Meet Me through the Black Gate, Then Two Blocks down Great Jones Street
Tonight Great Jones Street, the new magazine that brought back my old Black Gate story “The War of the Wheat Berry Year,” is hosting an author chat, and you would all be very welcome. We’ll be talking about fantasy stories of all kinds, particularly epic, heroic, and sword and sorcery. I expect we’ll also be talking about issues of revision and representation, because of my essay, “Conscientious Turncoats,” at GJS about how the story needed to change to come back into the world. Feel free to bring your readerly fixations and preoccupations with you, too. I would love to have some familiar Black Gate voices in this new space.
Great Jones Street is a peculiar hybrid creature, a magazine that’s also an app. They started with a love of short stories and a realization that the short story may be the perfect form for reading on phones. I almost said I got unintentionally hooked on their app, but it would be more accurate to say they filled it up with so many great stories by top SFF writers that I forgot I was reading through an app. It feels more like the kind of anthology you might find in Jorge Luis Borges’s interdimensional library, or the best bookshop in Diagon Alley — endlessly growing new stories as you read it. Seeing my name among the other authorial names gathered there is a bit dizzying, and I’m not quite sure how I landed the first spot for their inaugural author chat.
The chat will run from 8pm to 11pm EST. Instructions on how to join the conversation are here.
Yay Sarah!!
Hey, Ape! Thanks for the shout-out.
I just wanted to say, your comment on Howard’s thread did something really difficult, and did it pretty gracefully. This election season’s divisiveness, following the multi-year conflicts in SFF, have left everybody’s nerves a little raw. I was impressed at the way you expressed what your experience here has been while still respecting what Howard and others in the comment thread had to say.
I only speak for myself about the Dragon Awards, especially since I know so little about them, but I was glad to see that the Sad Puppies had found/made their own niche for the honoring of the work they’re so passionate about. Let a thousand flowers bloom. There’s room in the world for every kind of excellence.
This past year, the leadership of the Sad Puppies declared their intention to address the problem of slate voting in the run-up to the Hugos, and they did. Many Sad Puppies had been declaring all along that they disavowed the Rabid Puppies and their rabid methods, and as far as I could tell, you guys walked your talk. The Rabids are still rabid, but after this year, that’s not something that can be pinned on you guys anymore.
Weirdly, that whole multi-year process, excruciating as it could sometimes be, helps me find a little hope about getting through the aftermath of this election.
Thank you Sarah. What an exciting time for you. I would have asked the common questions about why you picked sword and sorcery and who were your influences. I find the author’s story is interesting material.
I hope Black Gate expands its blogging cadre to include a Sad Puppy.
People fear change. I hope your apprehensions prove to be over blown. It is what it is.