ConCarolinas 2019!

It’s that time of year again – ConCarolinas is back, and I’ll be there! I only consistently show up for one fandom and writing convention a year, and ConCarolinas in Charlotte, North Carolina, is it. And this year’s slate of guests and events is particularly excellent. The people in charge have worked their collective cabooses off making this the best ConCarolinas/Deep South Con ever.

And I can prove it. They invited me. I’ll be there all weekend, Friday, May 31 through Sunday, June 2. I’m officially launching not one but two new books, and I’ll be appearing at the following panels:

On Friday, May 31:

3:00 – Whose Story Is This? (in Walden): We’ll be talking about fan fiction; loving it, hating it, what it means, how to do it, what it can lead to. And I’ll actually be the moderator on this one, so batten down the hatches.

7:00 – ConCarolinas Short Takes (in a 3rd floor room, follow the noise): I’ll be one of a whole slate of author guests reading bits from their latest works. It’s a choice crowd, and we’ll all still be giddy with first-night-at-the-con glee. So a good time is pretty well assured at this one.

On Saturday, June 1:

11:00 – Tired Tropes of Women (Keynes): Parsing, bemoaning, and offering alternatives to the timeworn cliches of chicks in space and fantasy and horror, from the sexually voracious pixies who get confused tying their shoes to all those dead-but-loyal superhero girlfriends inspiring their men to greatness. If you’re a woman writing speculative fiction or a guy writing speculative fiction who wants to write better women, hit this one up.

12:00 – Historical Fantasy (Keynes): Ways to write the fantastical while keeping it real–and why it matters.

1:00 – Choosing an Editor (Keynes): You know you need an editor, but what kind of editor do you need? All the basic species will be on display and ready for your questions.

6:00 – There Is No Finish Line: Maintaining Energy and Momentum (Walden): Whether you’re just starting out as a writer or writing Book 27 of your bestselling series, you’re gonna have days when you think you might just quit. A panel of authors who’ve been at this for a while will offer war stories and advice on how to beat those urges and keep going (and why you must). I’ll be the moderator, and I can’t wait to hear what everybody else will have to say.

On Sunday, June 2:

SF/F: Are We Ready to Lighten Up Yet? (Lakeshore 2): A discussion of “Hopepunk”–what it is and why we might really, really need it. Or why we don’t.

I’m Not Bad, I’m Just Written That Way (Walden): Let’s talk about antiheroes, baby. (Why yes, I probably WILL mention that new season of Lucifer on Netflix; why do you ask?)

When I’m not on panels, I’m sharing a table with Alexandra Christian in Authors Alley, and I’ll probably stop in to annoy John Hartness and the rest of the crew at the big Falstaff Books booth. Get all the scoop about ConCarolinas 2019/Deep South Con 57 at their website here: https://concarolinas2019.sched.com/ Can’t wait to see you there!

 

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The Excellence You Swear You Cannot See

The Romance Writers of America has released the names of the nominees for their yearly RITA Awards, and, you guessed it, they’re about as diverse as a glass of milk beside a plate of sugar cookies with white chocolate chips. So all of us writing and publishing types have taken to the Facebooks and beyond one more time to discuss the diversity problem. Even among those of us nice white cis straight folks who have stopped twitching every time we admit it exists, there’s a lot of panic, anger, and confusion when we start trying to decide what to do about it.

Like most of the RITA nominees, I’m a middle-aged straight cis white woman who writes books. In my current romance WIP, the heroine is Persian. In the Southern gothic I finished earlier this year, the protagonist is a Black woman. In the next book I’m scheduled to write, one of the main background characters is gay, and I’ve written multiple gay characters into books in the past, from medieval romances to urban fantasy. Having even this much diversity in my work does great stuff for me as an artist, assuming I do it right. It makes me step out of my comfort zone and enriches my narrative voice in everything I write; it broadens my market for the finished product.

For the cause of diversity in publishing, it does dickory do.

Even if I do my research, get every detail as right as it’s possible to get it, my non-white, non-straight, non-cis characters are never going to be drawn with the same authority a writer who shares that identity could give them. And at the end of the day, my success with these books, artistic and otherwise, is success for yet another white straight cis writer. And don’t get me wrong; I am all about succeeding. Nobody is asking me or expecting me or wanting me or any other white straight cis writer to be otherwise, and I wouldn’t oblige them if they were. But if I honestly give a shit about creating a level playing field for all writers, I have to work beyond that, outside it. I have to get past my own fear of failure and focus that part of my energy on people who aren’t me and work that isn’t mine. I have to stop thinking like a writer and think like a reader instead. And as a reader, I have to actively seek out diverse voices. And when I find good reads from those voices, I have to make sure other readers know about them, too.

