We Weren't Going to Win...

When the nominations were opened for the 2010 PrixAurora Awards, all of us – Ryan McFadden, Roxanne Felix, Billie Milholland and I -- threw our names in the ring, even though we knew we'd never be shortlisted.  “Women of the Apocalypse,” the anthology we had written, had been launched by Absolute Xpress in October of 2009, and though we had had some success with it, we could see we were up against big names.  We were too small, too unknown, too everything.  We didn't have a chance, and we knew it.  But, we entered our stories and the anthology, just the same.  Because you never know what will stick.  Then, we pushed.

Since Women of the Apocalypse was launched in October of 2009, one of the biggest lessons we learned was the hard work does not stop when the book is published.  That is actually when it starts.  We quickly realized nobody cared about four unknown writers and their a strange little print on demand anthology.  If we wanted to get anywhere at all, we had to push.  Hard.

Using the push hard technique got us into book stores when we didn't have distribution.  It got us a series of successful launches and book signings, across the country.  It got us advantageous tables at events, even if we didn't start there.  (I call that my Nazi Germany tactic.  “We need more room!”) It got us media attention.  It got us on the Calgary Herald Bestsellers List.

So, we wanted to see if it would get any of our stories – and maybe even the anthology – shortlisted.  We all set to work, contacting everyone we knew who had purchased a book, telling them about our nominations, and asking them to help us attain one more goal. They were happy to hear from us, and happy to vote.  And, they were happy to tell their friends and networks.

It worked, better than we could have hoped.  My novella, Pawns Dreaming of Roses, made it into the “Short” category, and the anthology made it into “Other.”  We were delighted, over the moon, thrilled.  We knew we couldn't win.  But we wanted to make a good showing, so when it came to the final vote, we did what we do best.  We pushed.

We explained about the Auroras to whoever would listen – and to some who would rather have not.  We explained about the honour and tradition, we tried to explain the voting system used (even though we didn't really understand it ourselves) and we talked about our book.  We talked endlessly about our book.  To anyone and everyone. 

I don't know about the rest of the four, but when I pulled into Winnipeg for Key Con, and then the Aurora Award gala on Sunday night, I was exhausted, but determined to celebrate how far we had come in a relatively short time.  Way in the back of my heart, I wished we would win... but I knew we probably wouldn't.  But that was OK, because we'd done the best we could. 

And then, on Sunday, we won.  Not once, but twice.

We didn't have thank you speeches prepared.  We didn't have media releases ready to shoot out to all the local and national media the next day.  We didn't have much planned at all.  So, we all looked and acted like happy deer in the headlights for most of that night, and the next day.

And now?  We are pushing again.  Hard.  But it's funny.  I don't feel quite as exhausted as I did last week.            

***

Eileen Bell has written (you guessed it) most of her life. She has completed 3 novels (one burned, one under her bed, one out in the world), and many short works.  She has been published in On Spec and Western Producer (showing her range) and her work has been produced for CBC's Alberta Anthology.  She also won an Honourable Mention in the Writer's Guild of Alberta's Screenwriter's Initiative. Her last published work is her Aurora winning novella in “Women of the Apocalypse.”  When she is not counting her minutes of fame, she is working on another collaboration project. When she isn’t writing she’s living a fine life in a round house with her husband, her dog, her daughter’s cat, and two goldfish.

Women of the Apocalypse
The Aurora-winning fantasy anthology!

Four women. Four shooters. Four destinies to save the world…

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are coming. And four Archangels find the perfect champions to save the world: fighters, warriors, soldiers, and brave men,  all ready to fight for humanity against end times. All they have to do is drink a shooter — a caustic mix of alcohol and divinity that will imbue them with the conviction to battle the Four.

Buy it here.
Visit the website

Why Awards Matter

 By Hayden Trenholm

The voting for the 2010 Prix Aurora Awards ends on Saturday, May 22.  The Awards themselves will be given out at a banquet the next day.  By the time you read this, my novel, Steel Whispers, may have won the Aurora for best Canadian SF novel of the year.  Or maybe not.  And what difference will it make anyway?  Why does an Award voted on by a few hundred fans of the field matter?

