I was living with my folks the last time I saw the Ring Cycle on PBS in the US.  I made my parents endure several hours of it before they said, enough!  After all I had hi-jacked the TV for several nights.  And I was in the middle of Siegfried, and well, maybe…..  actually my mother came to me and said, “Are you really enjoying this?” with a hint that she’d probably prefer something else.  And actually, then, without the absence of distraction–I was inside the living room of an active six person house with dog–I don’t remember much of the Ring Cycle at all.  I do remember telling my mom that we could change the channel.

I know, high recommendation eh?  But it was a small tv, on a fuzzy station, in a mad house of six people and dog— it wasn’t the Yukon Arts Centre, with its HD and surround sound.  It’s giant screen.  And it wasn’t hunky Bryn Terfel, the Wotan of this Ring Cycle.  I’m unabashedly crushing on Bryn Terfel.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to going through my first RING CYCLE in its entirety!  As a fully realized, aware, culturally-interested adult (without a dog).  I want the t-shirt that says I got through it.  I may ask Triple J’s to make some!

Anyway, a FREE movie begins the cycle–it’s Wagner’s Dream: the Making of the Ring Cycle at 7pm on Saturday, May 12.

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Because we are offering the Ring Cycle and because I’m kind of the defacto host of these Met Opera’s, I needed to know more about it–so I looked up the story.  It’s freakin’ amazing!

It might sound familiar: A ring forged that will let the wearer rule the world, dwarves fighting for the ring, dragons that guard it, doomed lovers— seems like Wagner’s Ring Cycle might be  The Lord of the Rings with music.  It’s not true.

Though there is a strong case that Wagner and Tolkien both got their source material from the same places–German and Norse mythology and sagas–what they crafted is very different.  And with all proper credit to Tolkien, Wagner’s opera has just as much amazing storytelling as the tale of hobbits and wizards.

Tolkien’s Trilogy of books starts off with a prelude book, The Hobbit, just as Wagner’s trilogy of operas starts off with Das Rheingold.

The Story:

The story begins innocently enough—mermaids in the Rhine river singing.  An ugly dwarf comes along to try and woo them, and they laugh at him.  When he asks about a golden glow on top of a mountain, they reveal that they are to guard that glow–that it is gold and that particular gold can be shaped into a ring to rule the world.  They don’t mind telling him–because whoever wants that gold has to first renounce Love forever.  But they underestimate bitterness they’ve induced in the dwarf–and he spurns love and steals the gold!

So our story starts off with a choice:  Love or Power?  Which will bring more happiness.  To a spurned dwarf, all that’s left is to get power. He leaves to forge the ring that will rule the world.

High up in Norse Heaven, Wotan and his wife, Fricka, are having some reconstruction work done on their house.  But they don’t want to pay for it–not really.  They’ve promised two giant construction workers (nice) Fricka’s sister, Freia as payment.  That would satisfy them.  But Fricka’s not so sure giving her sister away to two giants is a good thing.  Not to worry, Wotan says–he’s had Loge, his brother, out searching for a better token to give the giants.  The giants get done, crack open a beer, and ask for their payment: Freia–the very picture (and Goddess) of Feminine Love.  Freia doesn’t want to go.  Freia’s brothers appear to save their sister.  Wotan doesn’t want to break the agreement.  He tries to stall long enough for Loge to get there.  Alas, Loge comes back and he can’t find anything that mankind wants more than love–(Wagner seems specific about “feminine love”, ah well).  The giants want their Freia.  Loge does say that only once in the history of mankind did anyone give up Love for something else—and that was that dwarf, who stole the gold and made a ring of power.  Well, the giants are all over that!  They make a new offer—they’ll accept the ring instead of Freia.

Seems like the desire for Love again takes a back seat to desire for Power.  (Of course, the giants were never going to get Freia’s love, just as the dwarf was never going to get the Rhine Maidens’ love–theirs was just the desire for sex, or Lust.)

To save his sister-in-law Wotan has to go get the Dwarf’s ring.  The giants carry Freia off as hostage till they can get the ring.

Well, they find the dwarf making slaves out of other people–using the ring to amass more gold.  He’s also contracted a magic helmet, that renders the wearer invisible, or a shape-shifter.  Through clever con-artistry they are able to nab the ring and the gold.  The dwarf curses the ring—whoever doesn’t have it will want it, whoever does have it will be too anxious to sleep, and will eventually be killed.  Curses be damned, Wotan doesn’t want to return the ring—but when the giants claim that all the gold must stack up high enough to completely shield Freia from sight, Wotan finds that the payment to get Freia back is short by a smidgen–the size of the ring–and he must give up the ring to the giants.  He relents and gives over the ring and the gold and the magic helmet.  They bicker over the gold and the ring and one giant kills the other.  And so begins the story of the ring.

That’s just Das Rheingold!

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As you can see, Wagner wrote the Ring Cycle to turn on complex emotions–a desire for Love, a desire for Power.  Each of the stories in the Ring Cycle complicate this simple dichotomy more and more until it is tangled.  Those who want love can be bought with power.  What is good can be outbid by what is powerful.  Or maybe one desire trumps another.  And betrayed in love?  Oh, that person becomes more powerful the more scorned!

