Kari Sperring's Occasional Blog

Eastercon

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:30:25 +0100

It's Eastercon time again! I shall be off tomorrow: we're back at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Heathrow this year. I'm quite busy on programme this time --

Saturday

12.00 noon 'Gender Parity on Panels',
Commonwealth, Paul Cornell, Farah Mendelsohn, Juliet E McKenna, Emma
Peel, Kari Sperring.

7.00
p.m. 'A History of Feminist SF in Britain', Room 12: Lesley Hall, Roz
Kaveney, Andy Sawyer, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Kari Sperring.

9.00
p.m. 'What happens at Milford?' Room 38: Jacey Bedford, Terry Jackman,
Steve Kilbane, Kari Sperring. A look at the long running professional
writers' workshop.

11.00 p.m. 'No Country for Old Men?' Room 41:
Avedon Carroll, Martin Easterbrook, Dave McCarty, Kari Sperring.

Sunday
4.00
p.m. 'Subverting the context (alternative universes in fan fiction)'
Room 41: Tanya Brown, Kate Keen, Kari Sperring.

Monday
9.00 p.m. 'From Fan to
Pro' Room 38: Paul Cornell, Kari Sperring, Charlie Stross.

I shall hope to see some of you there.

Publication date

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:56:10 +0000

I have a publication date for The Grass King's Concubine -- 7th August 2012, just in time for Worldcon. It's available for pre-order from various places. I am so excited: I've lived with this book for almost as long as Living With Ghosts: I began the earliest version of it back in 1995, although it's changed a lot since then. I love the characters and the setting. It's in the same world as LWG, but in a different place and set about 150 years later. And while LWG focuses on a city, GKC is set mostly in the world of ghosts and spirits -- the variundarii that Gracielis talks about. It has a stubborn heroine, a patient hero, a set of other-worldly warrior-guards and shape-shifting ferret twins. I'll keep you posted about promotional events, cover details and so on.

World Fantasy 2011

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:17:25 +0100

In two days, I shall be heading off to the USA to visit friends in Portland, and then on to San Diego for World Fantasy 2011. I shall be at the con from Thursday later afternoon till Sunday around noon. WFC is always huge fun: a chance to catch up with friends and colleagues as well as to hear some interesting programming.

I will be on the programme myself, at 8 pm on Thursday 27th October in Pacific 2/3:

The Role of Class in Fantasy
and Horror

Science fiction often deals with class conflict.
How does fantasy and horror pursue the same concepts? Are vampires
and elves the bourgeoisie? Are werewolves and orcs the working
class? Who are the working class heroes of our genre?

John Hornor Jacobs, Jeff Mariotte (M), Kirstyn McDermott, Kari Sperring, Kathryn A Sullivan

News!

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:29:26 +0100

My wonderful publisher, DAW books, have bought my second book, The Grass King's Concubine,along with an as-yet untitled sequel. It should be out next year. I am so excited about this: I had a lot of fun (and a lot of you-what moments) writing it, and I am delighted that DAW liked it. It's set in the same world as Living With Ghosts, but in a different place and with new characters. And it's a lot weirder: no ghosts this time, but shape-shifting ferret women, immortal elemental warriors, strange dead creatures, and a mystery that has changed the shape of the underworld.

Stockholm!

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:50:43 +0100

Next week, I'm heading off to Stockholm for Eurocon 2011 (http://eurocon2011.se/) and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm giving a reading at 12.30 on Saturday, and shall be on two panels -- Myths in sf and fantasy (Sunday at noon) and Men, women and neuters in sf and fantasy (Sunday at 16.00). I'm looking forward to it.

