That was winter, now it's summer

[sovay]

We have voted. We walked out in cold, dumping rain to do it, because miserable weather is no excuse not to exercise one's civic duty, especially when one's civic duty affects the rights and safety of other people. All no-brainer stuff—the ethical artichoke, corporations aren't people, trans people are—but I want it to work. I want things to change for the better. I want it to do good.

My short story "A Wolf in Iceland Is the Child of a Lie" has been accepted for reprint by Paula Guran's Mythic Journeys: Myths & Legends Retold (Skyhorse/Night Shade Books, 2019). The longevity of this piece makes me extremely happy. It was published originally in Not One of Us #45 in 2011; it was at the time my first completed fiction in two years; it was also my first successful engagement with Norse myth, despite or because of how early and intensely I had imprinted on the D'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants (1967). Eyjafjallajökull was erupting at the time. I couldn't find a way to work in the Móðuharðindin, but I crash-taught myself a tiny amount of Old Norse. It is no longer my only Norse fiction, but it remains to date my only writing of Loki, a god about whom I feel fiercely possessive even knowing that he pretended fidelity to nothing. I've never actually read another fictional treatment of the figure after whom the story is titled. It's not Fenrir.

I am going to work for a while and then watch a movie. I figure it will be healthier for me than gluing my nose to the news for the next eight hours. There is no way I can be in New York this Friday in order to watch Michael Almereyda interview Wim Wenders before a screening of Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin, 1987), but I'm glad that's happening.

P.S. An unknown benefactor sent me crispy peanut butter cups in the mail! I shall eat them with my movie. All these things feel like sympathetic magic nowadays. Look, people can be kind.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

I am going to work for a while and then watch a movie. I figure it will be healthier for me than gluing my nose to the news for the next eight hours.

Sounds like a sensible tactic! I hope more than I can say that you get a good result, though! <3

[sovay]

I hope more than I can say that you get a good result, though!

Thank you. I truly, truly hope so, too.

[gwynnega]

Congratulations on the reprint! That book sounds excellent.

Yay voting! (Now we wait.)

[sovay]

Congratulations on the reprint! That book sounds excellent.

Thank you! I'm really looking forward to finding out what else is in it.

Yay voting! (Now we wait.)

I am resolutely not looking until after the polls close. I have to be able to breathe.

[swan_tower]

I've never actually read another fictional treatment of the figure after whom the story is titled. It's not Fenrir.

Garmr? Or someone else?

[sovay]

Garmr? Or someone else?

Váli, one of Loki's two sons by Sigyn. The one who is transformed into a wolf by the Æsir, who turns on his brother and tears out his entrails, which are then used to bind Loki beneath the earth. He's named only once by Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda and it may have been a mistake, but the idea of him started haunting me in college; I made one abortive attempt to write about him then and had to come back to it almost a decade later. I'm willing to believe that more fiction that includes him exists. I have just never personally run across it.

(There are no wolves in Iceland. To the point where there was an April Fool's about it this spring. They have only ever existed in mythology. And Váli, in my story.)

[swan_tower]

Ah! Yes, I know Váli, though he doesn't spring to mind very rapidly for me.

[selkie]

Your unknown benefactor is 4' 10" in skates and asked you straight up.

Edited because they grew an inch this week and now have one pair of jeggings and all the rest knickerbocker length right as the weather drops out on us.

[sovay]

Your unknown benefactor is 4' 10" in skates and asked you straight up.

Tell them to put their name in the package next time!

(I had my suspicions.)

[selkie]

They didn't want to put a name! I am but a wallet on legs and a stick! (Strictly a My Own Money transaction on their part, but the banks don't give electronic funds to a person just because they're wearing a size 4 men's hockey skate.)


["My knees hurt." "Well, that kid rolled right over you when you took that hit. Were you there for that?" "No, I mean, my knees HURT." And... no pants. All the pants defeated.]

[asakiyume]

I went out to a movie too--some local friends and I saw The Hate U Give, and it was good (though the book was richer).

Congratulations on the reprint--and the peanut butter cups sound like a treat!

[sovay]

I went out to a movie too--some local friends and I saw The Hate U Give, and it was good (though the book was richer).

I'm glad it was still good! And that you had something to do with friends after voting. Will you write about the movie and the book?

Congratulations on the reprint--and the peanut butter cups sound like a treat!

Thank you! There are many fewer peanut butter cups today than there were last night.

[asakiyume]

Maybe I will. I had thought I'd write about the book, which was not only a moving story that deftly covered the issues, but amazingly effective at speaking to multiple audiences, but somehow I never did. I guess there's still time. And the film was good in its own right, although I think, for me, it didn't do quite as good a job of integrating all the threads that the story tries to deal with. Some, though, it handled very well. The main actress was excellent.

[sovay]

Some, though, it handled very well. The main actress was excellent.

I would really enjoy hearing about her.