alanajoli | Recent Entries

I've been developing a skillset lately by learning more about video editing. It seems that TikTok is where all the book chatter is happening these days, and while I'm not there (yet), I've been producing content for Outland Entertainment that we do post over on our company's official TikTok channel. They've also been going live on Outland's Instagram. I'm embedding a couple of my favorites here.

The first was a post to promote our Negocios Inferales Kickstarter. The game, designed by Carlos Hernandez and C.S.E. Cooney, uses the "Deck of Destiny" as the primary way to resolve conflict and create storytelling within the game. I'd done a few "Motivation Monday" posts before this, but as Halloween was around the corner, I wanted to do something a little more exciting…

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This second video, which just went up yesterday, is a stitched together walk through Yale University and Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, intended to promote our latest anthology, Haunted Hallways, which leans into the dark academia and ghost story genres. (It's live on Kickstarter now!)

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I've been experimenting with a few different programs to edit videos, and CapCut was a pretty easy way to use my phone to just stitch together full clips that I made—but anything more complicated than that, I'm still doing from my computer. It's been a learning experience, and I know there's a lot more out there I can do! Of course, my primary priority is still working with words on the page, but it has been fun to learn about creating this type of content, and I hope it brings people to the awesome projects we're working on!

You can also check out my own Instagram page for unboxings of review books and other bookish posts!

I've not been as active a blogger or article creator as I once was, in part because there seem to be so many ways to interface with the audience interested in reading my thoughts. Some of this shift is due to the way all my interactions with people have changed over the past two years; if the pandemic has brought any joys into my life (aside from the quality time spent with my immediate family), it's that I discovered Bookstagram.

I've been a reviewer for years—professionally for almost two decades! I receive a lot of review titles that I have the opportunity to cover. It's been incredibly fun to cover so many books at Den of Geek since I started writing there, and we've had a great time covering games, comics, and prose as a team at Outland Entertainment. (We're creators, but we love to consume media, too!) After I started updating my Instagram account (initially under protest, but Tara Cloud Clark insisted that adding one more social media account was important), I realized how much fun people were having with books. Makeup to match the covers! Props and beautiful backgrounds! Preorder goodies! Video or text reviews to go along with the images! I was won over.

So of course I started creating my own content. Some of the fun is finding the right location, like the steps of the Blackstone Library to feature Chantel Acevedo's #MuseSquad books.

The Muse Squad duology against a Greek-architecture inspired background

The Muse Squad duology against a Greek-architecture inspired background

I've made use of multiple backgrounds inside my house, like this shot of Jayci Lee's A Sweet Mess on my stove.

And I've realized that not every shot works with Instagram's framing; this shot of a book haul, complete with my Christmas cactus as an accent, ended up as just a book stack, minus the cactus, when I eventually posted it.

A book haul shot that

Every new post is a bit of an experiment, but the process of learning has been fun. If you're interested in keeping up with my regular posts and short reviews, give me a follow!

Back in the early days of this blog, I used to post about my "editorial assistants," the kittens we brought into our family in August 2009. It is with great sadness that I post here about our loss of one of these two cats, who has been such a companion to me over the past twelve years. Jack, named after C. S. Lewis (whose nickname among the Inklings was Jack), was the kitten I picked from a litter at a local shelter. The person who introduced us to the kittens told us a story about how Jack had been curious about what was inside a watering can, and he'd gotten his head stuck exploring it.

I knew he was meant to be my cat.

Jack as a kitten, on my lap as I work

Jack loved to steal broccoli from our dinners. When we allowed the cats to sleep with us, he would curl up at my feet and sleep all night. (His brother, Tollers, would bat my face at 3 a.m., or try to sleep on my neck, which is why they stopped sleeping with us.) He liked to knock things off of counters and hide in boxes. He would sleep under Fish's bed, sometimes, which meant I had to go track him down at bedtime so he wouldn't get stuck behind a closed bedroom door. He would sometimes sit in the window and watch the birds outside; he'd make the craziest not-meow noise that sounded like chirping, like he was trying to trick them into coming closer.

Once, when they were still kittens, the cats got ringworm. We had to give them both baths, which is always a challenge. Tollers refused to stay in the tub, understandably. Jack, on the other hand, couldn't seem to figure out how to get OUT of the tub, and stayed there the whole time we bathed him.

Both Jack and Tollers are known for their loud purring. When they were kittens they actually woke two houseguests with the sounds of their purrs. The vet would frequently have trouble hearing Jack's heartbeat because he purred so loudly at his appointments.

When Bug was little, I told her a bedtime princess story (starring her as the princess, by request), in which the Jack-Beast and the Tollers-Monster were plaguing the land where the princess lived. Everyone tried to defeat the monsters, but the princess—who had been taking lessons in monster languages, because second languages are valuable—decided to talk to the monsters instead. It turned out they were lonely and just wanted to be part of a family, so the princess convinced them to come with her. They changed their shapes to housecats and became her loyal knights: Sir Tollers the Brave and Sir Jack the Lazy. While in hindsight that's not the most flattering title, Jack was a homebody who loved spending his time around us instead of exploring independently, and I loved that about him.

We taught both cats to come to the sound of a whistle. I tried to teach them both as kittens to ride on my shoulders, but only Jack ever really took to it, which became a challenge when he grew to thirteen pounds! He still fit. (This worked best when wearing a hoodie, though; his claws were sharp!)

Jack riding on my shoulders

One of my favorite memories of the pandemic is when Fish, a budding kindergarten writer, found Jack in his room and decided to keep a field journal. Because he was napping, Fish's notes are filled with little tidbits like, "He is not moving." But Fish, maker that he is, decided to create a pillow bed underneath his bed so that Jack could have a comfy place to be. (In Jack's last days, when he really just wanted to hide, Fish made him a hidey-hole from cardboard boxes. Jack loved it and spent most of his last two days with us just chilling in his box.)

Jack liked human food: besides broccoli, he'd snag chicken (or chicken nuggets) if we left them on the dinner table. In the last year, when his health started failing, we'd slip him more food instead of making him steal it. He was particularly fond of pork tenderloin and tuna, and the milk from my cereal bowl.

