Escaping the Trunk

These are the guidelines for Tesseracts 15, a Canadian anthology of genre fiction that is focusing on YA stories this year. I was really excited about submitting to this anthology, until I read the guidelines. (They’re available as a PDF on the website linked above.) Snip:

If yours doesn’t fit, please don’t submit it.

Whatever other definitions of a story suited to a 13 and older reader you may encounter or hold, the only ones that matter to this anthology are ours, plain and simple.

* No torture or explicit acts of violence. (Action/fights/struggle are fine.)
* No explicit sex. (Be romantic.)
* No obscenities. (Be inventive. Yes, kids swear. No, we won’t buy your story if your characters do.)
* No shades of what’s already been done in YA speculative fiction, i.e. schools for magic or vampire boyfriends, unless you are presenting a markedly different and original approach.
* No flat, clichéd characters or character place-markers, i.e. the lost little girl, the unhappy dad, the sandwich-fixing mom.
* No stories without a strong speculative fiction element that drives the plot, i.e., mom and dad getting a divorce on Mars won’t cut it for science fiction, unless there is something more to be made of the setting’s effect. The same applies for fantasy and horror.

I like how editors Julie Czernada and Susan MacGregor have already anticipated a lot of the arguments, here. I think they’re right to draw the line at their editorial privilege: what matters isn’t what other editors allow, but what they allow. It is, after all, their anthology and not someone else’s. Remember when your mom used to say “I don’t care what you get to do at Jimmy’s house; this is my house and you have to follow my rules”? This is like that.

The trouble is that I like Jimmy’s house more than yours, Mom. That’s where the Hugo nominees play. And as everyone knows, the Hugo losers’ party is way more fun that the winners.’

Taking another look at those guidelines, I realized that one of my favourite books in recent years, Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, wouldn’t make the cut. Neither would M.T. Anderson’s National Book Award Finalist, Feed. Neither would either of Margaret Mahy’s Carnegie winners. And to me, that’s a problem. Because when your YA anthology excludes material found in award-winning YA novels, that’s like saying that you don’t want the best.

This isn’t to say that adult content makes a good story, or that all YA stories should dance on the knife’s edge. Heinlein, Bradbury, and LeGuin all wrote short stories that fit the guidelines outlined above. The book that won the Hugo last year, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, also fits the guidelines and is aimed at a YA audience. But I think those guidelines are stringent enough to stifle the writers who don’t have a “clean” story in the stable. There are only about two months to complete this story, if you’re starting from scratch. That’s not a lot of time to put down work that rivals Gaiman’s.

Say you want to submit, but you have to de-fang a story that might not make the cut in order to get it in on time. How would you do it? The line here seems to be explicitness. There’s a chasm between Holden Caulfield “feeling pretty sexy by that point” and Holden Caulfield being unable to get the image of underage prostitute Sunny’s nipples out of his mind. But these things happen by degree, and the terms “explicit” and “romantic” are inherently weaselly. One person’s explicit is another person’s romantic. This is the problem with all obscenity regulations. They’re deeply subjective and vulnerable to passing fashions, and they’re why even classic children’s literature is banned or challenged in multiple countries. The guidelines listed above (those that relate to language and depiction, not plot development) seem designed to make sure that T15 is never challenged, ever.

My friend and fellow workshop member Mike Skeet reminded me that there’s a big difference between “adult” material found in YA novels and the same material found in YA short stories. Obviously the latter are more condensed, and anything you add has to be done with more grace and wisdom. But the classics of YA literature, genre or otherwise, aren’t known for their…safety. Bad things happen. All the time. That’s sort of the point. Holden Caulfield tries sleeping with a hooker and gets beaten up by her pimp. Ender Wiggin kills two kids. Jerry Renault winds up a in a boxing match with public masturbator Emile Janza. Leslie Burke dies. “Alice” drops acid. Charles Holloway’s hand gets crushed. It’s called conflict, and it’s what makes a story. But a writer spooked by guidelines like these might find herself conflict-averse in her attempt to make a sale and build a name.

When I talked about these guidelines with my workshop in an email thread, the thing that kept popping up was worry for the Tesseracts brand. One parent in the group said that the guidelines read like recommendations for ages 10 and under, not ages 13 and over. I understand that an editor’s first job is to give herself the time and space to read and think, and that one way to do that is to lay down the law and filter out unwanted content. But I wonder if opening up the field would have guaranteed more quality in and among the quantity, while simultaneously preserving the editors’ right to reject stories they found offensive. Would allowing racier stories have circumscribed that right? Would it have limited the editors’ right to have a “let’s tone it down” conversation with the writers they wanted to buy stories from?

