ReaderCon Recap - Shirley Jackson Awards!!!

Now, normally this would be the last post in my roundup. However, I don't always get all the intended ReaderCon posts done, so to forestall inadvertently leaving this very important part of the story out, I am doing it waaaay ahead of the other posts I have planned!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this element of ReaderCon, it is one of my favorites. It is often one of the important ingredients in building my to-read list for the rest of the year. If you missed out on it and are curious, I brought extra copies of the programs from this year's award back to the shop for all of you -- just ask for one at the counter!

But in real-world terms, the Shirley Jackson award recognizes "outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic." Nominees are gathered from published work of the prior year, and assessed by a panel of jurors, assisted by both a Board of Advisors and a Board of Directors.

This event occurs at the tail-end of ReaderCon each year, and gathers in one room a very exciting and formidable conclave of extraordinary writers, editors, and creators. The award was created in honor of the legacy of Shirley Jackson's writing, and with the permission and support of the author's estate, for which we are all grateful, and for which fine gesture our hearts burst with gladness every year.

John Langan

John Langan welcomed us all with customary relish, and F. Brett Cox followed up with further illumination cast on the subject.

It was with great regret that two authors were mentioned In Memoriam: Kit Reed, whose work received two nominations over the years and who gave the opening address at the awards not long ago, and Jack Ketchum, who was an early advisor to the jury.

Nisi Shawl

Next, this year's ReaderCon Guest of Honor, Nisi Shawl, delighted the crowd with her charm, both during her opening address and throughout the award announcements.

Among her remarks was the observation that she had learned from Shirley Jackson to "make the familiar strange." She had some interesting thoughts to relate on how that ties into the field of science fiction, and how it can be used to break up the taboo authors encounter in the SF field against that most familiar part of life -- domesticity.

An additional seasoning of levity was contributed by John Langan's continual return to the podium, as he cheerfully accepted awards on behalf of authors who were unable to attend the ceremony in person. We were assured that he was not any of those people, but by the end of the affair, one wonders if perhaps Mr. Langan has been sweeping the awards by applying vast numbers of pseudonyms to his works in varying styles...? Naaaaahhh...! Couldn't be, right? He did reassure us.

Nisi Shawl & Justin Steele

At first glance it was clear that Looming Low, edited by Justin Steele and Sam Cowan, published by Dim Shores, had dominated the Short Fiction category, with three stories as candidates in that category (3 out of 5, that is!). The winner was "The Convexity of Our Youth," by Kurt Fawver, and Justin was on hand to read Kurt's short acceptance speech to us.

The winner in the Single Author Collection category was Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado.

Nisi Shawl & Michael Kelly

The Edited Anthology category must have been a heck of a task to settle, with a line-up that just wouldn't quit. But after the dust settled, the winner for 2017 was Shadows and Tall Trees Volume 7, edited by Michael Kelly. After a tearful start, he got down to brass tacks and finished to rousing applause.

Here just a tiny bit of his acceptance speech, which made me want to yell, "Hear hear!" afterwards:
"This is a truly humbling moment. [...] I'm heartened by your belief in me and the books. And thank you to all the readers, reviewers, artists, and others who have supported the press. Finally, it's safe to say that many of us wouldn't be here today without the influence of Shirley Jackson. So, here's to Shirley Jackson. May her memory be eternal." Hear hear!!!

The Novella category was no picnic for the jury either, because a rare tie occurred! The award was given to both Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, and to The Lost Daughter Collective by Lindsey Drager.

The Novelette category was awarded to Chavisa Woods for "Take the Way Home That Leads Back to Sullivan Street," part of her collection titled Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country.

The prize for best Novel was awarded to The Hole by Hye-young Pyun, another battle that must have caused some deliberations, considering the other heavy-hitters on that list of finalists.

All in all it was a terrific affair, and big thanks to everyone involved, including award administrator JoAnn Cox, who ties all the loose ends together and without whom the ceremony wouldn't even happen.