I’m excited about the Operas.  They appeal to the fantasy loving side of me, but also the reader/viewer who wants to see deeper emotional chords being struck, and more complicated plots.  I want to see less bang for my buck and more thoughtful exploration of character.  I think you got it in this opera–in this story!  I will write more when I know more.

The singers will do a great job–the set will be the interesting, twisting hardware that it sets out to be–but the story, the story from over a hundred and fifty years ago–still captures the imaginations of viewers, opera lovers and not opera-lovers alike.  They come for the story!

Maybe you will too.

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All operas are shown with ENGLISH subtitles so you never lose the story.  All operas (except for the free short movie) will have soup available for a small donation.  Operas shown at the Yukon Arts Centre:

SAT, May 12, 7pm : Wagner’s Dream: The Making of the Ring Cycle—FREE

SUN, May 13, 1pm: Das Rheingold

TUES, May 15, 5pm:  Die Walküre

THURS, May 17, 5pm:  Siegfried

TUES, May 22, 5pm:  Götterdämmerung

CRAFT YOUR RING!    FORGE YOUR SWORD!    MAKE YOUR DEALS!     SLAY YOUR DRAGONS!

Tom MacMaster, an American student studying in Scotland, his subject Middle Eastern Studies, created the blog “Gay Girl in Damascus” as a way to give himself a voice in the debates about what was going on in Syria, a voice others would believe.  Well, he got more than he bargained for.  The new found fame–when other people started reading the blog—went to his head, he admits, and he took the opportunity to start pushing his opinions, through Amina Arraf, on all sorts of things related to Syria.  He wanted to make a difference and claimed that no one would listen to him as a white American male.  His blog seemed to be recording life during the “Arab Spring”–a time that’s exciting everyone all over the world.  Oddly, instead of a male protagonist, in Syria, he made his “character” a lesbian:

“It was part of the challenge of being someone who wasn’t me. It was a way of also drawing attention to things, I do think there is a certain orientalism, where we in the West tend to pay more attention to people that are like us, people we can relate to, someone marginalized is more interesting.

I also think I wanted to show that in Syria, too, there are people who are all different, gay, straight, people of every possible permutation.” (from the Washington Post)

When, in a dramatic turn of events in “Amina’s” life, MacMaster writes that she’s kidnapped, he suddenly got the world’s attention.  People were noticeably upset about what was happening to this lesbian blogger in Syria.  They wanted to help. The Post says that this is the moment when a blog that might have remained believable took a misstep.  It was that Amina had so many supporters, so many people “she” had talked to, that they wanted to help her.

And the evidence piled up against Amina being a real person….  which caused him to come clean.  I don’t think he would have come clean without the sudden dose of skepticism.

MacMaster’s apology on his website seems, at best, naive.

“While the narrative voice may have been fictional, the facts on thıs blog are true and not mısleading as to the situation on the ground,” he wrote. “I do not believe that I have harmed anyone — I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.” (via Washington Post)

Days later, another prominent lesbian blogger, Paula Brooks, and editor of a communal blogsite for lesbian and gay issues, LezGetReal, is exposed as a white, American, straight man. Bill Graber, 58, began the blog in 2008.

Graber said he started the site to write about gay issues after seeing the mistreatment of close friends who were a lesbian couple. He said the site was “done with the best of intentions.” As a former Air Force pilot, he also said he used the site to argue in favor of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal.

“I didn’t start this with my name because… I thought people wouldn’t take it seriously, me being a straight man,” he said.

(Washington Post)

Ironically, he and MacMaster had some chat together, even flirtations.

In the guise of Paula Brooks, Graber corresponded online with Tom MacMaster, thinking he was writing to Amina Arraf. Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian.(WP)

Both men apologized for years of pretending to be someone they weren’t.  They were both trying to help out a cause they felt they didn’t have a voice in, and they both deeply hope that their fabrications haven’t hurt the causes they cared about.

Is this simply a case of gender-play?  Were these men trying to make a difference?  Did they succeed in the changes they wanted to make?  Is it okay to impersonate someone and portray a fictional account of life as truth–for a higher purpose?

Here are my opinions:

“A Million Little Pieces” and autobiographies by J.T. Leroy, Nasdijj, Misha Defonseca, and others which are considered “fake memoirs” or literary forgeries, have been around for a long time.  There is, however, been a plethora of them published in the last decade–including the remarkably explosive Three Cups of Tea.

One can only wonder why this happens–is it the quick pace of publishing when marketability trumps truth, or is it that facts slip by unnoticed and unchecked because publishers are human and they trust their writers?  Probably a bit of both.

But these publications have taught us several things:

One, the greater the public reception of a writing that touches the heart, the greater the wrath of the public when that writing is exposed as fraud.  There is no wrath like an Oprah scorned–and Oprah has millions of friends. People don’t want to be fooled and when their hearts are fooled, they get angry.

Two, that after awhile these stories that turn out to be frauds harden the hearts and sharpen the cynicism of readers of memoirs.  They become more skeptical, and less inclined to believe real stories, knowing that there must be fake parts.

