Is race important?
For those who only read the posts and not the comments, I thought I’d point out that there’s some interesting discussion going on in the comments to my “Books Not Authored by White Men” post.
Old Wedding Photo
I was just scanning this image for some family members, so I thought I’d share. It’s my grandparents’ wedding photo.
It’s not a great scan, because the photo is in a frame, and I couldn’t see any way to remove it without messing it up, so I scanned it through the glass.
Also, the colors of the photo itself look a bit strange to me (though that’s not an artifact of the scan; the physical copy looks that way too)–would the photo have been developed in black and white, then colorized or something? My grandparents were married for around sixty years, so they would have been married some time in the forties. A quick google reveals that color photography did seem to be around back then.
Adventures in the New Office
The big move happened this weekend–the movers transported all the big stuff over to the new office. Which is, by the way, still in total disarray. However, after a few minor delays, I actually did get to read slush today, so I might not get that far behind schedule after all.
When Gordon was buying the house, he mentioned that the seller was the sort to cut a lot of corners. Well, there’s plenty of evidence of that everywhere you look. Most of it’s just stupid–like, why bother to repaint if you’re going to do it half-assed? But one of the things that’s perplexing is that the painters just like painted over everything. The hinges of the doors, electrical outlets. Instead of, you know, painting *around* them.
The door to the office apparently fell off after the movers were done delivering stuff, so Gordon had it propped open. I didn’t realize this, and accidentally screwed it up some more. The hinges *cracked,* so not exactly high quality. And so when we tried to remove the hinge since it has to be replaced, we were all but stymied by the gobs of paint that have buried the screws in the wood.
Got hopelessly, hopelessly lost on the way in this morning. Had Google Maps directions, but they LIED to me. I printed out a zoomed in view of the in-city portion of my journey, but only had the larger overview of the highway stuff–this was my downfall. There’s a place where it tells me to turn right, and bear right onto a certain road, but when I looked at the map again when I got home, it’s very clearly bearing LEFT. But at least now I know which way to go next time. My trip home tonight was without incident, and it was pretty quick, so I’m happy about that. It’s funny–the new office is less than two miles away from the old one, but I think the commute is going to be much easier. We’re now very close to the highway entrance, so there’s very little city driving required, and I’m far enough away from the tunnels that I won’t have to fight through all that traffic.
Haven’t done much exploring of the new area yet, though I had lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Quite good, actually–they make a mean Schezuan chicken (though there’s a definite language barrier problem, so good luck with any special orders). Also, they stock Sprite Zero, which is nice, since it’s hard to find a restaurant that has a sugar-free/caffeine-free soda available.
When I got home, however, I poked around on Google Maps, searching for things in the area. Turns out there’s a post office about three blocks away, and a branch of our bank two blocks away from the post office. There’s a Rite Aid around the corner from the bank. All good things. So maybe we’ll be switching our submissions address after all. No word on that yet–have to talk to the boss. He was saying that it took us five years to train the monkeys at our current post office, so it might be better to just stick with them. But I don’t know–despite our best efforts, there’s really only two people there who know what the hell they’re doing, and one of them moves about as quickly as continental drift.
Also discovered that the Journal Square PATH Train station has parking available, so I can just drive right there with no walking. Hopefully it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. But it also looks to be much more convenient for me as a commuter, since JSQ is right near Rt. 1-9, which I use to get home.
Knight Mixes SF And Romance
On Friday, SCI FI Wire published a piece I wrote about literary agent Deidre Knight’s second career as a novelist.
Circle of Life
I’ve put off making this entry for a while, for what will likely be obvious reasons. On Wednesday of last week (March 15), Gordon’s first child, Zoe Tamsin Van Gelder, came into the world, and my paternal grandmother, Eleanore T. Adams, left it.
She was 85 and in poor health, so it didn’t come as a huge surprise, but no matter how much you think you’re prepared for something like that to happen, it always seems to hit you just as hard as if it had come with no warning. I was actually in Manhattan at KGB for the Fantastic Fiction reading when I got a call from the hospital telling me my grandmother was dying. I left right away to head back to NJ, but even as I rushed out of there, I knew I would be too late. And I was, though I got in touch with some cousins who were able to make it over there for her final moments. She wasn’t conscious before the end, so my being there couldn’t have comforted her. But still.
We held the wake on Sunday, and she was buried on Monday.
My grandmother and I were very close. When I was young, my family and I lived in the upper half of a two family home built by my great-grandfather (my grandmother’s father), while my grandparents lived downstairs. Both my parents worked, so after school, I’d come home and my grandmother would babysit me. I remember sitting in her living room watching Nickelodeon, especially You Can’t Do That on Television, and my grandmother bringing me snacks. She’d always bring me cheese and crackers–the crackers varied, but the cheese was always that spreadable sharp cheese that goes on like cream cheese.