He made my life better. He made me a better person. He helped me learn what it means to raise someone, so that I got experience being a mom before I became mom to little humans. He gave me love, and laughter, and companionship. And I will miss him terribly.

(For their very early adventures, you can click the "editorial staff" tag at the Dreamwidth location of this journal entry.)
Jack, my faithful editorial assistant, at my desk

Jack, my faithful editorial assistant, at my desk

I received a wonderful email today from a Blackstone Academy player today, who is working on a project about influences in a writer's work. My response to the writer (whose name has been redacted) bounced, so I'm posting it here in hopes that they find it. Some of the notes about my inspirations may be interesting to other readers, as well!

--

Dear A,

What a wonderful note to receive! I have also been struggling with my love for a certain transphobic author's works (which absolutely did help inspire Blackstone Academy), and to hear from you that the game helped made me tear up. I am so glad that it reached you!

A lot of other works influenced Blackstone Academy, many of which I referenced with little in jokes. In addition to that magic school series, I have absolutely been inspired by Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson novels, as well as Terry Pratchett's Discworld books (one of the Mahwees wears an Unseen University ball cap). I'd be remiss in not mentioning the Narnia books, which I grew up with! They're not quite as direct an inspiration, but the idea of finding a magical world within the real one certainly corresponds to the idea of being able to leave normal school to attend a magic school. All of these are works that shaped me as a reader and a writer. I wouldn't say that my game directly responds to any of them--it was created to stand alone, rather than to comment on those other works--but the inspiration is certainly there.

In addition to other children's and adult fantasies, I also was greatly inspired by my new hometown. I moved to Connecticut as an adult, and the Thimble Islands are a real place off the coast near where I live. I wanted to create a setting based on this part of Connecticut, and I very much wanted to honor the indigenous people who lived here before European settlers. Jules's mother is based on actual scholars I've met at the Pequot Museum on the Mashantucket Pequot reservation in Connecticut. Esme and her parents are Quinnipiac; the Quinnipiac people are the original inhabitants of the New Haven area of Connecticut, and I wanted to make sure they were present in the narrative! Sleeping Giant State Park is a very real place, and stories of Hobbomock were a big inspiration for me; for years I've been wanting to do a project that brings in that mythological figure, because in addition to being the villain in most of the stories I found, there are really old historical records of stories about him being responsible for healing and warding off disease--and the local Quinnipiac organization claims him as a culture hero. That contrast really appeals to me in mythology and religion (figures like Loki, who are tricksters and are frequently the villains, also have stories where they're the heroes), so I wanted to highlight that about Hobbomock.

I'll also say that the setting first started in my head because I had a dream about students at a magic school racing flying sailboats. I'm not sure where that came from, but it became central to this game!

Regarding the discrimination, I wanted to make sure that was focused on supernatural vs. human magicians. In part, I didn't want it to be triggering to readers who are discriminated against in their normal lives, but I wanted to create a scenario where people could strive toward equal rights for a group. I also have to hugely credit Choice of Games for being so dedicated to representation. They encourage their creators to make it possible for players to create a main character of any gender and sexuality combination, and it is one of the things I most love about creating games with them (and playing their games by other authors!).

This ended up being a long response! I hope it's helpful for your project--and I truly thank you for writing. It made my day!

-Alana

I'm pleased to announce that my most recent game for Choice of Games, Blackstone Academy for the Magical Arts, is live in the world!

Blackstone Academy is the first story that has made it into the world from the setting of Thimbleport, Connecticut, which I've been working on for something like a decade. (It's the same setting where the Liminals work, and they're a major faction in the game.) The school itself first appeared in a dream I had about a magic school with competitive flying sailboat races. You can clearly see that made it into the game! I wrapped in a lot of local landmarks from my area of Connecticut: Sleeping Giant State Park plays a major role in one chapter (along with the legends about that giant himself), and the library building featured in the background of the cover is based on James Blackstone Memorial Library, my favorite local library!

I hope you'll go give the game a look: there's a great trailer that the folks at Choice of Games put together, and there are sample chapters available so you can try it out! I hope you get hooked!

I am so pleased to announce that Where the Veil is Thin just launched on Kickstarter!

The idea for this anthology came out of a conversation with Alan Bahr about how his wife loved stories about fairies. We talked about what might have been a two book anthology series, playing Good Fairy/Bad Fairy or Seelie/Unseelie, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted more out of fairy tales than the stories I already knew. I love traditional fairy court stories, but I also love the stories of humans's encounters with things that are just beyond the reach of their understanding, with the world beyond the shadows. And I knew that those types of stories weren't just out of the Victorian or Celtic or German fairy story traditions. I wanted to reach for stories from different traditions and voices.

So I reached out to Cerece Rennie Murphy, one of the founders and editors of Narazu, a site for indie science fiction and fantasy. I'd loved the articles I saw posted there, and I knew that Cerece knew a whole different pool of writers than I did. Between the two of us, we reached out to a dream team of writers, whose stories, I am delighted to say, are absolutely amazing. There are so many different types of supernaturals within the pages of this anthology—and so many different responses of the humans who encounter them. Some play with the seelie/unseelie angle. Others are fairy stories from completely different traditions. And two take on the tooth fairy legend in ways that shocked and delighted me.

I am so excited for you to read them.

Below is the official announcement from the Outland Entertainment newsletter. I hope that you'll be enticed by the description and will spread the word about our project.

I can't wait for these stories to be out in the world.

--

Where the Veil is Thin is an anthology of faerie tales from a diverse collection of authors that might push the boundaries of what you expect a faerie tale should or could be. It will be published by Outland Entertainment and will be a 211 page trade paperback measuring 5.5"x8.5".

Around the world, there are tales of creatures that live in mist or shadow, hidden from humans by only the slightest veil. In Where the Veil Is Thin, these creatures step into the light. Some are small and harmless. Some are bizarre mirrors of this world. Some have hidden motives, while others seek justice against humans who have wronged them.

In these pages, you will meet blood-sucking tooth fairies and gentle boo hags, souls who find new shapes after death and changelings seeking a way to fit into either world. You will cross the veil—but be careful that you remember the way back.

