PUGGY'S HILL

I'm delighted to announce that Delia & I will be returning to Hollins University to teach again in Summer 2015 for their MA/MFA Program in Children's Literature - and that Terri Windling joins us there as 2015 Writer-in-Residence!

Now, here's the catch:  In order to study with me, you need to be at least a second year student.  Which means you must apply now for this year's program - deadline March 15th, 2014 ** EXTENDED NOW TO APRIL 15th!** - so that you can begin classes this summer. (Terri & Delia will be available to everyone in 2015. This is just for people who want to take my Advanced Seminar.  And there's nothing to stop you from applying now for 2015!)

Now, don't get your knickers in a twist. You probably are "good enough." The program encourages all levels of students. Seriously.  And there is Financial Aid.  It's a 6-week summer semester, a chance to find out just what you're capable of; and during the year, you can acquire credits through on-line courses.

If you wait to start classes in 2015, you'll get to take Delia Sherman's amazing "Introduction to Fantasy Writing" class, aka "How to read (and think) like a writer!" I didn't think such writing could be taught . . . until I inherited some of her students last year, in my Writing Seminar, and saw how far they'd come since studying with her. Delia works with Fairy Tale, MG fiction, and with the inside of your head and the outside of your pages.

As 2015 Writer-in-Residence, Terri Windling will be lecturing, meeting individually with students to read mss. and give feedback . . . and, of course, hanging out in the Writers' Livingroom (which I founded back in 2011) for the first 2 weeks of this 6-week semester.

I will be teaching a 4-6 person Advanced Seminar again in 2015:  Essentially, a 6-week workshop on how to get your thesis - i.e. your novel - to move forward and keep going.  I work hard to create a supportive atmosphere, with an emphasis students helping each other, not "critiquing" to show off. Both Delia & I keep office hours, and really enjoy meeting one-on-one outside of class.

You also get to take academic classes with the likes of the truly amazing Karen Coats, Brian Attebery, and more - in fact, if you want an M.A. instead of an M.F.A., your primary classes will be with them.  But you still do some Creative Writing for your degree - and if you're an MFA, you still get to take some Academic classes.

And this year, for the first time, Hollins is offering a combined MFA in Children's Book Writing and Illustrating! Artist faculty Ruth Sanderson, Ashley Wolff & Elizabeth Dulemba have become very dear friends; you'll love studying with them.  In fact, much as we love teaching, our other reasons for returning again & again to Hollins are (a) It's in the Blue Ridge Mountains, an area rich with folklore & traditional music (Friday nights! at the Floyd Country Store!!); (b) the chance to hang out all summer with the above-mentioned colleagues, also including Hillary Homzie, Lisa Fraustino, Chip Sullivan, and many more……all creative, funny, charming & supportive teachers who have become dear friends.

Come join us?

Here's how.

**And - because one does not enter grad school lightly or precipitously: Say "Ellen sent me," and our fabulous Program Director will accept applications through April 15th!

...after 8 glorious days in Western Massachusetts, housesitting for friends and riding my (well, their) bike into town along a black bike trail already streaked with yellow leaves (and let me tell you about the day I waited til after sundown, to discover that it wasn't lit....woooo-ooooo! I am brave), making endless cups of tea and pacing the kitchen and bending the ears of various pals with my writerly angst.

At the end of which, I can safely say that the new novel is well underway.  Not as many pages as I could wish, but a very strong sense of who these people are and where they're going, and pretty much how they'll get there.  And some scenes I like a lot.  I've got to turn back to some more pressing deadlines, now, but I think I've got what I need to return to this with vigor (instead of the previous sense of vague dread and impending despair) when I'm done with them.

I will spare you my meditations on what a tremendously inspiring and encouraging speaker I am when it comes to other peoples' process and WIP, and how dismally and utterly I can fail to take my own advice.  Really, it's quite remarkable.  Sometimes I amaze even myself.