I love Stockholm. I first visited it 13 or 14 years ago, back when I was still teaching early mediaeval history. I went to see the viking trading post of Birka and the burial mounds and runestones at Uppsala, all of which I loved. But I discovered something else, too. Old Stockholm looks like Merafi. I had had no idea. I first created Merafi around 1989: an amalgam of several lost mediaeval and early modern cities -- Paris (which lost its 16th century layer to Napoleon), Coventry (destroyed during WW2), Leicester (a victim of city planners), Lyons, York, Rouen, Chester, with their ancient hearts besieged by modern life. I hadn't seen Stockholm back then, I hadn't even seen pictures. And yet there I stood, in 1997 or so, in the heart of a city I felt I already knew, a city that made me feel welcome and happy, a city loved by those who live there (as far as I can tell). I am so excited to be going back. Thank you, Sweden, for having such a perfect city at your core. I'm so looking forward to seeing it again. And after the con, I'm travelling on to Oslo, a city I have not yet visited and which I really want to see.

I'll be writing about my trip on my main blog here http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/

Or you can find me on Facebook (KariSperring) and Twitter (@karisperring)

Illustrious, the 62nd British National Easter SF Convention

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 19:09:34 +0100

Over the Easter weekend I shall be at Illustrious, this year's Eastercon, which is taking place in Birmingham (at the NEC Hilton). My programme commitments llok like this:

Friday 4.30 'Great Women in SF' -- who are the most memorial female characters in sf?

Saturday
4.30 'Did Star Wars change science fiction to speculative fiction?' --
For many years our genre was Science Fiction, something that Real People
looked down upon. Nowadays the term Speculative Fiction is often used
to make the genre appear less geeky. When did this happen? Was it
because a lot of people who would never admit to enjoying SF rather
enjoyed Star Wars?

Sunday 10.30 'Women in SF (vs fantasy' --
There is arguably a perception that fantasy is a more feminine genre, as
opposed to SF. Yet look at the lists of best-selling writers, it's
manifestly not so. Why is this?

Sunday Noon 'Diana Wynne Jones
Memorial' -- The recent passing of Diana Wynne Jones has left a large
hole in the landscape of current British science fiction and fantasy.
Several of Diana's friends and admirers read some of her works in
tribute to an exceptional creative talent.(moderator)

Monday 3.00
'Great Women of SF' -- SF has a reputation for being a genre full of
male authors, yet there are many excellent female authors out there. Who
should you be reading?

I'm really looking forward to it.

Diana Wynne Jones 1934-2011

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 15:00:41 +0000

I learnt this morning of the death of British writer Diana Wynne Jones. She's a big part of the heart of British fantasy, a great influence on many, many other writers, a creator of worlds and characters to whom I return again and again. Every time I reread Fire and Hemlock, say, or Archer's Goon I notice something new. I had the very great privilege of meeting her two or three times. She was charming, interesting, witty and delightful. After two days of sunshine here, it's overcast today and I can't help feeling that that is appropriate. The world is a slightly dimmer place without her. Thank you, Ms Wynne Jones, for everything.

Continue reading "Diana Wynne Jones 1934-2011"

Wonderful News

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:45:02 +0000

The judges of the James Tiptree Jnr Award have listed Living with Ghosts on their honours' list for 2010. This is a huge honour, as the Tiptree is one of the most important awards in the sf and fantasy field, and I am stunned and delighted and shocked and grateful. The details can be found here: http://tiptree.org/

Many many congratulations to the winner, Dubravka Ugresic, whose novel Baba Yaga Laid An Egg I am off to buy right now. And many congratulations to all the other authors on the honours lists. It's a real privilege to be listed alongside them.

Picocon

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 10:03:41 +0000

This time tomorrow, I shall be at Imperial College London for Picocon. I'm the first speaker -- I'm on at 10.30 a.m. -- so I'm busy preparing for that. It's exciting and alarming all at once, but I'm looking forward to it.

Meanwhile at home builders are at work in the back garden, my cats are coming and going in a somewhat suspicious manner, the radio is on and I have coffee. Life is good.

