Readercon Schedule

So--I'm off to Readercon as of Thursday, and here's my schedule:

Thursday July 14

8:00 PM G We All Produce, We All Consume. Paul Di Filippo, Gemma Files, Robert Killheffer, K.A. Laity (leader), Jamie Todd Rubin. In a 2008 blog post, Leah Bobet connected the dots of increasing media interactivity and increasing independent authorship. Both trends have only escalated in the years since. When every blogger is an author, every commenter is a reviewer, and every work is assumed to be the start of a conversation, how does that change the experience and culture of reading? Was it ever possible to be a passive reader, or are we simply bringing our marginalia and book-flinging out into the light?

Friday July 15

11:00 AM VT Reading. Gemma Files. Files reads from a work not yet selected.

12:00 PM ME The Readercon Classic Fiction Book Club: Howl's Moving Castle. C.S.E. Cooney, Gemma Files, Theodora Goss, Kelly Link (leader), Sonya Taaffe. Diana Wynne Jones's death earlier this year gave rise to a seemingly endless series of blog posts extolling her many books. Howl's Moving Castle, first published in 1986, was one of the most frequently mentioned titles. This powerful story of magic, riddles, and romance is packed with allegory, clever subversions of common fantasy tropes, metafictional humor, and meditations on the nature of change. Such a work is necessarily slippery, but perhaps 25 years of analysis will help us get a grip on it.

2:00 PM Vin. Kaffeeklatsch. Gemma Files, Terry McGarry.

3:00 PM F Whatever Remains, No Matter How Improbable: Horror and the Scientific Method. Gemma Files, Jack M. Haringa, Caitlin R. Kiernan (leader), John Langan, Sarah Langan. What makes The Exorcist (book only) especially terrifying to a science fiction fan is the slow, laborious exhaustion of all rational explanations for the observed phenomenon, leaving demonic possession as the only alternative. The irrationality of horror becomes much more effective when its natural opponent, the scientific worldview and method, is neither dismissed a priori nor treated as a strawman. Beginning with the presumption that science is wrong and that there is inexplicable evil in the world might well provoke these readers' unconscious skepticism; playing by science's rules and reaching that conclusion is thrillingly convincing. What other works have exploited this dynamic? Are there advantages lost when the demonic worldview is not taken for granted but is instead painstakingly established? How do works that do this read to the naturally horror-minded?

7:00 PM F "I'm (No Longer) Shocked, Shocked!". Gemma Files, Jim Freund (leader), Charles Platt, Joan Slonczewski, Paul Tremblay. There are many good reasons for writers to try to shock readers: to make them reconsider ideas, to evoke or heighten strong emotions, to add to the atmosphere of a horror novel or dystopia. The drawback is that the daring and transgressive can almost overnight turn into the boring or bewildering. When writers actively try to shock contemporary readers, are they also putting an expiration date on their work? Or are there shocks that can transcend the trends of the moment?

Saturday July 16

3:00 PM G Matrilineal Heritage. Gemma Files, Eileen Gunn, Victoria Janssen, Ellen Kushner (leader), Chris Moriarty. Diana Wynne Jones and Joanna Russ were two of the women who greatly inspired other women to write speculative fiction. Who are their heirs? And who are their heirs inspiring?

Sunday July 17

10:00 AM E Autographs. Debra Doyle, Gemma Files, James D. Macdonald.

11:00 AM G The Shirley Jackson Awards. F. Brett Cox, Ellen Datlow, Peter Dube, Scott Edelman, Gemma Files, Caitlin R. Kiernan, John Langan, Sarah Langan, Victor LaValle (moderator). In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson's writing, and with permission of the author's estate, the Shirley Jackson Awards have been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. Jackson (1916-1965) wrote such classic novels as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, as well as one of the most famous short stories in the English language, "The Lottery." Her work continues to be a major influence on writers of every kind of fiction, from the most traditional genre offerings to the most innovative literary work. The awards given in her name have been voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics, with input from a Board of Advisors, for the best work published in the calendar year of 2010 in the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology.