CONGRATULATIONS to all those who were nominated and those who won, it is wonderful to see all your hard work honored in this way. I look forward to next year's awards with (if possible) even more enthusiasm!

Yaaaaayyyyyy!!!!!

This year's nominees (plus those from prior years, and all sorts of other info about the award) can be found on their website here:
https://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/

ReaderCon 2018 - Recap #1

Last weekend I undertook my annual pilgrimage to ReaderCon, down in Quincy, MA. Each year I am entertained and confounded by the epic schedule of panel discussions, author readings and discussions, and of course the delight of the dealer room, and the treat at the end of it all, the Shirley Jackson Awards.

2018 was no exception!

I started out Friday by going to "The Book As Object," a good warmup for the weekend.j I missed part of the memorial panel in honor of Ursula K. Le Guin, but did get to hear about how (among other things) her story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" continues to generate a remarkable level of response. In particular, short story submissions continue to be sent to current science fiction editors by authors who feel compelled to write their own stories in response to Omelas. This is pretty exciting, considering that Omelas was published in 1973, 45 years ago! It's one of those stories, as observed by a panel member, that "changes people's lives."

You can find the story in a number of places:
-- New Dimensions 3, ed by Robert Silverberg (1973) (and later again in The Best of New Dimensions)
-- The Best Science Fiction of the Year #3, edited by Terry Carr (1974)
-- The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Le Guin short story collection (1975)
-- The Hugo Winners, Volume Three, edited by Isaac Asimov (1977)
-- Wolf's Complete Book of Terror, edited by Leonard Wolf (1979)
... and many more. For a full list, see the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

The next panel was "Nesbit & Eager: Works in Conversation."  This time the discussion was about the relationship between the writing of Edith Nesbit and Edward Eager. Not only their literary work but also their biographical histories were compared and contrasted, lending illumination to the dim corners of their careers and writing.

LtoR: Nisi Shawl, Marissa Lingen, Lila Garrott, Julia Rios, Veronica Shanoes

Like the best panels, it raised additional questions beyond the ones it answered, and made us all want to go read both authors' books.

Here's an illustration of the Bastables' uncle being fierce with a pudding, from The Bastable Children by E. Nesbit. You're welcome.  😉

[to be continued...!]

John Jude Palencar redux

This post is long overdue -- I should have written it late last fall, but when the bookshop picks up between Thanksgiving and Christmas, all those "really should have" things turn into "whoops I meant to" things!

Well, here I am, reminded that I was supposed to point out a little bit of wonder that is in the shop that might be missed by you otherwise.

The Palencar Project by John Jude Palencar

Last year was a banner year in terms of my efforts to reach out to the wider world, and getting to work with a great team of artist co-curators down in Providence, Rhode Island. Together, we hand-picked pieces for an artshow that surpassed expectations, Ars Necronomica: Wonders of the Visible Weird. This was the third biannual Ars Necronomica exhibit, organized in conjunction with the NecronomiCon, a convention created from a swirl of literary, visual, and elements, intellectual and otherwise, all orbiting around the kernel of author and Providence native H.P. Lovecraft -- a heady and thought-provoking brew.

The convention attracts a diverse array of creators and fans, and every year I meet new people that go on to become friends and peers, a support network of cosmic scale built hand to hand, face to face, conversation to conversation, idea to idea.

Meeting the man himself! (That's me with the frizzy hair.)

In 2017, our Artist Guest of Honor was John Jude Palencar. For those of you who think you don't know his work, you would likely be surprised to find out just how familiar you are with it, without ever having known his name. johnjudepalencar.com The image shown here as an example, The Palencar Project, is far more evocative when you encounter it in person (my snapshot does not do it justice), a quiet masterpiece painted in acrylic on mounted ragboard.

