A Winter's Ball

"Aristocrats gathering around Emperor Franz Joseph at a ball in the Hofburg Imperial Palace, painting by Wilhelm Gause (1900)." Image from Wikimedia Commons, in the public domain. It is, as is to be expected, a winter's ball.

Some of you may remember me working on a novel called The Omniscence. Alas, all good things must come to an end, and I regret to inform you all that I have laid Omni to rest—at least Omni in its current form. But I've got a new project that I'm very excited to share with you. Welcome to Kevarya.

Cousins Masha and Arkady are children of war. Both their fathers died in the aftermath of a brutal contest for the throne; both their mothers wrested power from the grip of the patriarchy and paid the price. Both cousins were princesses, but are no longer—Masha because her parents' reign was annulled, Arkady because he is transgender—and both live in exile, be it in a faraway nation or the mysterious Mountains of Old. Both know that the Woman King of Kevarya is not long for this world. And both are headed toward the City of the Crown, intent on claiming the kingdom for themselves.

Pitted against each other by rival government factions, Arkady and Masha begin unraveling the most well-kept secrets of the Kevaryese court as they search for ways to take each other down. Gender, race, and sexuality are no longer facets of their identities, but weaknesses to be hidden, lest they be exploited. No one and nothing is safe. But Kevarya's secrets run deeper than either of them could imagine—and the very crown they're fighting for has a dangerous power that could prove to be their undoing.

Trigger warnings: deliberate misgendering, transphobic and homophobic comments, and incorrect assumption of child abuse.

A Winter's Ball

Translation: The Huron Carol

"Reconstruction of a Huron longhouse for the film "Robe Noire," site of la Nouvelle-France, Saint-Félix-d'Otis, Québec, Canada [tr. Amanda Grace Shu]." By Pierre5018 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

I know what you're thinking. What's a Christmas carol post doing on my blog in January? Do I not know that Christmas is over?

Well, to that I say, 1) Hey, it ain't over until Epiphany happens, and 2) I didn't have this translation ready at Christmas, because I didn't discover this song until after Christmas, and I can't stand to wait another year before sharing this with you all.

The Huron Carol is Canada's oldest Christmas carol, written by a Jesuit priest named Father John de Brébeuf, later canonized as one of the patron saints of Canada. (Yes, yes, here I must admit I'm American, not Canadian, but I'm a nerd, so of course I know who the patron saint of Canada is.) Father John lived among the Wendat/Huron people and wrote this carol in the Wendat language, making this one of the first texts written in Wendat. A popular English translation was created by Jesse Edgar Middleton in 1926, but his translation has been criticized for its confusion of different native cultures and Western use of broad generalizations about what they think "Native American" culture should be. Nevertheless, alternative translations are few and limited to a few verses as in the Heather Dale cover of the song in English, French, and Wendat.

I discovered this carol through Heather Dale's song and went digging for a direct translation from Wyandot to English, the only one of which I found at Diversity Tree. Andrea Shallay, author of the Diversity Tree article, writes: "I was moved by the intimate and respectful tone of the original lyrics. Instead of using made-up native images to fit a nativity story, it is a theological discussion tapping into images and values shared by both Christian and traditional Huron beliefs. Cultural references are not thrown around lightly, nor is the meaning of the images compromised for either party. It is not a tool for conversion because the lyrics require the Huron people to share what was important to them just as Father de Brébeuf could share what was important to him. I find the traditional lyrics of the Huron Carol to be a carol of respect and cultural exchange, attempting to translate meaning across cultural boundaries."

With this as my mission statement and both the direct English translation and the French translation as my guides, I set out to write a rhyming, metrically-fitting English translation of the Huron Carol. Note: I do not speak Wendat at all and am not a member of the First Nations. If my translation is inaccurate, disrespectful, or is surpassed by a translation written by a member of the Huron tribe, please defer to those from whose culture this song comes. If you are a member of the Huron tribe or speak the Wendat language, do not hesitate to contact me with notes on this translation. I am always eager to learn more.