The answer’s in the anthology, of course. If these guidelines guide in quality material that young readers enjoy, then mission accomplished. But if those young readers are anything like the reader I was, the last thing they want is content that comes pre-sanitized. At thirteen, I was reading Stephen King novels. At fourteen, I was reading Michael Ondaatje. At fifteen, it was Sebastien Japrisot. Are you seeing a pattern, here? Kids like texts that are actually above the level most adults think they can or should be reading at. They like to be challenged. They hate being talked down to. Every writer should know her audience. I’m just wondering who the audience is, here. Kids, or their uptight parents?

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One of the reasons I haven’t blogged very much recently is that I’ve been so damn busy. I went away for a while to a lake up north, where I worked on the story in this subject heading as well as a couple of others (I even did some foresighting work, if you can believe that). The good news is that all of the stories I was working on were requests from other people — this one came from Rudy Rucker. In his words on the story, Rudy called it “a profound and richly felt piece so closely rooted in reality that it barely feels like SF,” and “an important story-essay on women’s rights.”

This story actually came about as a consequence of my involvement in the Strategic Foresight & Innovation program at the Ontario College of Art and Design. Initially, I wrote a fictional essay about the fall of Shenzhen from a systems theory perspective, invoking Donella Meadows and Jamshid Gharajedaghi and Clayton Christensen. It was an interesting exercise, one that I delayed starting for too long because I was stymied and had been working on my novel re-writes. I was in desperate need to write some short fiction, so (as I have done before) I turned in some instead of turning in a straight paper.

The story linked above has been cut significantly from that first essay, and a new subjectivity has taken the POV position within the story because the footnotes and bibliography and conceptual framing for systems theory has been removed. It took me a long time to re-frame the story appropriately, but I finally settled on a woman in the Quiverfull movement. Quiver-minded people follow Psalm 127:3-5:

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD:
and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man;
so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them:
they shall not be ashamed,
but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

I felt that a Quiver-minded woman would be uniquely positioned to speak to China’s only child policy, because while she eschewed any form of birth control, the women of China are legally obligated to embrace it. I’ve always been fascinated by reproductive policy, and I thought it would be interesting to bring this dichotomy into focus. I also knew it would mean delving into two worlds that I knew very little about: the factories of Shenzhen, and the farms and households of Quiver-minded families.

Conditions in both environments can be terrible.

The reasons for this should be obvious. In the worst of both cases, rigid patriarchy oppresses women who live almost barrack-style, endlessly performing the same tasks during their sixteen-hour days for very little reward and with little opportunity for open communication or self-expression. I recommend reading No Longer Quivering for insights into the consequences of the Quiverfull lifestyle, and this Fortune City post about working conditions in Shenzhen. (Or you could just read Cory’s latest, For the Win.)

This isn’t to say that I’m some sort of moral authority on either subject. I’m typing this on a Mac, which means I’m a consumer of Foxconn products, products made in factories where conditions are so awful that suicide is a regular occurrence among employees. I also don’t think that the entirety of the Quiverfull movement needs to die. Mary Pride, the author who in many ways began the movement, has since spoken out against Biblical patriarchy. Some might see this as a reversal, but to me it’s a more nuanced understanding of one’s own opinion and its consequences. I felt that I hadn’t really nailed the voice of this story until I read Pride’s post.

I also think that there are a surprising number of connections between the Quiverfull lifestyle and the DIY maker/crafter one espoused at BoingBoing and elsewhere online by avowed atheists. Having a lot of children (some Quiverfull families can have more than twenty) means learning how to stretch a dollar (that’s putting it mildly) and learning how to make consumables as cheaply as possible. In particular, I was fascinated by the women of the West family, who have turned their DIY expertise into a profitable video series for the Christian market. (Their blog is great, too. Warning: music.) Here’s a taste:

This isn’t a lifestyle that I can see myself living, but it is one that I can respect, and it’s part of how I found my way into the story. Personally, I find the idea of life without birth control horrifying, in a screamingly awful “I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream” kind of way. But part of being pro-choice is believing in the sanctity of the choice. Our bodies are ours to do with as we will. Anything less is slavery. And slavery takes more forms than we know.

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On June 14, a bystander shot this video of a Seattle police officer punching a 17-year-old girl in the face during an altercation with her 19-year-old cousin.

My pal David Forbes tweeted this bit of news to me this afternoon, and I’ve been trying to wrap my head around both the video and the responses to the video ever since. The response is overwhelmingly in support of the officer. Here are a few choice snippets:
Read the rest of this entry »

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Charles Tan was kind enough to interview me about The Shine Anthology, and you can read it here.

Snip:

CT: What made you decide to write science fiction?

MA: A lot of things. I was raised in a science fiction household. My dad had this copy of “To Sail Beyond the Sunset” under the bed, the one with Maureen doing her Birth of Venus thing on the cover. We also had the Dune and Foundation novels around, and we watched a lot of media SF on television. But I didn’t really want to write it until university, when I was studying it academically, and when I had already watched a lot of SF anime, which in my opinion is usually far better than live-action SF TV from the States or elsewhere. Plus, I knew it was an area where I could distinguish myself. There are throngs of women in their twenties writing about vampires and angels. But my thing is robots, and the humans who love them, right up until the moment their hearts are ripped from their chests.

