…st to post as soon as possible (worst-case scenario, October 24th, when we come back home. I hope it doesn’t come to that…). Guesses may be a country or a more specific area; I’ll tabulate the distance from the boundaries. Winners will be ranked by distance to our destination (if it becomes too hard to judge–ie lots of people with similar distances to our real destination–, I reserve the right to sort out the closest people at random). To help you…

…, sort of vanished somewhere into a black hole). But still, it was good to come back to this world, to walk the paths again with my characters and their idiosyncracies–and to see them deal with the weight of history and myth. The result was “Silenced Songs”, a story about poetry and song, and about how people live in the wake of loss and grief and guilt. I’m delighted the finished piece sold to the anthology “Music for Another World”, forthcoming…

…ght because my cynical self had just pointed out that fantasy was horribly complicated to write because of all that research, that English wasn’t my first language, and that I was bound to bungle it all. It took me ten years and a lot of wordage, but I’m awfully glad I decided to ignore the obstacles and go ahead anyway. Sometimes, things work out a zillion times better than you’d ever expected. Year One-Knife, Tenochtitlan – the capital of the Az…

…ver a glass case peering at a codex and going, “This can’t possibly be the real Codex Mendoza“. (it was). They had the Codex Duran too, the Codex Borbonicus, the Great Temple dedication stone (yes, I realise I’m gushing and that you probably don’t know what they are. It’s like having most of the major artefacts in a very small room. With only a handful of people so you can stare all you like). And I actually got to see a sculpture of an ahuizotl (…

…, it didn’t work out so well: I wrote perhaps 1/3 of Foreign Ghosts before real life intervened and I had to reschedule. However, in 2007, I got 50,000 words of Servant of the Underworld done over November (and, because I’m just that kind of madwoman, I got the other 50,000 words done over December. The BF’s comment on the whole process was something like “never again”, because he scarcely saw me for two months). This time, I’m allowing myself a l…

…non. (at least, that’s the ideal. I wish things would work out that way in real life. They do tend to be messier, at least in applied computer science). It’s a typical scientist/engineer paradigm: you want to get at the heart of why things are working that way–in the case of the story, you want to know why everyone is reacting that way, and why things turned out this way. As I said: not for everyone. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s a far more ef…

…Currently looking at the page proofs for my story “The Wind-Blown Man”, forthcoming in Asimov’s. It looks like a real story… Apparently, you can now pre-order Servant of the Underworld on Amazon.co.uk… Aaand I would seem to have acquired an author page at Angry Robot, and a book page, courtesy of the AR crew… Tis weird, but tis shiny shiny……

…ary (and sometimes experimental) style with a multi-cultural viewpoint and examination of basic human desires and needs, all while staying within the real-world parameters of SF’s literature of ideas. (yes, you won’t find it in the blog post. I cheated and lifted it from another post Jason made in the TTA Press forums) Jason mentions a bunch of writers from Interzone: Eugie Foster, Gareth L. Powell, Mercurio D. Rivera and me–along with Paolo Bacig…

…cent one…). Featuring a space centre in a monastery, Daoist philosophy, and forbidden love. Many thanks to those OWWers who took a look at it: Christine Lucas, Tom Crosshill, Ilan Leman and Owen Kerr; and to Chris Kastensmidt for his comments. EDIT: the new title is now “The Wind-Blown Man”. That sound you hear? It’s me hyperventilating. I’ve been dreaming of breaking into Asimov’s for a while, and I don’t think it quite feels real yet. I think I’…

…‘Ys’ refers to a legendary drowned city off the coast of Brittany in this realistically-rendered tale where myth crosses into real life. Francoise finds herself surrogate mother to the heir of Ys and struggles to regain control of her life with the help of her sceptical historian friend. I always enjoy stories set abroad that are written by someone who knows the country and the culture well. Sometimes the country next door can seem as alien as an…