1:00 PM RI How I Wrote the Hexslinger Series. Gemma Files. Gemma Files discusses the researching and writing of her queer western apocalyptic trilogy.

This last will be particularly interesting, given how effing blocked I've been lately on A Tree of Bones. But I'm sure we'll find stuff to talk about!

This Is Not A Reading Series

It was a great Ad Astra, but Good God Almighty, I'm tired. And Cal seems to have picked up something, too--he was horky this morning, so he's spending the day with me. Fingers crossed it goes away quickly.

Tonight, meanwhile--for those in Toronto who're interested--we have that This Is Not A Reading Series appearance--me, Claude Lalumiere, David Nickle at the Gladstone Hotel; blackjack, no hookers. For details, go here (http://www.blogto.com/events/36830). See you there, maybe.

Ad Astra 2011 Schedule

...for those who are interested:

Fri., 8pm, Salon 241, Horror in Unexpected Places -- Ellan Datlow, Craig Davidson, Gemma Files, Rob Shearman, Rio Youers
Fri., 10pm, Salon 343, Tricks of the Screenwriting Trade -- Glenn Norman (m), Michelle Goodeve, Gemma Files, Herb Kauderer, Ryan McFadden

Sat., 11am, Ballroom Centre, Chilling Tales: A New Chapter in Canadian Horror and Dark Fantasy -- Michael Kelly (m), et al.
Sat., 1pm-3pm, Anton's, Chilling Tales Launch -- Michael Kelly, et al.
Sat., 4pm, Crowne Room, Reading -- Gemma Files, Dena Bain Taylor
Sat. 8 PM Ste. 100 -- CZP Spring launch.

Sun., 1pm, Salon 443, I'm Very Flattered, But ... -- Stephen B. Pearl (m), Gemma Files, Sèphera Girón, Michael Rowe

Monday, meanwhile, I'll be doing a This Is Not A Reading Series event with Claude Lalumiere and David Nickle, during which we'll all be interviewing each other and dealing blackjack. Details to follow.

Black Static Interview

The excellent Ms. Maura McHugh interviewed me at Black Static magazine's main web-page. It was a lot of fun to do, and you'll find the result here (http://ttapress.com/1027/gemma-files-interviewed-by-maura-mchugh/0/5/).

New Year, New Book, New Posts

Yes, I fell off mightily near the end of 2010, for which I'm very sorry. There have been reviews to link to a-plenty since then, along with upcoming supplementals for the newest Hexslinger book. But today's big news is this:

Available right now for pre-order, through Horror Mall: A Rope of Thorns, the hardback

(http://www.horror-mall.com/A-ROPE-OF-THORNS-Book-Two-of-the-Hexslinger-Series-by-Gemma-Files-Signed-Limited-Edition-p-21637.html). Marvel at the gorgeous cover! Order early! Order often! Read along over here (http://handful_ofdust.livejournal.com) as I quickly do my final edit and write the first chapter of A Tree of Bones, aka Book Three, like you're watching the book itself being assembled right in front of you! Which...you are!

Man, I love my life.;)

Queering SFF Review of BOOK up at Tor.com

...by Brit Mandelo, and crazily good, here:

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/07/queering-sff-a-book-of-tongues-by-gemma-files

Also, my World's Biggest Bookstore interview is up on the 'Net in full, here:

http://scififanletter.blogspot.com/2010/07/gemma-files-author-interview.html

I realize I haven't been around a lot, but that's because I really need to pour on speed if I'm going to break my way through Part Two of A Rope of Thorns on schedule. Since it got mentioned in Rue Morgue, and all, feel free to keep up with my slightly more intimate/shameful personal blog over at Livejournal, here:

http://handful_ofdust.livejournal.com

On right now: Book reviews of my own, at least in passing. With extra small autistic boy sickness report!

After Great Silence...

