readings

There's something funny about this evolution thing as a writer. I've been reading Kelley Eskridge's work and I was just so moved by her story Dangerous Space which is nominated for the Nebula. If you visit Kelley's website, there is a link to a number of insightful essays on gender, fiction, and her love story. I've gone ahead and ordered myself a copy of Kelley's short story collection. I want to read her novel too, but will probably have to wait a bit before ordering that, as Amazon informs me they do not deliver this product to my country.

I've also been reading John Kessel's "The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and other stories". The book is free-t0-download from Small Beer Press, but I chose to buy myself a hard copy as I love my hard copy. Also, I think it's good to support small presses. I really do. John Kessel's "Stories for Men" is an amazing read, and it's no wonder to me that this story won the James Tiptree Jr. Award. John Kessel's "Pride and Prometheus" is also nominated for the Nebula's.

Ruth Nestvold is also up for the Nebula's. Her story, Mars: A Traveller's Guide is in the list of final nominations. Mars is a very clever story. It's engaging and entertaining and I enjoyed reading it a lot.

Here's a link to the final ballot for the Nebula Award.

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Now that above shout-out is done, I want to write about how reading the works of this various authors have influenced me. In particular, I found myself very much affected by Eskridge's "Dangerous Space", Kessel's "Stories for Men", and Nestvold's "Looking Through Lace". Looking at these three stories, what binds them together is not only the way in which they question and look at gender, but also the emotional depth and the way in which they open up their characters and in this way open up themselves and allow their vulnerability to show.

There's plenty of food for thought there as I reconnect with a lot of things that I allowed myself to shelve away. I think that John Kessel is very right when he says that we should write what we like and think about publication later.