It's been far too long since I last posted here. November seems to have been hopelessly busy. World Fantasy Con was very pleasant: it was peculiar to be at a convention without Phil, and while there were other British writers there (notably the wonderful Chaz Brenchley, who undertook to look after me), I didn't know as many people as I usually do. I managed to meet up with a number of LiveJournal friends, which was excellent.

I've now finished the first full draft of The Grass King's Concubine and am now working on the revisions. It's reading fairly well and I'm more pleased with it than I expected. Hopefully it should go off to the editor before the end of this month.

And then... lots of rain (which I like) leading to lots of damp cats climbing on me at all hours. I have a couple of short stories in the pipeline, one science fiction piece in the NewCon Press anthology The Bitten Word, due in March 2010, and one in a collection from The Write Fantastic, which should be out in May.

You can always find me on LiveJournal http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/

And I'm now also on Facebook, under Kari Sperring, if you want to come and say hi.

This weekend -- 29th October to 1st November -- I shall be attending World Fantasy Con in San Jose, California.

 This Saturday (24th October) I shall be signing at Forbidden Planet in Bristol from 1pm to 2pm, along with Write Fantastic writers Chaz Brenchley, Juliet McKenna and Stan Nicholls.

I have a new story coming out on Valentine's Day 2010, in the anthology Lace and Blade 3

, ed. Deborah J Ross, from the wonderful small-press publisher Norilana Books. I'm really excited about this: I love this series, which focuses on swashbuckling adventure and Romance in the Dumas style. And the line-up is great: it's a huge honour to be included alongside writers like Tanith Lee, Judith Tarr and Rosemary Hawley Jarman. No cover art as yet, but here's the full list of stories:

Kari Sperring, "Featherweight"

Sean McMullen, "Culverelle"

Sheila Finch, "Fortune's Stepchild"

Judith Tarr, "The Horned King"

Jay Lake & Shannon Page, "Embers"

Tanith Lee, "Question a Stone"

Dave Smeds, "A Swain of Kneaded Moonlight"

Rosemary Hawley Jarman, "Fire and Frost and Burning Rose"

K. D. Wentworth, "The Garden of Swords"

Diana L. Paxson, "Blue Velvet"

Samantha Henderson, "Outlander"

Carol Berg, "The Heart's Coda"

This weekend, I shall be at Fantasycon, the annual convention of the British Fantasy Society, at the Britannia Hotel, Nottingham. There are some wonderful guests, notably Gail Z Martin and Jasper fforde. I'm looking forward to it.

I'm on a couple of panels, one on British Folklore ('The Green Man')_, at 3pm on Saturday, and one on New Fantasy Writers, at 10 am on Sunday.

We're setting off on the expedition to Montreal in less than an hour. I'll be blogging the worldcon on my livejournal: http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/

It's convention season. This weekend, I shall be at Constitution,the combined Unicon/filkcon/British Role-Playing Games con, at Murray Edwards College (formerly New Hall), Cambridge. Details are here: http://www.constitution-con.org.uk/

And next weekend, I shall be in Montreal, Canada, for Anticipation, the World SF con. My first worldcon as a professional writer: I don't know whether to be more pleased or scared.

I shall be writing about it on my regular LiveJournal blog: http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/

Middle cat, Iskander, has been having to stay inside for the last three weeks due to an injury. He managed to get a deep puncture wound in the middle toe of his right back paw, and as a result has been indoors, on antibiotics and in a buster collar through all the recent weather, hot and otherwise. He was heavy bandaged for the first two weeks of this, too, and it's safe to say that he is not a happy cat. Not one bit. There have been protests, both vocal and physical. There have been sulks. There have been guerilla raids on both doors and most of the windows. The other cats are also less than happy. Mooncat is used to being the centre of attention during most of the day, as she tends to be the most indoor-staying of the three. Now there is a loud and stompy Ish in her way and she is Not Best Pleased. She's taken to glowering at him and bringing in as much of the hedge as she can. (She has long fluff. Most summers, she embarks on a serious attempt to help the local grasses spread their seeds. Yes, I have eco-cat.) Horus is baffled, because his best friend is grumpy and seems to be wearing a lampshade. It's been a rather stressful three weeks.

