I will be attending my first World Fantasy Convention in Arlington, Virginia from November 6-9. They have me scheduled to do a reading on Saturday, November 8th, and though I haven’t narrowed down exactly what I’ll be reading (at this moment, I’m thinking the selections will include dwarves, angels of death, and Baba Yaga).
Reading: Valya Dudycz Lupescu
Time: 8pm-8:30pm, Nov. 8, Arlington
I hope to see some of you there!
Summer is over. It flew quickly by, punctuated by treasured moments: midnight speakeasy reading at Readercon, adventures on New York rooftops, exploration of a haunted Chicago hotel, visitation with dead gangsters in Chicago cemeteries and jazz clubs, coffee chats on the patio, and conversations over wine in the warm summer evenings.
The rest of the days were filled in with precious time spent with the kids: full moons rising over lake Michigan, painting in the garden, swimming in the afternoons, the consumption of many ice cream cones, and dancing barefoot in the backyard.
The time spent on the laptop was mostly spent writing–a few stories and poems, as well as fun forays into nonfiction:
“How a persecuted dance genius bound Ukraine to Philly” (My Arts story for the Philadelphia Weekly about Voloshky artistic director Taras Lewyckyj’s journey to preserve and recreate the magic of Ukrainian choreographer Anatolij Krivokhija’s 1977 Yatran performance.)
“Erasure’s Angelic Ecstasy: The dance-pop icons celebrate a new album at the Borgata ,” (My interview with singer Andy Bell of Erasure for the Atlantic City Weekly.)
Now the leaves are ablaze in my favorite shades, and as always happens in the Fall, the stories still unwritten begin to clamor louder for my attention. Exciting projects are in the works, and I’m in that fun “researching/plotting stage” of the next novel (more on that soon).
Halloween is around the corner, and on its heels, my first World Fantasy Convention in Arlington, Virginia, where I will be reading on November 8th (details in my next blog post). I’m looking forward to seeing writer friends I haven’t seen since Midsummer, some of whom I haven’t seen since Spring.
That brings me quickly up to date, leaving out so much that I may yet post in snippets on Tumblr in the way of photos and captions. There’s a link to my Tumblr on my website, but I’ll also place it here: http://valya-dudycz-lupescu.tumblr.com/
In the meantime, may the rest of your October be filled with the best kinds of magic…
It’s summer, and so I’ve started reading The Hobbit to the kids before bedtime. Even the youngest is entranced, her imagination exploding with hobbits and dwarves. I love to read beautiful writing, well-crafted sentences, dramatic passages, poetic phrases. It’s a joy; and as a writer, I try to learn something from the work, even as I say the words aloud to the captive audience of my children.
My parents read to us before bed, and I loved it. As soon as I got to college and learned about author readings, I was entranced! What a joy to hear the words of beloved writers spoken aloud. Similarly, I love audiobooks–to sit or walk or drive and listen as the stories come alive. It feels decadent, because I’m doing none of the work, just listening to the luscious words and watching the pictures in my mind’s eye.
Recently, I’ve been on a short story kick, so I looked up short story anthologies that were available as audiobooks. I wanted to share two that I really enjoyed. The stories are excellent and well-narrated:
The Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, a “super-duper triple issue, comprised ten key selections (most of the contents, actually) of FSF‘s September issue and the forthcoming double October/November issue” 2003. All very different, there are some real gems in those issues, including stories by Gene Wolfe, Joe Haldeman, Terry Bisson, and more.
Naked City, edited by the wonderful Ellen Datlow, includes stories by Peter Beagle, John Crowley, Ellen Kushner, Jeffrey Ford, and so many others. Maybe it’s from growing up in Chicago, but I love stories that feature cities as characters or integral backdrops, and this anthology has a fantastic range of responses to the “naked city.” I enjoyed all of them, but I think my favorite may be Delia Sherman’s “How the Pooka Came to New York City.”
While not a short story, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Neil Gaiman’s newest novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane (which recently reached #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List!)
I already had the pleasure of reading the novel (you can read my Goodreads review here), but I was especially looking forward to hearing it read.
If you have attended one of Neil’s readings or listened to an audiobook that he narrated, you quickly get the music of his voice in your head. I think that it gets to the point where you can read the words and hear him there in your mind’s ear, because he is as much a storyteller as he is a writer. In words and performance, he knows how and when to build tension, to make you feel unexpected and conflicting emotions, to surprise you, to scare you, and to create a genuine empathy for characters who come to life in brilliant dialog.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is one of his finest so far, and I could not wait to hear Neil read it aloud. I was not disappointed. It’s wonderful. If people loved the novel, they will cherish the audiobook, because the intimacy, honesty, and raw nostalgia of this mythic, yet very human, tale are even more compelling when listening to Neil’s reading.
xxo
