenty of fun. Alongside estemeed authors Jaine Fenn and Jacey Bedford, with our glamourous token man Adrian Tchaikovsky, we tackled the thorny questions besieging Men in Science Fiction. For those of you who couldn’t be there to gain vital insights, this trenchant debate has been immortalised on YouTube.

Personally and professionally, the enthusiasm I found for The Green Man’s Heir gave me a real thrill. Copies in the Dealers Room sold out swiftly, while established pals and new acqaintances alike took the time to tell me how much they enjoyed it. Given the book is quite some departure from the epic fantasy I’m best known for, that’s all the more gratifying. Keen readers are already asking about a sequel… well, that’s one area where the facts of life are constant in publishing, from the multinationals to independents like Wizard’s Tower Press. Sequels stem from sales, so if you’d care to boost the signal with reviews on Amazon UK and US, and Goodreads, as you prefer, that will be very much appreciated.

Talking of The Green Man’s Heir, quite literally, before I went off to Follycon, I was able to have an enjoyable chat with Joel Cornah about the book, about the differences I found writing a novel set in this world, in the present day, and oh, all sorts of stuff. That’s now available as a special episode of the Writers of Fantasy podcast from the Scifi Fantasy Network.

Enjoy your viewing and listening.

I’ll be off to Harrogate on Friday morning, to spend the weekend at Follycon aka this year’s Eastercon, where my programme items are interestingly varied and where I’ll also have plenty of time to chat and enjoy the programe myself, so that’s a win-win. If you’d like to say hello, feel free.

Edited to add – I can now confirm paperback copies of The Green Man’s Heir will be for sale in the Dealers Room 🙂 If you’d like me to sign one, or any other book I’ve written (however well read) I’ll be happy to obliged.

I’ll be at the BSFA Awards on Saturday evening, appreciating the honour of being shortlisted for the Non-Fiction Award. Incidentally, for those who are interested, there’s an excerpt from my paper on ‘The Myth of Meritocracy’, discussing gender-related barriers and associated issues in SF&F writing and publishing in the current edition of Books from Scotland, since Luna Press who published that collection of essays are Edinburgh based.

On Sunday morning at 11 am, I’ll be running a masterclass in SF criticism, looking at ‘The Moon Over Red Trees’ by Aliette de Bodard. It’s an excellent story with plenty of layers so there’s lots to discuss. If you’d like to participate, sign up at Registration, where hard copies of the story will be available. You can also read it online here.

On Sunday evening, at 6 pm I’m part of Follycon Fast Forward. This takes as its premise “all the best Eastercons fit into an hour” and offers entirely serious compressed programme items, including the whole of The Empire Strikes Back. Intrigued? I know I am…

On Monday afternoon, at 3 pm, I’m discussing Genre Economics, specifically the role that economics plays, or so frequently doesn’t, in SF&Fantasy. We’ll discuss the implications of not including economics in plots and world-building, and hopefully find some examples of books and screenplays etc actively benefiting from an understanding of economic principles, and how this can be done without boring everyone rigid with explanations of post-neo-classical endogenous growth theory.

At some point, I’ll be in the Games Room, as the Husband and I have just spent this past weekend making up two sets of Suffragetto! The board game which sees martial arts trained suffragists taking on the police in the fight for votes for women. You can find out more about all this here, at the Suffrajitsu website.

Purchase links – ebook edition
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Barnes & Noble – Nook (US only)
Google Play
Kobo

The paper edition is also available, though be prepared for the unaccountable delays that afflict small press books from Amazon that aren’t actually published through them. You should be able to order it from any bookstore and the ISBN is 978-1-908039-69-9. Do remember that ordering physical copies through actual bookshops does encourage them to stock small press books.

Provided we can sort out the logistics, there will be copies available for sale at Follycon, the UK Eastercon 2018. For other sales and availability information, see Wizard’s Tower Press.

In some ways, this book is very different from my previous novels. As I’ve learned from my own experience, and through advice from countless eminent authors, the best way to grow and develop as a novelist is to continually challenge yourself with something new. In other ways, it reflects many of the same interests as my previous writing, even if they’re examined from new angles here. The story also stems from the broad scope of my reading which has always gone well beyond epic, secondary world fantasy, across the whole spectrum of speculative fiction and into thriller, crime and mystery novels.

This is a modern fantasy, set in the readily identifiable Peak District in England, although the towns and villages in this story are all invented. It’s an area I know well, and love, thanks to frequent childhood holidays with relatives living in Chesterfield, and subsequent visits with my own family. The area has a fascinating history reflecting the centuries of change that rural communities have experienced, with impacts that are still being felt, as I know well from living in the Cotswolds. The Peak District also has a wealth of local myths and legends, like so much of the English countryside. I’ve always drawn on myth and history in my writing, so using these sources as the foundation for a story was familiar territory.

