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Saturday, November 9, 2019 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 131 (previously 40b) - Interview with Heather Rose Jones
(Originally aired 2019/11/09 - listen here)
Transcript pending.
Show Notes
A series of interviews with authors of historically-based fiction featuring queer women.
In this episode we talk about:
- What are the advantages to setting stories in an invented country like Alpennia?
- The roots of Heather’s love for language and history
- Themes and tropes in the Alpennia books
- Why weren’t the books written as romances?
- Complex intersections of gender and sexuality in the books
- Queer coming of age in the 19th century
- What books inspired the Alpennia series?
- Why a laundry maid as a protagonist? Writing precarious lives.
- Touch-points for writing historic disasters and sowing seeds of revolution
- Why write a stand-alone book in the middle of a series?
- Why write in first versus third person?
- Finding the people of color in Alpennia
- Planting story-seeds to harvest in later books
- What’s next for the Alpennia series?
- Giving characters failure modes
- What else does Heather want to write?
- Books mentioned
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
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LHMPPublications:
Floodtide View comments (0)
Friday, November 8, 2019 - 06:00
As has become the custom in SFF circles, this blog is to place on record those items I will have created in 2019 that might be of interest to those nominating and voting on SFF awards. (Or any other genre of awards, for that matter, but there really isn't any equivalent culture within the lesbian literary community.) At the actual end of the calendar year, I'll do my usual "What Hath She Wrote" post that summarizes all my activities, but this one is just for the plausibly SFF items.
Novels
Floodtide (November 2019, Bella Books) - Not actually out in the world yet at the time I'm posting this, but them's the breaks.
Podcast
I'm going to the a bit daring and suggest that there's enough historic fantasy content in The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast to consider it eligible for consideration for SFF podcast awards. Specific episodes offered as evidence: a discussion of time-travel/time-slip motifs in f/f historical fiction, a discussion of and excerpts from Delariviere Manley's pseudo-utopian satire The New Atalantis, interview with author Katherine Duckett, interview with author Zen Cho, interview with author Molly Tanzer. I'd like to get people thinking of the podcast in this context even more in 2020 when the fiction series may publish historic fantasy as well as plain historical fiction.
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FloodtideThursday, November 7, 2019 - 06:00
I'm drafting up entries for an Alpennia FAQ based on either overt or implicit questions I get asked about the books. This time I tackle one more of the possible genres the books might fall in:
Are the Alpennia books SFF?
The Alpennia series fits very comfortably into the broad, general category of “science fiction and fantasy” or SFF for short. The magical elements place them solidly into the fantasy genre, and they also fit comfortably into the subgenres of “Regency fantasy” (more or less “settings that feel like Regency romances but have fantastic elements added to them”) and “fantasy of manners” (sometimes contrasted with genres like “high fantasy” that tends to deal with epic quests and the fate of empires, whereas a “fantasy of manners” tends to derive its conflicts and triumphs from the rules and mores of a stratified social structure).
As a reader and author, I tend to consider the SFF community to be my home town, and the SFF literary tradition to be my native tongue. As a generalization, I’d say that the Alpennia books have most easily “clicked” with people who consider themselves SFF readers. Other SFF readers may feel that the significant romance elements push them out to the margins of that genre. And for those who classify books based on publisher, the fact that Bella Books is not a SFF publisher undermines categorizing Alpennia as such. So, as for most of these questions, much depends on which factors you emphasize.
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Writing ProcessTuesday, November 5, 2019 - 13:56
This is it: the final installment of the Floodtide teasers! Carefully selected to avoid any spoilers at all. As I've mentioned previously, for several of the novels I've "bookended" the stories with a pair of short passages in a different narrative style. As for Mother of Souls, the bookends for Floodtide echo each other in theme.
