On Sunday, September 4, at 2 pm Eastern time, the #FeministSF book chat on Twitter will be discussing Alcestis. Djibril Alayad of The Future Fire has kindly organized this chat and I am so looking forward to snooping and possibly participating! If you’ve read the book, please do join in — and even if you haven’t read the book, feel free to check out the conversation by searching for the #FeministSF hashtag on Twitter. You can contribute to the chat by posting a tweet which includes the #FeministSF hashtag.

You can also see a list of other books that are scheduled for future chats, or are being considered for scheduling, on the Feminist SF wiki.

Hope to see some of you on Twitter discussing the book!

I’m now in Wooster, Ohio, and have finally just about finished unpacking. I would kill for a papas, egg, and cheese taco from Tacodeli right now, but I’m enjoying the cool Ohio mornings (and sometimes, entire cool days). Everyone here is complaining about the heat, but after a month of 100+ weather in Austin, it feels heavenly to go for a run in a 65-degree breeze, even if the afternoons do get close to 90.

This summer is full of transitions, professional and personal, and I’m trying hard to get a bunch of writing done before the semester begins — so I may be a bit quiet around here. I hope to have time to post more about the courses I’m teaching this fall, though.

One quick bit of news: a few days ago, I was delighted to see this recommendation of Alcestis at After Ellen’s Across the Page. It makes me really happy to know that readers are continuing to discover the book.

First: Ed Battistella of Literary Ashland just posted an interview with me about Alcestis, Killingly, my dissertation, and numerous other topics. I read from Alcestis at Ashland’s wonderful Bloomsbury Books in 2010 and was interviewed for Ashland’s “Open Books, Open Minds” TV program when I was in town. (My parents retired to Ashland, and it’s one of my favorite places on earth.) Many thanks to Ed for the insightful questions!

Second: Diane Havens, the wonderful narrator of Iambik’s audiobook of Alcestis, answers five questions, some of which make me blush. Iambik is offering Alcestis at a 50% discount in June — enter the code “#jiam2011″ at when prompted at checkout.

Third: #YAsaves. I wish I had time to write up a full and thoughtful post about this, but since I’m swamped with moving preparations, course prep, and writing, I’ll just direct you to this excellent overview at Publishers Weekly and to Sherman Alexie’s heartbreaking and inspiring piece in the WSJ in response to Cox Gurdon’s classist stupidity. (It’s not just that Cox Gurdon dismisses teen readers who aren’t sheltered and privileged — it’s that she doesn’t even seem to know that other kids, less lucky kids, read. Or exist, for that matter.)

I didn’t mean to disappear for quite so long. First I had to finish the last few line edits on my dissertation and file it, officially; and then I wrote more Killingly, worked on finding a place to live in Wooster (and I finally have, after the house I thought I’d secured fell through), worked on course planning for fall, cut my hair short, flew to Oregon, and drove one of my family’s cars down to Austin, sharing the driving with my mother. Then I had a great book club meeting with a group of women in south Austin, for which I had to refresh my memory of all things Alcestis. May’s been quite the month.

Did you know that an early-2000s Toyota 4Runner and a late-80s Saab convertible have veeeeery different turning radii? Still getting used to that. I’d just achieved basic competence with manual driving in the Saab, enough that driving an automatic now feels strange (words I never thought I’d type!). Next I need to master the Toyota’s 4-wheel drive, before the Ohio winter, at least.

I thought I might be able to attend the Lambda Literary Awards this week, but the above circumstances and others conspired against it, so I’ll be cheering the ceremony on from Texas while my lovely editor Juliet Grames attends the actual shindig. And on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I’ll be spending time on campus again for the third and final TILTS conference of the year, which has an impressively varied lineup of speakers.

I’m back to working on Killingly, and I’m also back to course planning. Given all the noise about the goofy Family Radio apocalypse predictions, my post-apocalyptic & dystopian novel course feels trendier than ever — I’m excited to delve into those trends with my students and talk about their cultural underpinnings.

Soon, moving! And packing! Gah.

Chronologically, as it seems easiest:

Last Friday, I defended my dissertation in the Fleur Cowles Room at the Harry Ransom Center. (You want to follow that photo link, I promise.) Fleur Cowles was one of the sponsors of the internship I participated in at the Ransom Center, so it felt like a nice conclusion to my years as a graduate student to be in that pale-yellow room full of paintings of tigers and flowers and at least one unicorn. The defense itself went swimmingly, as did the dinner and drinks we decamped for afterward. It was really nice night.

This week, I finished up the line edits I’d made while re-reading the dissertation yet again before the defense, and yesterday I officially filed to graduate. A very strange feeling, I can tell you. But pleasant, too. I’m looking forward to being back in the classroom.

And then: last night, Alcestis won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction from the Publishing Triangle. I wasn’t able to get to New York to attend the ceremony, unfortunately, but I followed the live-tweets (!), and got a report from Soho’s Mark Doten, who attended on my behalf and accepted the award. I hear that some very nice things were said about the book, and I am so honored and touched. Here’s Lambda Literary’s lovely write-up of the awards ceremony, with a photo of the winners who were present.

On a sadder note, I was sorry to see earlier today that Joanna Russ has died after a series of strokes. If you haven’t read How to Suppress Women’s Writing, now’s a good time. (It continually makes me happy to know that there’s a UT Press edition of that book.) If nothing else, read the cover, which in itself is enough to get a good conversation started with students. I don’t know if I’ll have the chance to use the book or its cover next fall, but it’ll appear in one of my spring classes. For more about Russ and her literary career, see this excellent tribute at io9.