Every time an award-nominating body or a publisher or a whatever gets accused of lack of diversity in their choices, their first excuse is always, “We would have been diverse; we wanted to, really, really, but we just couldn’t find anything to read at the level we were looking for that wasn’t written by a white straight cis person!” That’s bullshit so blatant, it’s laughable on its face, but still, my purpose here is to be helpful. So in addition to the amazing work of already-famous people like N.K. Jemison, Michael Cunningham, and Colson Whitehead, let me recommend a kind of Whitman’s sampler of fiction from various genres written by amazing writers whose work I happen to know. As a reader, I would recommend any and all of them without reservation—this, my kittens, is the good stuff. If you want your own reading and publishing in general to be more diverse, this is a great way to start. Click on the links to buy. Read them, review them, tell your friends. Be part of the solution.

Sisters of the Wild Sage, a collection of weird western short stories by Nicole Kurtz, a Black woman. Nicole also writes horror, science fiction, and urban fantasy, and it’s all well worth your attention.

A Fall In Autumn, an amazing new science fiction novel by Michael Williams, a gay man. Futuristic noir, first in an on-going series.

Black Magic Women: Terrifying Tales by Scary Sisters, an anthology of horror short stories written by Black women. I have already gnawed the ears off everybody who will listen about how great these stories are, but if you haven’t read them yet, DO IT NOW.

Girl In the Gears: A truly fun steampunk adventure by E. Chris Garrison, a transgender woman. First in an on-going series.

And finally, dear ladies of the RWA RITA-nominating committee …

Passion and Ink: The latest bestselling contemporary romance by Naima Simone, a Black woman with multiple series on-going and a voracious readership of romance lovers of every ethnicity.

And so many others I could happily mention if I had the space. If you can’t find the best work in your favorite genre being written by writers who break the white, straight, cis mold, then I’m sorry; you’re just not trying. And if anybody has other recommendations for me, by all means, add them to the comments!

Sister White Ladies…

… Who Vote Progressive.

You’re right; these statistics that are getting posted about how we white women as a demographic voted overwhelmingly for Republican candidates who support fascist agendas are not about us. (If you don’t know what I’m on about, there’s a pretty good breakdown of the issue here.) Let me say that again: it’s NOT about us. Our friends aren’t posting those things to call us out or hurt our feelings; if they’re our friends, they know where we stand. And yes, it is extremely upsetting and painful to look at this information and know it’s true and know we’re getting lumped in with those women because of the color of our skin, and I completely sympathize with the instinct to leap up and shout, “Not me!!!” But let me say it again; it’s not about us. It’s about the truth. It’s about the problem. It’s about facing the problem so we can find a solution.

“But I am the solution!” our wounded hearts wail. “I voted blue! I marched! I’ve never voted for a conservative Republican in my life!” Good for you, darling; me too and me neither. But obviously we aren’t enough. Our votes aren’t enough. And if we can get over getting our feelings hurt for a minute, there is something much more we can do.

The white women who do vote Republican have already identified people of color and people not cis and people not Christian as Other, not their concern, not worth the risk to their own safety and comfort that speaking out against the white male power structure that threatens them might mean. And nothing those people of the Other can say will ever reach them.

But we have white faces. We have white life experiences. We share their frame of reference; we share their context. We live where they live. If we bravely, openly, pragmatically, and continuously confront the fascist agenda every single time we see it, regardless of the context, and say “No, that’s wrong; I’m not having it,” the other white women around us have no choice but to deal with us. If in our daily lives out in the world where everybody can see us we habitually and unfailingly speak up for people of color and transgender people and Muslim people and all the people Trumpistan would love to pretend aren’t people at all, we’re going to send a message and exert an influence that transcends the voting booth and that can’t be neutralized with PAC money. It’s called peer pressure, baby, and we white women are better at it than pretty much any other demographic on the planet. Lord knows we’ve had more practice.

Bottom line, if we put all this energy we’re burning defending ourselves into defending the people we say we care about, we might actually turn this shameful statistic around. But either way, honey, that’s on us.