Three, the public loves a true story and will buy one over a novel.  Publishers know this.  Writers know this.  We live in “truthy” times.  “Based on a true story” has prefaced many a book to its favor.  The earliest novels, works of fiction, trumpeted their “real story” pedigrees, even if they were false, by claiming that they were actual historical accounts.  It was the only way for authors to play with realism.  Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe and Frankenstein are what I think of first…but I’m sure there are even better examples.  “True accounts” by narrators whom we know to be creations who are trying to tell us the “truth” and who boldly claim this in the title, or on the first page, or the first paragraph.  To lend it authenticity of voice.  Who wants to shout out they’re lying?  Sales of nonfiction, though, often outstrip fiction.  We are in a nonfiction heydey.

Four, we love the tragic story.  Many of these faked memoirs are from authors who purport to represent marginalized peoples who struggle in society: Native Americans, the homeless, gays, women in Syria, drug addicts, etc.  Beggars have known for millenia that folks will fork over cash for a good sad story.  The bigger the story, the more the sympathy, the more the cash.  Some of those fake memoirs recently have been about Holocaust survivors, and at least one by a Holocaust survivor.

Five, and I think this is important, NO ONE IS HELPED by a fake memoir.  The author of Three Cups of Tea has certainly found a lot of tempest in that tea.  Though his organization has helped SOME schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, other schools seem never to have begun, or have been created for the purposes of more money.  The fabrications in Three Cups of Tea threaten the good that Mortenson has done.

So we come to two blogs by two men who played two lesbians.  One wanted the exoticism, and the Western sensibility, and both wanted authenticity in talking about their isssues.  Clearly, they are both purporting more than fake memoirs.  They are personas that interact with other people, influencing them–I’m not just talking about news media, but other people.  I wonder how many other women were affected by these men.  How much advice they gave, how much trust they engendered.  Trust that’s now been broken.

While two men decided to help out, they may have actually done more serious damage.  Syria is a dangerous situation for journalists, women, and LGBT people.  Certainly, and I heard this on CBC today, MacMaster has cried wolf in Syria and the next real blogger may not be believed.  The Post’s article says that other Syrian bloggers have come forward to say that they feel they might be “delegitimized” by MacMaster’s hoax.  Who’s gonna believe their accounts?  MacMaster fears that Syria will believe that this just proves Western Media is all false.  And I don’t think anything was done in favor of gay rights by having liars push important issues.  Gays are very vulnerable in Middle Eastern cultures.  I think they are more vulnerable now.

I wonder about the argument that other voices were not heard because audiences were distracted by these two frauds.  Cream rises to the top–but of course, a little sensationalism sweetens it too.  Did they drown out other voices?  The voices they thought weren’t being heard?

I think the impulse to help is good, but the impulse to “become the voice” because you sense a voicelessness in the group that you’re trying to help is just your own ego playing “savior”.  These two men stepped up and did what they felt others should be doing, what others could be doing, and in doing so, and being exposed, hurt a lot of people.  They undermined all their good.  Like money-laundering for charities.  Yes, the charities are a good cause, but the money-laundering dirties the good.  Let others who can play the hero, do it.  Or learn to promote LGBT issues and women’s issues as yourself.

But haven’t we seen authors switch genders for other reasons:

I think it says something about the lack of credence these two white men felt in expressing views about GLBT issues and about Syrian policy.  Why did they feel like they needed the personas in the first place?  They both admitted that they thought no one would listen to them.  It sounds like the Remington Steele of blogging:

“Try this for a deep, dark secret. The great detective Remington Steele, he doesn’t exist…I invented him. Follow: I always loved excitement so I studied and apprenticed and put my name on an office but absolutely nobody knocked down my door. A female private investigator seemed so feminine, so I invented a superior, a decidedly masculine superior. Suddenly there were cases around the block. It was working like a charm until the day he walked in with his blue eyes and mysterious past and before I knew it he assumed Remington Steele’s identity. Now I do the work and he takes the bows. It’s a dangerous way to live but as long as people buy it I can get the job done. We never mix business with pleasure, well, almost never. I don’t even know his real name.” (Stephanie Zimbalist’s opening monologue played over music for the start of every Remington Steele episode)

Women inventing male personas to challenge gender inequities in their careers was seen positively.  Female authors assumed male identities to get published, to gain readership, and sometimes, just to be able to have a voice at all in a decidedly patriarchal society. Laura Holt, the fictional detective, created a male persona to help out her business–to challenge stereotypes of women in formerly male-only careers.  Not so sure that Bill and Tom are singing that same ballad, but the notes sound similar.

They felt they had ideas to express and that no one accepted them as the vessels for those ideas, so they created women, strong women, to express those ideas, knowing that their audiences would accept two women over two men.  I think that’s interesting.  I don’t want to give it more credibility than it’s worth–but it is interesting.  It doesn’t excuse, but it provides an interesting framework.  What can two lesbians say that two white American straight men can’t?

Well, for one, they can promote gay issues without being seen as questioning their identity.  Most of the straight men that I knew in my conservative circles believed that if you spoke about LGBT issues, you were automatically suspect.  “Why would a privileged straight man need to talk about LGBT issues?” they wondered.  Are these women seen as strong or as vulnerable in their situations?  And is this a component for readership–vulnerability, courage in difficult circumstances, dangerous times?  Was it their strength they were hoping to channel, their “exoticism” (as MacMaster alludes to) or their vulnerability?