Including stories from Seanan McGuire, Glenn Parris, David Bowles, Minsoo Kang, Carlos Hernandez, C.S.E. Cooney, Gwendolyn N. Nix, Alethea Kontis, Shanna Swendson, Grey Yuen, Linda Robertson, L. Penelope, Zin E. Rocklyn, with an introduction by Jim C. Hines.

Edited by Cerece Rennie Murphy and Alana Joli Abbott.

***

Back the project now on Kickstarter!

This past weekend I made my return to the Brooklyn Book Festival for the first time in many years. I don't know why it has taken me so long! I had a truly fantastic time, taking in two great panels and meeting up with friends for lunch between. It was a great excuse to catch up with my friend Rosalind, who works at Books of Wonder and hear tales from inside the bookselling biz, as well as get to chat with two Outland Entertainment anthology contributors.

teri.zin and Alana

My train arrived early enough that I could wander a bit before my first panel. I had forgotten just how many presses, small and large, show up for this festival! There were so many books from so many walks of life. You could get lost just chatting with the vendors, meeting authors signing at their tents, and browsing through the thousands of titles available. Freelance unions are also present to help give advice to fellow freelance writers and editors, and I'm always glad to connect with others in the field.

Shortly before 11 I returned to the Center Stage, only to find that the seats, which had been empty not twenty minutes before, were packed! It shouldn't have surprised me that the panel that had gotten me into the city was the one so many people wanted to see. Moderated by Outland contributor teri.zin, who writes as Zin Rocklyn, the panel members were L. Penelope, author of the Earthsinger Chronicles, who is also a forthcoming Outland contributor; P. Djèlí Clark, author of Black Gods Drums and an indispensable blog; and multi-Hugo-Award-winner N.K. Jemisin (Broken Earth Trilogy and others). The discussion ranged fairly freely as the authors tackled the difficult questions of truth and fiction, and of how to use fiction to reach truth. The authors ranged in their ideas about taking readers out of their comfort zones—both Rocklyn and Jemisin delighted in doing so; Penelope mentioned being surprised by the things that readers reported back being uncomfortable, and how those never matched her expectations; and Clark admitted total bewilderment that some people were uncomfortable with his demythologizing George Washington in "The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington." They discussed how they'd encountered some truths at a young age (for instance, the obvious connotations of George Washington as a slave owner that get glossed over in the hero-building myths of the beginning of the United States), and how stories told to make people comfortable only benefit those who are comforted. I'm still mulling over a lot of what was said because there was so very much to consider.

Clark, Penelope, Jemisin, and Rocklyn

I also met a lovely aspiring author, Anjali Patel, in the signing line, and I'm eager to see her work out there in the future.

The second panel was a really interesting counterpoint to the first. At one point N. K. Jemisin suggested that it might be time to leave comforting myths behind in favor of more truth. The second panel was all about how myths of the past continue to reveal new truths. Moderated by Rob Spillman of Tin House, the panel featured Sharma Shields, whose new novel The Cassandra sets the Greek myth of Cassandra during World War II; Chigozie Obioma, whose An Orchestra of Minorities blends Igbo mythology with the story of Odysseus; and Daniel Mendelsohn, a nonfiction writer whose Ecstasy and Terror compares mythological figures to pop culture icons. All of these writers break down their myths while drawing on the familiar patterns. Cassandra is the woman cursed to see the truth and never be believed because she spurned Apollo; as Shields was writing, the #MeToo movement was gaining traction with the media. Everything old is new, as the saying goes.

Shields, Obioma, Mendelsohn, and Spillman

Shields, Obioma, Mendelsohn, and Spillman

What struck me most about the second panel, however, was the heartfelt reveal from Mendelsohn about how he came to love Greek mythology: as a gay teen in the 1970s, he had few chances to see himself in media representations, until he came upon this series of books set in Ancient Greece. The author, a lesbian herself, made room in the narrative to explore same-sex relationships, and Mendelsohn had a mirror for his own experience. With all the discussions of how books are mirrors and windows for readers, it really hit me how this has always been important, and how many people have longed for those mirrors their whole lives.

Even with only catching two panels, the day was hugely worthwhile, and I'm looking forward to returning to the Brooklyn Book Festival again soon!

It seems I have been writing everywhere lately except here!

The wonderful folks over at Den of Geek have been keeping me very busy writing about awesome books. This year, I've read United States of Japan by Peter Tieryas, Kiersten White's Buffyverse novel Slayer, and Angus Macallan's Gates of Stone (for which they didn't let me use the phrase "Monsoon season is coming," even though it is branded as a "Game of Thrones" in Indonesia). I've also been following Ninth Step Station and got a sneak peek at Alternis from Serial Box.

I've also been keeping busy working on a new project for Choice of Games. Titled Welcome to Blackstone Academy, this is my first YA project and also the launch of a setting I've been working on for more than ten years. It takes place in the titular Blackstone Academy, a magical boarding school on a causeway connected tidal island just off of the fictional Thimbleport, Connecticut. The small town setting borrows heavily from the part of Connecticut where I live, and the school mashes up pieces from my small college experience with some of the architecture of the gorgeous James Blackstone Memorial Library (which in turn was inspired by the Erechtheion in Athens, Greece).

I've also been doing more game design, most recently writing for the (really exciting) Nighty Knights, as well as editing several of the Tiny d6 adventure books for Gallant Knight Games.

If you haven't been following us over at Outland Entertainment, I'm over there as well, doing Editor in Chief-ly things. We've got some great projects coming up this year, and I'll try to do a better job posting about them!

Stay tuned: 2019 is going to be awesome. (For the most regular updates, follow me on Facebook.)

I had a fantastic time at ReaderCon this weekend! I've known about it since my days of writing for Rose Fox at Publishers Weekly, as Rose has long been one of the convention organizers, but I had never been before. So when the Ragnarok Team was asked if we'd be sending an editor to the convention, my hand went up. It was a really excellent time, and I was impressed with the attention to details as small as the production quality of my name badge. Check out my photos on Facebook (as I'm still figuring out how to convince DreamWidth to embed them in my post).

