Our big flamenco show is done. Six straight nights of rehearsal and then two shows on Sunday. I feel pretty good about it. Sadly, I have no pictures as this point. I was part of the opening tableau, danced in two numbers, performed my adaptation of the nurse’s opening monologue from Euripides’ MEDEA, and recited another poem from the POV of an 8-year-old boy.
There was a lot of hiding out in the classroom/dressing room and waiting, some deep breathing, and a reasonable amount of fear of screwing up. (I don’t think I did, at least not too badly).
Watching the rehearsal videos was an interesting experience. I decided I have what I call “dancer dysmorphia”. It’s not so much a concern about how fat I look (though believe me, there was no little angst about that). It’s that when I’m dancing my body feels behaving in ways that don’t seem to show on the video. I feel as if my arm positions are strong and rigid but in fact they look like wet noodles. I feel as if I’m upright and my neck is a thousand miles long. Instead, I look like a hunchbacked turtle. It’s very disconcerting. There’s definitely value in watching the rehearsal videos, especially to make sure you’re in sync with the rest of the group, that your arm isn’t blocking your face, etc. But you definitely have to put the visual impression of that performance behind you when it’s time to do the next one. You have to smile (or not, depending on the piece) and believe you can do it.
As one experienced performer told us, “you have to own it.” Or, as they used to say about punk: “You have to mean it, man”.
Sale news: A TERRIBLE BEAUTY will be on sale on May 1st for $1.99, if you should be interested.
About to enter a week of daily flamenco rehearsals in preparation for the show. Just got back from a quick road trip to Kingston with my brother and father. Planning for an upcoming overseas trip. Not sleeping much. Needless to say, not writing much either.
But I did finish THE DELUGE by Stephen Markley, which is very long and I could only read in small sections because it was too distressingly ‘on the nose’ right now. But it’s very good.
But here is a decent photo I managed to get of art on display at the sculpture garden at Huff Estates in Prince Edward County.
I am still getting reading done, in between flamenco practices! Here are some of the things that have stuck with me.
FICTION
There are Rivers in the Sky, Elif Shafak. A beautifully-written novel about stories, how they shape us, and how they connect us to the past. One of those books where I promptly have to transcribe a particularly beautiful passage. In fact, the one quoted below:
“We carve our dreams into objects, large and small. The emotions we hold but fail to honor, we try to express through the things we create, trusting that they will outlive us when we are gone, trusting that they will carry something of us through the layers of time, like water seeping through rocks. It is our way of saying to the next generations, those we will never get to meet, “Remember us.” It is our way of admitting we were weak and flawed, that we made mistakes, some inevitable, others foolish, but deep within we appreciated beauty and poetry, too. Each historical artifact, therefore, is a silent plea from ancestors to descendants, “Do not judge us too harshly.” We make art to leave a mark for the future, a slight kink in the rivers of stories, which flows too fast and too wildly for any of us to comprehend.”
The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch, Melinda Taub. I listened to this as an audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed it.
And the Rain My Drink, Han Suyin. This is an example of the breadcrumb trail that informs my reading. I read Legacy of Violence, a non-fiction book about abuses in the British Empire, which mentioned this classic novel about Malaysia (about which I knew virtually nothing). A tough, clear-eyed, poetic book about colonialism, opportunism, blindness, and desire.
The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman. What happens after Camelot fails? This fast-paced ride through Arthurian legend asks a serious question in an unfailingly entertaining way.
NON-FICTION
The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, Neko Case. The musician’s hard-scrabble upbringing and subsequent discovery of a home in music is told in vivid prose. I loved it.
Sleepwalkers, by Christopher Clark. I also have a “podcast to book” pipeline, and this one came from listening to The Rest is History. The book details the lead up to WWI from the perspectives of the main players, and how each power made choices that pushed them into a war most of them didn’t want.
Careless People, by Sarah Wynn-Williams. Yeah, Meta probably shouldn’t have taken out that injunction against their former employee because of this book. There’s still a six-month wait for it at the library (I scored mine on a “skip-the-line” offer). It’s a quick read that displays the full weirdness, greed, and blindness of the top ranks of the company.
You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favorite Song, Glenn McDonald and Mood Music, Liz Pelly. I ended up reading these books about music streaming weeks apart, which provided some interesting contrasts. The first is far more optimistic than the second about the impact on the experience of music for both listeners and musicians. As a subscriber to Apple Music who nonetheless still listens to full albums that I own via Sonos, I admit to teetering towards the negative side. But not enough to change.
I know, I should be able to do two things at a time. And I swear, I’m going to thrash out the next scene of the Glass World thing any day now.
What I’m actually working on most of the time is flamenco. We’ve got a show coming up and, even though I’m only in two and half dances, it’s a lot of work. I’m also performing an adaptation of the opening monologue from the play Medea (the one by Euripedes – my Greek and Roman Drama class is coming in handy) and reading a poem.