I also wonder about the two men who believed they were flirting with lesbians (each other).  My first thought is that they got a little spark of power and ego stroke from flirting with a woman who normally won’t flirt with men.  My second thought is that they might have enjoyed “being” the other.  We won’t know.  But it is interesting.

You know, TRY FICTION.

You can choose the voice you want, be anyone you want to be, all within the safe confines of suspended belief.  You can play with any element of the story–craft a realistic tale, build a realistic character–all without hurting actual readers. 

MacMaster admits he was a “failed fantasy writer”.  People who write fake memoirs can write some fantasy, okay?  And novels are just as powerful as “true” stories.  And I don’t buy the argument that these two white straight males are too privileged to be heard through fiction.  Tom could have written “Gay Girl in Damascus” and collaborated with his wife, lesbians and Syrians to give that novel a great larger truth–even through fiction–without having to “FOOL” or “punk” the rest of the world.  Fiction is a legitimate medium.  Look at Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by a white, fairly privileged woman in the North about the black experience in the South.  Don’t tell me a work of fiction by someone more privileged in society can’t do good for those underprivileged.  Fiction is where it’s at, guys.  If you’re going to lie anyway…you can get the same thought-provoking narrative, same topical advantage, same detail, and actually, a bigger chance at hitting a deeper chord, through fiction.  Fiction reaches into your mythos.  It resonates.  And it can be just as “true”.

As for memoir…

I don’t think anything positive for activism is accomplished through deceit.  When that deceit is exposed, the good that you do is destroyed. Three Cups of Tea, A Million Little Pieces, politicians who cheat, pastors who play around–they trip everything up.  They make us all look bad.  They convince everyone not to believe those memoirists who are trying to speak the truth.  I am convinced people write these for the power of “fooling” other people, the power of lying.  It gives you a rush not to give away your secret, to string along a heart or two million.

However, when we find out the person we love is actually married, or cheating on us, we feel betrayed.  It doesn’t matter all the good they’ve done, all the lovely advice, good times–we know they lied.  And for bloggers, and for memoirists, integrity and honesty is all we got.

If our lives aren’t good enough AS IS to sell the story, then maybe the story can’t be sold to millions.  The temptation to embellish is strong, but resist it.  If it didn’t happen, don’t say it did.  One lie can unravel a beautiful set of truths.  People need something true to believe in.  Not just something, but something true.  That truth could be found most perfectly in fiction.  But it can’t be found in your fiction if you try to sell it to us as truth.

Death disports with writers more cruelly than with the rest of humankind,” Cynthia Ozick wrote in a recent issue of The New Republic.

“The grave can hardly make more mute those who were voiceless when alive–dust to dust, muteness to muteness. But the silence that dogs the established writer’s noisy obituary, with its boisterous shock and busy regret, is more profound than any other.

“Oblivion comes more cuttingly to the writer whose presence has been felt, argued over, championed, disparaged–the writer who is seen to be what Lionel Trilling calls a Figure. Lionel Trilling?
“Consider: who at this hour (apart from some professorial specialist currying his “field”) is reading Mary McCarthy, James T. Farrell, John Berryman, Allan Bloom, Irving Howe, Alfred Kazin, Edmund Wilson, Anne Sexton, Alice Adams, Robert Lowell, Grace Paley, Owen Barfield, Stanley Elkin, Robert Penn Warren, Norman Mailer, Leslie Fiedler, R.P. Blackmur, Paul Goodman, Susan Sontag, Lillian Hellman, John Crowe Ransom, Stephen Spender, Daniel Fuchs, Hugh Kenner, Seymour Krim, J.F. Powers, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Rahv, Jack Richardson, John Auerbach, Harvey Swados–or Trilling himself?”

Ebert goes on to talk about whether he’s read these authors, and he’s read all but two.  Ozick goes on to ask the question of whose writing will endure?  I’m not sure that’s the question to ask.  After the Library of Alexandria debacle, who can say anything will endure?  But can we say that we affected the minds of those who lived?  Yes.

Ozick determines that Saul Bellow will endure, most because of the Adventures of Augie March, a book I know few of my friends will have read.  I haven’t read it, and I should.  But it did affect a whole generation.  Ebert makes a comment about Hemingway, that we will know him for The Sun Also Rises and his stories, but little else (he’s quoting and agreeing with another friend).  And true, Old Man and the Sea, though the Pulitzer winner, isn’t the book that endures.  It’s his first book of stories, I think, and The Sun Also Rises that continue to be read.

The Fan Base

I will say that in Science Fiction and Fantasy they have developed the concept of the FAN BASE.  And this actually keeps writing, and writers, alive.  JRR Tolkien will endure for a very long time.  So will Stephen R. Donaldson, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, etc.  The classics of Science Fiction are still being read by the fan base, by those who love science fiction and fantasy.  They are suggesting them to their friends.  They are voracious readers and they claim, quite knowledgeably, that you can’t know science fiction and fantasy without reading this set of writers, or that book, and at the conventions these writers are celebrated.  Even ComicCon has such a large science fiction and fantasy base that these 30,000 people will all know a large set of names, not just the celebrities of the moment, but the masters and grandmasters of the genre.