I attended two panels. "It's Complicated: Improving Intersectionality and Representation in Speculative Fiction," featured David Bowles, Phenderson Clark, Hilary Monahan, Catt Kingsgrave, Miriam Newman, and Teri Clarke. It was tremendous fun—despite the seriousness of the subject matter, the panelists knew how to have a good time with engaging the audience while still getting their points across. I hadn't been very aware of the term intersectionality. Phenderson Clark described it as having "all these identities wrapped up in one person," which I think is a really wonderful concept that ought to appear in all characters—David Bowles pointed out "The term intersectionality had to be invented... to actually reflect the real world." Teri Clarke really stole the show, and Miriam Newman, an editor, touched on some topics that are professionally important to me.

The second panel "Sidereal Symphonies: Writing Extraterrestrial Art and Performance" was as much fun as you'd imagine, but got surprisingly (or, perhaps not) mythological at times. The panel included John Clute, Catherynne M. Valente, Caroline M. Yoachim, Henry Wessells, and friend-of-the-blog Max Gladstone. Catherynne Valente had the subject very fresh in her imagination and had most of the best quotes of the panel ("These aliens come and blow shit up. Well, what did they sing about that?" And then, "I refuse to believe that any interstellar culture is incapable of producing a pop song.") I loved Caroline M. Yoachim's overall belief that aliens just aren't weird enough, and I delighted in John Clute referencing Mircea Eliade, whose The Sacred and the Profane was required reading for the mythology tours I TAed.

But probably the most fun I had was just chatting with industry people: I met up with editor Becky Slitt from Choice of Games and we talked about what I'd be writing next. And I had a delightful chat with literary agent Alex Adsett, who represent Alan Baxter, who we publish at Ragnarok. My day ended with a great time chatting with Becky, Max, and Max's wife Stephanie in the restaurant discussing the necessity of chocolate, which is a great way to end any day.

All in all, it was really fantastic, and I hope that we at Ragnarok can have a bigger presence there next year!

I recently happened across a discussion of the old "Appendix N" from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, published in 1979. The appendix is a list of recommended reading from Gary Gygax, particularly books that inspired the game. I realized that while some of the inclusions on the list are authors I cut my fantasy teeth on (Norton, Tolkien), others I've never read, and still others I wonder about holding up to my current taste for fantasy.

I tried to create a checklist from one of the various list internet sites already populated with books, and many of these titles weren't included--which may say something about their lifespan. Barring a handy checklist, here's the listing.

Anderson, Poul: THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS; THE HIGH CRUSADE; THE BROKEN SWORD
Bellairs, John: THE FACE IN THE FROST
Brackett, Leigh
Brown, Frederic
Burroughs, Edgar Rice: "Pellucidar" series; Mars series; Venus series
Carter, Lin: "World's End" series
de Camp, L. Sprague: LEST DARKNESS FALL; THE FALLIBLE FIEND; et al
de Camp & Pratt: "Harold Shea" series; THE CARNELIAN CUBE
Derleth, August
Dunsany, Lord
Farmer, P. J.: "The World of the Tiers" series; et al
Fox, Gardner: "Kothar" series; "Kyrik" series; et al
Howard, R. E.: "Conan" series
Lanier, Sterling: HIERO'S JOURNEY
Leiber, Fritz: "Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" series; et al
Lovecraft, H. P.
Merritt, A.: CREEP, SHADOW, CREEP; MOON POOL; DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE; et al
Moorcock, Michael: STORMBRINGER; STEALER OF SOULS; "Hawkmoon" series (esp. the first three books)
Norton, Andre
Offutt, Andrew J.: editor of SWORDS AGAINST DARKNESS III
Pratt, Fletcher: BLUE STAR; et al
Saberhagen, Fred: CHANGELING EARTH; et al
St. Clair, Margaret: THE SHADOW PEOPLE; SIGN OF THE LABRYS
Tolkien, J. R. R.: THE HOBBIT; "Ring trilogy"
Vance, Jack: THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD; THE DYING EARTH; et al
Weinbaum, Stanley
Wellman, Manley Wade
Williamson, Jack
Zelazny, Roger: JACK OF SHADOWS; "Amber" series; et al

How many have you read? How many of those would you still recommend? What books would you recommend in their places?

I think one of the series that most heavily impacted my D&D style of play was definitely Tamora Pierce's "Lioness Quartet." Possibly also Patricia C. Wrede's Dealing with Dragons and Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword. I'd include those on any list of recommended fantasy for role playing gamers.

The second week in January is almost over, and I haven't posted my annual reading report yet! To remedy that, here it is... following the exciting news for 2017. This year, I'll have a short story featured Sisterhood of the Blade, a Dumas-inspired collection of stories about three women who defy gender norms to become the personal musketeers for Queen Anne of France. It successfully funded on Kickstarter in January, and the publishers are looking at an August release, so stay tuned!

On to the reading report! Like last year, I tracked a number of different statistics. I looked at gender and ethnicity of authors, the genre, and the format (digital or print) of all my non-review titles. I only counted picture books that I read if they were for review, so there's a whole slew of picture books not on my list. Many of them went on Fish's "1000 Books before Kindergarten" spreadsheet, though, if I ever need to remember the titles! It's also worth noting that my record-keeping this year was not my best, so there may be some error in the numbers, but I present them here in good faith.

So for 2016, I came in at 173 books total, 6 fewer than last year. Of those, 93 were review titles, which is an increase, so that means I actually read almost 30 fewer books that I chose this year. (But I also invoiced out more for my review work, which is a nice accomplishment.)

The digital vs. print divide: I read more in digital at 54.75 books, with only 29.25 in print. Several books I read partially in print and partially on my phone through my library's Overdrive, hence the decimal points.

SFF novels hit an all-time low for me at only 36.

But that's because Romance bounced very high this year at 39.

I didn't track YA or review books in with the kids books this year, which brought those down to 14. I may track YA separately this year, because I think it's a more dominant category than I'd realized.

I only read 6 graphic novels, but those included two in the New EU for Star Wars and I enjoyed them very much, as well as two volumes of Amulet, which is excellent and I need to finish it this year.

Nonfiction hit 1, a fabulous book of poetry, Milk & Honey, by Rupi Kaur.

