We seek out change to dream ourselves into the world

[sovay]

This is not the post about my weekend, because my weekend contained enough things that I should write them up properly. (Upshot: I saw a lot of sci-fi radio theater. It was good. Sunday could have stood some improvement, but it turned out all right.)

This is the post about The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry, edited by Rose Lemberg, which is now available from Aqueduct Press. Contributors include Ursula K. Le Guin, Shweta Narayan, Theodora Goss, Amal El-Mohtar, J.C. Runolfson, Lawrence Schimel, Cassandra Phillips-Sears, Catherynne M. Valente, Rachel Manija Brown, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Athena Andreadis, Adrienne J. Odasso, Phyllis Gotlieb, Greer Gilman, Jo Walton, Samantha Henderson, Jeannelle Ferreira, Yoon Ha Lee, Sofia Samatar, April Grant, Nisi Shawl, and a great many other poets speaking in all their own (and sometimes multiple) voices. Two of my poems are among them, "Matlacihuatl's Gift" and "Madonna of the Cave." I won't be at Wiscon for the reading, but I am honored to have been part of this project and very pleased it is out in the world.

Go and see; read and change.

Comments

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Congratulations! I might have to get a copy of that one.

I'm glad your weekend was mostly good, and that Sunday turned out all right in the end.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

There isn't enough radio SF in the world.

Cool news about "The Moment Of Change". It has a fabulous cover.

[sovay]

Congratulations! I might have to get a copy of that one.

Do! This is the kind of project that can use all the support it's shown.

[sovay]

There isn't enough radio SF in the world.

These are the people for you. I've been attending their shows since 2009, when several degrees of friend-of-friend pointed me their way. derspatchel is their artist-in-residence. They do good work.

Cool news about "The Moment Of Change". It has a fabulous cover.

Thank you! I am really looking forward to my contributor's copies.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Wow. I've looked up PMRP. I think I'd like them very much, particularly "Starship of Madness" (predictably!) I see derspatchel played HPL...

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Well, you mentioned me, at least.

*slouches*

You ought to have said your poems won things, and also that the book contains a fine example of the American sestina. Nobody does those any more.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

She's undeservedly modest.

Selkie, I need to check out your stuff too.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

I've just friended you (hi!) so feel free to meander back through my journal; the poem in MoC is one of the few I honestly like. It's a selkie poem, and it was written as an anniversary-present for my wife a few years ago. It is the sestina I so grumpily mentioned.

In the LJ, I think there are one or two poems and my depraved pet project, the LKMP. Hehehe. Hahahaha. Muahaha.

[sovay]

I think I'd like them very much, particularly "Starship of Madness" (predictably!) I see derspatchel played HPL...

I remain very sad to have missed that one. I met Rob in person for the first time after an Arisia show (as alluded here; he was wearing a lab coat and an unflattering shirt and tie, which is how I know now he was playing Dr. Alberts from Red Shift), but it took me until this year's convention to see one of them. I would write on the sign-up, "Please do not schedule me across from the Post-Meridian Radio Players," and you may guess what happened. And then this year they didn't. And Rob and I haven't really stopped talking since. So I guess the timing worked out, but I'm still sorry!

[edit] It's on Vimeo! Excuse me while I lose an hour of my life.

[sovay]

Well, you mentioned me, at least.

Well, of course. You wrote a good poem.

You ought to have said your poems won things, and also that the book contains a fine example of the American sestina. Nobody does those any more.

Yes, and you should do more of them.

"Matlacihuatl's Gift" is the only Rhysling winner. I didn't even think to mention it. Dammit.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Lots of people still do sestinas. McSweeny's used to only publish them. I included a double sestina by Joe Haldeman in a column I used to write on poetic forms (I think it's still online at Inkspot).

My best-known poem is a sestina ("Endless Sestina" in Neil Gaiman's THE SANDMAN: THE BOOK OF DREAMS anthology of other writers writing about the Sandman characters).

[sovay]

She's undeservedly modest.

I don't think it's modesty. I'm just not good at self-promoting. I don't remember to.

Selkie, I need to check out your stuff too.

You want to read her novel A Verse from Babylon (2005). I saw it all the way from first fragments to cover art; I do not have much to say to its publisher anymore, but the book remains brilliant. It's a true story, even the bits that are ghosts.

