Honoring Gene Wolfe

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Last weekend I sent out the first announcements about the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame’s Evening to Honor Gene Wolfe. I haven’t been this excited about an event since my book launch last October.

There’s a question often asked at parties and dinners long before it became popular as an internet meme:

“Whom would you invite to your dream dinner party?”

Sometimes the question is posed to allow for historical figures. Other times it includes fictional characters. Sometimes it’s limited to only five people, or to a single category like authors or musicians, comic book characters or holy people. The premise is basically the same: given the opportunity, what interesting people would you choose to invite to a party?

An Evening to Honor Gene Wolfe is a bit like my dream dinner party: Gene Wolfe, Neil Gaiman, Gary K. Wolfe, Peter Straub, Michael Dirda, Audrey Niffenegger, Michael Swanwick, David Hartwell, Luis Urrea,  Jody Lynn Nye, Patrick O’Leary, and Larry Santoro (plus there are more to be announced soon).

          

These intelligent, creative, and talented people are gathering at the fantastic Sanfilippo Estate to honor the incredible storyteller and talented writer, Gene Wolfe. Most famous for his epic series The Book of the New Sun, Gene’s writing is smart, beautiful, and stretches beyond the limitations of genre to create unforgettable characters and provocative stories.

“Wolfe is a writer for the thinking reader; he will reward anyone searching for intelligence, crafted prose, involving stories, and atmospheric detail. He is the heir of many literary traditions—pulp stories, fantasy, adventure stories of all kinds, and serious literature—and he makes use of all of them.” ~Pamela Sargent, Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers

Alongside our guests, characters from Gene’s short stories in their Steampunk finest will peruse Sanfilippo’s collections of antique music boxes and gambling machines, Tiffany lamps and phonographs, 65 coin-operated pianos and a street clock that stands 20 feet tall. Not to mention a 1881 Grant Steam Locomotive.

It’s a fitting backdrop for a wonder-filled evening.

Did I mention it’s a dinner party with many of my favorite people?

That means you are invited. Hope to see you in the shadow of the 1890 European Eden Palais Carousel.

Register for An Evening to Honor Gene Wolfe at the Sanfilippo Estate in Barrington Hills, IL on Eventbrite

Words ripe and juicy

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Words.

When I see light hit the tree branches during a December sunset on a particularly calm day, and it reminds me of the way life is fragile and hope is present even if for a fleeting moment, I try to translate it into words.

When my husband is lying on an ER table during a heart attack in the middle of the night, pale but joking with nurses, and at the same time asking to talk with our oldest daughter on the phone (“just in case”), I want to translate it into words.

Maybe it’s because words help me: to make sense, to share, to save any given moment. I know friends who do this with photography, “capturing” life.  For me it’s words. It has always been words.

A few years ago, I read an article about Love Languages in which the author, Dr. Gary Chapman discusses five different ways that people express their love:

Words
Time/attention
Gifts
Acts of service
Physical touch

It’s no surprise that for me, it’s touch and words.

If I give you a hug, I mean it. If I tell you I love you, I really mean it.

Words.

I surround myself with them. Collecting books like lost photographs in an ancestral album. Together they tell a story, even as they each have their own voice.  Separately, they are a gift to be treasured.

Words are like leaves at the bottom of particularly delicious cup of tea (for me, a cup of Fortnum & Mason’s Russian Caravan, black). If I love them, I look into them, trying to see beyond the story, beyond the living characters, beyond the beautiful sounds, into the poetry that lies at their heart: the magic of the words.

Children understand the poetry, the magic. I’ve watched my three as I read to them, cherished stories or new adventures. I love when we discover the magic together; it’s one of my favorite things in all the world. It’s the reason my next book was written for children.

So as we begin a new calendar year, I find the urge to look back with words. I am always aware of “how much has been written.” But this isn’t about “how much.” I’m not placing each word to be weighed on the Goddess Maat’s scale. The answer to that would be: not enough. There are always more words to be written.

The stories are there, the character clamoring for attention, but the last year, 2011, was heavier with life than written words. Some years are like that, and though I wish I had made time for more words, I understand that sometimes life happens. Sometimes new babies are born, heart attacks happen, blueberry girls must be blessed, family members in crisis happen, pillow forts occasionally need to be built, and towers of doom must be played with. There are times when we need to put the pen aside to be present.