So today, in the interests of reducing just how fed-up and frustrated Ish is -- and with the rather more selfish motive of hoping it would reduce the amount of spraying he's been doing -- I put him on the cat lead and took him for a walk. I've been taking him out for a short stroll in the garden on most dry days, which he likes. But today we went beyond, down to the end of our (very short) cul-de-sac and then round the garage block, which is one of his particular hang-outs. Many fascinating scents have been located and investigated. Places have been marked very firmly. Bushes have been put in their place, grass has been chewed and Moon has been sneered at through a hedge. On coming in, he had his foot washed (bad) and was given his pill (very bad), his supper (good) and a treat (very good). Now he's dozing.

Going for a walk with a cat is something I am known to do from time to time, though not usually with a cat on a lead in a lampshade. Ish will often trot round the nature reserve with me and Phil and others, and has to be discouraged firmly from following us on other occasions. Moon will follow for short distances, too. And Horus will walk with me, but not with anyone else. This means that some nights, on fetching them in, I come off the nature reserve with a train of cats. My neighbours find this amusing, and I can't really blame them. I'm the neighbourhood mad cat woman. There's no escaping it.

Gardner Dozois has listed my short story 'Seaborne' in the Honourable Mention list in The Year's Best Science Fiction 2008. I am highly honoured: I write very few shorts and this is not something I expected. The story picks up on Thiercelin and Gracielis some time after Living with Ghosts, and appeared in the anthology Myth/Understandings, ed. Ian Whates (NewCon Press 2008)

Also, earlier this week, I attended a two-day colloquium on Physics and SF at Imperial College, London. Concentrating on astrophysics and astornomy, it was a fascinating series of talks about aspects of space science from leading academics (Prof. Andrew Jaffe, Dr Roberto Trotta, Dr Mark Thompson, Dr Catriona Jackman and Dr Dave Clements). It was organised by my friend Dave Clements, astronomer and writer. I learnt a lot and I can see some very interesting ideas and possibilities... I also had the pleasure of spending time with some very interesting people, both writers and researchers -- Jaine Fenn, Liz Williams, Geoff Ryman, Steven Baxter, Molly Brown, Alistair Reynolds, Paul McAuley, Farah Mendlesohn... A wonderful idea and a wonderful experience and I'm very grateful to Dave for orgainsing it and for including me.

I have an article on the origins and nature of the Celtic-speaking peoples in the current issue of Clarkesworld.

You can find it here:

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/maund_06_09/

I'm off down to London today, where, this evening, I will be interviewing my fellow author and long-time great friend Jaine Fenn for the BSFA. Details are here: http://www.bsfa.co.uk/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/24/27th-May-2009-BSFA-Monthly-Meeting-Jaine-Fenn-interview.aspx

Jaine is the author of <i>Principles of Angels</i> (Gollancz 2008) and the forthcoming <i>Consorts of Heaven</i>. Check them out: fast, exciting, subversive SF with a thriller twist.

I'm off down to London today, where, this evening, I will be interviewing my fellow author and long-time great friend Jaine Fenn for the BSFA. Details are here: http://www.bsfa.co.uk/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/24/27th-May-2009-BSFA-Monthly-Meeting-Jaine-Fenn-interview.aspx

Jaine is the author of Principles of Angels (Gollancz 2008) and the forthcoming Consorts of Heaven. Check them out: fast, exciting, subversive SF with a thriller twist.

A young woman awakens confused, in pain and in a place she does not recognise. The strangers she meets tell her is is a cousin, a bride-to-be, a flighty, selfish aristocrat. All she knows is that she does not feel safe and she wants to know who she is and what is going on. Learning her identity takes a little while, but even when she regains her memory, the truth about what is going on takes a lot longer to discover. Plots and counterplots, abductions, escapes, ambushes, treachery, politics abound as the heroine -- Flian -- strives to understand her life and her position in the world.

I've completely lost my heart to this one. it has everything -- pace, excitement, a splendid heroine, romance and a wonderfully rich world.

I'm very pleased with this review at Strange Horizons

http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2009/05/living_with_gho.shtml

Her comments on magic, are, I think, perfectly fair. I find magic hard to write. SO, if anyone is interested, there's a 'Questions about Meraafi and Magic' open thread on my live journal (http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/154202.html)

There's now an open thread on my LiveJournal account for questions about the Celtic and Gaelic speaking peoples in the early middle ages. 

http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/148775.html