For those who may be reading this who haven't heard of them: Bordertown was a shared-world series created in 1985 by Terri Windling and Mark Arnold. This was the true precursor of the "Urban Fantasy" movement, a literary sub-genre where the familiar tropes of the fantasy story - elves, magic, glamours, and the power of love and music - intersected with a tough, gritty urban setting and fully developed, three-dimensional characters. They were also, interestingly, consciously targeted at both adult readers as well as what we'd now call "Young Adult" readers, all in a time well before the emergence of Harry Potter and the like, making the series doubly ground-breaking. As Holly Black eloquently said in a panel (and which I'm paraphrasing here): "...everyone writing Urban Fantasy owes a word of thanks to the Bordertown series".
I wholeheartedly agree.
My own history with Bordertown is very personal (buy me a few drinks at a conference sometime and I'm sure you can pry the whole, sordid story out of me), but suffice to say that I'm excited almost beyond the capacity for words that Ellen and Holly have somehow managed to rejuvenate the Bordertown franchise. I was lucky enough to get my grubby mitts on an advance reader copy of the collection (thank you, Holly!), and was thrilled to see stories from such B'town alum as Charles de Lint, Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Jane Yolen and Terri Windling herself mixed with the work of amazing new writers who came after the series went dormant almost 13 years ago: Corey Doctorow; Catherynne M. Valente; Janni Lee Simner; Christopher Barzak; and others.
I’m reading the book now and will put up a review soon – check back here in a week or so. In the meantime, mark your calendars to remind yourself to look for Welcome to Bordertown in May of 2011 from Random House!
I spent the weekend attending the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus. This annual event is held for publishing professionals from all over the globe, and is where deals in Fantasy and Horror publishing are made for the upcoming year. Oh, and for fans (who can afford the hefty membership price, that is...) and fellow writers, it’s also a wonderful opportunity to meet legendary contributors in the field and to hear them talk about all the basic fundamentals of writing.
As an event, it’s quite frankly wonderful: this year, I was able to meet and talk with authors Walter Jon Williams, Mike Stackpole, Delia Sherman, L.E. Modessitt, Gene Wolfe, Steve Donaldson, Holly Black and a host of others. I also got to meet (or to meet again) editor and publisher luminaries like Ellen Kushner, Gordon Van Gelder, Gardner Dozois, Ellen Datlow, and Tom Doherty. There were also plenty of new and fresh faces, all belonging to writers and editors I’ve never met before, who I won’t list in details here (suffice to say, thanks to you all for your witty conversation and your many, many tips on the craft and business of writing). Truly, there isn’t a better place for any serious author of Horror or Fantasy literature than this gathering.
That said, just as in previous years I’ve attended WFC, I did get somewhat overwhelmed halfway through the event. There’s just something… intimidating… something humbling in the primal sense of the word by the act of walking through rooms populated by such talent. It can (and does) take the breath away.
Bottom line: World Fantasy ain't a place for the faint-of-heart.. YES everyone's wonderful and YES they're encouraging, but... damn. It's just difficult to talk to an author with 25+ novels under their belt, books I've literally grown up reading and not ask yourself tough questions like "What the hell am I doing, thinking I can write this shit?" I did finally get my head together in time to attend some great panels on Sunday, but apologies to anyone I may have been speaking with on Saturday afternoon, particularly, if I looked distracted or scatterbrained – it wasn’t you; it was just my brain melting, and I really did enjoy meeting you all.
Just ran across an interesting article over on Overthinking It titled "Why Strong Female Characters Are Bad For Women". It's got some interesting points, particularly for you writerly types who, I know, are always on the hunt for interesting characters. His thesis, and I agree with it, is that what the world needs is not more "strong" (as in man-like) female characters, but rather more "weak" (as in flawed) ones. Here's a quote:"This Super Strong Female Character is almost like a Mary Sue, except instead of being perfect in every way because she’s a stand-in for the author, she’s perfect in every way so the male audience will want to bang her and so the female audience won’t be able to say, “Tsk tsk, what a weak female character!” It’s a win-win situation.
Except no."
Read more HERE....