…a huge influx of critical response, starting with:

Rue Morgue #102
by Justine Warwick

Graced with an absolutely beautiful cover by designer Erik Mohr, Gemma Files’ first novel, A Book of Tongues, is a “weird West” tale set in 1867. It tells the story of Pinkerton detective Ed Morrow, who is sent to infiltrate a brutal gang of outlaws led by the Reverend Asher Rook, ex-Confederate chaplain and dark magician, in order to learn more about Rook’s strange abilities for the government cause. Morrow becomes increasingly entangled in Rook’s world—one of sorcery, gods, visions and blood—and his only hope of escape, or of completing his task, lies with Rook’s lover, Chess Pargeter, a violent man with a bloody past and, if Rook has his way, a dreadful future.

Files’ poetic prose is pitch-perfect: languid, precise and full of dark imagery. While the plot is sedately paced, the author takes the time to build up the universe in which her characters exist: a pitiless world in which death and destruction are commonplace, loyalties are always shifting and magic flows through ever aspect like a kind of perverse electricity, with the potential to destroy everything it touches. Files’ characters are complicated and profound, motivated largely by lust, both for power and for Chess Pargeter, who becomes a catalytic figure for Morrow and his quest when the two begin an affair. The sexuality of the three central players is as violent as their lives in the desert, the pioneer towns and the slums of San Francisco, and underscores not only their marginalization but their power to destabilize the world they live in—whether through magic or by their very existence.

It’s a brooding and deeply sinister novel, which will undoubtedly be a challenging read for some, but Files has definitely managed to create a world complex enough to sustain the series that this book initiates. A Book of Tongues closes, if not quite with a cliffhanger ending, with a revelation that sets up the reader for the events of a sequel, the upcoming A Rope of Thorns; it will be intriguing to see where the twists and coils of Files’ imagination take us next.

Other reviews I totally forgot to link to (because I am a doofus):

http://www.freewebs.com/hfrzine/june2010reviews.htm
http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?p=6605
http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2010/06/201051-book-of-tongues-gemma-files.html
http://www.ideomancer.com/?p=285
http://kmarkhoover.livejournal.com/390546.html?view=1623186#t1623186

And some just-plain-folks with-blogs reviews, too, like this crazy-flattering one from http://mercwriter.livejournal.com:

So. Much. WIN. In this book. *makes inarticulate sounds of glee* It was a "Merc book" through and through--I need the next one now, please. *fangirls some more* The Weird West, gay cowboys, ancient Mayan gods returning to the world, hexslinging magic, post-Civil War politics and tensions still going on; the novel has a complicated structure, which I liked, and the love story is so refreshingly anti-sentimental. Poor copyediting in places (especially the last third) kept jarring me, but for the story and characters, I could overlook the technical elements. *is a total Chess fangirl*

Plus this slightly less unreservedly positive one from A Wild Book Chase, here (http://wildbookchase.blogspot.com/2010/06/major-karnage-chapter-1-and-other.html).

Finally, a crazy yet incredibly flattering link: Somebody at RPG.net who calls themselves “radiant song” is reading my book and posting color commentary as they go! (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=12389764) I like (his? her?) analysis of why Chess is such a damn homme fatale, which is…pretty spot-on, actually.;) I’ll be following subsequent posts with increasing interest.

Steve and I also got interviewed for the Shirley Jackson Awards by Charles Tan, here, about our nominated novella “each thing I show you is a piece of my death” (http://shirleyjacksonawards.blogspot.com/2010/06/gemma-files-and-stephen-j-barringer.html); Charles later interviewed me about my nominated short story “The Jacaranda Smile”, here (http://shirleyjacksonawards.blogspot.com/2010/06/gemma-files-interview-with-charles-tan.html).

Oh, and finally, I’m agented: As of last week, Monica Pacheco from Anne McDermid & Associates is my literary representative, contingent on me writing a novel that’s a a bit more mainstream than my current blood-soaked black magic gay porno horse opera id-fic. Hey, I’m game—I mean, I was going to do that anyhow.;)

Okay, so: Hopefully I won't be away so long, next time. Nice to see y'all.

P.R.!

My Torontoist profile is up , and lookin' damn fine, if I say so myself. You'll find it here:

http://books.torontoist.com/2010/05/speaking-in-tongues-gemma-files-on-the-hexslinger-series/

Enjoy!