You can pre-order the book at the Bella Books website for release-day delivery. (Actually, I'm not certain that hard copies will arrive by release day, but e-books will.) And I'll be giving away a copy or two to my newsletter subscribers, so if you aren't signed up for my monthly newsletter you might consider it. (I mean, sure you're going to pre-order it, but you can always give the book away as a gift if you win it.) And if you happen to be geographically local to me, I'm having a very informal release day party at my house the evening of Friday the 15th. (If you aren't a fb friend, you can contact me for info.)
The promotional blogs and interviews I'm doing for the release are appearing around the web in various places. At some point I'll set up a link blog with pointers to them all. And remember that enthusiastic and vocal fans are one of the best assets a new book can have!
Sometimes life is like the scent of fresh lavender as you strip it off the stems. It crawls up your nose and spikes into your head until it pounds and throbs in pain. Sometimes it’s like the close work in the still room, turning the flowers into sweetness. Sometimes it’s like the soft scent of lavender water sprinkled on the sheets in a faint reminder of sunlight giving you good dreams through the night.
They say any work can be a mystery if you do it with care and a prayer in your heart.
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FloodtideMonday, November 4, 2019 - 07:00
This concludes the summary of Cadden's book with a discussion of how medieval medical and theological writings dealt with the apparent contradiction of valorizing sexual abstinence while justifying sexual desire as a healthy response to the balance of bodily humors. The variety of approaches--including a recognition of different reasons for abstinence--can be attributed both to the need to justify these conflicting principles and to a recognition that human situations were diverse and might need to be addressed by different approaches to health.
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LHMPFull citation:
Cadden, Joan. 1993. Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-48378-6
Chapter 6: Abstinence & Conclusions
[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]
This concludes the summary of Cadden's book with a discussion of how medieval medical and theological writings dealt with the apparent contradiction of valorizing sexual abstinence while justifying sexual desire as a healthy response to the balance of bodily humors. The variety of approaches--including a recognition of different reasons for abstinence--can be attributed both to the need to justify these conflicting principles and to a recognition that human situations were diverse and might need to be addressed by different approaches to health.
# # #
Medieval opinions about abstinence--as expressed in medical, philosophical, theological, and social literature--are more complicated and ambivalent than those about procreation. Given that much of the discourse around procreative sex frames it as driven by medical and moral imperatives (e.g., theories about how sexual desire has the goal of achieving balance and promoting health), how can abstinence fit into the same framework without being considered unhealthy?
There were varieties of abstinence. Virginity was the one held in highest regard, especially in the early Christian period, and represented a complete avoidance of the experience of intercourse at any point in one’s life. Virginity was often contrasted with marriage (in contexts where marriage assumed sexual activity), with marriage being a “second-best” way of avoiding fornication (unauthorized sex). But one could also be a virgin within marriage, a condition that often features in saints lives.
Men could be virgins, just as women could, though the condition was more salient for women. In the later middle ages, the Church deemphasized virginity, either as an ongoing state, or as a requirement for various events such as marriage or taking monastic vows. This seems to have been largely a matter of practicality.
In a social context, only women’s virginity was emphasized and subject to family protection and control. This was driven by the desire for controlling the parentage of offspring. A number of medical tests purported to be able to determine whether or not a woman was a virgin, and of course the ultimate proof of non-virgin status was pregnancy and childbirth. There were no equivalent tests and proofs for male virginity or fidelity. Countering these tests, there were also manuals with instructions for how to counterfeit proofs of virginity, especially the bleeding after penetration that was associated with myths about the hymen.
Although religious principles regarding sexual continence were, in theory, gender-neutral, they were generally compatible with the secular interest specifically in female virginity. One exception was that the Church allowed for the possibility of “spiritual virginity” even after the experience of intercourse. Thus some held that those who only experienced approved sex within marriage (the usual understanding of the term “chastity”) could be considered virgin. Theology was also less interested in the sex-specific “proof” offered by an unbroken hymen.
