Linguistics & Science Fiction Network Online Bulletin -- June 7, 1999
**NOTE: This bulletin is mailed only to members of the L&SF Network, and only by request. If you receive a copy by mistake, please let me know and I'll take you off the list immediately, with my apologies.
Greetings! We're just back from Wiscon 23 (brief preliminary report below) and have had 48 hours to dig our way down deep into the the mess (gardens, yard, office, extended family, writing, art, and detritus) that had piled up in our absence. As always, the Absence Proliferation Rule has applied, with ten days on the road resulting in thirty days of urgent work waiting; we are doing our best to dig our way up toward the top. Moving right along.....
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One of the things that has wreaked havoc here needs a separate mention: Remember
the book on multilingualism I wrote for Plenum? I turned it in on December
1, 1998. Months went by, during which my editor jumped ship and the Plenum
unit was sold to another publisher; not a word about the book from anyone.
Then on May 22nd the m.s. suddenly arrived -- with a letter from a new editor
who wants massive revisions (EditorSpeak: "a few minor changes") and has
to have all of it in hand by July 1st.
I cannot even begin to tell you how impossible that is, or what it's going to take for me to get it done despite the impossibility, and I won't try. Unless miracles take place (and I'll welcome them if they do) it will mean that L&SF 18:6 will arrive at least a week late. I regret that; it makes me cross.
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Those of you who've been checking my Grandmother page
<www.abbeville.com/grandmother> each month should know that that gig
is in flux; as things stand, the material that's already there will *stay*
there until fall. If you've already pickeded up my Y2K grandmother column,
no need to return until further notice. There *will* be an online grandmothering
newsletter one of these days -- we've registered www.grandmotherworld.com
for it. I'll keep you posted.
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Wiscon was spectacularly wonderful, as Wiscons always are. I was heavily
programmed, so that I wasn't able to get to any panels other than those I
was on -- fortunately, all of them were interesting and fun and valuable.
I got to be a Token Anglo [Hillbilly Subsection] on a panel about whether
it's okay for sf writers to "appropriate" other cultures; I did a verbal
self-defense workshop and a session on keeping your newly-published book
from disappearing into The Void in the typical two weeks; I did Storyteller
Duty in the childrens' programming track, where I had a chance to read out
loud some terrific books alleged to be for little kids but better than much
adult sf that comes my way lately; I was on a panel about aging women and
how to write about them (where I managed to get some words in about the plight
of many of our female elders in sf, and suggested that we follow the example
of the women in country music and start doing something to keep them from
ending up as bag ladies); I was on a panel about the place of women in technology
that was really something, full of engineers and techies of all genders;
I was at a meeting on the subject of how more people of color could be induced
to come to future Wiscons, since the past ones have been top-heavily Anglo;
I managed to misunderstand a flawless program book (having had almost no
experience with such an animal before) and miss the Guest of Honor speeches
by Teri Windling and Mary Doria Russell; I got to sit at the same autographing
table as Mary Doria Russell, but never had a chance even to say hello to
her because she never had ten seconds when people weren't talking to her
-- but I can vouch for the fact that the tales she told of what's happening
with the process of making "The Sparrow" into a movie were fascinating to
hear; and there was much much more. Every minute of it valuable. More detail
in L&SF upcomings. [Note: If any of you *did* hear the GofH speeches,
I'd be very grateful to have a report about them from you.] George spent
his days toiling in the dealers room, bless him....
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While at Wiscon I picked up a copy of a book by Octavia Butler called *Adulthood
Rites* and was utterly stunned by it, so much so that it scares me to think
I might have died without having read it. (I don't know how to be any more
complimentary than that; it's the thought I had as I finished it.) I then
noticed that it was the second book in a series (The Xenogenesis Series),
and I went straight to the dealers room and bought the first and third --
*Dawn* and *Imago*. Both were beautifully-written good solid reads -- I'm
very glad to have bought and read them, although neither struck me with the
force that *Adulthood Rites* did. Recommended...
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One of the online newsletters I subscribe to had a batch of online addresses
for Star Wars stuff. I haven't had time to check any of them out yet, but
here are three I feel are likely choices:
- <http://www.theforce.net>;
- <http:www.starwars.com>;
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and <http://www.starwarsnet.com>, which the newletter says is a
Star-Wars-Only search engine.
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I need your help, please -- I want to take a Lovingkindness poll in preparation
for the next Religious Language issue. Would you please send me your personal
list of the Twelve Most Troublesome Words from the religious lexicon? (Words
like "sin" and "grace" and "abomination" and "mantra" and "koan" and so on,
and it may be that none of those would be on your list.) If twelve isn't
the right number for you, send your five most troublesome or thirty most
troublesome or whatever; I'll extrapolate and adjust for the variations.
I'll be compiling all the answers and finding out what I can learn from them.
Thank you very much indeed.
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Early alert, garbled: I want to strongly recommend that you read the *Esquire*
60th Anniversary Issue. I've torn the house apart trying to find my copy
so that I could give you the date, to no avail -- somebody with taste has
ripped it off. But it will be easy to find, because it's recent -- probably
May 1999. More later....
- The reprint edition of *Native Tongue* will be out from Feminist Press, they tell me, in "spring 2000" -- same date I have for the reprint edition of The Ozark Trilogy. Many thanks to all of you who emailed Feminist Press asking for that date, thus springing it for me; I'm grateful. Spring 2000 -- that's enough advance time to do good stuff. All ideas and suggestions are welcome here.
In unseemly haste...
Suzette
BTW, if you want to register an url with search engines (such as registering a great url such as http://www.abbeville.com/grandmother) you can visit http://adrr.com/adr0/submit.htm and use the links. The registration page of that type is http://www.siteowner.com/ (which has a great link to a good free submission service). Remember, to be sure your favorite link has not been lost by a search engine, you should resubmit the links at least once a month.