Suprisingly I only had 4 rereads this year.

My TBR goal was far out of reach: I always try for 15, but I only hit 3 (same as last year).

I successfully read 1 out of 2 non-genre books from my goal; the success was Whitehall, a Serial Box serial that is historical fiction.

Actually, I had three Serial Box full seasons on my list this year; although each episode is novelette length, I've only counted the season when it's complete.

I worked with Daniel José Older on the autobio project and read his Shadowshaper, which I highly recommend, fulfilling my goal to read 1 book by an autobio author.

I tried something new this year and tracked how many unique authors I read, because I went on binges reading a bunch of books by Kate Noble (also an autobio author, but I had read her before) and Vicki Lewis Thompson. I thought that since I had several authors appearing multiple times on the list, that meant I was accurately tracking the number of books I read by authors of various genders and ethnicities, but it meant that if I looked at all the authors I read this year, I wouldn't see what percentage of my authors were female or people of color. But that got complicated as well, because I read a couple of anthologies where I had a huge number of unique authors, even though they were only contributors. For example, Valor, a graphic novel anthology, had 24 unique authors and artists for my list, but it's only a single book.

So over the course of the year, from as best as I could identify:

I read works by 82 unique authors.

Of the books I read, 105 white authors were represented, with only 18 authors of color.

Of the books I read, 99 female authors were represented versus 26 male.

I'm thinking this year I may only track the author stats for each unique occurence, but I'm not sure whether that accomplishes what I want. I think ultimately what I'd like to see is that my book list features more diversity (105 vs. 18 is not very diverse, nor is 99 vs. 26; at least my genre breakdown was closer this year!). So perhaps tracking unique authors isn't as valuable as I thought.

Some of my favorite books this year, that I haven't already mentioned above, included:

Bookburners,by Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, Mur Lafferty, Brian Francis Slattery, Andrea Phillips, and Amal El-Mohtar; season 1 is coming out in print later this month!

Magic Binds and One Fell Sweep, both by llona Andrews.

Devon Monk's Hell Bent and Stone Cold, which are spun off of her Allie Beckstrom series. That world never stopped being awesome.

Boxers & Saints by Gene Luen Yang (also an autobio author I've read before); this was a reread, but I loved how powerful this set is just as much this time as when I first read them.

Ursula Vernon's Hamster Princess 1: Harriet the Invincible, which I read aloud with Bug. I think when you find an author the whole family loves, you know you've found someone special.

Frogs and Kisses, a return to Shanna Swendson's Enchanted Inc. series. It was such fun to return to those characters!

What are the best books you read in 2016? What are your reading goals for 2017?

I went to see Moana this past weekend and, unsurprisingly, really enjoyed it. An action-adventure mythology tale with a prominent Trickster figure and a female lead is pretty much a perfect fit for a story I'm guaranteed to enjoy. This is not to say I'm not a Disney critical thinker; I have certainly applied the word "Disnification" to folk and fairy tales to imply the tale is reduced from an earlier form. That gets even more complicated beyond the Western fairy tale cannon (see footnote about indigenous commentary—worth checking out!). So I've always been a fan of expanding knowledge of a Disney animated feature's background stories, whether that's with the slew of international Cinderella tales, rereading Anderson's The Little Mermaid or The Snow Queen, or, in the case of Moana, doing some research into previously published Maui stories, especially the ones accessible to the same audience who will be attracted to the film.

So here's the beginning of my research into Maui stories. I am likely to post this on my website for others to reference and so it's easier to update, and I'll put a link in this post when I do. My links are to B&N or the publisher's site if the book is currently available new, and Alibris if it's only available used. I've put in cover images where I could find them. If you know of additional Maui books available for younger readers, I'd be delighted to list them here, especially if they come recommended! I've not yet read any of these, so it's a resource list, not a recommendation (though I hope many of them are good!).

Ahulii, Gabrielle, Maui Hooks the Islands, illustrated by Jing Jing Tsong, Mutual Publishing, 2016.

Bishop, Gavin, Maui and the Sun, North South Books, 2006.

Gossage, Peter, How Maui Found His Father and the Magic Jawbone, Puffin NZ, 2011.

Gossage, Peter, How Maui Found His Mother, Puffin NZ, 2011.

Kahalewai, Marilyn, Maui’s Mouse Supper, Bess Press, 1988.

Kajiyama, Kats, Maui and His Magical Deeds, Barnaby Books, 1997.

Rockwell, Anne F., Tuhurahura and the Whale, Parents Magazine, 1971.

Sullivan, Robert and Chris Slane, Maui: Legends of the Outcast, Godwit, 2000.

Thompson, Vivian L., Maui-Full-of-Tricks: A Legend of Old Hawaii, Golden Gate, 1970.

Trussel-Cullen, Alan, Spotlight on Plays: Maui Tames the Sun, Collins, 2003.

Tune, Suelyn Ching, How Maui Slowed the Sun, illustrated by Robin Yoko Burningham, University of Hawaii Press, 1988.

Tune, Suelyn Ching, Maui and the Secret of Fire, University of Hawaii Press, 1991.

Varez, Dietrich, Maui, the Mischief Maker, edited by Lilikala Kame’eleihiwa, Bishop Museum Press, 1991.

Williams, Julie Stewart, Maui Goes Fishing, illustrated by Robin Yoko Burningham, University of Hawaii Press, 1991.

Wilson, Barbara Ker, Maui and the Big Fish, illustrated by Frane Lessac, Frances Lincoln, 2004.

Also worth mentioning is Maui the Demigod by Steven Goldsberry, Poseidon, 1984. It's an adult novel that retells several Maui tales. I've also had recommended for this list the children's novel Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry, which won a Newberry in 1941, and I list it here with the caveat that several Goodreads reviews mention that it is very much of its era and gives a very European-centric impression of Polynesia.

Update 12/8/16: There's an excellent essay on Maui (and criticism of the film) in Huffington Post article "Goddess Hina: The Missing Heroine from Disney's Moana" by Tevita O. Ka'ili.

[Updated 12/13/16: For those looking for indigenous criticism of the film, there are some interesting discussions here, here, here, here, here, here, and another roundup here, as well as a pretty comprehensive article in Smithsonian.]

