The desire to have much more, all the glitter and the roar

[sovay]

The mail this evening brought my contributor's copy of Transcendent 2: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, edited by Bogi Takács. It looks like a splendid collection and I am honored to be part of its table of contents. Plus it got a starred review from Publishers Weekly. My contribution is "Skerry-Bride," on the theory of more Norse queerness. The nine daughters of Ægir and Rán are called the nine skerry-brides by the eleventh-century skald Snæbjorn: níu brúðir skerja.

The same package contained a small sealed envelope bearing the logo of the Monster Rangers, which looks like Scouting for people who miss Gravity Falls. I now have a Lanterna Badge. I am seriously thinking of ironing it onto my coat. We can use more light.

(I was asked this afternoon for pointers to weird, creepy Christmas traditions in North America. I couldn't think of any that weren't facetious, but I could say that the first thing that comes to mind when looking at Christmas darkness is the way the holiday functions as a weighing of the soul in two of the most famous British and American stories, A Christmas Carol (1843) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Religiously, wouldn't you expect that sort of thing at Easter, harrowing and redemption? But it's the dark time of the year, the turning away of the sun: it makes sense. You want to believe the light is going to come back. You want to believe people are, too.)

Comments

[ethelmay]

I've always thought Handel's Messiah ought to be an Easter tradition, but here we are with it firmly entrenched in December.

[sartorias]

I think the Giftmas overlay is pretty terrifying overall. Beginning on 'Black Friday' the consumer glut and crush begins, ending in mountains of trash at the end of the year. Accompanied by some of the most godawful and glutinous muzak ever perpetrated outside of hell.

[kenjari]

I'm not sure that it's confined to North America, but the whole idea of Santa as always watching children to catch misbehavior, and of Christmas gifts being all about reward and punishment based on how a child has behaved all year. The current manifestation of this via Elf on the Shelf is extra icky.

[cmcmck]

Glad to hear that you are writing transgender fiction because there is so much awful transgender fiction out there and yours won't be! :o)

Maybe we do need badges.

[tb]

The Monster Rangers links strongly remind me of the tone and feel of the Lumberjanes graphic novels; those might be of interest. Haven't looked further yet to see which came first or whether there's any connection between them.

May your lantern shine brightly in these dark times.

[selkie]

Huzzah for the writing! Maybe you should open a summer abroad program for bog bodies who want to see tall ships and public transit.

[gwynnega]

I'm looking forward to reading Transcendent 2. Congratulations on "Skerry-Bride"'s inclusion!

[dhampyresa]

Congrats! Did you get a physical or eletronic copy?

[brigdh]

I was asked this afternoon for pointers to weird, creepy Christmas traditions in North America.

I'd never considered it before, but we really don't have many, do we? The only thing I'm coming up with is the 'Nightmare Before Christmas' movie, which has survived these 20+ years well enough that I still constantly see the characters for sale on t-shirts and such, but that doesn't really count as a 'tradition'.