I keep reading that spreading this statistic doesn’t “build bridges” between the races, that it fans the flames of hate. People of color have been building and rebuilding that bridge for decades now, and yet these statistics still exist. Can you really blame them for being tired? For being angry? If that bridge is going to be rebuilt, it’s up to us to build it. As for the flames of hate, does being called out on this make you so angry that you’re going to just give up and be a racist? Ye gods, I hope not. If we really are progressive, if we really aren’t part of this problem, we need to trust our friends to know us; we need to stop waiting for our gold star-spangled cupcake and pat on the head; and most of all, we need to back up our righteousness with action. Not just marches, not just voting, not just mini-manifestos like this, but ordinary, boring, scary, inconvenient action every minute of every day. I promise, if you’re doing that, nobody posting these statistics is talking about you.

Because I need distraction, and maybe you do, too.

This has been an awful week, and now that I’ve expressed my outrage until I’m sick of the sound of my own voice, I’m looking around for things to make me forget reality entirely. I wrote my latest, Guinevere’s Revenge, in exactly that spirit. It’s an extremely light-hearted romantic mystery–Agatha Christie plus P.G. Wodehouse minus the racism.

The heroine, Stella Hart, is an American silent movie actress whose divorced socialite mother is married to an English lord. Stella is visiting the manor house for a shooting party and ends up solving a murder with the help of George Barrington, her stepfather’s favorite nephew. The story was inspired by screwball romances with lots of snappy banter like Bringing Up Baby and the kind of comforting mysteries where the bad are punished and the good go on in their goodness and all ends up right with the world. And right now, I really want to believe in that world, and I’m thinking maybe the rest of you might, too. Here’s an excerpt to show you what I mean:

****

“Thanks, Hennessey,” she said, taking the phone. “Hello? This is Stella Hart.”

“Finally,” a voice that was all too familiar boomed over the line. “You okay, dollface? It sounds like they’ve got you locked in an ivory tower. I’ve been trying to reach you all night!”

She slammed the phone down once, then three more times as if to break the connection for all eternity. George came out into the hall as she was putting the receiver down on the table, leaving it off the hook.

“Okay, Mugsy, where’d you hide the loot?” he teased.

“What?” She was too panicked to understand the joke.

“You’re behaving like a cat burglar who double-crossed her partners and absconded with the jewels.” He took her hand. “The jig’s up, kiddo.” For once his crooked smile made her want to cry. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“You’re closer than you think.” She had promised herself and poor Bertie that she wouldn’t breathe a word of this to anyone in England, but she had no choice. “You know all that money Lord Carraway thinks movie people make? It’s not quite so.”

“Darling, if you need money—”

“No, no, not me,” she said, smiling as she squeezed his hand. “Bertie’s last picture cost the lost treasures of Egypt to make. And he wasn’t as discerning as he might have been in how he got it. He borrowed money from what he called ‘a consortium of interested businessmen’ in New York to finish it, promising to pay them back when the picture was released.”

“What’s all this got to do with you?” George asked, frowning.

“The picture is a big success, but Bertie paid all the people who worked on it first,” she said. “Then he sort of . . . well, he spent a bundle on a leading man and a director for his next project.”

“Oh good lord . . .”

“He’ll definitely pay them back; he always does. But he’s taking a little longer than they were expecting, particularly with the picture doing so well.”

“Longer than he promised, you mean.”

“Yes, that.” She was in no fit state to explain away her stepfather’s faults the way she usually would have, not to George. She could never lie to George. “The leader of this . . .”

“Consortium?”

“Yes. He sent his son, Anthony, to Los Angeles to speak to Bertie about it, and Bertie asked me to . . . well . . . to distract him.”

“He did not!”

“Nothing awful!” she said, drawing him further from the dining room before he put the whole house in an uproar. “I just happened to run into the two of them at the Coconut Grove, and Bertie introduced us. I danced with Tony once or twice, and we drank some champagne. It was all perfectly innocent, really.” She hated the way George was looking at her, so sympathetic and horrified all at the same time. “But Tony apparently made more of it than I realized. He’s gotten sort of attached.”

George raised an eyebrow. “Attached?”

“He’s driving me crazy,” she confessed. “He sends me presents; he calls me night and day. The day I finally threw in the towel and ran, he had hired an entire string quartet to come to the set where I was working and play ‘Come to Me, My Melancholy Baby’ until I agreed to go out with him again.”