This isn't my normal topic or style for this blog; it's a piece I wrote for another blog, geared toward college students, that the editors couldn't use. In light of a conversation I had with a friend today about her concerns on interacting with certain relatives at Thanksgiving, I thought I'd share the piece in hopes it would be useful. Definitely read the Nadra Kareem Nittle article I link to in full--she has several really useful articles, including another that might be useful for awkward Thanksgiving conversations: "Top 5 Reasons Not to Call Someone Racist."

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We’ve all been there. Someone in class or in the dining hall or at work says something that’s racist or makes a racist joke. It’s possible that they’re just using a word they didn’t know was offensive. It’s also possible that they’re cracking racist jokes because they have deep seeded prejudices that no one’s ever called them on. It’s often hard to know what to say in the face of blatant racism, and I know that as much as I try to be a good ally, I falter sometimes, unsure how to respond to a casual phrase that I know is offensive. Here are some tips on how to respond to racist jokes.

If they’re well-meaning, consider correcting them

I remember being corrected for using the word “token” in a conversation—I had thought it meant the single representative, like “Smurfette is the token female Smurf.” But the truth is, it implies that the person has no other value than the reason they’re a “token” member—kind of like Smurfette. I should have been able to figure that out on my own, but until it was pointed out to me, I just didn’t get it.

Some of your peers may respond well to being corrected. They may, like me, be horrified to learn that a phrase has a meaning they didn’t intend and be ready to strike it from their vocabularies. Or they might not, but in a situation where you don’t need to interact with a person regularly, it might still be worth pointing out that the comment they made was racist. In the NPR article “How Should You Respond to a Racist Comment?” posted July 23, 2006, ethicist Randy Cohen advised, “I don't think you have an obligation to reform the world, but it's an awfully good thing if you have it in you to not let such things pass, if you can stand up for it.”

Don’t laugh

If someone is making a racist joke—especially someone who is in a position of power over you, like a boss or a professor—one response it simply not to laugh. Nadra Kareem Nittle of RaceRelations.About.com, in “The Top 5 Ways to Respond to a Racist Joke,” recommended that you pair not laughing at racist jokes with laughing heartily at jokes that aren’t. That’s a kind of feedback to show that you’re not a stick in the mud, you’re just not willing to find racism funny.

Nittle’s other tips include:

Walk away. If you hear the racist joke being set up, get out of there before it’s told.

Ask the joke teller why the joke is funny. If you “don’t get it,” they may feel obligated to explain why it’s funny… and realize that it’s not all that funny on their own. Or you can be more direct and question the assumptions required for the joke to be funny, which are typically negative sterotypes.

Tell a joke about people with their background in response, explaining that you don’t find it funny either, because you know the joke teller, and know those stereotypes aren’t true. It might shock them into empathy.

Confront them directly and ask that such jokes not be told around you.

It’s probably not useful to call someone racist, however. It puts them immediately on the defensive, and may make them unwilling to listen.

How to respond if a friend calls you out

And what if you’re the person who unwittingly made a racist joke? The first step is to stop and listen to the friend or peer who is calling you out. Stop. Listen. Don’t get immediately defensive, because if you really didn’t mean to say something racist, your best bet is to take that feedback and apply it, not protest. And remember, it’s not the job of others to correct you; it’s your job to try not to be offensive in the first place. Try to appreciate the risk they take in explaining.

We all say stupid things. It’s hard to tell when a comment or a joke will go the wrong way—not just with racism but with all sorts of assumptions about gender, sexuality, abledness, education, and culture. Many jokes rely on the ability to lump a group into “other.” So tread lightly when you’re telling jokes, and listen when others explain how some words have more baggage than you realized. I know that I slip up, despite my best efforts, but the least I can do is keep listening and improving as best I can.

It's been a long time since I've posted, but I have a lot of news to make up for it!

First: Today is the release of my newest interactive novel game for Choice of Games: Choice of the Pirate. Right now it's priced at $2.99, which is a 25% discount on the full price of the game. It's probably the most ambitious game I've written yet; set in the fictional Lucayan Sea, it borrows all the old pirate tropes from cursed treasure to ghost ships and adds a little extra magic to the mix. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and I hope that many people enjoy the adventures!

You can read all about the game here at the Choice of Games blog.

Second: I'll be at the James Blackstone Memorial Library's local author expo tomorrow (5/21) afternoon. If you're in the area and would like to stop by and chat about my novels or games (or just shoot the breeze), please come on down! There are about thirty local authors attending, including reporters and children's book authors, so it should be an interesting mix. I'm not on any of the panels, but I may see about leaving my table for a bit to hear them.

For more information, you can visit the event website.

Thirdly: In honor of the game releasing and the author expo, I've finally uploaded the Redemption Trilogy to the major booksellers! You can nnow find them at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Kobo.

They're also still available at DriveThruFiction, Smashwords, and iTunes as well.

Lastly: I've accepted a position as Editor in Chief of Outland Entertainment, where I'll be editing a number of very cool comics! You can find out more about us at our latest newsletter or by checking out the comics lineup!

There's big news here at Myth, the Universe, and Everything, the biggest of which is the release date for Regaining Home: January 26, 2016. You can see the page at Smashwords or check out the book trailer (designed by artist Lindsay Archer with music from Common Shiner).

But more on that as it happens. In the meantime, I have a reading report for you! I tracked a bunch of different factors this year just to see how diverse a group of authors I really read.

Including my review books (many of which are picture book length), but not including picture books I read with my kids, my total tally for last year was 179 books. Of those, 77 were review titles, 116 (the vast majority, including most of my review books) were for kids or YA.

SFF titles came in at 91

Romance came in at only 3 last year

Graphic novels hit 25

Nonfiction came in at 3 (greater than my goal of 1)

Rereads hit 13

Only 3 of my TBR books came out of the pile

I achieved 0 out of a goal of 2 non-SFF/romance/YA/kids novels

And while I picked up a title from an autobio author I hadn't read before (always one of my goals), the author I solicited didn't end up participating in the project, so I'm not entirely sure how to count that one.

