Daniel Rabuzzi

I don't read any blogs regularly (like you hadn't guessed that!), not even my LJ FList . . . but I'd be a fool not to check my RSS feed of Small Beer Press's Not a Journal on occasion. (They are, after all, my publisher - and the publisher of many great interstitial artists). There I found an interview with our new NYC friend Daniel Rabuzzi (who's just joined the IAF Working Group), talking about his influences for his new novel, The Choir Boats. (Full disclosure: I bought a copy at the Montreal Worldcon pub party, but haven't read it yet. Paul Witcover gave it a great review, though!)

I was tickled to death to find myself in a list of his favorite writers - especially as it came at the end, after faves of my own like Austen, Dickens, Le Guin, P. Dickinson, T. Goss, S. Clarke ... (just when I had begun to despair) - in the same sentence as Greer Gilman, as "the pioneers here, their wordplay (simultaneously lush and incisive) an inspiration to the most recent cohort. " Gosh. Cool.

Language in Fantasy (Worldcon Panel)

Yes, I am cleaning out/up my open web pages (see under: "You want to do something with this so don't close it or you'll forget") . . . here's another one:

I was on a terrific panel on Diction in Fantasy at Montreal Worldcon in Sept. 09 with Guy Kay, David Anthony Durham, Pat Rothfuss & Mark Gascoigne (no, I wasn't the Token Girl. The panel did not in fact have any girls assigned to it. I was having tea with Guy in the Green Room, and said I wished I'd been put on that panel as it is exactly the sort of thing I like to talk about, and Guy - as moderator - said, "Well come on, then!" So I did). I just discovered that a kindly man* took notes, and posted the gist of what was a very interesting conversation - the kind you always hope a panel will be, but so seldom actually is. I credit Guy as Best Moderator Ever, and the other panelists for all-around brilliance. We really got a chance to chew on some big ideas.

Here's the link.

*Niall Harrison of the editorial staff of Vector, the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association, on the Vector Blog. Thank you, Niall!