It could be that you might dismiss the FAN BASE as those who feed on pulp, but I would argue that they know what they like, and they are assisting in the endurance of writers and writing and that cultivating a fan base is not a bad idea.  Further, these “genre writers” are introducing them to many of the great works of literature, by quoting from, giving allusions to, works by other authors.  Many of our first introductions to literature–Shakespeare even–was in a comic book, or in a science fiction novel.  I’m not going to give too much more a spirited defense to the importance of Fantastic Literature, or say too much longer that, before Hemingway, authors had their science fiction novels and their literary novels and no one thought of the books differently: London, James, Twain, Poe, Hawthorne, all had a novel where time travel or science fiction played a large role.  Anyway, I have a larger point to make. Still, hold onto the idea that developing a fan base is important–because a fan base has been enthused by your writing, has been affected by your writing, and seeks to market you to their friends.

The Nudge vs. The Monument

It would be nice to endure longer than your own generation.    For your work to outlast you.  For you to speak to multiple generations, for your voice to go on long after you are dead.  This would all be very nice.  To be The Monument that I think Ozick seeks in her search for who will endure, her celebration of Saul Bellow.  But just like the pictures of your ancestors get stuffed into envelopes or in albums or on the wall less and less, making room for the photos of babies, and young children vibrant and full of life; just like your schedule books are more filled with new meetings, after hour drinks, dinners and parties of the people you know in the city you are living in, rather than in the city you moved from; so it is with books and authors.  We will read the people who are talking to us right now, who are a part of our culture right now.  They will influence us.  They will have the chance to speak and change our minds.

And this is not a bad, or insignificant thing.  During our lives, things nudge us.  They correct our paths, they push us one direction or another, they influence the way we treat another person; they build our character.  They may be tiny things.  For example, the character Nightcrawler in the X-Men made me want to study German.  I studied German; I was friendly with a lot of German families when I was in Germany, and my loose, but growing strong, grasp of the German language made them laugh.  The language helped me translate fairy tales for my Honors thesis.  It still intrigues me as a language.  All because a blue, furry, demon-looking superhero spoke German in a comic book.  Star Trek has made me a better man.  I learned a lot from what I saw there growing up.  I loved Madeleine L’Engle–her Wrinkle in Time series affected me as a person, guided me in the way I saw myself; Ray Bradbury influenced my writing; Lloyd Alexander, Lois Duncan, Arthur C. Clarke, Edward Eager, Sid and Marty Kroft, Remington Steele…. these ephemeral tv-shows, some of which have been obliterated from culture, others which endure, influenced their own time periods.

Nudging involves being present when someone is on a particular path, and making them think so that they change direction, even slightly.  We are the voices in THIS generation first—say something that needs to be said NOW.  What is it that needs to be said—that you can influence in this generation.  You will affect who they are as people, and they will affect others.  They will raise their children with something you nudged them with in your books, perhaps.  No one else may remember you, but the few you nudged will nudge others.

I would rather be a great nudger than a grand monument.  Let my influence be kept in the behavior and way of thinking of generations, rather than on the shelves.  There could always be another Alexandria fire; there might someday be an internet shock that wipes it clean.  This blog post will not endure.  If endurance is not assured for anyone, then why not seek a more lasting influence?

Think of writing books, then, more like a Theatre performance.  Theatre is more ephemeral—here for a moment and then gone—but who can deny the powerful effects of theatre?  It does make us think, brings about emotion, it could turn us around–and that’s not a bad thing.  And then the sets are dismantled and it’s not even a line in a database somewhere.  We would love Books to endure; but in the end, why not try to affect THIS generation now, rather than looking for our place in the literary canon.   All those author Ozick listed influenced Ebert and I like Ebert a lot.  Ebert is influencing others.  Who’s to say that energy did not come from Lillian Hellman, Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer?  Even if they are not alive in their literary form, perhaps they have transmuted into their more influential form.

“Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can ever imagine”  Obi Wan Kenobi to Darth Vader.  Who says the physical manifestation is everything?  Perhaps the wisdom and the spirit endures diffused among the people who read them and were influenced by them.  This doesn’t mean not to write the BEST that you can, the most provocative or challenging or comforting things you can imagine, but to aim for today for tomorrow is never ours.

Write what you think needs to be said, not what you think will be important in a hundred years.  Your readers are alive today.  Nudge them. 

Val Grimm, over at the Portal, gave me a good review for my short story, “One Nation Under Gods”!  Thanks, Val.  I’m always thrilled that there are people who will review short fiction, and anthologies.  Thank you, Val!  Val reviews the whole anthology, Tesseracts 14, story by story.  Here is his review of mine:

The author of “One Nation Under Gods”, Jerome Stueart, emigrated to Yukon from the States in 2007, and his former citizenship is evident in the themes and content of his story. I’m not biased in its favor because of my nationality, nor simply because its dark vision seems in concord with my fears. This story succeeds, in my eyes, because of his detailed worldbuilding, the realistic relationship between the narrator and his sister, and his cultivation of genuine menace, an evocation of the way people can be treated as things. In the world of this story (which in outlook and some tropes puts me a bit in mind of Steve Darnall and Alex Ross’ 1997 comic Uncle Sam) concepts like Freedom and Patriot are incarnate as deities, administered by priests and priestesses, and the Statue of Liberty herself is known to walk abroad. The history of the gods is the history of the country, and its people are required to memorize that catechism or pay with their lives in particularly grotesque ways; if a child fails the standardized test which is a mandated rite of passage, he or she is transformed into a public object, anything from a soda shop to a garbage can. Stueart skillfully incorporates the conflict between individuality and vested religious and political powers; the way those powers can intertwine and what that merging means; the clash between idealism or perception cultivated through propaganda and reality, between history as the study of people in power versus the study of the people’s past; and the transformation of people into instruments, people into numbers.—Val Grimm at the Portal.