I’m still a bit dazed from the last few weeks, but I’ll be moving on soon to more course-planning and Killingly-writing. And planning my move to Wooster!

Over the weekend, Diane Havens, the wonderful narrator of the Iambik audiobook of Alcestis, and Miette Elm of Iambik asked me excellent questions about the book, writing, and audiobooks, including some Proust-questionnaire-style inquiries about my favorite sounds. If you follow the Q&A link, you’ll see a discount code for all Iambik’s titles through the end of the month, too.

I’m in the last push toward finishing up my degree right now, but I’ve been saving up blog material. (And occasionally then deciding not to write a post on it because it was just too annoying to think about in any more detail, cf. Ginia Bellafante’s remarkably silly “girls can’t possibly like Lorrie Moore and The Hobbit at the same time!” review of Game of Thrones and her point-missing follow-up piece. Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

I have managed to go to a couple of readings lately, though — last night was Russell Banks, reading from his forthcoming Lost Memory of Skin, and I’m hoping to make it to Chimamanda Adichie’s reading on Thursday, also at the Joynes Reading Room at UT. A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to attend the benefit reading for Dean Young held here in Austin. Dean has since received the heart transplant he needed, but he and his family still need support. If you haven’t (or even if you have), do donate here.

Because here’s the whole thing: Alcestis in audiobook form, in non-DRM mp3 format, for $6.99. I am just so excited about this. If you listen to it, I’d love to hear what you think!

And here are Iambik’s tags for the book, as part of its metadata:

marriage greek-mythology death women gods-goddesses sapphic-love sensuality pomegranate underworld hero

Pretty perfect.

The lovely people at Iambik Audio have posted the prologue to Alcestis, read by Diane Havens. The full audiobook will be released very soon, according to their tumblr. I’ve been looking forward to this, and was really excited to hear Diane’s interpretation. As I said on Twitter, I’ve gotten really used to my own intonations, especially for the prologue — it’s the part of the book I’ve read out loud most frequently. It’s fascinating to hear how someone else chooses different emphases; it makes the writing sound mine and not-mine, at the same time. I can’t wait to hear more of the recording.

In addition to yesterday’s Lambda Literary news, Alcestis has also been chosen as a finalist for the Publishing Triangle‘s Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, along with Michael Alenyikov’s Ivan and Misha and Catherine Kirkwood’s Cut Away. Here’s what the Publishing Triangle site says about the Edmund White award:

Inaugurated in May 2006, this award recognizes outstanding first novels or story collections by LGBT authors. It is unique among the Triangle Literary Awards, in that women and men compete in the same category. The award is open to first-book authors of any age whose work contains queer themes. Writers can have published works of nonfiction, and their short fiction can have previously appeared in a published anthology. The book nominated must be the author’s first work of book-length fiction.

This award honors the distinguished Edmund White, who won the very first Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1990. White is the author, among many other works, of A Boy’s Own Story, States of Desire, A Married Man, Fanny, and Arts and Letters. The winner receives $1,000.

Past winners are:

2010 — Lori Ostlund, The Bigness of the World
2009 — Evan Fallenberg, Light Fell
2008 — Myriam Gurba, Dahlia Season
2007 — Martin Hyatt, A Scarecrow’s Bible
2006 — Mack Friedman, Setting the Lawn on Fire

The Publishing Triangle’s judges have picked 22 books in categories including Lesbian Nonfiction, Gay Nonfiction, Lesbian Poetry, Gay Poetry, and LBGT Fiction. I am thrilled that Alcestis is included in this group and am very much looking forward to reading the books on the list that I haven’t gotten to yet (also true for the Lammy list, of course, though it’s much longer!). If you’re looking for even more amazing LGBTQ books to read, don’t forget to check out the Band of Thebes Best LGBT Books of 2010 survey. (I picked Emma Donoghue’s lovely Inseparable, which just so happens to be a finalist in the Publishing Triangle’s Lesbian Nonfiction category and for the LBGT Nonfiction Lambda!)

Sadly, as the Publishing Triangle Awards ceremony is scheduled for six days after my planned dissertation defense date, I’m not sure I’ll make it up to New York — I’ll probably be stuck in Austin making sure I’m ready to officially file my dissertation. But I’ll try to do something glam here to celebrate this marvelous event! I’m so excited to be a part of it, even in absentia, and thrilled that Alcestis has received a finalist nod. Congratulations to all the other finalists for the Publishing Triangle and Lambda Literary Awards!

Which is, as I was just saying to a friend on Twitter, a nice change from the rest of the news this week. (Can’t stop thinking about the workers who stayed at the Fukushima plant.)

But on to the good news: Alcestis is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Debut Fiction! When originally nominated, the book was also listed in the “bisexual” category, and even though it ended up being chosen as a finalist in lesbian fiction, I want to thank Lambda Literary for their creation of bisexual and transgender categories. (Notably, the transgender category included enough entries to require splitting into fiction/nonfiction categories this year, just like the bisexual category did last year!) As a bisexual writer, it’s nice to be included, especially as the Lambda nomination pool gets bigger — the press release notes that this year’s crop included “more than 520 titles represented from about 230 publishers.” How exciting!

The awards will be announced at the Lambda Awards ceremony on May 26 — tickets have just gone on sale. I’m not sure if I’ll be there or not, but I’d love to go.

And now, back to formatting my dissertation! A life of glamor, I tell you.