News

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:45:57 +0000

I have been invited to be one of three Guests of Honour at Picocon in London this year, which is an honour and I'm very flattered. It's a one day convention held every year at Imperial College London, and run by the university science fiction society. My fellow guests are Paul McAuley and Juliet McKenna, two wonderful writers, in whose company I am astonished to find myself. It's on Saturday February 19th: there are more details here: http://union.ic.ac.uk/scc/icsf/social/events/picocon/index.html

Continue reading "News"

The Sydney J Bounds Award

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 09:01:46 +0100

I don't know what to say: I've been away for two weeks, and in that time, Living With Ghosts has won the Sydney J Bounds Award for Best Newcomer, awarded by The British Fantasy Society. To say I'm honoured is an understatement -- I'm stunned and breathless and delighted and overwhelmed. The Bounds -- formerly the Icarus Award -- is juried, and has in the past been won by some wonderful authors, including Joe Hill, Scott Lynch and Poppy Z Brite. It's a huge, huge honour to find myself in such company. I am immensely grateful to the jury for liking my book so much: thank you all very much. There's a picture of the statuette, which now has pride of place on my mantlepiece, being guarded by my youngest cat, Horus, here, on my LiveJournal.

Continue reading "The Sydney J Bounds Award"

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:20:12 +0100

If you were to ask me my favourite book, there is no doubt you'd get the immediate reply, The Three Musketeers. That is the book at the very heart of my best obsession, the core and key and very feel of what I most want out of reading, the other-place I aim to echo and reference and reflect and emulate when I write. It is my book of books, the book that somewhere in the most selfish corner of my mind I know was written just for me.
And yet, if you were to ask me that question in another way, you'd probably get a whole set of different answers. Because while T3M is my Ur-book, there are so many others that have woven themselves into me over my years.If you asked me for my desert island book, I might be forced to answer Twenty Years After, because while T3M is my core book, the core of the changing relationships between Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan -- which is, for me, the core of the whole series, the reason for reading and loving the books -- is found in 20YA, not T3M, and especially in the chapter 'La Place Royale'. All but one of my favourite scenes from the series are in 20YA, even though T3M is the better book. But it's 20YA I'd want on my island.
And then there are the books that set me on my various tangled footpaths. There's Lord of the Rings (of course), which built the shape of the genre I wanted to work in, and its deep deep scholarly roots, which pulled me down into the mangrove swamps of academe and mediaeval history. There's Peter Sawyer's Age of the Vikings, which set my standard for what analytical, exciting early mediaeval history should read like, and Frank Barlow, Edward the Confessor, which taught me thoroughness. There's J E Lloyd, A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest, which irritates and inspires me in equal parts, which set up the sacred cows of my field and informs every single out-of-line, against-trend, awkward, spikey and revisionist word of my academic writings. But the first book to teach me to love history and to love its sources was Eugenia Ginsberg, Into the Whirlwind, which my O' Level history teacher, Mr Roger Vandevelde, lent to me in 1977. Hello, Mr Vandevelde. You're still the best teacher I ever had, and even though I didn't do history A' Level, I turned into a historian anyway. If by chance you see this, do get in touch. I want to say 'Thank you' and send you some books.
I've written about Anne of Green Gables before, about how tightly I cleave to Anne Shirley and her imagination that gets out of control. She's the first role-model I ever had, the first of the many writing girls who populate children's books. I didn't relate as much to tomboy Jo March or self-leaning Emily Starr, but I loved Anne, and her close descendant Cassandra Mortmain, of Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle. They taught me it was okay to write, that books could be for and by spikey girls, misfit girls, girls of little account.
There are books that I loved and left, or books I've outgrown and and longer reread, but which remain and will remain on my shelves -- Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight and Restoree, Andre Norton, Forerunner Foray, Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond books, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre and Shirley, even, in some ways, Babel 17, Samuel R Delany. I still love the latter, but it no longer blows me away it as it did when I was 15, I see where the strains and the holes are, I see through the cleverness (though Delany remains one of the finest, the greatest, the shiniest of all).
And then there are the books I go back to just because. Tanith Lee, Drinking Sapphire Wine, which I can practically recite. Georgette Heyer, Cotillion and Friday's Child. Elizabeth Peters, Devil May Care, Robert Heinlein, Starman Jones, the book that introduced me to sf. Margery Allingham, The Fashion in Shrouds. Anne Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. These are all books of my years.
Which books are yours?