1)     Fantasy is a broad genre, and it’s yet to stop expanding.  In addition to writers, editors are playing a crucial role in defining what fantasy is.  I’ve read a number of stories in our pages that I consider science fiction.  Obviously Shawna felt otherwise, or at least saw enough fantasy-related elements to justify publishing these tales in RoF.  Too often, I hear about authors rejecting themselves from certain markets because their stories are “not a good fit.”  Now, if you’re writing a hard science fiction piece in the vein of Gregory Benford or Isaac Asimov, it’s true that your story most likely isn’t right for us.  But if there is an element that could be considered fantastical in your sf story, who knows?  We just might buy it.  Did you know John Joseph Adam’s recent dystopian sf reprint anthology has a story from RoF in there?  Did you know we published a story with robots that were clearly inspired by Transformers?  Did you know we had a story about molecule memory that was reprinted in Rich Horton’s Science Fiction, Best of the Year, 2008?  I could go on.  The point—and this is something to keep in mind for all markets—is that it’s not your job to reject your stories for our magazines.  It sounds like a basic thing, but too often I see authors—including experienced ones—overanalyzing their prospective writing markets.  This is not a phenomenon unique to RoF.  It’s good to know your markets, because that might help you land a sale sooner rather than later.  But don’t be the editor for them.  I can’t stress this enough.  When in doubt, submit.  Let us decide what’s right for the magazine.  The worst that happens is that we say no.  To borrow (and probably mangle) a phrase from John W. Campbell: “How dare you reject your story for my magazine?”

2)     Shawna and I have different tastes.  Yes, there is definite overlap, and these similarities (and the differences for that matter) are why we work well together.  But I hear too many authors saying things like, “Realms of Fantasy is not a market for sword & sorcery.”  Ahem.  I love sword & sorcery.  I also unquestionably enjoy this sub-genre more than Shawna does, meaning I’m likelier to enjoy an S&S tale than she is.  But since I’ve been with the magazine, we’re publishing more in this area than we ever have before.  Not an overwhelming amount, but definitely more.  The point is that magazines change over time.  Too many people stop reading a certain venue for whatever reason, and five or ten years later, when they’re telling you their problems with this magazine, what they’re saying is no longer relevant.  Again, I see this happen with experienced writers too, so I feel I should mention it here.  So not only should you never reject yourself, but it’s also a terrible idea letting others do your market research for you.  Sharing ideas is fine, but make sure your friends are up to date on what they’re saying.  If the information is coming secondhand, make sure it’s coming from a reliable source.

There are eight more points Mr. Cohen makes–equally insightful. It behooves you (I like ‘behooves’) to run over there and check them out.  Happy submitting.

Mr. Cohen also makes a strong point about Clarion graduates supplying the magazine with quality stuff.  See that top name on the February cover of Realms of Fantasy—Desirina Boskovich?  One of my Clarion buddies.  Awesome, Desirina!

Tesseracts 15 is open for submissions with a call for young adult science fiction, fantasy and horror.  NOVEMBER 30 is the deadline.  Below is the call.  

NOW OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS

(Calgary, Alberta) EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing is delighted to announce that Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales, is now open for submissions.

Submissions open September 1, 2010 thru November 30, 2010.

This edition of the award winning series of original Canadian Speculative Fiction comes with a twist and touch of whimsy.

Each Tesseracts anthology since volume one (1985) has featured editors hand picked for each particular volume. For this volume,Julie Czerneda and Susan MacGregor have agreed to co-edit.

SUBMISSION DETAILS:

• The Tesseracts anthology series is open to submissions in either English or French: from Canadians, landed immigrants, long time residents, and expatriates. French stories must have been translated into English for publication.
• The theme for Tesseracts Fifteen is Young Adult Speculative Fiction (includes science fiction, fantasy, and horror). Submissions must appeal to the YA audience and be PG-14 in content. Tesseracts Fifteen is open to both short fiction and poetry.
• The maximum length for stories is 5,500 words, with shorter works preferred.
• Submissions deadline is November 30, 2010.
• Detailed guidelines are available HERE (120 KB).

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Julie Czerneda is a Canadian author and editor whose first novel, A Thousand Words for Stranger, was published in 1997 by DAW Books. Since then, Julie has produced over a dozen more novels, edited fifteen anthologies, and written numerous short stories. Her work has won awards, consistently made bestseller lists, and garnered praise from readers and reviewers around the world.