Of course, you could say the same thing about the Hugos (less than a thousand fans generally determine those) or even the Nebula (voted on by the fewer than 1500 members of the Science Fiction Writers of America).  Heck, why not throw in the Golden Globes (selected by a couple of hundred foreign journalists) or the granddaddy of them all, the Oscars, voted on by the 6000 members of the Academy?

But, of course, awards matter, the Auroras no less than any other.  In fact, on a per capita basis more people nominate and vote for the Auroras than any of the other SF awards around the world.  The Auroras are a symbol of professional success for writers and artists (and an acknowledgment of volunteer contributions with the fan awards) and most – though not all – major Canadian SF writers have been or will be nominated or win one in the course of their career.

The Awards also help to establish you as a significant player in the field.  Since winning my own Aurora for short fiction two years ago, I’ve been more welcome as a guest at conventions and, I think, my stories get a little harder look by editors.  Was winning the Aurora the only factor?  I hope not.  I’ve worked very hard to promote my work and to improve it.  But being able to call myself an Aurora-winning writer hasn’t hurt.

Perhaps the most important element in the whole awards business is not in the winning at all.  Like pursuing happiness – whether or not you ever achieve it – pursuing an Aurora has its own rewards.  Obviously, no one can vote for your work if they never heard of it.  The annual awards process encourages writers to build their fan base and their web presence.  Editors and publishers like writers who do a good job of promoting themselves and their work. In the long run, the side effects may have more to do with your long-term success as a professional writer than actually having a few shiny statues sitting on your shelf. 

Still, whenever I feel the urge to pack it in as too much work for too little reward, I like to look up at my shimmering Aurora on its maple base and remember that, sometimes, it’s all worthwhile.

***

Hayden Trenholm’s short fiction has appeared in On Spec, TransVersions, Tesseracts 6. Neo-Opsis, Challenging Destiny, Talebones, Gaslight Grotesque and on CBC radio.  In 2008, after a record fourth consecutive short fiction nomination, he won the Aurora for his novella, "Like Water in the Desert."  His novel, Defining Diana, was released by Bundoran Press in 2008 and was nominated for an Aurora Award in the long fiction category.  A sequel, Steel Whispers, was published in August 2009 and is a nominee for the Aurora this year.  The third book of the Steele Chronicles, Stealing Home, will be published later this year.

Steel Whispers by Hayden Trenholm

 Four dead Borg and counting. Serial killer, gang violence or civil war? While the Special Detection Unit hunts for answers, a terrified family searchs for their Disappeared daughter, and war between society's elites takes an even nastier turn. Borg and genetic technology is evolving exponentially and Frank Steele finds himself up against unfathomable enemies.


Franks needs to find the key that ties it all together. He's sworn to protect every citizen. It's his duty as a cop. But now it's gotten personal and Frank has to face the ultimate test - investigating the death of his own son.

Away From Paris

By Matthew Johnson

Hemingway once wrote that "away from Paris I could write about Paris, as in Paris I could write about Michigan." He needed the Atlantic Ocean between him and his old life in order to be able to write about it with detachment, a distance that was the same as the distance between memoir and fiction.

Distance is what lets science fiction and fantasy do things no other genre can do. The most obvious application of this is satire, which is what made Star Trek famous (and occasionally infamous) in its day: the distance provided by the genre allowed the producers to tackle issues that would have been taboo in a more “realistic” setting. The episode Errand of Mercy, for instance, provides an interesting commentary on Cold War concerns when omnipotent aliens impose a peace upon the Klingons and the Federation by force – reflecting a wish, which might have been impolitic to air on American TV in the 1960s, that the United States and the then-Soviet Union be made to settle their differences.