Setting events in the everyday world was a wholly new challenge however. I soon realised I had to factor in everything and anything from the Internet and modern media to police procedure and the economics of the contemporary English countryside. Every invented name and place had to be googled, to avoid inadvertent libel or misrepresentation.

Modern, urban fantasy so often explores the interaction of mythical beings with contemporary towns and cities. Since so many excellent writers have already done that, I was drawn to exploring the challenges for a modern mortal human encountering rural mythical creatures and their very different, deep rooted concerns. Meantime, he still has to deal with the everyday demands of work, money and relationships, romantic and otherwise. So in that sense, this story is like my previous novels where I’ve explored the impact and demands of classic high heroic events on ordinary people and their lives rather than focusing on rulers and princes.

On the other hand, exploring the themes and conventions of urban fantasy was a whole new challenge for me, including but by no means limited to surrounding a human man with powerful, sensual female mythical beings, as an alternative to writing about a modern woman interacting with super-masculine supernaturals. Along the way I realised I was reflecting on various aspects of modern ideas of masculinity.

I hope that new readers and existing fans of my work alike will find this a satisfying and exciting read.

Alongside this fabulous artwork by Ben Baldwin, I thought I’d share some of the inspiration underpinning this new novel from Wizard’s Tower Press.

I grew up with the folklore of the British Isles, by which I mean English, Welsh, Cornish, Irish and Scottish legends, from the Lowlands to the Highlands and Islands. These were stories of giants and witches and dragons and trolls and goblins and boggarts and serpents and will o’the wisps, to name but a few. There were all sorts of fascinating books in the library alongside The Hobbit and the Chronicles of Narnia. Publishers like Pan and Picador offered paperback collections of folktales, retelling the legends of Jack the Giant Killer, Jenny Greenteeth, the Lambton Wyrm and many, many more besides.

I saved up my pocket money and bought some of them; second-hand, dog-eared paperbacks that have somehow vanished over the years through umpteen house moves. That doesn’t matter. The stories have stayed with me and with the benefit of hindsight, I now realise those tales have had a lasting effect on my own writing. Most of them weren’t about heroes and princesses. They were about ordinary boys and girls finding themselves in extraordinary situations, and in very real danger. Getting out of potentially lethal trouble meant using your wits and courage to outfox and defy these mysterious supernatural beings. I still buy books on folklore, from scholarly examinations of the social and psychological underpinnings of stories of witches and fairies, to collections of local legends found in English Heritage, CADW, Heritage Ireland, and National Trust bookshops. I am still fascinated by that intersection between the everyday and the eerie that was part of everyone’s life for centuries.

So I suppose it was inevitable that when I found myself with an idea for an urban fantasy novel, it wasn’t going to be about vampires and werewolves. Those weren’t the creatures that lurked in the shadows outside the window when I was growing up. Similarly, the story wasn’t going to be any sort of urban fantasy, but a tale set in the countryside because that was where these legends took place, amid the forests, caves, rivers, stone circles and barrows that still link these islands to its mysterious past.

How might such ancient eeriness intersect with the modern world? I first started thinking about that when Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier invited me to write a story for an anthology they were editing, “The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity”. What would supernatural beings do in the 21st Century if, for instance, a local authority wanted to drive a new road through their grove or watermeadow? That made for a fun story. But the thing about authors is, once we start thinking about something like that, it can be very hard to stop…

I am very pleased and honoured to be shortlisted for this year’s BSFA Non-fiction Award, for my paper on gender related issues and barriers in SF&F writing careers “The Myth of Meritocracy and the Reality of the Leaky Pipe and Other Obstacles in Science Fiction & Fantasy”.

You can find the full shortlists here, for Best Novel, Best Short Fiction, Best Non-fiction and Best Artwork. As you will see, I am shortlisted alongside an array of very fine writers in all these categories, and make sure to check out these talented artists’ work too.

Yes, of course I’d like to win, but it really isn’t just a platitude to say that it’s genuinely an honour to be nominated 🙂

What else have I been doing lately, since I’m self-evidently not doing much blogging? Well, we’ve been getting The Green Man’s Heir ready for publication, and that’ll be happening soon. I’m also busy with a couple of other projects that are still in the sufficiently early stages that it’s not really the right time to be talking about them. Apologies for vagueblogging there.

