Now available for download from Aqueduct’s site: the first issue of The Aqueduct Gazette. The Gazette contains news about Aqueduct’s books as well as two essays: one by Rosaleen love on the uses and pleasures of satire and speculative fiction, and another by L. Timmel Duchamp on the author-reader relationship. Plus it tells you how to enter a drawing to win an Aqueduct book of your choice. To download the issue now, go to www.aqueductpress.com and click on the Aqueduct Gazette button on the left-hand frame.
I like the newsletter very much. At the risk of sounding like a complete suck-up (although I suppose the time to have sucked up would really have been before you gave me a contract, not after, grin), I am jazzed to be publishing through Aqueduct because of this lovely sense of three-dimensionality you are building: the blog, the newsletter, the sense of identity and community...
ReplyDeleteTimmi, I'd be curious to hear your vision for all this: it seems clear to me that you're interested in doing more than just publishing text.
Kelley Eskridge
I just read the newsletter and am responding to Timmi's invitation to...respond. Specifically to "Hanging out along the Aqueduct," on the subject of reader/author relationship. I, too, used to identify the author with the character and action. This was especially true when the story was told in first person. To me first person always feels like a confessional by the author.
ReplyDeleteI rarely read horror because it scares me and I don't like being scared. When a horror story is written in first person, though, I can constantly remind myself how the main character had to have gotten out of whatever horrible situation they're in, because they eventually lived to write about it. That actually helps me get through it.
I know now that the life in fiction is not necessarily the life of the author, but I think the best fiction does come from the author organically without research. A lot of times you can see the author's research in the work and it suffers because it doesn't feel real. James Michener comes to mind. He does a lot of research and you can tell because all his characters and stories seem to be the same, it's just the geology that changes.
To answer the question posed in Timmi's piece about meeting authors that have impressed me: I tend to not be excited about meeting people I worship. You hear so much about how awful they are in real life, that I'd prefer to know them through their art alone. I'd rather keep them up there on that pedestal. I know enough crabby, petty people already, I don't need to add more. I would, though, like to communicate to those that have made an impression on me, to let them know how I appreciate them, and know where they're coming from. I don't know how to do it, though, without sounding like a fauning fan, so I'd probably never pursue it.
There are one or two that I would like to meet, for sure. I'll probably take a workshop from them at some point. They'll know just how much I appreciate them when they see all the material I've stolen from them in my own work. Best form of flattery and all that.
Looking forward to reading the upcoming blog entries and the newsletters when they come out.
Keep up the great work Aqueduct!
Sue Lange
Kelley and Sue-- you are the first persons to have their names entered into our drawing for an Aqueduct book of your choice. (For those who don't know about this, check out the Aqueduct Gazette, which is available for download on Aqueduct's site.)
ReplyDeleteKelley: I'm pressed for time now, but eventually I'd like to try to answer your question. (Maybe after I get back from the Rio Hondo workshop, which takes place the week after WisCon.)
Sue: although I tend to do a lot of research for my fiction, it's generally undertaken after the story is underway & the characters are fully present in my mind. For a specific example of how this works, check out my essay examining the step-by-step processof writing of "Living Trust," for which I did a hefty amount of research, which is forthcoming this summer in Sci-fi in the Mind's Eye, edited by Margaret Grebowicz. (It includes essays by Nicola Griffith, Helen Merrick, Nancy Kress, & Stanslaw Lem as well.)
Thanks, by the way, for the praise for Aqueduct. As far as this blog goes, I know all of us are going to do our best to keep the entries coming...
That last comment was mine: I'm a little baffled as to why it's labeled as from anonymous...
ReplyDelete