[sovay]

My best-known poem is a sestina ("Endless Sestina" in Neil Gaiman's THE SANDMAN: THE BOOK OF DREAMS anthology of other writers writing about the Sandman characters).

I read it before I knew who you were; somehow I never went back and made the connection. It's a good sestina!

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was being a twirp; yours is one of the examples that I use to explain the form to the non-prosody-inclined, because it is conveniently to be found in our house, but my comment was based on my mental default to the eponymous one by Elizabeth Bishop, who my very subjective brain does not call "contemporary."

Hello! I really enjoyed the poem you had in MoC, with its particular ending I will not spoil, and the translations for Sofia Rhei. Translating poetry is... I will leave it to you and sovay.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

I really ought to wander off on my own and do an ebook of that, since I can't afford a new printing. I doubt the publisher in question would even prick up an ear. (Also, I think the contract was for first North American.)

[sovay]

I really ought to wander off on my own and do an ebook of that, since I can't afford a new printing.

I'd rather see it reprinted by another house, if the rights revert. A slightly less dicky grade of small press would be acceptable, although mainstream would be awesome if we could figure out where. I wonder if perhaps you could talk to ChiZine or Small Beer.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. The poem is well-known, even if I'm not. :-)

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

And glad the sestina was useful as an object example. :-)

Sofía, by the way, is a big fan of Sestinas. She recently edited a 458 page anthology of them in Spanish. (I'm pleased that she included my non-genre sestina "Deleting Names", a "decaying" sestina where each stanza has one line fewer than the previous stanza, about whether or not to delete from my phone's addressbook the entry for a friend who's now passed away...)

I haven't yet tried to tackle translating any of Sofía's sestinas, though. (She has one or two fairy tale ones...)

She and I are both looking forward to the anthology wending its way across the puddle so we can dive into it...

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Rob does sound rather cool.

I found that on Vimeo too - I shall check it out shortly. But cream evening suit, silk scarf, and goggles? Digging it.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

And hi back! I've added you; you'll find a bit of my poetry and flash there too. A big ta.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

I was drawn to A Verse From Babylon, and Dramatis Personae. I'll order em both on Amazon presently.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

*I'm just not good at self-promoting.*

Dude, sorry. I don't wish to embarrass you. I've got my own Tiny Ludwigs.

[sovay]

Dude, sorry. I don't wish to embarrass you. I've got my own Tiny Ludwigs.

No apologies necessary. It is never a skill I've had; it's always felt strange. In recent years, I've avoided probably even healthy levels of acknowledgement of my own work. I think I'm getting better.

[sovay]

The poem is well-known, even if I'm not.

Hah. I know very well who you are. It's really one of those cases where the author's name as originally read meant nothing to me and so didn't stick; I think I discovered you properly with Mythic Delirium and conversations about Dorothy J. Heydt. I'm glad to find out they're the same person!

[sovay]

and my depraved pet project, the LKMP. Hehehe. Hahahaha. Muahaha.

Excellent. Maniacal laughter traditionally means further experimentation is on the way.

[sovay]

(I'm pleased that she included my non-genre sestina "Deleting Names", a "decaying" sestina where each stanza has one line fewer than the previous stanza, about whether or not to delete from my phone's addressbook the entry for a friend who's now passed away...)

Where else can that be found?

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't mean that personally, I know you know who I am (both as me and as my LJ handle).

But I mean that it's a curious thing where many people who have both read that poem and know me don't put the two of us together.

So that's what I mean by the poem being better-known than I am.

Like, if you're at someone's house at a dinner party and they ask what you do and you say you're a writer and someone else asks what you've written, and since that antho happens to be on the shelf you pull it out and say, "Well, this sestina" and the host goes, "Oh, I read that!" and then "I didn't realize that was YOU..."

This from people who know I am a writer before inviting me over to their home... :-)

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Check your email. :-)

[sovay]

Check your email.

Check yours.

[sovay]

Rob does sound rather cool.

I like him.

I found that on Vimeo too - I shall check it out shortly. But cream evening suit, silk scarf, and goggles? Digging it.

It's a classic look! Alas, this does not seem to be the night Rob played Lovecraft. I'll probably still watch it.