ChiZine Short Story Contest

Also: Some of you may recall that I won this particular competition a few years back, with "Spectral Evidence". But as of June 1st, I'm well-pleased to be helping judge the 15th ChiZine Short Story Contest, along with such coolio fellow judges as Dave Nickle, Brent Hayward and Paul Tremblay. Hellblazer writer Mike Carey will be the tie-breaker.

Details:

PRIZES:
1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes: Publication in ChiZine: Treatments of Light and Shade in Words at seven (7) cents per word (USD). There will also be five honourable mentions.

GUIDELINES:

***PLEASE NOTE: SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED UNTIL JUNE 1st, 2010!***

• Dark.
• Well-written.
• 4,000 words or less.
• Rich Text Format or Microsoft Word attachment.
• No reprints.
• No simultaneous submissions.
• No multiple submissions.
• Send to ONLY this address: savory@rogers.com
(Submissions sent to any other address will be deleted unread.)

All submissions will be stripped of author identification and sent to the judges via a third party.
Deadline for the contest is June 30th, 2010. Winners and honourable mentions will be announced by July 31st, 2010. The top three placers will be published in ChiZine issue #46 (October–December, 2010).

(Note: ChiZine editorial staff members are ineligible for this contest.)

So, yeah: Bring it. Da dark. Da creep. I look forward.;)

Amazon

Ah, can't please everybody!;) (http://www.amazon.com/Book-Tongues-1-Hexslinger/product-reviews/0981297862/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1)

Actually, I've been waiting for my first Amazon review, and thought it would likely as not be from somebody who was more put off than enthused over my trouser-ripping sensibilities. Nevertheless, I'm happy to note he seems to have liked the other parts of it well enough. Just stop gaying up your blood-soaked black magic horse opera so much, Gemma! Geez!

Luckily for me, a couple of slightly more gay-friendly folks have added fresh and lovely reviews in on top. Anybody out there who'd care to add their own?

OMG, Fangoria!

Fangoria #294
Book of the Month: A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files
By Chris Alexander

Fango readers residing in Toronto may recall the days when noted, International Horror Guild award-winning Gemma Files used to scribble film reviews for lefty arts and culture newspaper Eye Weekly. As a film-school-slogging youth, I fell in love with her, the way she championed the less fortunate and less popular pictures and how her critical barometer was dictated by her eccentricities and personal life experience. She was also a kick-ass wrangler of words (and I told her as much in an open letter to Eye—the very first time my voice was put in print).

Since those early days, Files’ skills have clearly sharpened, her dark, deeply deranged and unapologetically sexual works careening wildly into the messier realms of the Freudian id while serving as works of unfettered imagination. Her short stories have been adapted for the short-lived The Hunger TV series and collected in two brilliant collections, Kissing Carrion and [The] Worm in Every Heart. But it is in her first novel, A Book of Tongues: Volume One of the Hexslinger Series, that her outrageous but creatively honest chops get free reign to freak out.

The story’s set-up is classic, American Western, with a twist: In a blown-out, post-Civil War West, a Pinkerton[']s agent named Ed Morrow attempts to infiltrate the world of “hexslinger” wizard/outlaw Asher Rook and drag his supernatural secrets back to his employers. But the deeper he gets wormed into Rook’s universe, the more ensnared in homosexually fuelled hocus-pocus he becomes, with Rook’s lover Chess Pargeter figuring heavily into his very survival. Somehow, Aztec goddesses and the fate of the planet also make their way into Files’ completely outlandish head-spin of a story, and the easily offended or those put off by a challenging narrative need not apply.

Files has always worn her influences on her sleeve, and Tongues reads like the culmination of myriad diverse stimuli. The operatic drama of Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York rubs against the cross-genre cheek of True Blood, mashed with a healthy dollop pf J.R.R. Tolkien by way of a dusty, mud- and semen-caked Deadwood; and of course, Files’ own hot ‘n’ heavy gay-erotica leanings also get a full XXX-rated workout here. That seems to be the source of her power—blending pulp fiction with profound, often poetic prose that does what all good horror fiction should do, which is mirror our collective humanity while jettisoning us into the black, blood-drenched ether.