The next “rank” of sexual abstinence after virginity was permanent celibacy, as for those who took religious vows. Monastic institutions regularly had problems with enforcing this and the sexual misconduct of monks and nuns was a regular trope in medieval popular culture. A sincere religious vocation was only one of the paths to monastic life. Monastic institutions were commonly used as a place to store “surplus” sons and daughters for whom no land or dowries were available--a purpose that would be undermined by procreation. But conversely, for people (especially women) who wished to abstain from sex, a religious life was a useful option.
Far more common than these lifelong commitments to celibacy were temporary periods of abstinence such as due to postponed marriage or abstinence during certain religious festivals. Certain regional marriage patterns involved postponement of marriage well into the 20s, and demographics indicate that this wasn’t accompanied by significant illegitimacy rates. Medical texts indicate that this could be considered a problematic condition, and might recommend nonreproductive sexual activity such as masturbation (in conflict with the theological position on the topic). Both theology and medical theory supported a woman being abstinent while menstruating. The two also agreed on the desirability of women being abstinent during pregnancy, though some medical theories recognized that women might experience sexual desire during pregnancy even though it served no biological purpose. The prohibition was largely on moral grounds regarding the justifications for enjoying sex, though there were also anecdotal theories that a pregnant woman who committed adultery could achieve a second pregnancy with her lover’s child.
The central theme in all of these is that even for those who have a context for licit sex, the desired state is “continence”, that is, sex only in approved circumstances for the purpose of procreation. This was the principle behind condemnations of contraception, abortion, sodomy, and masturbation, as well as sex during pregnancy. This theme of the desirability of control over sexual impulses belongs to theological literature, while medical texts address only specific types of nonprocreative sex that are considered harmful. In other contexts, medical manuals (such as the one attributed to a female author, Trotula) acknowledge the harmful effects of abstinence on women who have no licit outlet (such as widows), or the ill effects on some women of sexual activity (and its consequences) who are not in a position to abstain, and offer treatments for those situations. One approach was the use of anaphrodisiacs to decrease sexual desire. This was not an approved theological solution as it removed the moral benefit of actively resisting temptation.
In general, medical authorities considered sexual activity to be essential for good health. Abstaining would put the body out of balance, unless one’s personal constitutional balance was already out of balance in a way that sex would aggravate. For those whose constitutions required sex for good health, but whose personal circumstances did not offer the opportunity, remedies might include medicines, diets, or activities that addressed the imbalance in other ways. But some medical authorities recommended masturbation as a way of restoring health. This might be dressed in the guise of a professional treatment, as in some prescriptions for women to have a midwife massage their genitals until orgasm.
Conclusion
While the interests of medical, philosophical, and religious traditions often aligned in principle around issues of sex and gender, when dealing with specific medical problems and conditions, the secular authors often showed flexibility and practicality in applying the varied and contradictory theoretical traditions to the topic at hand. There was no unified over-arching system to their approach, but the general principles of polarities, balance, and a “whole life” approach carry through. Beliefs about inherent differences between male and female bodies result in different assumptions and approaches. Although medical theories were sometimes used in support of social or theological concerns, as a general rule, medical writers did not feel constrained by purely theological principles (though theology might be an unnoticed part of the underlying assumptions).
The enforcement of a philosophical system of binaries, and the acceptance that qualities could manifest in contradiction to their expected assignment as a form of “imbalance,” meant that medieval medical and philosophical theories had no framework for understanding homosexuality as a distinct phenomenon. Rather, individuals were viewed as manifesting properties at odds with their nature. So, for example, a female person who desired sex with another female person was not viewed as having “same-sex desire” but rather as being of a masculine nature, where part of the inherent properties of a masculine nature was to desire women. [Note: One should not lose sight of other behaviors that could indicate a “masculine nature” in a female person, such as being strong, brave, intellectual, and in control of one’s emotions.]
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Saturday, November 2, 2019 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 130 (previously 40a) - On the Shelf for November 2019 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2019/11/02 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for November 2019.