Susan MacGregor has been an editor with On Spec magazine since 1991. Her published work has appeared in On Spec, Northern Frights, and other magazines. In 1998 her anthologyDivine Realms was published through the Ravenstone imprint of Turnstone Books. Her most recent book The ABC’s of How NOT to Write Speculative Fiction was published in 2006 by the Copper Pig Writer’s Society, and is the basis for a number of workshops offered by On Spec magazine. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her studying Spanish and dancing flamenco. She lives in Edmonton. 

ABOUT THE SERIES

The first Tesseracts anthology was edited by Judith Merril. Since its publication in 1985, 240 authors/editors/translators and guests have written 483 pieces of Canadian speculative fiction, fantasy and horror for this series. Some of Canada’s best known speculative fiction writers have been published within the pages of these volumes – including Margaret Atwood, William Gibson , Robert J. Sawyer, and Elisabeth Vonarburg (to name a few). Tesseracts Fifteen is the sixteenth volume in the series. The entire series includes Tesseracts One through Fifteen, and Tesseracts Q, which features translations of works by some of Canada’s top francophone writers of science fiction and fantasy.

DETAILED GUIDELINES

A PDF version of the detailed guidelines is available HERE.

Some questions immediately pop to mind: Why didn’t I read the books years ago?  

1.  I’m not a fad kind of guy, so having millions of people read the books actually made me feel less like becoming part of the phenomenon.  

2.  I actually loved the movies.  I did read HP 2 after the first movie came out, and before the second movie.  And loved it.  But when I watched the film, I was terribly disappointed that a whole mess of story was eliminated as if it didn’t count.  I vowed then and there to see the movies first, and then I would read the books to add in parts that the movies had left out.  This is actually a decent strategy.  

And why now??

Well, the end of the era is around the corner…. by summer 2011, the films will be done.  But I think it’s more because I really want to read the books.  I want to see how Rowling built the arcs, how she developed series characters, and how she managed to maintain the hook for so long.  It’s okay to admire the books on a “how are they written?” sort of way.  

I want the magic too.  Even though, now, I know at least where the movies have taken me.  Now I want to see where the books take me.  

I’m not the demographic JK Rowling was aiming for.  Her 9-17 age bracket probably resonated with the idea that children can have power too; that magic exists under adult noses; that the world doesn’t have to be like their parents told them it would be–office buildings, stock markets and 2 hour commutes.  

So what would a 41 year old, single, gay writer and English teacher living in the Yukon Territory–with no children– get from reading the Harry Potter series–besides how to create a blockbuster series?  It’s a good question to think about.  How does a book transcend its ideal market, appeal across the board to adults and children alike?  What will be the pull of the series for me?  (I already loved the movies—but why.)  

I’m keeping a Harry Potter Diary as I go to ponder things about the series along the way.   Just reactions to, thoughts about, resonances with the series.  

There’s a spot at Hogwarts for me–and I’m going to find it.

Writers Andrew Emmott, myself, Desirina Boskovich and Matthew Cody at Clarion

I signed up for the Clarion Write-A-Thon, a fundraiser that puts a whole bunch of writers into a sensory deprivation tank while they write for six weeks.  

Oh wait, there’s no sensory deprivation tank….

But still, the writers are joining together to keep Clarion San Diego alive and well for years to come by raising money to provide scholarships.  I’ve already written a whole essay about how life-changing my Clarion experience was.  I know it has been for my whole group of cohort writers–all 18 of them.  

The Link to My Writer’s Page lets you know what I’ll be doing for six weeks, and encourages you to donate a bit of money–maybe per day, per word, or just a small sum ($20, $50, $100) in total.  All proceeds go to Clarion for scholarships, helping more people like me get to attend.  Most of us who attend a six week workshop make sacrifices to be there, and certainly the costs can be high to spend six weeks anywhere in the world (even my apartment is $1050 just in rent for six weeks), but the benefit each student receives from that time is ginormous.  

Each Student gets:

• individual instruction from 6 major writers in the field
• connections to agents, publishers, editors
• advice on how to create a writerly business
• a cohort, band of writers that encourages during the long haul
• a lifetime of mentoring
• six weeks of time free to write, concentrate on their art

It’s very difficult to shave off time for writing, and this six weeks is a huge jumpstart.  I have sold 4 out of the 5 stories I wrote for Clarion, and frequently I take out that notebook that I kept during Clarion to record what the teachers/writers said, and I go through it again.  You can’t GET this kind of instruction anywhere else but with publishing writers, established in their fields.  

Enjoying the 4th of July: Jeff and Ann VanderMeer, Matthew Cody and myself

If you have trouble imagining what this would be like (maybe you don’t write science fiction), imagine a workshop of six weeks where each week you got to spend with these people: Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, John Updike, John Irving, Kazuo Ishiguro and Alice Munro.  And then editors from Harper Collins, Random House, etc came by to chat with you and take your pitches, and agents came by, and you went to a giant convention where all the big writers hung out.  You got to eat and drink with people who were doing your career— like job-shadowing, except they became your friends–for SIX WEEKS.  It’s just like that but with the big names of Science Fiction and Fantasy!

In the Golden Age of Science Fiction, a writer learned by joining up with a pulp magazine and writing stories every week to push into those magazines–they trained with writers around them, doing the same thing, encouraging each other.  