My grandmother liked to reminisce about the past, and one of the stories she liked to tell, she told so often, I can’t be sure if I actually remember it, or if I’ve just heard the story so many times it’s imprinted itself on my memory. Here’s the story:
When I was a toddler, my grandmother was babysitting me. She went out onto the back porch to hang some clothes on the clothesline, and when she was out there, I ran over to the screen door and hooked the latch, locking her out. She can’t get back in the house, and I’m inside doing God knows what. She can’t see me from the porch, so she’s calling out “John! John! Where are you?” She doesn’t know what to do, so she tells the neighbors what happened, and one of them says to cut the screen and unlock the door that way. So she does. And when she gets inside, she finds me in one of the bedrooms, in the corner, laughing my ass off.
The story usually ended with her saying, and looking genuinely surprised as she says it, “Can you imagine that?” then adding, “That little stinker.”
My dad died when I was eight, and we moved out of my grandparents’ house shortly after that. So she took care of me a lot during those formative years. About a year after moving out, we moved away to Florida, so I didn’t see much of her, though she and my grandfather would make the trip down to Florida (by car!) every year to spend some time with me, then would go vacation at some resort in the Tampa area and play shuffleboard. When I moved back to New Jersey in 2001, it was because I wanted to get a job in publishing, but also because I knew my grandparents needed someone to help out. At first, they didn’t need very much, but as the years progressed, the two of them required more and more help, and they came to rely on me for pretty much everything. So as she took care of me in my first years of life, I took care of her in her final years.
The last few months, she’d been through a lot. She was suffering from terrible, crippling arthritis, and she was battling with cancer on and off for a about a year and a half. A few weeks ago, she had a small stroke, and became all but unable to walk. After a brief hospital stay, she was transferred to a nursing home for rehabilitation, and once she got there, the doctors and physical therapists concluded that she’d have to stay in a home, or get full time nursing care. So her final days were rather trying, and I know she couldn’t have been happy, so perhaps it’s a good thing that she passed before things got any worse for her.
I’ll miss her.
Casa del Fantastico
As you may have heard elsewhere, Gordon recently procreated (with the help of his lovely wife). The result: Zoe Tamsin Van Gelder. And as a extra special bonus, this whole baby business prompted Gordon to buy a house.
The new place is a two family-deal, so Gordon’ll be living upstairs, and F&SF will be living downstairs. So the office is now in Jersey City instead of Hoboken; though it’s in a different city, it’s only about ten minutes away. Don’t worry–we’re keeping the same PO Box, so our submissions address hasn’t changed. If we find a better (closer) post office, we might change it eventually, but for now we’re still going to use the same one.
On Thursday and Friday of this week, we were making runs back and forth to the new place, shuttling over files and computer equipment–small and important stuff that we didn’t trust the movers with. The new place looks to be pretty cool–we’ll have lots of extra room to work with, including a LOT more storage space. In addition to the main house (which has a big basement too), there’s a gigantic shed-thing in the backyard–it’s bigger than some Manhattan apartments. It’s in kind of rough shape right now, but as Gordon says, it’s got a lot of potential. If Gordon grants permission, perhaps I’ll post some photos of the new office once we get it up and running.
That’s all there is to say about the move, I guess, but I just wanted to point out that our response times might be delayed a bit over the next few weeks as we settle in (due to the move, and other reasons). I didn’t get any slush read on Thursday or Friday, and I was already backed up a little bit when this week started. So don’t panic–we’ll get to it soon.
Mmmm. Spam!
I got a spam recently that I found somewhat interesting. Apparently there’s someone out there who knows how to turn chicks into zombies.
xr scot mmmm bongo
Using this system: 1492 pail kraft 95%
You can make any woman submit to you INSTANTLY;
You can make with her EVERYTHING you want;
It’ll be a pleasure for her to fulfill all your DIRTY desires;
I don’t know what the hell that means–I guess I’m supposed to click the link. Of course, I’m afraid to click. Besides, the zombie apocalypse is unstoppable anyway–no need to rush it along.
Souls Wraps Up Quickening
SCI FI Wire just published a piece I wrote about Fiona McIntosh’s new novel, Bridge of Souls, which concludes her The Quickening trilogy.
Top Ten SF Books Not Authored by White Men
There’s been much discussion lately about New York Times SF reviewer Dave Itzkoff’s top ten list–which was criticized for, among other things, being made up entirely of white men: no women or people of color on the list.
So, that leads me to my questions:
(1) What are your top ten SF/Fantasy books (novels, collections, etc.) written by women?
(2) What are your top ten SF/Fantasy books (novels, collections, etc.) written by people of color?
It’s unclear whether Itzkoff was including fantasy in his list, or excluding it on purpose, but for the purposes of my question, let’s say fantasy is okay to include. (I’d say he probably *was* including fantasy–since I’d assume most if not all of the Mieville stories in Looking for Jake are fantasy [I haven’t read it yet].)