ellenkushner: (Default)
In the "All Pleasures Must be Paid For" Dept.: Got the WisCon Cold. And so, while I will still be very well-dressed, I will not be hugging & shaking hands with my esteemed colleagues at the Audie Awards tomorrow night (assuming they'll still let me in! A room full of the audiobook world's finest voice talent . . . maybe they'll just make me carry a bell & clapper?) But on the No Good Deed Goes Unappreciated side: at our long-awaited lunch today, Amie Cousins presented me with my long-requested bottle of Australian Horseradish/Garlic+C cold pills! How's that for synchronicity?

At WisCon, had the very great pleasure of meeting Amy Butler Greenfield, and am now devouring her YA historical fantasy CHANTRESS. Also got to hang out a lot with Ysabeau Wilce, and talk about Flora & Hardhands & Tiny Doom . . . I will let her tell you about the results - for now, my lips are sealed!  There were many more merry meetings, but I think I need to go lie down now (as opposed to basking in memories until they reveal all names & faces. Debbie, Caroline, Brit, noodles, momocha, Karen, ah, English muffins . . . Oh, dear.  And cake.)

Last night we had Janis Ian to dinner here at Chateau Riverside.  We've met often at cons, but this was the first time we'd really had a chance to sit and talk.  (To my delight, she'd written some weeks back to say that she'd be in town for the Audies & BEA & the Lambda Awards [!!!], and did we have a little time?)  We cooked a simple home dinner, figuring someone who's on the road that much would appreciate it.  With her was the remarkable Ellen Myrick - shared the Theory of Ellens with her (which exploded like the Big Bang when Ellen Klages & I first met), and sure enough, she too is capable & bossy (well, that's what they call us!).

Tomorrow night we find out whether we won any Audie Awards - between us, Delia & I are up for FOUR!!!
Me for SWORDSPOINT:  Best Audio Drama
Me for THE PRIVILEGE OF THE SWORD:  Best Multi-Narrator (eeeeeee!!! That would be Barbara Rosenblat & me!!!!)
Us for WELCOME TO BORDERTOWN: Best Anthology
Delia for THE FREEDOM MAZE:  Best Children's Title

This will never happen again.  So off we go.

Sorry I don't update here often enough - I tend to just blurt on Twitter or Facebook, and you're more than welcome to join me there.  Oh, and Tumblr, too - it's here, but it is, of course, mostly pictures.  Good ones, though!
ellenkushner: (IAF)
Coming to Readercon this weekend?

You are warmly invited to the annual Town Meeting of the Interstitial Arts Foundation:

FRIDAY 4:00 p.m. Concierge Lounge, 8th floor
(listed in your program as the "Mike Allen /Ellen Kushner Kaffeeklatsch!").

Our Town Meetings there are always a highlight for the IAF, giving new friends a chance to get to know us, and existing ones a chance to give their input on where you think the IAF should be going.... Hope to see you there! 

* * * 

The rest of my Readercon schedule is here (LJ) and here (Dreamwidth).  

I am particularly excited about the opportunity to present my latest research in the field of audiobooks - which is to say, a lecture/demo of Swordspoint and the forthcoming The Privilege of the Sword (TPOTS), with behind-the-scenes gossip on what it was like to narrate and co-produce my own work.  That's also on Friday (5:00 pm).

If you've never been to Readercon, I can't recommend it highly enough!   It takes place in Burlington, MA, just north of Boston.
Thursday night is free and open to the public. 
ellenkushner: (or What You Will)

Looking forward to seeing friends old & new at Readercon in Burlington, MA (just outside Boston) in  2 weeks!   Weekend & day pass memberships are available at the door - and the Thursday evening program is just plain free and open to the public! I should be there then.  I have no formal autographing session, so feel free to simply grab me in the hallway or after a panel.  If it's not convenient, I'll tell you, so don't be shy!

Friday July 13

1:00 PM    VT    Reading. Ellen Kushner. Ellen Kushner reads from a work to be determined.

Any requests?
4:00 PM    CL    Kaffeeklatsch. Mike Allen, Ellen Kushner.

NB:  This is actually the annual Interstitial Arts Foundation Town Meeting!  Please come with your ideas for ways to make the IAF a better medium for all artists - and lovers of their work - who create art that falls in the interstices between recognized genre categories, whatever they may be.

Bring your suggestions, questions, and enthusiasm!

5:00 PM    ME    How I Narrated and Produced the 'Illuminated' Swordspoint Series Audiobooks. Ellen Kushner. Ellen Kushner discusses the making of her latest audiobook, The Privilege of the Sword (released this month, deliberately scheduled to coincide with Readercon!), and its predecessor, Swordspoint, both written and narrated (and co-produced) by Kushner for ACX/Neil Gaiman Presents. A year ago, she'd never even listened to an audiobook; now, using extra voice actors, sound effects and commissioned soundtrack music, she and producer/director Sue Zizza have created a new style called the "Illuminated" audiobook. She will play excerpts and answer questions about the process, including her experiences with ACX, Audible's new initiative for empowering authors to create their own audiobooks.