George laughed, the swine. “Sounds like the poor devil’s got it bad, sausage,” he said. “You should let him off the hook. Just tell him you’re not interested.”

“I can’t,” she said. “If I brush him off, he’ll remember about the money, and he might break poor Bertie’s knees or something.”

“Well, you can’t continue scurrying around the globe this way,” he said. “It’s round; you’ll eventually catch him up.” As he said this, she watched with horror as Hennessey came out, realized the phone was off the hook, and picked up the receiver.

“Hennessey, no!” she cried as he replaced it. Within mere seconds, it rang.

“Shush,” George said, pushing her gently aside to answer it. “Barrington Hall. George Barrington speaking.” She could hear Tony’s booming baritone, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. “Yes, Mr. Bartinelli, I’ve just been hearing all about you from our little Stella.” She grabbed his arm and gazed up at him with pleading eyes. “She tells me you’re quite a chap, and she’s quite taken with you.” He put his hand over hers and patted, giving her a nod that said he’d take care of everything. “Problem is, she’s my fiancée.”

“George!” she gasped.

“Yes, I knew it would be something of a shock,” George said, putting his hand over her mouth. “That scamp—I should have known better than to let her loose in California without me.” She heard Tony say something even more loudly than usual. “Yes, a good spanking is probably exactly what she needs. But what can I do, Mr. Bartinelli? I adore her.” A short pause. “Yes, I thought you’d understand.” Another pause. “Yes, it’s been in the works for years. Her stepfather is my uncle, you see.” Pause. “No, not that one—the other one, Lord Barrington.” Pause. “Too bad, yes. That would solve a great many problems, wouldn’t it?” Longer pause, and George frowned. “Now see here, Mr. Bartinelli, I hardly think . . .” Then he laughed. “Yes, I suppose I do understand. I’m just glad you’re taking it so well. She wasn’t too terribly naughty, was she? . . . Oh good, good, glad to hear it . . . No, no, not at all . . . That sounds fine. Good-bye.”

He hung up the phone. “I can’t believe it,” Stella said. “You darling madman . . . I can’t believe you told him we were engaged.”

“Inspiration of the desperate man and all that.” He looked a little pale. “And he believed it, by the way. Said it made perfect sense.”

“Well, what else could he say?” She felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “George, I swear I could kiss you.”

“Good,” he said, his voice rather hollow. “You’ll need the practice.”

“What do you mean?” she said.

“You’ll have to make a good show of it, sausage,” he answered with a sickly grin. “He’s on his way here.”

“What?”

“He wants to be certain you’re happy with our engagement.”

“Oh for pity’s sake!”

“He’s only looking out for you, sausage. I think he really is quite smitten.”

“That’s very sweet, but dear heavens!” Could things get any worse? “Did you tell him we would just wait around here until his boat arrives?”

“Oh, his boat arrived this morning, half an hour after yours did.” She clutched his arm, too shocked to speak. “He’s at the post office,” he said. “He’ll be here in ten minutes.”

“George, really,” Mavis said, coming out of the dining room. “This is intolerable. They’re about to serve dessert.” She looked back and forth between George and Stella, the two of them sort of clutching one another like orphans in a storm. “What the devil is going on?”

“Mavis, darling, thank heavens you’re here,” George said, letting go of Stella to go to her. “We’re going to have to play a little game.”

****

Wanna know how it comes out? Get your copy from Amazon here.

Con Carolinas 2018

So this weekend, I’ll be an author/editor guest at ConCarolinas in Charlotte, NC. If you’re going to be there, too, this is where to find me.

Friday, June 1

3:00 pm – Choosing an Editor (Harris)

4:00 pm – Falstaff Books/Sol Books Sneak Peek (3rd floor room)

7:00 pm – The Legacy of Frankenstein (Walden)

10:00 pm – Finding Your Inner Smut Queen (Harris)

Saturday June 2

12:00 noon – We Have Ways of Making You Talk (Walden)

4:00 pm – Open Pitch (Walden)

10:00 pm – The Ghastly Sublime (Walden)

Sunday, June 3

9:00 a.m. – I’m a Writer, I Don’t Have Time to Read (Harris)

11:00 a.m. – Selling Your Book in 244 Characters of Less (Walden)

12:00 p.m. – Reading of my own stuff (3rd floor room)

When I’m not on panels, you should be able to find me either at the Falstaff Books booth or in the bar. So by all means, come say hi!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Blast from the Past – Wabbit Season

Way back in 2012, this was my spoiler-free review of The Dark Knight Rises. Looking back at it today, I realized it also perfectly expresses my feelings about The Avengers: Infinity War. Apologies to the faithful; love it all you like. But this is me. 