On the off chance in you’re in Toronto on April 27th, there are still tickets available!
During the rotten cold I’ve had for the last week and half, I managed to finish the kawandi quilt, and here it is in all it’s glory. I thoroughly enjoyed doing it and I’m looking forward to doing another one. Sadly, I’m pretty sure my next planned fabric venture won’t work using this technique, but that’s a problem for another day.
Thanks to anyone who bought any of the reissued books in 2024. And, of course, thanks to the fine folks at Open Road Media for reissuing them. I made enough in royalties to cover the ridiculous cost to relicense the Shriekback lyric for THE NIGHT INSIDE, which I really didn’t expect would happen.
After so many years, every sale is a vote of confidence, as is every borrow from the library. I have no idea what will happen with The Witch Novel, but this does give me some hope it might find a home.
And, if you’re interested, both A TERRIBLE BEAUTY and THE NIGHT INSIDE are on sale March 1 for $1.99.
I hated home economics in high school. I had no patience, no precision, and no particular desire to be there. In the years since, I’ve learned to cook a little (mostly things like soups, where precision isn’t required) and, during the pandemic, I finally revisited sewing. Yes, I am that person.
The decision was partly driven by decluttering. I was cleaning out some clothing that, sadly, didn’t fit me anymore. There were some lovely pieces by Toronto designer Annie Thompson, plus a number of interesting scarves that I’d acquired over the years. I could, in theory, have listed them on Poshmark or deposited them in one of the used clothing bins in the neighbourhood. But I am definitely not a ‘list it on Poshmark/Facebook’ person (to my regret) and the fabrics were so beautiful that I couldn’t bear to just put them in a bin. So I decided to create something new with them.
Keep in mind that I haven’t done anything but mend the occasional tear or sew on a button in years. I also don’t have a sewing machine and don’t want one. After some searching through YouTube, I discovered a tutorial on Boro, a Japanese method of hand-stitching scraps into a new piece. That seemed like a something I could do.
I started with a scarf (above). This did require buying a plain beige one, but Winners supplied that. I only needed scissors, pins, a needle, and some thread sourced from a local fabric store (which would later loom large in my endeavours). I found doing the work relaxing, as the amount of precision required was minimal. I could even watch video essays while I stitched.
Once that was done, it was on to something more challenging. I decided to adorn the back of an old Tilley vest inherited from my mother. I enlisted my more talented artistic friend Gillian to help me with the design, which improved it considerably. The key components were two Annie Thompson vests and a dress.
Next up, I took apart an Annie skirt. The two zippered pockets plus a strap became a handy little bag I could use on walks to carry my keys and my phone. The rest of the skirt was added to a knit bolero jacket to form a new “Frankendress.”
Now, it was time to up my game. I’d been inspired by all the fabric art I’d seen at the Venice Biennales. I was gifted a set of Japanese fabrics, including some obis from kimonos, and designed two small wall-hangings (ok, I did have Gillian’s help on this front). But I realized that I didn’t really know HOW to do a wall-hanging. Did I need batting? What kind of backing should I use?
Fabric Spark was once again the answer. In addition to selling fabric, they also run classes. An upcoming one was on Kawandi, a style of quilting created by the African-Indian Siddi community. I immediately signed up and it was 100% worth it. Not only did I figure out that yes, I needed batting, and yes, there was an easy backing I could get, I discovered a whole new creative diversion.
I don’t have any particular talent, but I’ve come to value creating visual art with my hands. It’s an important antidote to both writing (my creative life) and numbers (my former work one). It feels good to flex a different muscle for a change.
Here’s what I managed in the three hours last week. I’m looking forward to getting back to work on it.
You may notice a few fabrics from the vest and making a reappearance here. Waste not….
Almost every book of advice on writing will tell you to read your work aloud. I find lots of advice to be either incompatible with my wonky process (yes, I can draw a plot graph but it never seems to help) or completely impossible (write my entire book again, from scratch, for the second draft? I don’t think I’ll live that long), but this one has always rung true.
There’s nothing worse than doing a public reading and discovering halfway through a sentence that a) you’ve used the same word three times and you didn’t mean to and b) the sentence is quite awful. Note: this is why you should always practice and edit in advance.
My current writing project is reading the entire second draft (all 124,000 words of it) of the Witch Novel out loud. To my relief, it doesn’t seem to suck. I’ve had to had a number of notes (wait, am I capitalizing that? How many years pass between event A and event B? Am I sure? Didn’t Erzabet already tell Vedette about this?) but that’s normal. I didn’t write the book in order, so some of the ghosts of the narrative guesses or clues I put in each new section are still there to be pruned.