My digital and print totals were closer this year: 80.5 for digital and 97.5 for print. (I read one book half on my phone and half in print.)

I didn't track author demographics for any of the review titles, and I only tracked demographics when I was pretty sure I could identify gender and ethnicity. My male/female split was pretty close: 53 male authored titles to 56 female authored titles. I did an Ilona Andrews reread during the year, so a number of books counted in both categories (as Ilona Andrews is actually a husband/wife team). Ethnicity was harder to determine, but for what I could figure out, I read 10 books by authors of color vs. 67 by white authors. Some of those also counted twice when there was an author/artist team for the graphic novels I read.

Now that I'm a little more aware of my reading habits, I'll be interested in seeing if I can intentionally better diversify the list this year--not just with authors, but also hitting those out-of-genre goals.

I hope everyone had a great reading year in 2015!

A few great projects happening right now:

Margaret McNellis (@mcnelliswrites) has launched a Kickstarter for her nautical, haunted historical novel, Out of the Sea. I'm super excited for her, and the project sounds fantastic.

Erik Scott de Bie (@erikscottdebie), who I met back at GenCon '06, is involved in another cool Kickstarter: an anthology of short fantasy titled Women in Practical Armor. What's not to like?

Margaret Dunlap (@spyscribe) and Max Gladstone (@maxgladstone) are working together on the serial-fiction-in-the-style-of-a-television-series innovative project Bookburners. Max's first episode is available to read for free, so go get it!

Bank Square Books in Mystic, Connecticut had a fantastic signing yesterday! This was the latest stop on the Big Summer Road Trip Tour with four of Tor's authors: Max Gladstone, Elizabeth Bear, Brian Staveley, and James Cambias.

It's always a delight to spend time with fellow Substrater Max Gladstone, and it was really fun to chat with Elizabeth Bear about some of the details of her "Eternal Sky" trilogy. Both Brian Staveley and James Cambias made me intrigued by their work. We all lamented how mass market paperbacks are becoming fewer and farther between (because otherwise I'd have picked up some backlist titles!). We got some excellent selections from the children's department at Bank Square Books (where we also found Waldo), and I'll be looking into sadly unsignable e-book copies of the Tor tour writers' backlist books.

A lovely time was had by all -- thanks to the four authors, a shout out to Tracey Maknis/Trinitytwo from The Qwillery, and cheers to Bank Square Books for having such a great event!

Happy New Year! It's been some time since I posted; it was a busy year at Casa Abbott for non-writing reasons. We've welcomed baby Fish into our family, joining his sister Bug, Three-stripe, cats Jack and Tollers, and I as members of our household. But while I'm behind on many things, I've continued to read a lot! Since I posted last year and the year before about my reading goals, I wanted to post last year's results and this year's goals before 2015 progressed too far!

This year, I did not count all the picture books I read, but I did count all my review picture books individually. For the year, I totalled 163 books, which is up from last year's 129 (probably in part due to counting all the review books individually). There was a method to my madness, however: I wanted to see what percentage of titles were review books as compared to non-review books. Here's some of the interesting breakdown:

89 titles were review books

106 were children's or YA books

Only 12 were graphic novels, which is rather low

I read 7 romance, 69 SFF, and 2 nonfiction

I did reasonably well on my goals. The 2 nonfiction titles beat my goal to read just 1. I read 13 out of the 15 novels from my TBR pile I'd hoped to read, 4 titles by autobio writers, 6 rereads (out of a goal of 3), and read one non-genre novel.

The most interesting statistic I kept last year was print vs. digital. I surprised myself by reading 91 books in paper and 72 digitally. I thought I skewed toward e-books, so it's interesting to me that I'm not even at 50% digital reading. Some of this is due to reading for the MFAs. I rely heavily on the library to provide me with MFA reading, and though some are available as e-books, most are more readily available in print.

Highlights of the year?

Rereading Max Gladstone's Three Parts Dead--and seeing it make the MFA finalists list--was great fun. It's been especially fun to read more of the Craft books, both post-publishing and in mss format, in combination with playing Max's Craftverse game Choice of the Deathless. Without the books being required for the game and vice versa, they work so well in conjunction!

Finishing Devon Monk's "Allie Beckstrom" series was bittersweet, but starting the "House Immortal" books makes me confident there's more excellent reading to come.

I had the fantastic opportunity to interview Gene Luen Yang for the autobio project, and I read The Shadow Hero and Boxers and Saints in preparation for that. They were both some of my favorite reading for the year, for very different reasons. I'd recommend The Shadow Hero to anyone, but especially readers who have a fondness for Golden Age superheroes. Boxers and Saints is a fabulous moral and ethical investigation of a historical period with a lot of magical realism thrown in, and I found it both enjoyable and tremendously moving.

The biggest surprise read was probably Eleven by Tom Rogers. It's a book about 9/11, mostly from the perspective of a boy who's just turned 11, and it's fantastic both as an exploration of the event through fiction for middle graders and as a coming of age story. It was also pretty wild to realize that 9/11 happened before the middle grade age group was born--so it qualifies, on some level, as historical fiction.

I'd also recommend without reservation the Super Lexi middle grade books by Emma Lesko. Lexi is neurologically and developmentally different from her peers, which makes her a fascinating POV character, and Lesko's commitment to neuro-diversity in children's books shows in how beautifully she captures Lexi and makes her so easy to empathize with.

I loved finally finishing Shanna Swendson's "Enchanted, Inc." series, which for ages looked like it wouldn't get to continue beyond book four. (I'd still read more books in that world!)

I'm also really eager to see where the "Kate Daniels" (Ilona Andrews) and "Safehold" (David Weber) books end up next!

There were, of course, a lot of other great books, but listing them all would be fodder for TLDR (if I haven't already hit that point).

I was pretty happy with this year's goals, so I'm planning to keep them the same. Here's to another year of good reading!

The Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards were announced last weekend at Mythcon 45, at which I had a fantastic time. (I made my first food sculpture, below, at the Mythcon Banquet, an annual tradition that I find wonderful. I love that the con in Mythcon could equally represent conference and convention; both words accurately describe the atmosphere, which is a mix of scholarly and fannish all at once.)

