Author: Trace

Breathing the Air, Clearing My Head

I’m spending the week at The Rainforest Village Resort in the Olympic National Forest. It may just be the most beautiful place on earth, and it’s a fantastic location for a writing retreat.

The Village is remote and quiet, and surrounded by glorious natural beauty. At any moment, I can turn from my work and look out over lovely Lake Quinault, ringed by spruce-covered hills and wreathed in swirling mist. When writer’s block strikes, I can step outside and enter a trail just feet away that takes me under mossy trees dripping with rain. Sigh. Dirt-loving pagan paradise.

Another particularly enjoyable aspect of the retreat is the company of other writers, several of whom I’ve only met previously on Twitter. I feel like I know them well, and meeting them in person for the first time was like greeting old friends. Opportunities to meet new friends, too. These are my people.

Where is your happy place as a writer?

 

 

A Story Sale Tale Part 2

The seed of this story did not begin with a superhero. At Clarion West last summer, I leaped headfirst into the opportunity to explore my long-time fascination with history of the women of Ravensbruck, a Nazi labor camp. The amazing women who survived until the camp’s liberation have been largely responsible for compiling and keeping alive the stories and artifacts of the camp, which include those traveling as an exhibit I visited at the University of Central Florida when I was an undergraduate.

The strength and courage of the women of Ravenbruck was fortified, according to their stories, by small gifts they made for one another, books smuggled in, and a choir formed to keep their spirits up. The sharing of these humanizing tokens and activities may have been an important factor that kept some of the women alive in the face of brutal treatment and poor nutrition.

Inserting a character of my own (not to mention a speculative element) into their story seemed risky. I want to honor the memory of the survivors of a concentration camp because these women are heroes in their own right; they rescued themselves, and others, at great personal cost. If in my story a time traveler visited the camp to save a particular person, how could that be accomplished, and at what risk to the legitimacy of the narrative?

I decided the story was about an otherwise ordinary woman from the future and a book that would offer hope. That’s all. The visitor would suffer just as the other women suffered and strive to accomplish her goal of encouraging someone else’s survival.

The story is about taking risks, about being a hero even when no one else is watching, and it’s a story that waited in the back of my brain for many years. I’m glad I took the risk and let it out into the world.

“Am I a Hero?” A Story Sale Tale Part 1

“Am I a hero?”

This is what the protagonist of my latest story, “How Molière Saved Lydia Bruer: A History in Two Fragments,” will be wondering in the next edition of Crossed Genres. Each issue of Crossed Genres revolves around a different concept, and the theme of the coming issue is “Superheroes.” The editors asked for tales of heroes that are a bit different, that make readers think about what heroism means.

When the Crossed Genres theme was announced, I asked myself if my story qualifies. A narrative of heroism is certainly present, but it’s not the sort of caped crusader story readers will expect.

Considering the theme, I thought of the first time I was invited to play Marvel Superheroes by TSR with a gaming group. My reaction was something like, “Heroes, like mutants in tights? Sounds silly.” I’d gamed with other groups, but mostly in classic fantasy settings, and I had a hard time picturing a superhero game with depth. We’d probably be involved in lots of high-powered combat, zooming around in capes, rescuing citizens from burning buildings, battling supervillains, that kind of thing.

To my complete surprise, the game proved to have not only emotional depth, but inspiring moments of sacrifice, thoughtful ethical dilemmas and character growth. Whole game sessions passed without any combat whatsoever (other gaming folks out there may ascertain that I’m a “role” player, not a “roll” player, as they say).

Since those days, I’ve become a fan of superhero comics and films, notably those that grapple with the personal cost of hero life, such as Promethea, the Luna Brothers’ excellent Ultra, and The Watchmen. Character counts, and that’s the sort of fiction I most want to write, regardless of genre.

Table of Contents for The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities released!

The website io9 has just revealed the full TOC for The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer, in which an entry by yours truly appears.

This entertaining collection from HarperCollins is a follow-up of sorts to the delightfully freakish (or is it freakishly delightful?) The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, published by Night Shade Books.

The official description:

“A stunning find beneath the famed Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead’s house years after his death: a basement space lost under a collapsed floor, in which were found the remains of a remarkable cabinet of curiosities. Containing artifacts, curios, and keepsakes collected over Dr. Lambshead’s many, many decades, the cabinet of curiosities took over a year to unearth, document, and catalog. Thus, in keeping with the bold spirit exemplified by Dr. Lambshead and his exploits, we are now proud to present highlights from the doctor’s cabinet, reconstructed not only through original visual representations by the likes of Mike Mignola, Greg Broadmore, and Jan Svankmajer, but also through exciting stories of intrigue and adventure.”

The book will also feature title pages from John Coulthart.

You can even pre-order it from Amazon, if you are so inclined. Trust me, it’s gonna be cool.

What’s Utopia Got to Do With It?

I’ll give all the talk-talk-talk about utopia a rest after this, I swear.

A busy few days here. In the main, I went camping for the weekend with my son’s newly formed Earth Scouts troop, and on Monday gave my first lecture on women’s utopian narrative at Florida Southern College.

Related, how?

Earth Scouts is kind of like Boy/Girl Scouts, except instead of fundraising, its program is designed to further the goals of the Earth Charter; namely, social justice, sustainability, and peace. The program doesn’t just educate about these ideas; kids are encouraged to take specific action to change the world for the better. Lofty vision, to be sure, and it sounds worthwhile.

However, at the parents’ meeting I found myself wondering how to teach these values to young, squirming kids (who spent the larger part of the weekend running full-tilt until they dropped instead of, say, playing video games). I know there are ways, but overall I was skeptical. Creating meaningful change in the world is a big charge to put on tiny shoulders. Plus, I find these concepts are synonymous with a Unitarian Universalist education, which most of them are getting already.

Heck, I just wanted to go camping, watch kids roast marshmallows, bang some drums around the campfire, and we did all those things, too. But it got me thinking.

The campground itself is an experiment in peace, sustainability and justice, rooted in a cooperative tradition that may seem a little hippy to the rest of the world. My favorite part is the bathhouse, built several years ago and covered with constantly updated art and slogans promoting peace and pagan culture.

The campground was a good space for me to think about what brings me peace, how I can cultivate joy in my life, how I can be true to my ideals. But it’s not enough to contemplate, to wish and dream. Like the Earth Scouts, I have to take action to reach those goals knowing they may be just beyond my grasp. I may have to accept that my dreams are too big, my aspirations too lofty. I may have to accept failure while acknowledging the attempt as worthwhile, even vital.

To me, striving is the essence of utopia, not reaching a state of perfection. It’s the “no-place,” after all. If it was easy to get there, it wouldn’t be so fascinating, so tantalizing there on the horizon. It wouldn’t be worth the risk.

On Monday, I tried explaining this to a bunch of sleepy undergrads. Some of them grasped the idea, went along with me for the ride. I had carefully prepared notes that I essentially ignored, and plowed right into explicating the thrills of speculation and world-building, the social ramifications of utopian dreaming, the influence of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Women and Economics, the fuzzy line demarcating the boundaries of utopia and dystopia…

Until the brightest bulbs began to glaze over, and I released them into the world. I can hope they took some of my dreamy utopian striving along with them.


Defining Utopia, part 1

Jill Dolan, professor of English and Theatre at Princeton University, defines utopia in this way:

“Utopia,” she says, “is always a metaphor, always a wish, a desire, a no-place that performance can sometimes help us map if not find. But a performative is not a metaphor; it’s a doing, and it’s in the performative’s gesture that hope adheres, that communitas happens, that the not-yet-conscious is glimpsed and felt and strained toward.”