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In case anyone’s curious, I’ve gotten feedback on my manuscript from both my agent and (most of) my workshop. I’m still waiting on a couple of opinions which really matter to me, and for this reason I’ve been reticent to attempt any re-writing. I’m waiting until all the science is in, to use a climate-denier phrase.

That said, I’m slowly growing more excited about the process. Everyone has a slightly different take on the book, but the good news is that they all enjoyed it (if for different reasons). It’s tough to reconcile all those opinions and desires and nagging questions, and I feel like I’m cooking vegan, kosher, and hypo-allergenic all in the same dish. But I know that the flavour is in there, waiting to be sweated out, and eventually everything will approach some semblance of cohesion. I think the first step might be re-reading it and making notes for myself, but not touching anything. It’s very hard for me not to fix and tweak as I go, but in this case I think I’ll have to sit on my hands. I’m not even sure I’ve read the whole thing in one go, before. I wrote it in isolated chapters, and at one point I went back and edited and re-wrote from the very beginning. I think the manuscript benefited from that, so in theory doing the same thing all over again with a more focused and informed mindset should help.

Still. I could screw it up.

In the meantime, there’s an absurd amount of homework to do. Seriously.

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From Food

This is the dinner I prepared after finishing the first draft of a novel called The von Neumann Sisters. My agent is reading it, my workshop is reading it, my husband is reading it. The title is taken from a comment Peter made in a Starship Sofa podcast, when talking about it. He mistook the title I had in mind, but when I thought about it, I realized it was a better fit. But that final moment reflects the beginning of the process: Peter’s the one who told me to write this one. I already had five chapters and a ton of research done on another novel, but that novel was fighting me every step of the way. In the middle of one of our afternoon anime and beer binges (did I mention that my life is great?), while we were talking about another short story I had written about robots, Peter squinted at me and said: “Why don’t you just write about them, instead?” When I told my husband about this conversation, he said: “You have something really special, here. I think you should do it.”

I am nothing if not highly suggestible.

That other novel is still in me, and I think about it every day. But it’s a big, rough book. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to tackle it, yet. There were moments writing vNS that stymied me completely. At one point, I had to turn right around and start over, editing from the first sentence on down until I could get my momentum back. This really hurt, because writing is the thing I do all the time, and if I don’t have a story with me I feel not just naked, but empty and alone. Since finishing this draft, I’ve got the DT’s: I’m alternating between the sense of my head clearing enough to get some damn homework done, finally, and the gnawing absence of what was once a regular, if not always productive, activity.

With that sentiment in mind, please enjoy this video:

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I’m not joking. Jetse de Vries, editor of The Shine Anthology of Optimistic SF is giving away free cognac, whisky, and wine if you guess the end of a sentence correctly.

No, really. How it works:

Below are fragments from all the stories that will appear in the Shine anthology. Each fragment has an ending sentence, for which four possibilities are given. Three are false (made up by me, or—in same cases—by the author), one is correct. Guess the correct answer. One point for each correct answer: so one can earn a maximum of 16 points with this.

Bonus points are given if one guesses the name of the author of the fragment correct. This way, one can earn another 16 points. So the maximum possible points one can earn is 32.

Example (this is from “Araby” by James Joyce):

North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers’ School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them,

A) gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.

B) turned a blind eye to the boys’ noise.

C) kept on as usual, refusing to be distracted.

D) shuddered at the vibrant energy disturbing the quiet afternoon.

In this example, the correct answer is 1-A, and the author is James Joyce. So a competition entry would look like this: 1-A, Jane Doe; 2-B, Joe Sixpack, 3-C, Captain Nemo, etcetera until number 16.

So start clicking! Start reading! Start drinking! Start now!

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Thanksgiving, as I was exhorted late last night, was October 12th. It was, according to some, the only Thanksgiving that should count. However those of us with two countries to our names sometimes get double holidays. (Japan, it should be known, has the best assortment of holidays: Christmas is for lovers, New Year’s is for family, Valentine’s Day is for men, White Day is for women, Golden Week is a whole week long, and there’s Obon and Halloween. But I digress.) This means getting two Thanksgivings.

In other words, I’m boarding a plane later today for Los Angeles. There was a frantic pawing through my bureau this evening (yesterday evening, technically) for my bathing suit (I found it!) and I’ve charged up my mobile and borrowed an EEE. I’m going to see my mother’s family and my former roommate. This will be my husband’s first opportunity to meet some of them. (I considered making flashcards.) Since family is the theme of the weekend, I thought I’d share these trailers.