Satire, though, is only a small and very limited application of the distance provided by writing in the fantastic genres, and it’s instructive to note that many of that show’s most memorable episodes are not satires. (Moreover, the episodes that did not rely on satire have generally aged better.) Instead they, like many of the best works of SF and fantasy, make use of the kind of distance Hemingway was talking about: the distance necessary to write about the things that matter to us.

Take, for example, John M. Ford’s beautiful story “Walkaway Clause.” (Alas, this is available nowhere on the Web; if you want to read it – and you should – you need to find a copy of his collection From the End of the Twentieth Century.) The story is simple enough: a beautiful interstellar trader, who has settled down with the man who designs her starships, has her life turned upside down when her long-lost lover – a starship pilot in the Galactic Hero model, long presumed dead – returns from the other side of the universe, or the end of time, or possibly both, on a starship that has been rebuilt by a mysterious alien intelligence. A number of complications follow – most notably, she needs to spirit the ship away from her insurers, who intend to claim either the ship or her own company.

That’s not really what the story is about, though: it’s about the fear of losing your loved ones – in particular, the fear of losing them because you didn’t hold on hard enough. (Go read the story, you’ll see what I mean.) So why write it as science fiction? Why not write a story about, say, an ex-biker chick, now settled in the suburban life in Grosse Pointe, whose long-vanished boyfriend roars into town on his Harley? To begin with our experiences with bikers, whether real or fictional, will colour our view of that story; writing about starship pilots and galactic traders, on the other hand, makes the story more nearly universal. As well, in the biker story we would know immediately what it was about on an emotional level: writing it as SF, on the other hand, allows Ford to do bit of legerdemain, using the genre to make you hey-look-over-here­ at the space opera story while the real story socks you in the gut. The strength of the fantastic genres is that they let us sit in a café in Paris – or Barsoom, or Middle-Earth – and tell our stories about Michigan.

                                                         

***

Matthew Johnson is a Canadian SF and fantasy writer whose works have appeared in places such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Strange Horizons and Fantasy Magazine. His novel Fall From Earth was released in 2009 by Bundoran Press. You can see more of his work at his blog. He lives in Ottawa with his wife Megan, his son Leo and two surprisingly patient cats.

Fall From Earth by Matthew Johnson.

 Shi Jin is a rebel, the latest in a long line of those who have challenged the Borderless Empire and failed. Dropped with a crew of convicts on an uninhabited planet, Shi Jin  – and mankind  – encounter alien life forms for the first time. She discovers that she is part of a much bigger game...one that will force her to decide between her desire to defeat the Empire and the future of humanity.


 "Matthew Johnson...has revealed as fresh and original a new voice as any in our field, and a voice with impressive range."
--Rich Horton, Editor of The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2009

Sci-fi Theatre

By Leeman Kessler

This spring, I had the opportunity to portray 1920s horror writer HP Lovecraft in a play called "Monstrous Invisible".  This and three other plays of a supernatural and/or pop cultural bent were part of Monkeyman Productions' Banana Festival in Toronto.  All of these were previewed by Eye Weekly in an article called "Sci-Fi Lo-Fi" wherein Paul Gallant commented on the uniqueness of mixing science fiction with live theatre, noting the contradictions between private consumption of one and the necessarily corporate interaction of the other.  While I appreciated the publicity, I found myself struck by some of the assumptions made. 

"But still. All the artistic forms that have comfortably absorbed the caped crusaders, monsters, wizards and space travel of Planet Nerd have one thing in common: they all tend to be enjoyed alone, in the dark, usually on a screen or on pulpy paper.  Live theatre, already colonized by its own breed of misfits, has a propensity for real-time action and low budgets that seem a poor match for geek fascinations. You have to go out in public to see theatre, which is no easy chore for folks who have trouble leaving their parents’ basement."