One of the things I did on vacation was see The Dark Knight Rises, the final dark chapter in Christopher Nolan’s dark Der Ring Des Batman-lungen trilogy.  One of the previews shown before it was for the Nolan-produced Man of Steel, aka Die Leiden des jungen Supermans, which looks, among other adjectives, quite dark.  So moved and inspired was I by this experience, my fangirl need for chaos, knowledge, and control seized me and forced me to psychically hack the hard drive of Nolan’s writing computer where I discovered his first notes for a new project:  Wabbit Season, a dark and hyper-realistic interpretation of another beloved and iconic fictional universe long revered in the collective subconscious of American pop culture.

Working Title:  Wabbit Season

Bugs Bunny:  Protagonist; small-time criminal, genius intelligence, incomplete arts education, anarchist, open transvestite, closet transsexual – Brooklyn accent, Irish descent – ties to IRA; good with bombs.  Casting notes:  Christian Bale currently preparing with carrots-only diet and plastic surgery to stretch ears.  Other possibilities if Bale unavailable and/or uninsurable due to starvation?  Will Smith?  Warner Brothers pushing Jim Carrey; too on-the-nose.

Daffy Duck:  Homicidal moralist – strong ties to Black Panther movement of the 1960s – 1960s setting?  Subtle lisp suggestive of homosexuality, self-loathing, love/hate/lust/kill fixation on Bugs.  Torture sequence involving bill.  Casting note:  take meeting with Chris Rock re:  possible dramatic vehicle.  Don Cheadle could also work.

Elmer J. Fudd, Millionaire:  Primary antagonist, industrialist, serial killer.  Owns a mansion and a yacht.  Childhood history of profound physical and sexual abuse, current addiction to whiffable drug designed by his own pharmaceutical company – turns red while under the influence.  Hunting enthusiast; obsessively drawn to Bugs in drag.  Casting note:  keep calling Tommy Lee Jones, restraining order be damned.

Secondary plotline to open the film involving dwarf mafioso Babyface Finster – Tom Cruise has expressed interest; only if he dances.  Prefer Peter Dinklage, would take Patton Oswalt if his sense of irony can be surgically suppressed.  Mel Gibson last resort.  Possible product placement deal with Huggies?

Other possible titles:  “Pronoun Trouble.”  “Despicable.”  “Hassenpfeffer.”  Trilogy?

 

Falstaff Crush – Romance for All

Heya Kittens – Long time no type!

Regular visitors to the blog-ness know how discouraged I’ve been for a while now about the state of romance publishing. While I wish every writer nothing but the best, the wild west atmosphere created by self-publishing and fan fiction has resulted in a market flooded to glut with the same old crap repeated ad nauseam with plots no self-respecting teen-age drama queen would scribble in her diary and action that is nothing short of porn. There’s still plenty of good stuff, but it’s continually getting drowned in all this other, and publishers, desperate to maintain any kind of profit whatsoever, are demanding writers write to an ever-more-stringent and ever-less-interesting template made of tropes created more to serve a keyword search than any kind of story.

For a long time, I’ve thought there has to be a better way to keep romance as a genre alive; I KNOW there’s a better way. And now, thanks to Falstaff Books, I’m getting the chance to prove it. I’m going to be an author and submissions editor for a brand new romance line with a brand new approach to the genre. Welcome to Falstaff Crush, romance for people who think they don’t like romance. Our tagline is “Love is the greatest adventure,” and that’s what our stories are all about. We do science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, adventure–all the genres we love as readers, all built around a strong romantic relationship between people who may or may not be what mainstream romance would call a couple. The setting and genre are more than just a costume, more than just an apparatus to get two or more people in the sack. We don’t do tropes; we do story.

Our first release, Huntress, is a high fantasy dragonslayer tale, and over the next month or so, we’ll have a weird western, contemporary gothic horror, and even a sexy Sherlock Holmes, with more in the pipeline to come. (We’re also open to submissions, so please feel free to check out our guidelines.)  Watch this space for updates, and as always, let me know what you think!

xoxo

Lucy