A Book of Tongues is truly one-of-a-kind, violent, carnal and creepy, and also serves as the setup for a subsequent installment. With foreplay this good, the follow-up should be the kind of phantasmagorical climax Files’ fans have been waiting for.


N.B.: To think that A) It's been almost fifteen years since I first met Chris Alexander over badly-burnt videotapes of Lucio Fulci films at the St. Lawrence market and B) now he's the editor-in-chief of Fangoria, thus allowing him to pump C) my damn first novel, which I started writing almost as a joke, and is currently in the process of breaking me wide open...

Man. Life is weird, isn't it? And amazing.

Exciting Developments

Not only did my story "The Jacaranda Smile" get nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award in the Best Short Story category, but the anthology it appeared in--Apparitions, edited by Michael Kelly--was nominated for Best Anthology, and "each thing I show you is a piece of my death" was nominated for Best Novelette. And yes, this means both Steve and I will be going to Readercon this year. One way or the other, an honor. Amazing.

Also: For those of you with (little) money and no ability to get to a bookstore CZP has a distribution deal with, ebooks of A Book of Tongues (http://j.mp/bQtDaQ) are now available! Just copy, paste and click on the URL to order from Horror Mall; you'll see the link on the bottom left-hand of the page you land on.

Ad Astra 2010

Perhaps you have been wondering where I will be, and what I will be doing, during next week's Ad Astra Convention, in Toronto, Canada. Well, wonder no more!

Friday April 9: NOTHING SCHEDULED.

Saturday April 10, 11:00 AM: ChiZine Publications Panel, Ballroom Centre.
Attending: Brett Alexander Savory, Sandra Kasturi, Matt Moore Gemma Files, David Nickle, Claude Lalumiere, Douglas Smith, Helen Marshall, Laura Marshall, Erik Mohr, Bob Boyczuk
Beginning as the print off-shoot of Chiaroscuro, in less than two years, ChiZine Publications has grown into a small but influential player in independent genre publishing. CZP staff and authors discuss and answer questions about its growth in a bad time for publishing, the future of genre publishing, why a small press might be a better option for beginning writers, and how they have fun doing it.

1:00 PM: Reading with Suzanne Church, Crowne Room.

2:00 PM to 3:30 PM: EVolVe Launch, in Antons'.

7:00 PM to 9:00 PM: CZP Launch for A Book of Tongues and Douglas Smith's Chimerascope, also in Antons'.

Sunday April 11, 11:00 AM: Horror in Poetry, Salon 443.
Attending: Mirriam Harrison (m), Gemma Files, Sandra Kasturi, Marcy Italiano
A discussion of the use of horror in poetry. Panelists will examine past and present horror poets, and what it is about the form of poetry that allows writers to explore the darker aspects of life and humanity.

12:00 PM: Not Your Bitch! - Entitlement, Salon 243.
Attending: Leah Bobet, Gemma Files, Violette Malan (m), Marcy Italiano, J.M. Frey
What responsibilities, if any, do creators have to their fans? Are fans entitled to anything?

1:00 PM: Autographs - Gemma Files, in Dealers' Room.

So...yeah, that's about it. Hope to see some of you there.

WHC, et al

In slightly more personal news, I'm just back from World Horror Con in Brighton, England. Here's my affable and discreet traveling companion, David Nickle, with a far better run-down of what occurred than I could possibly manage (http://tiny.cc/ldndr). It has pictures! Some of/including me!

Plus, it sub-showcases my first official review for A Book of Tongues, here (http://tiny.cc/s25mi). Publisher's frickin' Weekly thinks I'm dope! (Not that they used that exact word, of course. But I'm happy nevertheless.;))

Also: Bev Vincent, whose own WHC blog entries are well worth your time, notes a great review of EVolVe here (http://tiny.cc/7xqhf), in the wonderfully-monickered Innsmouth Free Press. Apparently, "When I'm Armouring My Belly" is actually uplifting, at least a li'l bit. Who knew?;))

So, the VERY short version goes thus: I had a great damn time. Met many people I've respected for years, along with people I didn't know at all but who knew me, at least by reputation. Ate great food, stayed in a...not-so-great hotel, got drunk consistently and substantially, partied with a horde of like minds. Bought far too many books. I'm very glad I went, and I'm very glad to be home.