Tomorrow morning, I hit New York Comic Con, where I'll be interviewing Wendy & Brian Froud on their latest book - and first official collaboration - TROLLS.  It's stunning (and, despite it slenderness, it weighs a ton!).  Terri Windling's husband Howard Gayton - and his creative partner Rex van Ryn -  interviewed Brian & Wendy this summer, in the village they all live in together.  It's a lovely discussion on collaboration.  You can read it here.

Me, I'm on a collaborative streak:  Just went over the page proofs for the story I wrote last year with Caroline Stevermer for the upcoming Datlow/Windling anthology, QUEEN VICTORIA'S BOOK OF SPELLS . . . halfway through recording the audiobook for THE FALL OF THE KINGS (which I wrote with Delia, pretty early in our relationship) - D & I have 2 meeting this week with our director/producer, Sue Zizza, about music & casting for the "illuminated" version . . . .Am working with Ysabeau Wilce (yaayyy!) on something for a Jonathan Strahan anthology . . . . and Terri Windling & I are talking about drafting something together when she's here in November for FaerieCon.

I like working with other people.  When it's the right project, and they're the right ones.  I've also had some real stinkers of collaborations, so it's not like I'm the dream partner for everyone (nor they for me).  But when it's right, it's divine!  Maybe another reason I am drawn to theater.

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

Saturday July 14

Sunday July 15 

SATURDAY
10:00 AM: From Elfland to Poughkeepsie:  Should Fantasy Sound Like Fantasy?* 
Ellen Klages, Ellen Kushner(Moderator - ohhhh, the power!), Shawna McCarthy, Terri-Lynne Defino, Susan Forest

Ursula K. Le Guin argued [in her essay "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie"] that epic or mythic fantasy should have a language that helps the story keep a distance from the ordinary. Does most epic fantasy today continue that tradition?  Is it really a necessary part of epic fiction?

Ha.  I did this panel 2 yrs ago at Montreal WorldCon with Guy Kay as moderator! It was a great panel then, and I hope I can come even close to doing as good a job.  It's certainly a subject that fascinates me.  

1-2 pm, room # t.b.a.

Pub party for deliasherman 's new novel, THE FREEDOM MAZE!
 
A reading/tea party with Louisiana specialties:  sweet ICED tea, Hubig's pies (shipped overnight from New Orleans), and pralines (handmade by Tiffany Trent) . . . and, best of all,
the very first, hot-off-the-press advance COPIES OF THE FREEDOM MAZE will arrive (shipping willing) for sale! 

Hollins University has posted the Keynote Speech that Delia Sherman & I gave in June at the Children's Literature Association Conference that was held there this year.  We decided to give parallel psycho-auto-biographies on how reading fantasy as children shaped our lives.  Here's the link, if you'd like to watch it:


http://youtu.be/dTU7veSf6ps


Delia & I both taught in the Hollins Graduate program in Children's Literature this summer, and enjoyed it hugely.  We didn't realize when we signed on that we'd get the chance to participate in the CLA conference!  Wish we'd had more time to hang out and talk with people there, but we were so focused on polishing our speech that we missed a lot of good stuff.  Once the speech was over, we had a great time.

The Witches of Lublin gets it NYC premiere tonight on the legendary indie station WBAI, 99.5 FM.  Show goes on at midnight, and then at 1:00 a.m. I'll be there in the studio with the great actor Tim Jerome - a Broadway veteran who brings such depth & humanity to the part of the Rabbi in our show - and my beloved co-author Elizabeth Schwartz (through the magic of technology - she's phoning in from San Diego), all hosted by our dear Jim Freund, who so kindly made this possible.

The 1:00 - 2:00 a.m. interview segment is a CALL-IN show - so even out-of-towners (from all over the globe, yet!) can listen LIVE online and phone in your questions & comments.

For a complete list of stations scheduled to air the show, look here.  And remember that most of them will allow you to listen online.

Tomorrow (Thurs. 4/14) I'll be on at noon on WUNC in Chapel Hill, NC with producer/director Sue Zizza & co-author/music director Yale Strom, being interviewed by Frank Stasio on his show The State of Things.  Then they air the show Sunday night at 6:00 pm.