Sunday, April 29, 2012

April Brings Growth and Transformation

BroadlySpeakingApril2012.mp3 Listen on Posterous
Welcome to the April edition of Broadly Speaking! Spring is a time of transition and growth, so this month is all about changelings and transformation. Your host, Julia Rios has three conversations with guests who visit these themes in their work.

First, Andrea Hairston, one of this year's WisCon guests of honor, talks about her Tiptree Award winning novel, Redwood and Wildfire. The story is set at the turn of the twentieth century, when entertainment is undergoing a major transformation from primarily live theatre to motion pictures. Andrea's characters also transform themselves in several ways with the help of stories, music, and conjure magic.

Next, Shira Lipkin talks about her Rhysling nominated poem, "The Changeling's Lament", which uses the changeling theme as a metaphor for genderqueerness. Shira also speaks about her own experience with that, and the thrill of discovering that she wasn't alone in feeling the way she does.

Finally, Cat Rambo talks about a few of her short stories, particularly focusing on "Clockwork Fairies". This story, like Shira's poem and Andrea's novel, visits the concept of Otherness, as the heroine is a black woman who is more inclined to be mechanical than ladylike in Steampunk Victorian England.

Andrea's characters say that we have to make the world we want to inhabit, and all of this month's podcast contributors agree! The conversations are full of hope for the future and signs of growth and positive change.

Monday, April 16, 2012

April: Changelings and Transformations

Apr2012BroadPod.mp3 Listen on Posterous
Welcome to the April edition of BroadPod with host Jody Lynn Nye. This month’s stories deal with changelings and transformation. We have a fascination with metamorphosis. There’s a deep mystery in the physical way in which a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, but what does the change do to the perception of the butterfly itself? And what if it was able to change back and forth between its two stages? Our authors are Carol Berg, EF Watkins, Kelly Harmon and Danielle Ackley-McPhail, with a bonus reading by Ann Wilkes.  Each delve into the subject in fascinating ways.

First up, from Carol Berg, an excerpt from her story, "Transformation".
Seyonne has been a slave for sixteen years, almost half his life, and has lost everything of meaning to him: his dignity, the people and homeland he loves, and the Warden's power he used to defend an unsuspecting world from demon ravaging.  With strict self-discipline he forces himself to exist only in the present moment. But from the hour he is sold to the arrogant heir to the Derzhi Empire, Seyonne's uneasy peace begins to crumble, and when he discovers a demon lurking in the Derzhi court, he must rediscover his past.

Next, from E. F. Watkins, in an excerpt from Danu's Children, a man discovers a new and startling aspect to a woman with whom he is infatuated. On a moonlit night, in a deserted spot, she seems to change into another form that expresses her true powers...or is it just a clever trick to make him into a believer?

Another story of transformation, from Kelly Harmon, “Selk Skin Deep,” a tale inspired by the true-life tragedy of the U.S.S. Forrestal, an aircraft carrier which exploded off the coast of Vietnam in 1967.  The story is about Cade Owen, who joined the U.S. Navy trying to alleviate the boredom from his nearly immortal life.  Cade is a selkie – a shape shifter who is both man and seal.

Our last reader, is Danielle Ackley-McPhail. In "The Runes", Camirel, adopted daughter of the last dragon, uses her transformation to seek out emberlings, the eggs of dragons removed from the earth before their time, confused by Man as no more than common gems. She encounters more than she expects on finding her first emberling.

And our special bonus track is Ann Wilkes, reading her flash fiction story, "Jolaneering", in which a man finds himself at the mercy of a precocious alien toddler, who just happens to be a changeling. This  first appeared in the last issue of Nanobison, an online speculative fiction magazine.  And if you ever thought you had a tough babysitting job, you’ll thank your lucky stars it wasn’t like this!


Posted via email from The Broad Pod

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Trisha's Adventures in Time Travel

Three weeks ago:

"So, Katie, I'm leaving Taiwan on Monday, April 2nd, so pick me up at Logan on Tuesday, at 6PM.  Ok?"

"Ok!  See you on Tuesday!"


This week:

Text to Katie in Detroit: "I'm back in the USA. Plane leaving Detroit on time - c u at 6. Still on 4 Hunger Games?" [Ok, so I can't italicize in texts, really. Not the point…]

Text to Katie in Boston at about 5:35 PM :  "Plane just landed! C U soon!"

6:10 PM:  "Got luggage. Am outside @ end of the Active Pickup lane."

6:45 PM, call to Katie - goes right to voicemail: "Um, did you forget me? I'm at Logan, waiting for you."

Haven't actually gotten any text responses, and right to voicemail?  Uh-oh!  After several more texts and more straight-to-voicemail messages, I call her mom, my old chiropractor.  After some conversation, Dr. Patty says:

"Doesn't Katie work on Mondays? She said she was picking you up on Tuesday at 6:00 PM."

I reply: "Yeah, Tuesday 6PM.  I know she works on Mondays.  I'm here."

Dr. Patty:  "Trish… today is Monday."

Me: "What do you mean?  I left Taiwan on Monday; it's Tuesday."

Dr. Patty, very patiently: "No, Trish, it's Monday…"

So, Trish learns you actually GAIN a day when you fly back to the U.S. from Asia over the International Date Line.  Who'd a thunk?  Ok… maybe everyone but me.

And clearly, my jet lag… because Katie and I managed to finish a project she'd planned on having done for my return on Tuesday… on Tuesday.  And go see the Hunger Games (Yes, it was awesome!)  Then, I crashed and managed to sleep until after 3PM on Wednesday… where I missed one of my weight meetings because it moved, and I received no notice.  And then proceeded to do some grocery shopping and finish another project that Needed To Be Done for me to function in the house… and then I managed to get online and go through my HUGE PILE OF EMAIL from midnight to about 1:30AM. 

All y'all will start getting your responses from me in the next few days.

And I need to finish editing Touch of Death and my editing read of Triangles.  Oh - and there's my tutoring work, and some short stories that are due…

Vacation?  Yeah, it was fabulous… and I'll talk about it in dribbles and spurts between all the deadlines that got pushed back three weeks. ;)

 
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