You may have noticed something different in the show’s intro or on the website. The Lesbian Talk Show channel has rebranded itself as TLT--pronounced “tilt”. You still get the same content focusing on women who love women, produced by the same people. It’s just wearing a slightly different jacket. My show will keep the same name--The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast--it’s only our group network that’s changing its name.
Does it feel like the end of the year is galloping down on us? Writing communities have found ways to add extra layers to the end-of-year holiday crush. Whether you’re challenging yourself with NaNoWriMo--national novel writing month--or you’re one of the people who enjoys doing year-end book round-ups, or even participating in evaluating and nominating books for awards, it always seems like the last two months of the year are full to the brim.
Take a deep breath and rest for a little while. A podcast is a lovely way to carve some time out to relax. Especially a podcast on a topic near and dear to your heart like this one!
Fiction Project
The last story in the 2019 fiction series will be coming out at the end of November. This is “The Mermaid” by Kathleen Jowitt, a tale of a gift of the sea who may not be entirely what she seems.
Very soon it will be time to submit stories for the 2020 fiction series. You only have two months before submissions open! I’ll be excited to see what comes in this time because we’re opening submissions up to include historic stories with certain types of fantasy elements as well. If you write historic stories featuring women with same-sex interests, seriously consider trying your hand at something for the podcast. We pay professional rates of eight cents a word for stories up to 5000 words, and you’ll have an audience of at least a thousand podcast listeners. Check out the call for submissions linked in the show notes for the full details of what we’re looking for.
Publications on the Blog
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog is continuing our tour through a number of fairly dense works on sexuality and gender theory. In October we finished Joan Cadden’s Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages. Cadden digs deeply into the variety of understandings and theories about sex and gender in medieval thought and shows how those theories were applied to a selection of key questions like “what determines the sex of a child?” and “what is the purpose of sexual pleasure?”
In general, I’ve been trying to work through this set of publications in a systematic manner, following particular themes across time. But for logistical reasons, I slipped in Adrienne Rich’s classic essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence from 1980. Some of the language Rich uses to frame her ideas may feel dated today, but her major themes are--unfortunately--still pertinent, especially in how often feminist theory ignores same-sex relationships as an alternative and challenge to the heterosexual script.
The next two books weren’t as solidly relevant to the History Project as I expected, based on the shadow they cast across later scholarship. The articles in the collection Constructing Medieval Sexuality edited by Karma Lochrie, Peggy McCracken, and James A. Schultz were overwhelmingly focused on male topics. And while Carolyn Dinshaw’s Getting Medieval uses several fascinating incidents and texts as a lens for examining how communities arise around sexual topics, once again the lesbian-relevant content was less than I hoped.
Book Shopping!
I don’t know that the History Project book shopping will have much to say for a while. I currently have entirely too much material queued up so there isn’t much impetus to go on a shopping spree.
Author Guest
As I mentioned last month, I’m taking some shameless advantage of being an author with a podcast because I have a new novel coming out this month. So as a change-up in my author interviews, I invited good friend and previous podcast guest Darlene Vendegna to be the interviewer this month so I can be the guest. We have a wide-ranging conversation about Floodtide, the Alpennia series, and my writing habits in general. I’ll also be contributing this month’s Book Appreciation show with two of my favorite historical fantasy books with f/f relationships.
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Essay
For the historic essay this month, I thought I’d look at the place of social class in images and stereotypes of lesbians in history. It was often the case that several different images of women in same-sex relationships existed side by side in a given culture, and the women in those groups may or may not have seen themselves as part of the same community or experience. It was not at all uncommon for those differences to fall along lines of class. You may not be surprised that this topic is also inspired by themes in my upcoming novel.
Recent Lesbian Historical Fiction
And speaking of which, other than my book what else is about to be released or has come out recently?
There are two September books that haven’t been mentioned previously. The first takes a cross-time approach via a hidden diary and looks like it has some horror aspects to it.
The Hidden Room by C.S. Joseph & Kathleen Greyson from Affinity Rainbow Publications.