I’ll try watching this one tomorrow, if my last-minute shopping doesn’t get in the way. To me it’s the perfect family film.

I’ve also included this trailer, because it’s far more informative than the one floating around on television. That one just spits out the names Roald Dahl, Wes Anderson, George Clooney and Meryl Streep at you, without any context. This one actually gets at plot. And showcases Bill Murray as a badger with a thing for explosives. Which is a real winner, as far as I’m concerned.

In other good news, related pieces of which I shall divulge later on, Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic SF*, edited by Jetse de Vries, is available for pre-order. I wrote a story especially intended for it, and I was lucky enough to see it accepted. I’ll probably do some talking about it to the family members I don’t see very often, if they ask what I’m up to lately. Then we’ll just segue into killer robots, and all will be well.

*Yes, I know about the typo. The fine people at Solaris are on it.

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When I returned from the lake, my husband had one piece of news for me:Michael Jackson’s signature white sequined glove has sold for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars at auction. “Somebody must have read your story,” he said.

This is what he means:

Slipping on the glove, I felt a heady rush of temptation despite the way the fabric wilted from my too-short fingers. I suddenly understood Joe’s speedy conquering of time. His desire to leave his mark on every important date was completely natural. History spread out like a puddle begging to be splashed in. Grinning, I drew a door.

– “In Which Joe and Laurie Save Rock n’ Roll” Tesseracts Eleven, edited by Cory Doctorow and Holly Philips

An Amazon review summarizes it best: “A pair of high school students experiment with what looks like Michael Jackson’s glove. It can create portals in time, but the catch is that the portals only go to famous dates in rock and roll history, like the days that Kurt Cobain and John Lennon died.”

Note to Hoffman Ma, the businessman who won the auction: to my knowledge, Michael Jackson’s glove will not actually grant you the power to visit important dates in the history of music. If someone at Julien’s tried to sell you on that idea, you have every right demand your hundreds of thousands of dollars back. Unless it works, of course. In that case, happy trails. Try not to fuck up the timeline.

…On a somewhat related note, I should add that when Jackson died, I was sincerely tempted to re-release this story in some way. Then I watched as his death overshadowed major news events like the revolution in Iran, and I decided that I didn’t want to participate in that. I still feel a little ambivalent about the issue. Jackson’s death lends a note of irony to the story that wasn’t there at the time that I wrote it, but I never intended for Jackson’s fictional involvement to be the central focus. I chose his glove because it was a kitschy, easily-recognizable fetish object from music history that was imbued with multiple layers of meaning (and therefore, power). The fiction is that it can transport the wearer to specific points of history, but the reality is that some objects always have this ability. Dig through that forgotten box at the back of your closet, and you will inevitably be transported to some other time or place in your own history.

If anything has changed for me with regard to the story, it’s that every performer who’s name-checked in the prose is now dead. When I wrote it, that wasn’t true. It was a quiet little realization I came to as I watched the non-stop coverage of Jackson’s death, especially speculation about what would happen to the Beatles catalog that Jackson outbid Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono for. I find it fitting that, in my story, Jackson’s glove was used in an attempt to save John Lennon’s life. I thought of it as retribution for a champion dick move on Jackson’s part — namely, buying Lennon’s songs (and their value) out from under his best friend, his widow, and his children, then using those songs as equity to maintain the very lifestyle and career stagnation that Lennon himself sought to avoid. But the purchase of the Beatles catalog is simply another moment in music history; perhaps if Mr. Ma travels back to see it, he can report back here and tell us how it all really went down.

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You can read my story, “Milk+” at The Orphan. Snip:

Braxtin had no need for the milk bar until a week after starting Milk+. By then, her breasts already felt stretched and sore, and a hot little knot of pain had tightened between her shoulders. But according to the pamphlet inside her free box of Milk +, her new breast milk contained a more even distribution of fats and sugars, thus eliminating the peaks and valleys created by conventional insulin release. Lev fed steadily, cried less, and napped more. Braxtin could have wept with relief.

Steadying Lev’s stroller with one hand with baby bag and her canvas grocery tote hanging from her other elbow, Braxtin swung the keychain before a card-sized black panel and stepped through the softly chiming doors. Like deer troubled by a passing car, the heads of three nursing mothers rose to watch her from their curved, ultra-modern sofas. Despite their differences in height and race, their breasts seemed disproportionately distended and heavy, as though a bad comic book artist’s Oedipal fantasy had come bizarrely and painfully true. Stretch marks like root systems began at their necks and climbed ever downward.

I’ve been wrestling with this story for a long time. Thankfully, Brendan Byrne was willing to adopt my li’l orphan and give it a home. You should check it out, if only just to see Molly Crabapple’s excellent illustrations. They’re creepy and juicy and gorgeous, and the illustration to the right of my story is a better companion for it than I could ever have wished for. Go take a look.

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