I just finished Chapter 35 of 42, so the end is approaching. I found myself getting quite dramatic with this one, gesturing wildly and hunching over my computer. It was quite fun. I’m a pretty good reader – I once recorded all of Cold Hillside in VoiceRecord Pro – and I like doing it. Even if I did always choke up at the end of Hiroshima chapter, which was one of the sections I often read for Blood & Chrysanthemums. I’ve done readings for two of the flamenco shows I’ve been in (if you need someone to lend a bit of cynicism to a paean about Spartan women, I’m your girl) and my teacher has already said I’ll be doing some more for the show in April.
I suppose I’m better at reading than I am at footwork, but that’s ok.
During the pandemic, my husband recorded me reading short sections from each of the books and then he composed music to accompany them. My goal is to post those over the coming weeks – once I figure out how.
This year’s total was 143 (give or take a few physical books I may have missed), of which 48 (33%) were non-fiction. The non-fiction percentage is down from 2023, but I maintain that Tony Judt’s Postwar and Caroline Elkins’ Legacy of Violence both count as at least two books.
As always, here are some of my favorites.
FICTION
On the ‘Best Thing I Read’ list: The Shepherd.com list covers a slightly different time period, but of course I have to mention the two that do qualify for 2024. Menewood by Nicola Griffith and Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell. These could not be more different. One’s a rich, immersive fantasy about 8th century Britain, one’s a rich, immersive depiction of a midwestern middle-class family between the wars…. In all seriousness, they’re both brilliant, even if the prose, the milieu, and the concerns of the characters are very different.
Fairies, Encyclopaedia of: I thoroughly enjoyed both of Heather Fawcett’s Emily Wilde books. Charming, inventive, and lots of fun. And thanks to my husband, for reading them first and recommending them to me.
The Year of the Kingfisher. T. Kingfisher, that is. In 2024, I managed to inhale A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, Nettle & Bone, A Sorceress Comes to Call, A House with Good Bones, What Moves the Dead, and What Feasts at Night. I read also Paladin’s Grace, written in her Ursula Vernon guise. I’m glad there’s a substantial back catalogue to keep me busy in 2025.
“Like” isn’t really the word: Certain portions of Paolo Bacigalupi fantasy novel Navola left me quite queasy, and I can’t get them out of my head, even if I wanted to. It’s set in a richly imagined version of Renaissance Italy in which the fantasy elements are minimal and intriguing and backstabbing are a way of life. Best of all, it’s essentially a stand-alone novel, though the door remains open for more tales in the world.
Not really fantasy but…”: Nights of Plague by Turkish writer Orthan Pamuk isn’t really a fantasy novel, but it ticks a lot of the same boxes for me: a vividly described world, a wide range of characters, love, death, satire, comedy, politics, heroic action, wilful stupidity. It chronicles the impact of a plague on a fictional Mediterranean island in the waning days of the Ottoman empire – and of course a good deal more.
NON-FICTION
Catching up on the 20th Century: A lot of my history reading is centered on the distant past, but this year I dove into the aforementioned Postwar by Tony Judt (what happened in Europe from 1945 to the 2000s) and Legacy of Violence (which covered more than one century of British colonial violence).
Mars? You first: Winner of a Hugo, A City on Mars (Kelly and Zach Weinersmith) is a serious look at the perils and possibilities of colonizing another planet, told with humor and cartoons. I don’t object to space exploration or even planning for a colony, but the bulk of our energy, innovation, and money should be spent maintaining the health of a planet where everything won’t kill us.
Yellowknife? You first: Ok, it did sound more fun than Mars. Canadian musician-writer Dave Bidini takes a summer job working for a newspaper in Yellowknife and writes Midnight Light, in which he explores the pleasures, dangers, and weirdness of life in the north.
We’re screwed, Part II. Last year’s list included Fire Weather, about the Fort McMurray fire. This year, I paired The Water Will Rise and The Heat Will Kill You First, both by Jeff Goodell. Both good, but sobering.
Squirrel!: There are a lot more than squirrels in On Looking by Alexandra Horowitz, but I did see a squirrel run up a tree to his nest at the exact moment that the audiobook narration featured a wildlife expert explaining how to spot a squirrel nest. Synchronicity! Horowitz explores the blocks around her Manhattan home with eleven experts, including a geologist, a sound designer, an artist, a dog, and her own toddler. As a committed flaneur, I loved it.
I’ll be posting my list of top reads and final tally of books read later this week, but earlier this year I’d already decided on my favourites for the annual “Best Books of 2024” list for the Shepherd.com book recommendation site. The great thing about this list is that it doesn’t focus only on what came out in 2024, but what you actually read. One of my top reads was published in 1959. What was it? You’ll have to check my list to find out.
This year, you can go in and post your own top reads list – just follow this link. And check out the top lists (with convenient genre breakdowns) to find more things to add to your list for 2025.