Guest Post

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:47:00 +0100

One of the great things about writing for DAW is the range of authors I've met through my publisher. Last year, I wrote about Joshua Palmatier's wonderful Throne of Amenkor series, which I really like. Joshua also writes as Benjamin Tate, and here he is talking about he's latest novel, Well of Sorrows.

The Accidental
Fantasist

Hey, thanks to
Kari for allowing me to abscond with her blog for a moment. My name is Benjamin Tate and I’m a
fantasy writer.

*pauses
for the “Hi, Ben!”*

Kari wanted me
to promo my book WELL OF SORROWS, and I’ll certainly do that, because I want you
all to rush out and buy it. But I
figured I’d make a confession first and relate how I became a fantasy writer in
the first place.

It all started
back when I was twelve. I was an
avid reader back then, mostly by picking up books from the library either at
school or the local community library.
But I wasn’t reading fantasy or science fiction. I didn’t even know such book were out
there. I was reading
mysteries. Tons and tons of
mysteries. And one of the mystery
writers that I was picking up from the library was Mary Norton. (Some of you are now nodding sagely,
because you’ve figured out how I got into fantasy and SF already.) I don’t remember any exact titles, but
the one that pops to mind was “Mystery in the Apple Orchard” or something like
that. Anyway, on one particular
day, I couldn’t go to the library with my mom (I don’t remember why) and so I
asked her to pick me up another Norton book.

Ahahahahahaha.

Of course, she
didn’t know it was MARY Norton that I was looking for, and so ended up bringing
me home a few of ANDRE Norton’s books instead. Being a kid, and wanting to read
SOMETHING, with no chance to get the library any time soon (we lived WAY out in
the country), I decided I’d try Andre Norton.

And I was
hooked. The next trip to the
library, I took every Andre Norton book off the shelf, and then
interlibrary-loaned a few more. I
read all of those in my room all summer, a bag of M&Ms beside me. But that wasn’t enough, so I
interlibrary-loaned a ton more, pretty much every Andre Norton book I could get
my hands on. I did this for a
LOOOOONG time, because Andre Norton was pretty prolific (and still churning out
books, although I didn’t know that at the time). I was a downhill slope from there. When the library ran out of Norton
books, I decided that perhaps I should try some other fantasy writers, and I’ve
been reading fantasy and science fiction ever since.

At some point,
all writers (before they are writers) reach the stage where they begin having
their own ideas for stories. And at
some point, they begin to think that their ideas are just as good, if not
better, than those that they’re reading.
I hit that stage a few years after discovering Norton and having read a
ton of other fantasy novels. So I
started writing some short stories, using an old typewriter and about a billion
pounds of whiteout. I also started
a novel featuring me and my friends being transported to a fantasy world (this
appears to be a requirement for every fantasy writer). At one point I became a little more
savvy and began a novel where the main character (not me) was transported to a
world that existed solely in his mind, where had to confront the truth about his
father and cancer (not sure where this story came from; my father didn’t have
cancer). That was a little heavy
for a fifteen-year-old. But by this
point I was hooked not only on fantasy, but on WRITING fantasy as
well.

I started what
I consider my first real fantasy novel in the last few years of high
school. Called SORROW, it was about
a book. I wrote it, and in the
process learned how to write. I
rewrote it, and learned more. I
rewrote it yet again (by this time I’d graduated high school and moved on to
college). This version felt solid
enough that I started sending it out to agents and editors. During this process, based on comments
I’d received from agents and editors, it went through two more
revisions.

And then I gave
up. Not on writing, but on getting
SORROW published. It’s a good book,
and it might get published eventually with another major overhaul. But at the time, I needed to put it
aside and more on, which is what I did.

And now I have
four novels out on the shelf. Three
of them—the “Throne of Amenkor” trilogy—are written under the name Joshua
Palmatier and published by DAW.
That series comprises THE SKEWED THRONE, THE CRACKED THRONE, and THE
VACANT THRONE. And, believe it or
not, the throne that’s the heart of that series makes an appearance in the novel
SORROW. As the first set of books
that sold, the Throne series will always have a special place in my heart. And the general opinion is that the
books got better and better as the series progressed, which just goes to show
you that I’m still learning as a writer.