Shadowchild from Guest of Honor Ursula Vernon's Digger

I've served on the Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards (both adults and children's lists for fiction, but not the scholarly juries) for several years now, and this was the first time I was able to attend the awards ceremony, which I was allowed to livetweet. (I'm @alanajoli.) This year's awards went to:

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award in Adult Literature: Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni

Mythopoeic Fantasy Fantasy Award in Children's Literature: Holly Black, Doll Bones

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies: Jason Fisher, ed., Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth & Fantasy Studies: G. Ronald Murphy, Tree of Salvation: Yggdrasil and the Cross in the North

The full announcement with book jackets and links to purchase is available on the Mythopoeic Society website.

This was my first year voting on the Hugo Awards, which was a very different experience. The MFAs are very much a juried award; the mailing list discusses the merits and flaws in the longlist and finalists throughout the process, and anyone participating in the jury is expected to read each as many on the longlist as they can and each of the finalists at least once. The Hugos, on the other hand, don't have any of that conversation, in part because there are so many voters that such an official mailing list might be ridiculous. There's also no real expectation that voters read anything other than what they want to, and they're free to vote for only their favorites if they like. Given my MFA training, I didn't feel comfortable voting in the novel category (where I'd not read, in full, any of the nominated works), but I did read all the short stories and novelettes and read selections of the writings by all the Campbell nominees. So I was eager to see the results this evening, which--as of this post--I've not been able to find listed anywhere. With the thought of saving others from going through the chat transcript of the live awards coverage (which does have some excellent commentary), I thought I'd list the winners here.

Campbell Award: Sofia Samatar

Best Fan Artist: Sarah Webb

Best Fan Writer: Kameron Hurley

Best Fancast: SF Signal Podcast

Best Fanzine: A Dribble of Ink

Best Semiprozine: Lightspeed

Best Professional Artist: Julie Dillon

Best Editor, Long Form: Ginjer Buchanan

Best Editor, Short Form: Ellen Datlow

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Game of Thrones, “The Rains of Castamere”

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Gravity

Best Graphic Story: “Time,” Randall Munroe (XKCD)

Best Related Work: “We Have Always Fought: Challenging the Women, Cattle and Slaves Narrative,” Kameron Hurley

Best Short Story: “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” by John Chu

Best Novelette: “The Lady Astronaut of Mars” by Mary Robinette Kowal

Best Novella: “Equoid” by Charles Stross

Best Novel: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

I'm surprised (and occasionally disappointed) by some of these wins, but some of them please me tremendously. I'm especially pleased to see my taste reflected in the Best Short Story and Best Novelette categories; Kowal's novelette had me sobbing as I read it, and Chu's short story, the first of his that I've read, has turned me into a fan seeking out more of his work. I think it's great to see Kameron Hurley win not one but two Hugos; I loved her essay when it first came out, and I've been meaning to seek out her fiction as well. Now seems the time!

I also think the gender balance here is really interesting; for an award that has a reputation for having so many men as nominees and winners, this list has an awful lot of women on it! I didn't even realize the break-down until I was typing it up. I don't have any commentary on that other than just the observation.

Congratulations to all the Hugo, Campbell, and Mythopoeic Winners!

As I just posted over at the Substrate blog, congrats to Max on his Campbell nomination! As I mentioned in my last post, there's been some complaint about a lack of diversity among the Hugo nominees, but there's nowhere that that's less true than the Campbell slate. Here's the list:

Wesley Chu

Max Gladstone

Ramez Naam

Sofia Samatar

Benjanun Sriduangkaew

I'm actually reading (and enjoying) Samatar's Stranger in Olondria in my current pile (which is divided among review books, jury books, and picture books...), and Chu's Lives of Tao/Deaths of Tao look right up my alley. Naam is a computer scientist and futurist as well as an SF writer, and though I'm not usually a thriller reader, I'm definitely intrigued by his profile. Sriduangkaew got nominated on the strength of her short fiction; according to other blogs that I've read, that happens very rarely. Regardless of who wins, the future of SF is bright!

fullfathomfive

Speaking of the future being bright, in July, my so-far favorite of Max's Craft-verse books, Full Fathom Five, comes out! Better yet, you can read the first five chapters at Tor.com right now!

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Videos and Kickstarters
Do You Bookstagram?
Jack Abbott, Feline Editorial Assistant, March 15, 2009-July 1, 2021
Letter to Blackstone Academy player
Blackstone Academy for the Magical Arts is in the world!
Where the Veil Is Thin Kickstarter Launch
Brooklyn Book Festival
Writing, writing everywhere
ReaderCon 2017
D&D's Appendix N
Annual Reading Report: 2016
"Maui, Trickster, Demi-god, Hero of All People" (Pre-Disney Tales)
What to say when someone makes a racist joke
Choice of the Pirate release day (and other news)
Annual Reading Report (plus news!)
Great projects from friends of MtU&E
Bank Square Books with @Torbooks!
Reading recap for 2014 and a Happy New Year!
Mythopoeic, Hugo, and Campbell award winners
Substrate update: Max Gladstone is a Campbell nominee, and new excerpts from his latest!

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Myth, the Universe, and Everything

The Journal of Writer Alana Joli Abbott

Recent Entries

Videos and Kickstarters

Do You Bookstagram?

Jack Abbott, Feline Editorial Assistant, March 15, 2009-July 1, 2021

Letter to Blackstone Academy player

Blackstone Academy for the Magical Arts is in the world!

Where the Veil Is Thin Kickstarter Launch

Brooklyn Book Festival

Writing, writing everywhere

ReaderCon 2017

D&D's Appendix N

Annual Reading Report: 2016

"Maui, Trickster, Demi-god, Hero of All People" (Pre-Disney Tales)

What to say when someone makes a racist joke

Choice of the Pirate release day (and other news)

Annual Reading Report (plus news!)

Great projects from friends of MtU&E

Bank Square Books with @Torbooks!

Reading recap for 2014 and a Happy New Year!

Mythopoeic, Hugo, and Campbell award winners

Substrate update: Max Gladstone is a Campbell nominee, and new excerpts from his latest!