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seanan_mcguireWell, I'm home from a day spent in Fremont (for those of you who aren't Californians, read 'an hour's train ride away from my small-town home, and a much more urban place than I normally spend my afternoons') stitching chapbooks with Beckett, who is quite possibly the most elegantly artistic person I know. She makes art happen the way I make song lyrics -- with an incredible amount of diligence, practice, and carefully-earned skill that looks entirely effortless from the outside.
In 2005, Beckett graciously helped me make a chapbook, Leaves From the Babylon Wood, for that year's Ohio Valley Filk Festival, at which I was the Toastmistress. This year, she agreed to help me make a followup chapbook, titled Paths Through the Babylon Wood, for Conflikt, where I'm going to be the Guest of Honor.
(Someone asked what it's going to take for me to make a third chapbook, I think because they forgot that it's never a good idea to ask about a new project when the wounds from the current one are still bleeding. I replied that it would almost certainly need to involve a convention with the word 'World' somewhere in the name. Because man.)
When Beckett does chapbooks, she doesn't screw around. Hand-printed, hand-stitched -- these ones have a gorgeous photographic cover, in full color, as well as roughly seventy-five pages of poetry. (And surprisingly few printing errors -- a comment not on Beckett's skill at layout, but on my skill as a proofreader. Seriously, the woman's a goddess.) I spent the day happily folding sections, collating piles, and just talking to her. I love spending time with Beckett. It makes things better. (And it's deeply reassuring to talk to someone who understands what I mean about the quality meter breaking on the sixth, or seventh, or twenty-first revision of the same thing.)
I am home. I am safe. I am overcome by the wonder that is my friends. And I am ecstatic over these chapbooks, because they're gorgeous.
Life is good.
In 2005, Beckett graciously helped me make a chapbook, Leaves From the Babylon Wood, for that year's Ohio Valley Filk Festival, at which I was the Toastmistress. This year, she agreed to help me make a followup chapbook, titled Paths Through the Babylon Wood, for Conflikt, where I'm going to be the Guest of Honor.
(Someone asked what it's going to take for me to make a third chapbook, I think because they forgot that it's never a good idea to ask about a new project when the wounds from the current one are still bleeding. I replied that it would almost certainly need to involve a convention with the word 'World' somewhere in the name. Because man.)
When Beckett does chapbooks, she doesn't screw around. Hand-printed, hand-stitched -- these ones have a gorgeous photographic cover, in full color, as well as roughly seventy-five pages of poetry. (And surprisingly few printing errors -- a comment not on Beckett's skill at layout, but on my skill as a proofreader. Seriously, the woman's a goddess.) I spent the day happily folding sections, collating piles, and just talking to her. I love spending time with Beckett. It makes things better. (And it's deeply reassuring to talk to someone who understands what I mean about the quality meter breaking on the sixth, or seventh, or twenty-first revision of the same thing.)
I am home. I am safe. I am overcome by the wonder that is my friends. And I am ecstatic over these chapbooks, because they're gorgeous.
Life is good.
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Date: 2009-01-20 05:35 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-01-20 06:08 am (UTC)I'm always so impressed with your posts. Published books, filk festivals, and more. Your creative juices are always flowing and spilling over. And I benefit.
A week or so ago you wrote about Lilly being wrapped around your neck and thought that was why your characters were claustorphobic. That cracked me up and I've found myself thinking more about authors since then.
But I live in San Francisco. And honest to God, I never thought of Fremont as "urban". That cracked me up. I just attributed that to your creativity. It's just the end of the BART line. But of course you're right. I'm just a San Francisco snob. Fremont may be bigger than SF at this point. If not it's right behind it.
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Date: 2009-01-21 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-01-20 08:00 am (UTC)Yay you & Beckett! :)
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Date: 2009-01-21 03:45 am (UTC)