I’m also doing an inordinate quantity of reading for the World Fantasy Awards, and that’s pretty much the thing that’s stopping me blogging most of all, and not just for lack of time. There are all sorts of posts I could write, exploring ideas sparked by all this reading, but that would be pretty much impossible to do without people identifying the books I was referencing, however obliquely. It would be horribly unfair to raise Author A’s hopes – because many excellent books will not win – as it would be to leave Author B wondering ‘why no mention of my lovely book?’ – because their novel is still on the ‘Pending’ pile, or I simply haven’t chosen it to illustrate a particular point.

I can certainly say I am reading some excellent books, novellas and short stories, and getting an unparalleled overview of the range and strength in depth of speculative fiction at the moment.

That price for this slender tome must prompt pause for thought. Well, I consider this book excellent value for Le Guin fans and for anyone interested in writing, irrespective of genre.

The titular Nebula Award winning story, The Wild Girls, is followed by an article ‘Staying Awake While We Read’, some poems, another article ‘The Conversation of the Modest’, then an interview ‘A Lovely Art’, followed by a bibliography and short biography. It’s soon clear that this eclectic material has been carefully selected and ordered for maximum coherence and impact.

The Wild Girls story returns fantasy to its folklore roots through clarity of language and the omniscient third person viewpoint so little used in these days of ‘show, don’t tell’ and too often reduced to an unconvincingly remote series of events. Le Guin manages this challenging style with effortless grace, engaging the reader’s emotions with the undeserved sufferings of the innocent and still more impressively, with those who cause such suffering. The intensely personal motives which drive these people enable us to understand them even amid their incomprehensibly archaic world.

While this brief tale of two kidnapped girls enslaved by a patriarchal society is written with lucid simplicity, it is not a simple story. The complexity of all the characters’ lives becomes apparent through successive revelations about the different societies of the city and of the nomads. Slaves do not necessarily bemoan or rebel against their lot. The elites can be imprisoned by the strictures of their caste. Not that Le Guin explains the origins of customs and superstitions any more than she outlines their wider world. There’s no need for this story’s purposes and moreover, this absence of knowledge draws the reader towards the underlying theme of the perils of ignorance. The story also shows how knowledge isn’t a prerequisite for recognising injustice. One doesn’t have to propose a coherent alternative to be able to say ‘but this is unfair’.

As the slave girls grow and marry in an absence of romance though not of love, they discover how they might influence those who control their lives. Thus Le Guin’s story meditates on the role of luck and chance in life as well as unintended consequences and whether or not individuals are rewarded or punished according to what they deserve. Punished by whom? What are our expectations of narrative as opposed to our expectations of reality? How does our experience of story inform our daily lives for good or ill? In forty five pages, this is one of the most-thought provoking tales I’ve read in ages.

The articles and interviews thereafter suggest answers to some of those questions while prompting readers to ask more of themselves. In ‘Staying Awake While We Read’ Le Guin explores mankind’s relationship with story through changing ages of education and literacy, making a compelling case against the commercialisation and commoditisation of books. Capitalism demands unbridled growth. In nature that means obesity or cancer. The consequences for the literary world are equally unwelcome.

While we’re reflecting on that, a handful of poems offer another master class on how much complexity of modern life can be distilled to essentials through the correct, carefully chosen few words. Not necessarily offering answers; I’m still rereading ‘Variations on an Old Theme’ in search of full understanding, while accepting it may not be there to be found.

‘The Conversation of the Modest’ explores the differences between modesty, humility and pride in relation to gender hierarchy in the modern west and also artistic endeavour and merit. If that sounds daunting and dull, never fear. It’s as articulate and entertaining as the interview by Terry Bisson where yet again Le Guin shows how to say so much by saying so little. As well she might. The concluding bibliography and biography summarise the breadth and depth of her work and rightly extol her many achievements. But only after her writing has spoken first.

Ursula K Le Guin The Wild Girls plus… PM Press 2011 Paperback $12.00 102 pages

Reviewed for Interzone 2012

This morning’s very gratifying news is the inclusion of my paper on gender related issues and barriers in SF&F writing careers on the long list of nominations for the British Science Fiction Association’s Non-fiction award.

The full lists of nominations in all categories, and other details, can be found here.

For more on the paper itself, “The Myth of Meritocracy and the Reality of the Leaky Pipe and Other Obstacles in Science Fiction & Fantasy” click here.

All told, Luna Press who published this paper in their collection ” Gender Identity and Sexuality in Current Fantasy and Science Fiction” have ten authors nominated across the fiction and non-fiction categories. For a small press in its third year of publishing that’s a commendable achievement!