Clara Bogard reluctantly married architect Arthur Dumas in the early 20th century, after her father passed away. As a gift to his new bride, Arthur designed and built a Victorian mansion for their new home. Seeming philanthropic to others, Arthur had a black evilness in him. As Clara dealt with the escalating violence in her marriage, she finds comfort and affection in the arms of her friend Emma. A century later, in a last-ditch effort to save her failing marriage, novelist Reese Iverson agrees to move her family to a dilapidated Victorian home. During the renovations, a hidden room with over a dozen handwritten journals is discovered. As Reese reads the journals, she becomes immersed with Clara’s struggles with life and love. It soon becomes evident that Clara overcame and endured sinister horrors. After falling in love with her best friend Julia, Reese finds romantic parallels between herself and Clara. As she learns more of the woman’s fate, she uncovers the strength in herself to take control of her own life and hopes it isn’t too late for her happy ever after.
The second item is short story with a western theme: “Wanted” self-published by Lyzzy Burns.
Sally Godwin is a whip smart young widow with a farm that’s too much for her and a line of suitors without her best interests at heart. When she put out a want ad for a woman farmhand, she had no idea just how much of her life would change.
I don’t usually include books as new listings if the work is a revision of a previously published item. But since I mentioned seeing a run of Robin Hood books last month, I thought I’d include this October release, which was one of the titles that sparked that observation.
Heart of Sherwood by Edale Lane from Past and Prologue Press.
What if there had been a real Robin Hood, but instead of being a "he" the heroic outlaw was a "she"? Relive the classic tale told from a new prospective in Heart of Sherwood! When Robyn's father and brother are killed in the Third Crusade, she is banished from her manor home and branded a traitor by the Sheriff of Nottingham. Disguised as a boy, she joins Little John and the rest of the gang in Sherwood Forest—and soon finds herself their leader. Queen Eleanor suspects Prince John is up to no good, and colluding with Sir Guy and the Sheriff of Nottingham. To learn more, she engages Maid Marian as a spy—and unwittingly reunites Marian with her old childhood friend, Robyn. Together, the women help the queen acquire the funds needed to free King Richard and help Nottinghamshire—and perhaps fall in love along the way.
This next item is also a reprint, but of a story that previously appeared in the collection A Certain Persuasion, which had a Jane Austen theme. Based on the page count, this is the original short story and not an expanded version.
“Her Particular Friend” by J.L. Merrow from JMS Books.
When Susan Price leaves Mansfield Park to accompany her aunt, Lady Bertram, to take the waters in Bath, she little expects to meet an old “friend” of the family. Initially scandalised, Susan finds herself drawn to the former Mary Crawford, now a widow, Mrs Lynd. Mary has lost none of her playful spirit in the ten years since her family’s acquaintance with the Bertrams ended amid elopement and scandal. Her interest, first piqued by Susan’s resemblance to her older sister Fanny, only grows on discovering Susan’s very different character. But Lady Bertram will surely never countenance Susan’s intimacy with the woman whose brother caused her daughter’s disgrace -- and Mary’s true identity cannot be kept a secret forever.
I have three November releases, one of which I was only told about very recently. It hadn’t shown up in my keyword searches, which makes my usual point that if you have or know of a book that I should mention, please don’t assume I already know about it.
We start with the next installment in Geonn Cannon’s Trafalgar and Boone series: Trafalgar & Boone Against the Forty Elephants from Supposed Crimes.
Trafalgar and Boone have faced danger from all around the globe, but their greatest threat may be lurking very close to home. A quiet period of rest and recuperation between adventures is interrupted by the arrival of two constables on the front steps of Dorothy Boone’s townhouse. A woman was seen dumping a dead body outside a hospital near Threadneedle Street, and Dorothy matches the description given by witnesses. Dorothy manages to avoid arrest and takes it upon herself to investigate the crime, enlisting other members of the Mnemosyne Society to help. She quickly discovers the Forty Elephants, a gang of all-female thieves, has been revived by a woman named Maud Keaton and makes it her mission to bring them down. But Maud Keaton is very aware of Lady Boone and Miss Trafalgar. She knows all about Dorothy’s vault of mystical objects and will go to any lengths to gain access to it. Lines are quickly drawn in the sand, with the Elephants on one side and the Mnemosyne Society on the other. Faced with an enemy who is her match in both cunning and intellect, Dorothy quickly discovers that victory may be impossible, or come with a cost she’s unwilling to pay.
