My short piece “Some Ways to Retell a Fairy Tale” has been published in TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses!
It began as a series of observations about retellings that I’d encountered in the short-story reading project, but quickly grew into its own… direction? reference guide? invocation? invitation? litany?
Look what’s arrived! My contributor edition of Georgette Heyer, History and Historical Fiction, with chapters on everything from linguistics to war — including mine on “Heyer . . . in Space! The Influence of Georgette Heyer on Science Fiction.”
The book, edited by Samantha J. Rayner and Kim Wilkins, is available from UCL Press, and although the print version is very reasonably priced for an academic publication, the ebook version is free!
And while it is an academic book, and sprang from an academic conference, the delight of all the authors in their subject has been delightful. For the Un-Conference launch, we even had such fans of Heyer as Stephen Fry, Philippa Gregory, Lois McMaster Bujold and Jennifer Kloester involved!
Look what’s happening this Thursday 25 February (UK time)! It’s the launch of Georgette Heyer, History, and Historical Fiction, and features an astonishing lineup of live and pre-recorded events, including Lois McMaster Bujold and Stephen Fry (!!!).
You can sign up here: Georgette Heyer: An Un-Conference – 25 February 2021
The book is from UCL Press and is very reasonably priced for an academic book (including free digital access).
And here’s the table of contents:
Samantha Rayner and Kim Wilkins have edited a book of papers originally presented at the Nonesuch conference at University College of London in 2018. Now Georgette Heyer, History, and Historical Fiction is coming out from UCL in February 2021. And I have written an actual academic chapter! My paper is “Heyer… in Space! The Influence of Georgette Heyer on Science Fiction”.
Here’s the table of contents (all the papers I saw presented were fascinating):
An very old illustration, making a reappearance here on my slide for a three-minute presentation about the PhD I began this year(!)
Old as it is, and from an era of somewhat attenuated figures and trees, I’m still very fond of this picture — it’s connected, too, to the creative component of the research project.
And last year Angela Slatter gave me this beautiful notebook cover made by her father.
Last year I went to the Diana Wynne Jones: Bristol 2019 conference in, obviously, Bristol, and had a wonderful time. Fannish academic conventions(? academic-ish fan conventions?) are wonderful fun, and we made new friends whose tastes we already approved of, and after the convention was over several of us tramped all over, and danced the witchy dance at Clifton Suspension Bridge, and rode a carousel, and tried to find the 21st-century equivalent of Janine’s boutique (some of these references are to Deep Secret which had a formative effect on my career).
Also, although I was between degrees, I gave a paper on:
“Contracts and Calcifer, or “In Which A Contract Is Concluded Before Witnesses”: the Transactional Structure of Howl’s Moving Castle.”
No regrets were had.
And the conference ebook is now available, for £10 : The Proceedings of the Diana Wynne Jones Conference, Bristol 2019.
Table of Contents
Kathleen Jennings 