Dropping in quickly to recommend Kelly Link’s new collection of short stories, Pretty Monsters. I got to hear Kelly read a wonderful story from this collection — “The Wrong Grave” — when she came to the UT two years ago during a visit to Austin for World Fantasy. If you click the link, you can read that story online, to get a sense of how lovely, weird, and thrilling Kelly’s stories are. And then, of course, you should buy the book!

The wonderful Kate Elliott has written a great essay giving advice about the business of writing to first-time fantasy and sf novelists — including yours truly, since I was fortunate enough to meet her at WFC last year and asked her about this via email later.

I was on a panel at the Intellectual Property bookstore next to UT yesterday, talking about the experience of a first publication. (Insert grateful wave at Small Beer Press folks here!) This panel was organized by UT’s Undergraduate Writing Center, where I worked last year, and went pretty darn well — the other two people on the panel had more publication credits, but many of the current MFA/MA students in the audience were in about the same career stage as I am, so the difference in experience worked well. What I enjoyed most, though, was the chance to talk about writing for a while. Since I finished the novel and got my master’s, I haven’t had many chances to do so — other than with a few close friends, and T., and my parents, while I was working on The White Silk Tent this summer. I don’t have much time to read writing blogs during the school year, or even to read books not related to my dissertation topic.

Anyway, it was lovely to read Kate’s essay, for just those very reasons. It gave me, along with some excellent advice, another chance to think and talk about writing.

Last Monday night, Kelly Link gave a wonderful reading at the Joynes Reading Room at UT. It was followed by one of the most interesting Q&As I’ve ever attended, pleasant chatting over food (provided by the Joynes Reading Room, hurrah), and then an even more delightful dinner at El Chile. Kelly read a story called “The Wrong Grave,” which will be published next year. I think it set the tone for the evening — when we weren’t talking about publishing, at dinner, we mostly told creepy stories (of ghosts and of brains, which can be just as scary). It was, in fact, a lovely night.

Tomorrow morning I present a paper on Charlotte Charke in my bibliography class, and then it’s grading, more paper-writing, and more grading until mid-December. I promise to post at least once more before Christmas.

WFC is happening in Austin this weekend! I’ll be there on Friday and Saturday. I have no idea what to expect, as this is my first con, but I’m looking forward to it (and to meeting lots of people I’ve only corresponded with before!). If you’re coming to town for WFC and haven’t yet checked out the unofficial guide to Austin that M. Thomas and I put together, do!

If you’re hanging around Austin after the con, or if you’re local, please also come to Kelly Link’s reading at the Joynes Reading Room (on the UT campus) on Monday, November 6, at 7:30 pm. Kelly will be reading from recent work and answering questions about writing and publishing — and I personally guarantee that it will be a fabulous event.

One thing to note: The Joynes Reading Room is located in room 007 of the Carothers building on the UT Campus, which is essentially in the basement of the building. Visitors must enter through the east (courtyard) entrance.

Hope to see some of you there!

I ended up seeing The Prestige last weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. (No spoilers here, just general comments.) It’s a big movie in some ways, grandiose, and still not quite as good as Memento — it’s not as sharp or strange or haunting, less disturbingly possible — but mean, tight, and clever. It mostly made up for the awfulness of Batman Begins.

I’ve seen some comments about the movie feeling hollow, or failing to earn its emotional resolution. If someone could point out to me what emotional resolution Nolan was trying to earn, I’d be intrigued. It’s a story about life-warping obsession; it’s hollow for a reason.

I wanted one more turn in the story, though. Or, rather, I wanted the movie itself to pull a final sly trick on me, something I’d only realize later. Did anybody else want that, too?

My life-warping obsession, these days, is the eighteenth century. Here’s what I’m working on now:

1. Charlotte Charke project.
2. Project for Lit. of Maritime Empire class — possibly Henry Neville, possibly Samuel Foote?
3. Teaching, as always. Lots of essays coming in tomorrow morning.
4. Label for small class-designed exhibit in the HRC: ellipses in Evelina.
5. Kelly Link’s upcoming reading! (November 6, 7:30 pm, the Joynes Reading Room at UT. More details very soon.) Wheee.
6. C18 interest group for the department? First idea: reading Clarissa in real time.

Someday, this blog will contain regularly-updated content. And by “someday” I meant “possibly in December, when I have a moment to think.” Right now, I have rather too much grading and reading to allow for original thought. So: here are a few lists. Some are hierarchical; some are not.

My favorite book-ogling experiences in the HRC thus far:

1. Chaucer, Cardigan manuscript of the Canterbury Tales.
2. Two of Oscar Wilde’s letters, which I transcribed for class earlier this week — both were just a sheet front and back, written from France, before his trial. In the first he asks a friend for a loan of ten pounds; in the second, to a different friend, he explains that he’s switched hotels because the previous one kept sending his bill up every morning with his coffee. Poor Oscar. He had lovely big messy handwriting, only a few words to a line.
3. Shakespeare, First Folio, Norton facsimile (as previously explained).
4. Emily Dickinson, Poems, 1891. Like a cracked whip on the page. One of the editions had a facsimile of a poem in the first few pages — and, shockingly, her dashes are just little dots! She had a big sprawly script, too — for some reason I’d always thought of her as someone who would’ve written in little cramped letters. I’m glad I was wrong.
5. Defoe, Colonel Jack: married FIVE TIMES to FOUR WHORES, says the long title, the capital letters rubricated. I think Defoe had some kind of rule for himself: the last phrase in a long title must contain a complete falsehood. (Crusoe does this, too — “rescued by pyrates,” my ass.)
6. Taylor’s Workes, with a triple dedication, and each dedicatee given his own delightfully obsequious epigram.
7. Hooke’s Micrographia — the illustrations!
8. Johnson’s Dictionary — the heft!

Noteworthy events of the last month or so:

• Having my first conference paper proposal — on the romance plot and Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote — accepted for the ASECS conference in March. There was much rejoicing.
• Finding an excellent space (the Joynes Reading Room) for Kelly Link’s upcoming reading at UT. More on this as it approaches.
• Having another dissertation idea pop into my head. Er, hello.
• Follett opening their first new flagship bookstore, Intellectual Property, right next to campus. They have literary criticism in their clearance section! And they gave me a free tote bag. I’m easily won.

The best things I’ve bought at the farmer’s market recently:

• squash blossoms (which I cooked this way, with the addition of a bit of cornmeal to the batter — they were excellent over rice with teriyaki sauce)
• banana and cinnamon empanada baked by a local Brazilian restaurant
• local spinach — I was in spinach withdrawal
• blueberry bran muffin

With T.’s encouragement, I bought okra today — at the co-op rather than the farmer’s market, but it’s local stuff. I’ve only eaten it twice in my life. This must mean something about my level of Texas acculturation, but I’m not quite sure what.

M. Thomas and I have put together an unofficial guide to Austin for those planning to attend World Fantasy in November. The WFC site has a small official guide to Austin for con-goers, but it’s focused almost entirely on the Arboretum, which is… well, it’s a mall. So: here’s a list of things to know, do, see, and eat in Austin that do not involve malls.

Most of the credit goes to M., who designed and is hosting the site — but be sure to click the link for the second page, wherein you can reap the benefit of my obsession with local restaurants. (Most restaurants have websites, which are easily found by asking Uncle Google.)

As M. notes, this site is in no way affiliated with the WFC, etc., etc. But it has a flying armadillo on it.

For future reference, you can also find the guide link on my sidebar (and my newly uploaded index page). Check it out — and let M. or I know if you have questions, suggestions, etc.