Two things strike me as false about this.  First, is the premise that scifi/fantasy is a loner's game.  This blog alone suggests that there is an urge among the fantastically-oriented to commune.  My bookshelves are filled with sci-fi books that I've shared and have had shared with me.  My wife has a missionary's zeal when it comes to spreading the Gospel according to Joss Whedon.  The convention scene has been alive and kicking for over seventy five years as evidenced by the subject matter of Monstrous Invisible.  The story revolves around the short marriage between Lovecraft and Sonia Greene, a financial supporter of horror publications.  The two met as part of this community and while the marriage did not last long, it showcases that even an introvert like Lovecraft was able to extricate himself from his mother's basement in Providence for the sake of his literary passions.

The second fallacy is the idea that theatre rarely demeans itself with the Fantastic.  In the Banana Festival, we had my show about eldritch horror and romance, "Fortress of Solitude" about superheroes and romance, and finally "The Second Last Man on Earth" about zombies...and romance.  All three dealt with their respective subject matters in different ways, either using the horror to parallel the feelings of hopelessness in a loveless marriage or merely acting as a fantastic background.  Before this festival, Monkeyman had done other plays that explored similar themes, but outside of this company I have seen other uses of Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror on stage.  Carol Churchill's A Number is about a father, his son, and that son's many clones. Gary Owen's Drowned World is set in a not-too-distant future where the mundane and the homely have risen up against the talented and the beautiful to create a paradise free of envy where two attractive people find themselves hiding for fear of their lives.  There are also the big budgeted plays and musicals based on books, comics and movies like the Lord of the Rings, Evil Dead or The Golden Compass.  While the larger scale productions highlight the Fantastic through setting and special effects, they are no less a part of this need and urge to explore the strange that is at the heart of the Fantastic.  To suggest that it's a leap for theatre to indulge in such trappings maligns the various genres and also displays ignorance of theatre's history.  Even The Tempest and A Midsummer's Night Dreams are plays about the Fantastic and the people caught up in it.

While there are good points made in this interview about the intersection of various sub-cultures, to say that such a juncture is unseen or somehow innately problematic does not sit well with me.  Science Fiction and Fantasy are both about journeys and explorations if in different ways.  Theatre merely gives a storyteller different tools to go about showing that exploration and I consider myself quite lucky to be a part of these different forays and I recommend others join in the fun.


Leeman Kessler, Science Fiction professional, is a Nigerian-born American living and laughing in Canada.  He occupies his time selling books, acting, singing karaoke loudly, and getting paid to let medical students poke him.

Slush Pile PR

By Helen Marshall

As both a slush pile reader and a slush pile submitter, I've come to recognize that there is far more human reaction and interaction going on behind the seemingly opaque process than most people think.  Sure, we've all gotten our egos crushed by computerized line-ups, form rejection letters, and uncaring silence.  But the truth is that the writing community is not that large. It pays to remember that behind most form letters is still a pair of eyes that took the time to browse your story.  There are all sorts of considerations editors pay attention to -- the experience of the author, the quality of the story, the genre of the story, the subgenre of the story, the cover letter, the manuscript format, whether the editor has met the author.  This means that there's no cut and dry policy for catching their attention. 

That doesn't mean there aren't ways to ingratiate yourself to your editor.  Here are my top five suggestions for people submitting to the slush pile.

1) Know who you are submitting to.

Practically every online magazine advises you to read their submission guidelines thoroughly and, ideally, check out a couple of issues.  We know it's hard to spend the time doing the research.  After all, you have a day job and you just spent your free time actually writing your poem/story/novel.  But as I said above, the community isn't that large.  Chances are, you'll be submitting again so the research now can save you time, postage, and heartache later down the road.  Besides, there are so many guidelines that are ambiguous.  Everyone says they want to publish "edgy" and "experimental" work.  But what does that mean?  Do they want something dark?  Something with sex?  Something politically apt?  Something with a standard, publishable form?  Something with hyperlinks and graphics and flashing lights?  The only way to find out is to read their work and see for yourself.

2) Listen to what those guidelines say.