The Huron Carol

Black Sand

An animated GIF banner made by me, with the help of Adobe Photoshop, for the Danse Macabre universe.

Happy Halloween, All Saint's Eve, Samhain, and all the other holidays and celebrations going on this October 31! I bring you a spooky story from an ongoing project called Danse Macabre, a roleplay universe written in collaboration with the fantastic Jay B. I'm not entirely sure how well the story stands on its own, as it was written as a prequel to the main roleplay, but we'll see how it goes.

Black Sand

Sinnerman

An illustration of this story, drawn my myself circa 2013. You can probably guess what natural disaster is about to occur to our poor family of protagonists.

This is very much a spiritual successor to Barton Hollow, as I started writing it shortly after finishing that story. It was first conceived during the 2013 Juniper Institute for Young Writers and, like To Avis Ladongale, this story is one I've retired. I have a wealth of excellent critiques, but after a few years of hiatus, I feel I have outgrown it. Perhaps it would succeed in a different form, but changing the form would involve shifting the focus of the story--and I wanted to stay focused on the development of the narrator's voice and how her language reflects the colonization of her culture.

Yeah, I'm a linguistics nerd.

SINNERMAN

New Interview! With Jordan Villegas

Image from http://themugcafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/stock-footage-microphone-stage-view-of-microphone-shallow-dof.jpg, courtesy of the Google Machine.

Hello, all! So, a lovely teen author named Jordan Villegas (whom I met at the 2015 Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers) did an interview with me! Be sure to check it out, and stick around for the rest of the weekly interviews he'll be posting!

Learn what stories I'm working on, what books I'm reading, what I'd like my tombstone to say, and what exactly it would take to turn me into a Machiavellian mind-reading supervillain... with a conscience. (Hint: it's not much.)

So without further ado, I present to you...

teens who are awesome (and maybe also write):
Interview with Amanda Grace Shu

Listen

From http://www.cultbox.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Doctor-Who-Listen2.jpg, courtesy of the Google Machine. 'Tis a screenshot from the inspirationally well-written Doctor Who episode with which this essay shares its title.

I rarely write personal essays, and when one is assigned despite my protests, I make a conscious effort to write more about others--or, better yet, abstract concepts--than I do about myself. I don't know why, other that I'm a very private person. And yet, whenever I write about the characters I've created, or about the writing process in general, the resulting essay reveals more about me than I ever intended.

That's what ended up happening with this essay, "Listen". I wrote it as part of my college application, which I sent to six colleges, five of which accepted me. The college which I will be attending in the fall started their acceptance letter with a quote from the essay and a note on how deeply it resonated with their admissions staff. My parents' initial reaction was more along the lines of "...that's... different... very you, though." And I have to agree. "Listen" is a meditation on an integral part of my identity; it speaks to an experience that many and yet few share. And it is utterly, undeniably mine.

Enjoy.

Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

To Avis Ladongale, On the Subject of Fixing Time

A banner made by myself, featuring the beautiful actress Jenna Coleman as the titular character in this upcoming piece. Why Jenna Coleman? Let's just say it has something to do with time...

I'm just gonna come out and say it: this is one of the stories that I consider dead. I've taken the concept as far as it can go and submitted it to several publications, all rejected. I suspect it has something to do with the universe being very highly-developed in my own head but underdeveloped on the page. But "To Avis Ladongale" is in essence a bare-bones piece, more of a prose poem than a story, and to flesh out the text would take it in an entirely different direction than I feel it was meant to go. Perhaps I'll write that other story someday.

To give credit where credit is due, my brilliant friend Katrina S. is the creator of Avis Ladongale herself and my partner, along with Jay B., in creating this strangest of universes in which the piece takes place.

To Avis Ladongale, On the Subject of Fixing Time