Sales and Re-Sales

So now it can be told: My story "Hell Friend" will appear in Clockwork Phoenix 3, which makes two years in a row. Coincidentally, So now it can be told, Part Deux: Ellen Datlow has accepted "each thing i show you is a piece of my death", from Clockwork Phoenix 2, for reprint in Year's Best Horror #2. My co-author/husband Stephen J. Barringer and I are both far beyond pleased; it's the sort of peer recognition which means an incredible amount, and a wonderful way to cap off 2009 proper. Crazy, amazing year, especially given where I was this time in 2008.

Meanwhile, I'm also chuffed as hell to note that (as promised) asakiyume has written up a very flattering preview of A Book of Tongues in her LJ, hoping to aid in the general push to get more people ordering copies. You can find it here (http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/330688.html#cutid1). So thank you very, very much, Francesca; you've made me blush. Which is also a pretty damn good way to feel, first thing on a cold Toronto morning.;)

The Emperor's Old Podcast

Last year, I sold a website called Spoken Ink--which specializes in short stories read by solid British actors--the rights to adapt "The Emperor's Old Bones" for podcast/download. And now, just in time for Christmas, you can listen to a sample and/or download the rest here:

http://www.spokenink.co.uk/catalog?genre=3#174

The actor playing Tim is named Martin Ball, and I like his quality a lot--he definitely gets the innate dark humor of the piece, as well as the sadness Tim himself seems no longer completely able to feel. I'd love to hear the rest of it, sometime.

Update, Plus New Story Post

Hi, all. If you've wondered where I've been, I'm now almost two weeks past having gotten a much-needed breast reduction, so it's all been about itchy, itchy recuperation 'round my place, lately. However, there have been a few new developments in departments unrelated to my boob-size, too:

First off, it's decided...I'm going to Brighton for World Horror Con 2010! This means I'll be physically present for the official releases of both A Book of Tongues and EVolVe, Nancy Kilpatrick's latest vampire-themed anthology, which contains my Renfield-centric short story "When I'm Armoring my Belly". As this marks only my third trip to England since birth (I was born within the sound of Bow Bells, making me an unofficial Cockney), I'm naturally extremely excited.

Meanwhile, the next Dark is Better post is finally up: "Heart's Hole", in its "Time, the Revelator Remix" version, which restores almost 2,000 words' worth of subplot and character development I had to cut before it was first published (in Tightrope Books' In the Dark anthology). Follow the link through, or go straight to it by cutting and pasting this (https://sites.google.com/site/heartshole/). Enjoy!

New Post, New Offers

On Wednesday, I finished Draft Zero of A Book of Tongues; today was mainly spent editing it, and tomorrow it gets sent off to my ChiZine publisher/editors (along with others), who hopefully will have advice for me on where best to cut 20,000 words out. Seems like a lot, but as my husband points out, that's basically just 1,000 words per each of the novel's 22 chapters.

Meanwhile, I've also been busy trying to shore up my professional 'Net-presence, something that's fallen woefully behind because of my tight writing schedule this year. One of the first things I've done, aside from spruce this place up a bit, is to post the entire text of my IHG award-winning story "The Emperor's Old Bones" (see sidebar, or cut and paste to access it directly here http://sites.google.com/site/theemperorsoldbones/) as a sort of combination calling card and standards/practices demonstration model for the typical Gemma Files (tm) product: If you find this isn't the sort of thing you like, you may very well want to avoid the rest of my stuff on principle. In other words, folks, this may be triggery...but then again, what'd you expect? It's horror.

Finally, you'll note that the same sidebar provides handy links for ordering my collections, the latest anthologies I've appeared in, and both seasons of The Hunger TV series on DVD. There's also a new site, Dark is Better, where I'll be archiving my uncollected fiction and even posting brand-new stuff. More as this evolves.

For now, thanks for stopping by. I intend to be here a lot more often, from now on.