Nowadays, we’re all trying to get stories into those “pulp” magazines, Asimov’s, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy–but we’re not in a room full of other writers writing together–we’re strung out across the world.  The only places we get that kind of training are these workshops–they stand in for the kind of on-the-job writing/training you would get at a magazine.  The intensity is the same.  I think the quality is higher.  But without Clarions, writers wouldn’t have that avenue for training, and many who might not figure out how to write for the magazines, or their novels by osmosis, wouldn’t get published. 

For the six weeks, I will be working on chapters of my first novel, chapters a publisher is expecting and has asked for.  

Please consider donating even a small amount to the cause of helping writers in the Science Fiction and Fantasy field.  We brought you space shuttles and cell phones, fax machines and computers, rockets and really great entertainment.  

If you talked on your cell phone today, hug a science fiction writer for imagining it!  

And consider a small donation to the workshop that helps the visionaries think up such an interesting future.

What I like about the story of Alice in Burton’s Wonderland is that we get a detailed look at Alice’s life before the rabbit hole–especially her cloying debutante-shuffling world, where so little was expected from women, and so much was expected from their cooperation.  I like the summer dance on the lawn, the hordes who like to watch when she’s proposed to.  I like Alice.  I liked that narrative so much that I was expecting more of it when we got to Wonderland and it wasn’t there, not immediately anyway.    When I realized that Wonderland was reflecting her own re-vision of a forced duty, then it got more interesting–but that time in Wonderland feels off.

Two things happened when she got into Wonderland.  I got confused, and Wonderland was reduced to a strip of land between two kingdoms.  The premise of this movie is that Alice has been here before.  In fact, she has recurring nightmares throughout her childhood and young adulthood, and yet nothing in Wonderland sparks her memory?  Even a memory of the dream?  I don’t buy it.  If I was haunted by something, I would start recognizing people and things.  She acts like she’s never even SEEN the place.  Why doesn’t anyone try to jar her memory when they pull out the Calendria?  (When we do see her previous journey in montages it looks vaguely like the same plot…and boring)

This plot seems very focused on the end of the movie.   It’s like one big long foreshadowing.  She has to fight the Jabberwocky–everyone tells her this.  All the beautiful weird dialogue of Lewis Carroll is gone, pared away to focus on an ending that’s so inevitable we might as well have just skipped to the end.  All the characters are focussed on Alice.  This is so unlike Carroll’s version where everyone was focussed on themselves.  Alice was merely observant.  Here she does only what we expect her to do; she goes through the motions of the Eat Me/Drink Me sequence, a moment with the Mad Hatter, a second with the Cheshire cat.  She’s not even curious anymore.  Where’s Alice–Carroll’s Alice?  

Wonderland really takes on the rivalry between Elizabeth and Mary, two queens that duked it out after Henry VIII died.  I didn’t buy the petty rivalry of sisters.  What’s there to fight over?  Two courts, fully intact.  The flashback involving the Jabberwocky smoking a White Queen party—well, there weren’t any consequences.  The White Queen had a new castle, attendants, and enough white to choke the Arctic.  I didn’t get the queens at all.  There’s no reason for them to be upset, and in fact, the White Queen seems devoid of any will to fight–she has to be saved.  Her court resembled the starchy-white English party Alice just left.  And we hated that.  

Remakes where characters revisit their original stories can be good.  Hook is an excellent version of the grown up Peter Pan visiting Never Never Land.  The script was brilliant.  Burton’s Wonderland has very little wonder left–even for the characters involved.  

Yes, Carroll’s original story is obtuse and playful–it isn’t easily figured out.  But Burton scrapped the multiplicity of places in Wonderland, the depth of odd characters, and Alice’s curiosity in favor of a plot.  If you’re going to put all your money on a plot, it better work.  This one is so muddly in the middle, I just waited for there to be a reason for Alice to do something….until we see her realize that everyone is telling her what to do–in both worlds, and then she goes and does something else.  But it’s not enough.  She hurries through the epilogue in the world’s longest/shortest “I need a moment to think.” 

I liked Burton’s rescuing of Alice’s real world experiences—though she doesn’t talk about them much in Wonderland any more.  I like the ending, I like the beginning, but her time in Wonderland plays like nobody wants to be distracted by wonder anymore–they want the big battle.  Carroll’s Wonderland was about the wandering, about the figuring things out, about the wonder— but this one had few choices for Alice, a lot of inevitably and no wonder.

You might have caught me reading a portion of this at the Yukon Writers Festival a couple of years back.  It involves two kids and a history test, and a complete restructuring of the United States based on values Americans, like me, hold sacred: patriotism, freedom, the just war, independence, religion.  I just personified them a bit.  I’m very pleased it found a home.  I’m now going to start work on the novel version of this story.  

The picture on the left is the construction of the Statue of Liberty, a figure which looms large on the landscape at the beginning of my story.  And as I was now an immigrant to Canada, the Statue of Liberty loomed large on my new immigrant’s mind…what a dramatic beginning to a new life for those coming to America.  For me, I saw her on my way out.  On my drive from Texas to the Yukon, I parked my red truck in Calgary for one month, flew to Vermont to be part of a writer’s colony, and in that time, snuck down to see her.  Like some mistress I was breaking up with.  

How do you explain to her that you are leaving?   

I put her in my story, though, and so in this way, she haunts me.