Yes, there will be pre-release excerpts of TPOTS!

Saturday July 14

2:00 PM    G    The City and the Strange. Leah Bobet, Amanda Downum, Lila Garrott (leader), Stacy Hill, Ellen Kushner, Howard Waldrop. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs writes, "By its nature, the metropolis provides what otherwise could be given only by traveling; namely, the strange." N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance trilogy demonstrates that epic-feeling fantasy can still take place entirely within the confines of a single city. Fictional metropolises such as Jeff Vandermeer's Ambergris, China Miéville's New Crobuzon, and Catherynne M. Valente's Palimpsest are entire worlds in themselves, and the fantasy cities of Lankmar and Ankh-Morkpork shine as centers of intrigue and adventure. In what other works, and other ways, can cities be stand-ins for the lengthy traveling quest of Tolkienesque fantasy?

Sunday July 15 

11:00 AM    F    Performing Books to Ourselves. Ellen Brody, Andy Duncan, James Patrick Kelly, Rosemary Kirstein, Ellen Kushner (leader). In a 2011 blog post, Daniel Abraham wrote, "Reading a book is a performance by an artist (the writer) for an audience (the reader)." But readers also perform works to themselves, imagining characters and settings and events, and perform works to others when reading aloud. In those cases, is the writer taking more of a directorial role, or is there a more complex synergy afoot, especially when we get into audiobooks, fiction podcasts, and other carefully produced performances? How does awareness of these layers of performance shape the ways that writers write and readers read?
 
ellenkushner: ("Suonare")
So pleased to be heading back to WisCon this year - we missed the last two, which seems so wrong, since WisCon's been one of the highlights of my year for, well, quite a long time.  Hope to see many friends there!

Here are the panels/parties/readings I'm assigned to - but feel free to stop me in the hallway any time for a chat (or even to sign a book or two); if I'm in a hurry, I'll just say so, and no hard feelings.  Don't be shy!  (Hmm, no Bordertown panels this year....I'd better hurry up & order my BORDERTOWN LIVES T-shirt so everyone knows where I stand!)

The Young Victorians : GROUP READINGFri, 4:00–5:15 pmMichelangelos
Tiffany Trent, Franny Billingsley, Ellen Kushner, Caroline Stevermer  
From the corridors of the Museum of Unnatural History to the Chime Child's swamps, through letters written in a London where the Experimental Arts are not quite the thing for a gentleman to practice . . . come hear what kind of mischief young adults can get up to when the corsets are tight and the passions are high! Kushner & Stevermer will delight your ears contrapuntally with the letters they wrote in character for their story in the forthcoming QUEEN VICTORIA'S BOOK OF SPELLS; Billingsley's breathtaking CHIME was a Norton & NBA nominee; Trent's forthcoming THE UNNATURALISTS is hailed by Tamora Pierce as "heart-wrenching, magical and fascinating."
Crossing boundaries and bending genres: Meet the Interstitial Arts Foundation Sat, 2:30–3:45 pmCaucus
  Larissa N. Niec, Ellen Kushner, Rose Lemberg, Shira Lipkin, JoSelle Vanderhooft 
The Interstitial Arts Foundation (IAF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study, support, and promotion of interstitial art: literature, music, visual and performance art found in-between categories and genres--art that crosses borders. One of the specific goals of the IAF is to foster conversations among artists, academics, critics, and enthusiasts--conversations in which art of all types can be spoken of as a continuum, rather than as a series of hermetically sealed genres. Currently, the IAF is seeking to grow and develop new projects. In this town meeting-style session, we seek input from (1) artists and writers about ways in which the IAF might be of value to them as they seek to promote their boundary-crossing work, and (2) readers and enthusiasts about needs they perceive for the support of literature and other art forms that expand the conventional boundaries of gender and other restricting borders.
I Didn't Really Mean to Write a Series participantSat, 9:00–10:15 pmCaucus
   Cassie Alexander, Alex Bledsoe, Dorothy Hearst, Ellen Kushner  
A novel sometimes engenders more stories in the same universe, with at least some of the same characters. Did you mean to write a series from the beginning? Or did the world take over your computer and the characters refuse to leave? Are series a good way to tell a story? What is the market like for such creations?
"Beyond Binary: Genderqueer & Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction" Book-Party Sun, 8:45 pmRoom 634
 Keyan Bowes, Brit Mandelo, Keffy R. M. Kehrli, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman 
This release party for the anthology "Beyond Binary: Genderqueer and Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction" will include readings by contributors, plus tea and cookies.

The SignOut (scheduled)Mon, 11:30 am–12:45 pmCapitol/Wisconsin

October 2014

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