The book I almost missed is A Transcontinental Affair by Jodi Daynard from Lake Union Publishing.
May 1870. Crowds throng the Boston station, mesmerized by the mechanical wonder huffing on the rails: the Pullman Hotel Express, the first train to travel from coast to coast. Boarding the train are congressmen, railroad presidents, and even George Pullman himself. For two young women, strangers until this fateful day, it’s the beginning of a journey that will change their lives. Sensitive Louisa dreads the trip, but with limited prospects, she’s reluctantly joined the excursion as a governess to a wealthy family. Hattie is traveling to San Francisco to meet her fiancé, yet she’s far more interested in the workings of the locomotive than she is in the man awaiting her arrival. As the celebrated train moves westward, the women move toward one another, pulled by an unexpected attraction. But there is danger in this closeness, just as there is in the wilds of the frontier and in the lengths the railroad men will go to protect their investments. Before their journey is over, Louisa and Hattie will find themselves very far from where they intended to go.
And, of course, November brings us Floodtide by Heather Rose Jones from Bella Books.
The streets are a perilous place for a young laundry maid dismissed without a character for indecent acts. Roz knew the end of the path for a country girl alone in the city of Rotenek. A desperate escape in the night brings her to the doorstep of Dominique the dressmaker and the hope of a second chance beyond what she could have imagined. Roz’s apprenticeship with the needle, under the patronage of the Royal Thaumaturgist, wasn’t supposed to include learning magic, but Celeste, the dressmaker’s daughter, draws Roz into the mysterious world of the charm-wives. When floodwaters and fever sweep through the lower city, Celeste’s magical charms could bring hope and healing to the forgotten poor of Rotenek, but only if Roz can claim the help of some unlikely allies.
What Am I Reading?
Now what have I been reading since the last On the Shelf? If you’ve been following my reviews at The Lesbian Review, you might think I’ve been reading up a storm, but alas that was only a matter of getting caught up with my to-do list for books I’ve read over the last year. And this month has been all topsy-turvy so I’ve barely gotten any fun reading done at all. I’ve worked my way mostly through Mary Robinette Kowal’s Valour and Vanity but while it’s a delightful Regency fantasy, it doesn’t have any lesbian-relevant content at all. Between the time I’m recording this and the time it airs, I’ll have been on vacation for two weeks, so quite possibly I’ll have worked my way through a number of books in that time.
Show Notes
Your monthly update on what the Lesbian Historic Motif Project has been doing.
In this episode we talk about:
- Fiction series: “The Mermaid” by Kathleen Jowitt
- Call for submissions for the 2020 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details.
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Cadden, Joan. 1993. Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-48378-6
- Rich, Adrienne. 1980. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” in Signs 5: 631-60.
- Lochrie, Karma, Peggy McCracken and James A. Schultz. 1997. Constructing Medieval Sexuality. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. ISBN 0-8166-2829-7
- Dinshaw, Carolyn. 1999. Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
- Announcing this month’s author guest: Heather Rose Jones
- New and forthcoming fiction
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
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FloodtideFriday, November 1, 2019 - 08:01
I've been writing an improvised photo-essay ghost story on social media over the last few days (on facebook and twitter). I was hoping to post the final compiled version here, but I'm having trouble getting the blog to behave with regard to posting the in-line images. Eventually I'll sort that out, but in the meantime it's on my other (personal) website. It isn't quite the same experience as reading it in real time on facebook with reader commentary, but I hope you check it out and enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it.