Perhaps one third to one half of the submissions I receive are in proper manuscript format (or something like it).  Many people send me exerpts in the body of the e-mail (with crazy fonts . . . ugh); many don't send synopses; some lack critical punctuation or formatting; some are in file types completely unreadable.  Yes, we're willing to meet you halfway on some of this stuff, but would you show up to an interview with mustard stains on your jacket, your shirt untucked, and your fly down?  No?  Don't send us a manuscript that looks like that.  Take your time.  Make sure it's professional looking, clean, proofread (as much as possible), and including all the information we ask for it.  First impressions are everything, and it honestly goes a long way.

3) Take time on your cover letter.

Some places read them first; some after the story; some never.  I normally glance over cover letters once before reading the story, because they serve as a kind of meet-and-greet with the author.  Editors of small presses, for example, wonder what it would be like to work with the author.  Will they be attentive?  Combatative?  Rude?  Detail-oriented? Easy-going? Casual?  You get a sense for some of this from the cover letter. Personally, I respond best to those cover letters that seem genuine and not overly pitch-y.  I don't need a hook or something quirky. The story should have that. I also hate being yelled at or scolded in a cover letter.  Do NOT tell me that if I don't publish your book then I'm not strong enough, or bold enough, or experimental enough.  Don't threaten me.  Don't guilt trip me.  Just be nice, polite, and then get the heck out of the way.  Oh, and please please please get my name and the name of my press right.  I was recently addressed as Bram.  I have no idea where that name came from. Trust me, that stuff irritates all editors.  And it happens a lot.

4) Be tactful to the editor.

I try to respond with something personal for every submission (though some inevitably end up more personalized than others).  This tends to open up a kind of conversation with the author, which can be intensely rewarding or incredibly frustrating.  I appreciate it when someone sends me a little note back thanking me for my time.  I don't appreciate the second pitch or the third pitch or the fourth pitch that can sometimes follow. The best thing you can do for yourself (specially if the editor recommends you resubmit that story or other material) is to be polite in response . . . even if you strongly disagree with their comments.  Starting an argument about why that editor was wrong is a surefire way to shoot yourself in the foot.  And, look, honestly, sometimes we do get it wrong.  We misread.  We don't read far enough. We misjudge the market.  But it is far better to say: "You thought x? I guess what I was trying to do with y did not work out as I planned.  I'll keep that in mind for later revisions." Don't say: "Are you blind?  What about y?  Didn't you see y?  Who do you think you are, saying that about x."

5) Be tactful after the fact.

This is sometimes tricky because rejections hurt.  They can sting like a sonovagun.  And we often want to share our pain with our friends and colleagues.  But there is a fine line between commiseration and condemnation.  If you get that story published somewhere else and find, wow, the editor really did miss y but the rest of the world got it . . . you don't need to tell the editor.  You don't need to tell the world about the editor on your blog, at your launch, during your signings, etc.  Once again, the community isn't that big.  Repeat it again: The community isn't that big!  Put it on a tape and play it over and over and night if you need to.  People hear what you're saying, and you never know when it might come back to haunt you. Even editors have friends who might be reading your blog, at your launch, getting a book signed.

A brief example: I read a novel submission that I really enjoyed.  It was funny.  It was quirky.  It was well-written with a sympathetic character and decent narrative development.  But it wasn't really the kind of material we publish. (We don't tend to do light horror or horror/comedy though I can think of exceptions.)  I wrote what was my nicest rejection letter to date.  And it was a bit strange, because how do you say "This is great, but it's not for us" and make someone believe you?  It's tricky.  But I was actually looking forward to the author writing back to me so I could recommend some places to try and genuinely show my support for his endeavour.  Instead, I found the rejection letter up (with my name and my press's name) on a rejection letter blog.  The commentary wasn't as horrible as on some rejection letters . . . but it could have been.  It's very easy to set up a Google alert and we knew the day it was posted.  And we saw it.  And we know exactly who sent it in.  Might it colour our consideration of further novels from the author?  Sure.  Might your blogging about a crazy/unfair/stupid/blind editor also attract attention?  It's possible.  So be careful, and be aware of what you're sending out into the universe.  Because it can come back in ways you can't predict.