And yet, there were still words. Here on the blog, on facebook, and on twitter, I have a way to record moments and share them. I still have my notebook for story fragments and plot ideas, but the internet has created a community that wasn’t possible for a writer who would likely spend much of her time in a room, or perhaps out walking, or maybe sipping coffee in a café…alone. Marvelously, the internet has brought many of us who would be solitary together, so that we can be alone and also connected.

So late one September evening, when my husband was in the hospital after a heart attack, I didn’t really want to talk, not even to my father who sat beside me in the waiting room, but I could send out a few tweets. I could shout out a moment of fear and heartache. The miracle of twitter and email and facebook, was that people responded. Friends offered to come by or call, but their messages of support were enough, those words across time and space were exactly what I needed. Thank you to everyone who sent prayers and energy.I thought about Twitter a lot after that, because it’s such a strange creature, something my generation did not grow up with and many have resisted. Some friends love facebook, others text constantly, or skype, or tumblr. We all seem to adopt different technological tools depending on our needs and personalities.

I still prefer the online journal because it allows me to meander, and I am coming to appreciate tumbler as it lets me collect different bits, but I like twitter best. I’ve come to the following conclusion: Tweets are like dehydrated fruit.

Rotten grapes make rotten raisins, but the best fruit—robust peaches, sweet apples, and other juicy delicacies make delicious dried fruits. Twitter can be like that. Much of it is forgettable, most of it is ordinary and that’s ok. Some of it is terrible, but occasionally it can be wonderful.

Words. Carefully chosen words:

Happy. New. Year.

Three words to hold so much, like a tiny tweet.

The year has begun. It’s a new page.

Happy? What makes it happy? What makes you happy?

Whatever it is, I hope you find it. I hope that you fill your new page with words ripe and juicy and bursting with potential.

Happy New Year.

Dancing in Echoes

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Last weekend we went to the Museum of Science and Industry where my oldest daughter performed with her Ukrainian folk dance group as part of the Christmas Around the World celebration.

If you’ve never seen the exhibit, 50 trees are decorated by volunteers from Chicago’s ethnic communities to represent their various cultures and holiday traditions. The Ukrainian Christmas tree was decorated with embroidery-adorned ornaments and sparkling spider webs, inspired by the Ukrainian legend of the spider web.

(Spiders have long been important characters in Ukrainian folklore, but the incorporation of the Christmas Tree into Ukrainian celebrations is a fairly recent one. It’s likely that the tradition came to Ukraine from Germany in the 19th century.)

According to the legend, a poor Ukrainian widow and her children had nothing with which to decorate their Christmas tree. After they went to bed, a spider (a “pavuk” in Ukrainian) took pity on them and spent the night spinning her web all around the tree. When the children awoke, they saw the beautiful web on the tree, and as the first rays of the sun touched the spider’s web, it turned to gold and silver. The family never had to worry about money again.

We sat in the front row, listening first to the Ukrainian Children’s Choir, whose performance was wonderful. Ukrainian music and songs always grab hold of my heart. Traversing time and space, music is so powerful. Along with other types of art, it gives us an experience of tradition, communicating the depths of culture, identity, and memory.

After the choir, my daughter’s group performed “the Hopak,” often referred to as the National Dance of Ukraine. I watched her the entire time, aware of  the moments when her nervous smile dropped for a second as she concentrated. When she dances at home, it’s with such joy and abandon. This was a different experience, careful and almost solemn.

Watching her, I remembered that feeling, being up on stage with my fellow Ukrainian dancers. I loved to dance. I still do, although my dancing is usually relegated to my living room or occasional dance floor. It’s a different thing to dance the choreographed steps, even when they are so familiar that they are almost muscle memory.

Dancing in an ensemble is like reciting a famous poem. There is the knowledge that what you do carries weight, each step like a word in a prayer. You are part of a group, but also part of a tradition. Proud and nostalgic, I watched my daughter dance familiar steps to familiar music. So interesting when time folds up on itself, and our children walk in the echoes of our footsteps.