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Writing ProcessThursday, October 31, 2019 - 09:48
Review copies of Floodtide are now available for request on NetGalley. My publisher does the final approvals for review copies, based on reviewing history and online presence (i.e., not just people who want to get a free read), but if you consider yourself in that category and don't have your request approved, drop me a note and I'll see if I can make your case.
Pre-orders are also open as of today at the Bella Books website. (Hard copies may also be pre-ordered from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and similar online retailers.) So let's show some love for Alpennia!
I'll be doing a couple of giveaways for subscribers to my newsletter. If you enjoy "behind the scenes" info and the occasional advance look at what I'm working on, the monthly newsletter won't burden your in-box very much.
In the mean time, I've been having fun posting a little Halloween horror story on facebook and twitter, inspired by my family visit in Maine. There isn't a convenient single link to offer, since I've been posting it to look like regular updates. But if you check out my feed in either place in chronological order, it should be easy enough to catch up on.
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FloodtideTuesday, October 29, 2019 - 06:53
While the Alpennia series has focused largely on characters who have significant mystical talents, Floodtide gives us a larger window into how "ordinary" people experience the magic that pervades the world. I've made previous reference to the climax of a Great Mystery feeling like a shiver down your spine, and to how even those who don't have measurable mystical talent can contribute power to the working of a mystery. Because the experience of those with greater talents can be so dramatic, there's no internal conflict in ordinary people between having these experiences and considering themselves untouched by magic.
This is Roz's contradiction: that she regularly performs house-charms and believes that they have effects, that she has a sensory response to the workings of magic around her, and yet that she considers herself to have no magical talent. If pressed, she might quibble over the definition of "talent," just as Serafina initially believes she has no mystical talents despite her extraordinary sensitivity to visions. From another angle, one might suppose that she categorizes her experience during "church mysteries" as different in kind from how Celeste's charms affect her. But as the story moves toward its conclusion, Roz seems to be on the edge of integrating her understanding of how she experiences magic.
* * *
When I was a girl in the Orisule school and the sisters celebrated her name-day mystery, I imagined the saint holding her starry cloak out around all of us girls, like she was watching over us and protecting us. All I could think was how wonderful it would be to feel that way always.
All through those long days and nights working the fever charms, my magic feeling never really went away, though being tired and hungry, I didn’t pay it much mind. Now I wasn’t sure I wanted to feel like that all the time. Maybe it was better if it was rare and special.
But when Maisetra Sovitre spread her arms out like that and put a hand on our shoulders, everything got jumbled up together in my head: all my memories of the picture of Saint Orisule, and all the times working with Celeste on charms, and how being with Nan had given me that magic feeling too and that was why I’d never thought it was a sin, and it all shivered through me at once.
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FloodtideMonday, October 28, 2019 - 07:00
I sometimes feel a twinge of guilt when I skip over chapters of books, or articles in collections, with the commen "not relevant to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project." I shouldn't feel that way. The entire project is an exercise in highly subjective filtering of content for what interests me personally. Sometimes chapters or articles aren't relevant to the Project but I find them fascinating enough to write them up anyway. And yet, I twinge.
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LHMPFull citation:
Cadden, Joan. 1993. Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-48378-6
Chapter 5: Sterility
The concepts and theories around in/fertility have shifted over the centuries much as those around sex/gender. Medieval authors were highly preoccupied with childbearing and anything that helped or impeded it. The expression of this concern was closely connected to theories of reproduction. Medieval treatments for infertility followed from the varied theoretical understandings of the process of conception and gestation.
Procreation was not only an individual concern but a familial one, as social ties, economic strength, and other consequences depended on the production of children. Surplus children presented a different set of difficulties so despite official disapproval of contraception, knowledge about how to avoid pregnancy was also desired.
Sterility might, in an individual instance, be considered an innate property or a fixable condition. The question of the female role in conception affected understandings and treatment of infertility.
But the topic of this chapter is largely outside the scope of the LHMP so I’m skipping a detailed summary of the rest.
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