And now I have
the start of a new series on the shelf.
The series doesn’t have a title of its own yet (I’m sure one will be
forthcoming . . . I never named the Throne series either, that just popped up on
the internet at some point), but the first book is called WELL OF SORROWS. The basic concept of the novel is that a
group of refugees fleeing a war in their homeland have come to the newly
discovered continent across the ocean.
They don’t find a very warm welcome with the settlers already there, and
so they head out onto the plains to settle on their own. Of course, this doesn’t work out exactly
as they had planned. *grin* It’s summed up more dramatically with
the following:

"Ripped from
the life he knew by the threat of civil war in his homeland, Colin and his
parents are refugees in New
Andover, the newly discovered continent on the far side of the ocean. But this new world holds dangers that its settlers
cannot comprehend. Forced to flee
onto the unexplored plains, driven there by desperation, they encounter vicious
magical storms, a hostile race that will stop at nothing to protect their sacred
lands, and a dark forest filled with shadow-like creatures. Attacked by these life-eating Shadows,
on the brink of death, Colin is led to the forest’s darkest and most dangerous
secret: a Well at the heart of an
ancient, crumbling city. To save
his life, he drinks the cold, clear water . . .

And everything
changes."

I had a blast
writing this, and am currently working on the sequel LEAVES OF FLAME, which will
be followed eventually by the concluding novel BREATH OF HEAVEN. I really like this series. It’s more epic in nature than the
“Throne of Amenkor” series, with a much wider scope—I do have an entire new
continent to explore after all.
*grin*

In any case, check
the books out. I think you’ll
really enjoy them.

New Story

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:30:25 +0100

My short story, 'The Fortune-Teller Makes Her Will', is to appear in the forthcoming anthology After Hours: Tales from the Ur Bar, edited by Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier, and due from DAW books in March 2011. Here's part of the press release:

"The first bar, created
by the Sumerians after they were given the gift of beer by the gods,
was known as the Ur-Bar. Although it has since been destroyed, its
spirit lives on--in each age there is one bar that captures the essence
of the original Ur-Bar, where drinks are mixed with magic and served
with a side of destiny and intrigue."

There's a great line up of writers, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the whole thing when it comes outs. My story is set in late seventeenth century France, in a Paris caught
up in the intrigues and scandals of the 'Poison's Affair'. A young
woman has to choose between herself and her principles in an atmosphere
of danger and betrayal. I had a lot of fun writing it: it's a period
that fascinates me. And I gained a huge piece of inspiration from the
work of artist jeweller Elise Matheson. The title of my story comes from
a beautiful pair of named earrings that I bought from her last autumn.
Look out for me wearing them at a con sometime soon.

Write Fantastic Anniversary Event 8th May

nospam@example.com (Kari Sperring) — Fri, 07 May 2010 13:17:16 +0100

I'm getting ready to set out for Oxford for the Write Fantastic Fifth Anniversary Event tomorrow (May 8th) at the Jacqueline du Pre Building, St Hilda's College, Oxford. We have a great programme and line-up of guests and it's going to be a lot of fun. It's now too late to pre-book, but there will be memberships available on the door from 10.00 am and things kick off at 10.30, with an panel on debut writers with Ian Whates, Mike Shevdon, Jenni Hill and me. You can find all the details here: http://www.thewritefantastic.com/anniversary.html

And we're having a book launch for our anthology Anniversaries: stories by the Write Fantastic, published by NewCon Press, at 4 pm. There are brand new stories from all the members -- Sarah Ash, Chaz Brenchley, Juliet McKenna, Jessica Rydill, Freda Warrington, Ian Whates, Liz Williams and me, plus an introduction by Stan Nichols. It's a very limited print run -- only 70 copies -- and some are already pre-sold, so if you want one, come along tomorrow or order from the NewCon Press website here:

http://www.newconpress.co.uk/BookDetail/tabid/57/ProdID/20/RtnTab/70/PageIndex/1/CatID/-1/Default.aspx