So that's maybe a little dark and gloomy.  But the point to carry away from all this is that the Internet allows a level of personal interaction unheard of previously.  It may feel anonymous and cold, but it's really really not.  We want our authors to succeed.  We want our slush pile submissions to succeed because it's so much more fun for us when they do.  We want to be on your side.  Just meet us halfway. . . .

Helen Marshall spends the majority of her time pursuing a Ph. D. in Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto where she gets to travel across England to examine fourteenth-century manuscripts. Of course, her fascination with the making and writing of books extends well into the present. Her poetry has been published in ChiZine, NFG and the Ontarion Arts Supplement. "Mist and Shadows," published originally in Star*Line, appeared in The 2006 Rhysling Anthology: The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Poetry of 2005." "The Gypsy" and "Crossroads and Gateways" both received honourable mentions in the 2009 Rannu Fund Contest, while four other poems were short-listed. She works as an editor and slush reader for ChiZine Publications.

Speculative Poetry: The Red-Haired Stepchild of Genre Writing?

By Helen Marshall

Speculative poetry, huh?  Talk about ghetto buried in the basement of the already ghetto-ized lands of science fiction, horror, and fantasy.  I was working CZP's table at the dealer's room and, after selling somewhere in the vicinity of forty books, everyone was most astounded to discover I had even sold - wait for it! - a book of poetry! (And that book was The Animal Bridegroom by the talented Sandra Kasturi.  C'mon kids.  I defy anyone to read two pages of it and not buy the collection!)

Having been asked to participate as a judge in the Rannu Fund Poetry Competition some time ago, I found myself wondering exactly what constituted speculative fiction poetry.  Surely it must be about more than tropes, more than the trappings of genres, the familiar characters, the sly references to technology. My earlier post, which picks up upon Margaret Atwood's definition of "speculative fiction," shows that there's still controversy about what constitutes that genre (as separate from science fiction).  Is it as simple as stating that speculative fiction poetry has vampires or aliens or monsters?

 Suzette Haden Elgin, founder of the Science Fiction Poetry Association defines it as being "about a reality that is in some way different from the existing reality."  I think she's on to something.  In my opinion, speculative fiction works precisely because it does something not because it is something. It makes us think about the world in new ways. It makes us re-evaluate the pillars of our society, its values, customs, mores, habits, and project forward to come face to face with the consequences of our actions.  It loosens the fixtures that bind us into thinking that this is the way things are because it has always been the way things are.

But when it comes to poetry, though, the line is increasingly blurry. Poetic language works on the very premise of pushing at the boundaries of reality.  Anne Carson, author of the Autobiography of Red (and what could be more "speculative" than a collection of poems about the red monster Geryon and his little dog?) writes about poetic language:

"What is an adjective? Nouns name the world. Verbs activate names. Adjectives come from somewhere else ... These small imported mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity.  They are the latches of being."

 But if nouns, verbs, and adjectives construct reality as Carson proposes, if they name it, activate it, latch it to the *real*, then isn't all poetry halfway there already?  Shakespeare writes, "Shall I compare you to a summer's day?"  He speculates. He uses the subjunctive.  He tiptoes around naming, offers us glimpses. A metaphor or simile is designed precisely to transmute one thing into another, to make it like another thing.  Is that not already beginning to alter reality, to confuse the process of naming?

 Any fantasist will tell you that poetry is a kind of magic.  That's why wizards speak in rhymes and fear to be named.  Language offers us the ropes to bind reality, but it also gives us the tools to unleash it.  To let it roam free in the woods, pouncing on passersby.

 Poetry is language compressed, made to do tricks, set up to spark and hiss in our minds.  Good poetry is, anyway.  Just look at the words of Bruce Boston and David Clink, Suzette Elgin and Carolyn Clink, Lorna Crozier and Anne Carson (the latter two who may not place themselves in the genre but certainly fit!). And, for me, speculative poetry must simply do more of that. It must push us further. It must open those chasms in reality wider.  It must be the glass through which we see darkly, strangely, because only in those shadows can we find the possibility of a new self.


Helen Marshall spends the majority of her time pursuing a Ph. D. in Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto where she gets to travel across England to examine fourteenth-century manuscripts. Of course, her fascination with the making and writing of books extends well into the present. Her poetry has been published in ChiZine, NFG and the Ontarion Arts Supplement. "Mist and Shadows," published originally in Star*Line, appeared in The 2006 Rhysling Anthology: The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Poetry of 2005." "The Gypsy" and "Crossroads and Gateways" both received honourable mentions in the 2009 Rannu Fund Contest, while four other poems were short-listed.

Myth and Fantasy Literature (IV)

By Victoria Goddard

I was originally going to write this next as a separate post from my two on myth and fantasy, but then it occurred to me that the relationship between modern fantasy literature and medieval studies fits right in with the mythophiloi and the mythopoeoi I talked about before.  A modern fantasist and medievalist, Dr. Debra Doyle has argued that speculative fiction in general is derived from medieval romance rather than the modern novel (her rant on the subject is available at http://www.sff.net/people/DoyleMacdonald/genre2.htp).  Small wonder, then, that a love of the Middle Ages -- whether amateur or professional -- characterizes many a fantasist.  (I speak from my own love; my knowledge of other branches of speculative fiction is limited.)

The roots of modern fantasy certainly come from both medieval literature and medievalists. William Morris in the nineteenth century, that doyen of Arts and Crafts, wrote a handful of fantasy romances of which the most resonant of both myth and fairy tale is The Well at the World’s End, which title is (to rework something C.S. Lewis wrote) almost a myth in itself, together with The Garden of the Hesperides or the Isles of the Blessed (for the use of which in literature one might look at Lud-In-The-Mist, by Hope Merrilees, or The Odyssey, by Homer). There was George MacDonald, most of whose books are fairy tales and who even called his adult fantasy Phantastes: A Faerie Romance. 

But of course, it was C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien who revived fantasy literature by going back to those old sources, the gardens and the springs and wild forests.  The first time I read the Divine Comedy, I came to the end of Purgatory with a catch in my throat not only for the scene between Dante, Virgil, and Beatrice but because on entering the Earthly Paradise I was pleasantly flabbergasted to realize I’d been there before -- in Narnia.  Then I read a Norse saga, and found the names of Tolkien’s dwarves long since written.  Or I read Chrétien de Troyes, and then Gerald Morris’ YA retellings of Arthuriana (which I like particularly because they are about the knights and ladies, and not the overdone love triangle of the King), and like them both the more for the connection.

One of the joys of studying the classics is entering into the game of allusions that has been played since Virgil’s time and which some modern authors (I do not say, all) seem to have dropped in favour of originality.  In some of the best fantasy literature, I find the game still going strong, in this love of myth and fairytale, which are permitted to echo and be reworked, embroidered and re-dyed and generally made new and wonderful.  Virgil reworked Homer, and Dante Virgil, and C.S. Lewis Dante, and Terry Pratchett made fun of Lewis, and the game goes on.

Victoria Goddard has lived in more of Canada than most people even know exist.  She has lived from the East Coast to the prairies, from the High Arctic to lake country, from villages at the end of the road to Canada’s largest city.  Although in the midst of a five-year doctorate in medieval literature, she has managed to avoid breaking her record of not living for more than three years consecutively in any one house by haring off to Europe periodically to learn languages and look at medieval manuscripts.  A keen reader, particularly of fantasy (from all periods and places), she also writes (as-yet-unpublished) novels, mostly on the subject of the lives that lie behind the fairy stories, trying to combine pithy details of not-so-ordinary days with sometimes all-too-matter-of-fact magic.