If you are curious to find out whether you know his work or not, I invite you to look at copy of his art book, Origins, which I have here at the shop -- signed copies, even!

Here's a silly little timelapse GIF of me putting mylar sleeves on the books when they first came in:

The exhibit of Palencar's work was phenomenal -- to be able to see the artwork full-size and in person was a memorable experience, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime experience for those of us in attendance. Even better, we got to meet and talk to John Jude himself, and true, those of us who had our own work hung alongside his paintings felt an extra bit of thrill. The scale and the depth of subtle hues and the intense composition of his pieces rewarded those who lingered or paid second and third visits to the pieces, as many of us did.

Luckily, the folks at the Lovecraftian journal, Dead Reckonings were inspired to ask some of us to record the event and its after-effects, and as part of that effort, I was able to commemorate and expand upon the event by interviewing John Jude Palencar himself.

This chain of events brings me to the point of this blog post, which is to let folks know that I have copies of the late Fall 2017 issue of Dead Reckonings here at the shop, so that you yourself can take one home! You will find among its pages many delicious goodies, including:

-- my article about and interview with John Jude Palencar
-- an article co-written by myself and fellow artist Dave Felton about the experience of attending Ars Necronomica
-- musings by Ars Necronomica Head Curator, Brian Mullen III

PLUS!
-- a review of Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks from Hell (yay!)
-- a range of historical & contemporary considerations, from Sidney Sime's artwork and Victorian gaslight and ghosts, to an interview with T.E.D. Klein, all the way up to the current horrors of Ramsey Campbell and the Kings' Sleeping Beauties
-- and more...!

... in other words, plenty of ghosts, monsters, and other more abstract horrors and delights.

P.S. If you want to see some of Dave Felton's increasingly amazing artwork, by all means go here!!! https://www.instagram.com/dfeltonillustration/

P.P.S. If you want to see the Ars Necronomica: Wonders of the Visible Weird exhibit, go here:
Ars Necronomica 2017 album, or
see photos of the opening night reception here:
Ars Necronomica 2017 opening night album

Here is my piece from the show (us curators had to demonstrate that we had some chops ourselves!), which was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's story The Dunwich Horror, reinterpreted from the point of view of the locals in the area as Feeding Time at the Whateleys', drawn in graphite.

SUMMER HOURS! now through Sept

Yes, we rejoice, summer is here! Maine gave spring a miss this year, and froze us until suddenly it's 80 degrees again. Welcome to the warmer weather, and with it our expanded hours.

We are closed on Mondays only now through September, with the following hours:

Tues-Thurs 11:00-5:00
Friday 11:00-6:00
Saturday 11:00-7:00
Sunday 12:00-5:00

See you soon!  😎

Behind the Scenes: What Goes On in Winter?

You may have noticed that, it being winter, the shop is operating under its official Winter Hours. This means we are open Thursday through Sunday.

So what goes on when the doors are closed? Perhaps you think these days might be spent in marathon reading catch-up sessions? Bonbon eating? Hours of cat photo sessions to get the perfect Instagram shot of Mr. Biscuits?

Well, these things are all nice, I will admit. However, while I do have one day off to run all the errands and cook food for the rest of the week with my other half, Tristan from Coast City Comics, and play with the cats (of course!), Tuesday and Wednesday are work days of another sort -- these two days are spent writing. With all the snow and ice outside, it's the perfect time to hunker down for hours on end and get a lot done. Indoor kids unite!

Some of you have read my first book, which came out just as the shop was opening -- Strange Maine: True Tales from the Pine Tree State. In the years since then, I have been sneaking in work on my next book whenever I can -- a difficult task when trying to make enough money to live on, as it turns out. But now, having passed our 8-year anniversary at the shop, and having survived so far, it is time to really turn up the heat on this book and get it out to the table.

This book will fill in the recent blanks in Maine's historic record when it comes to sightings within this state of large mystery mammals, specifically hominids. These are Maine sightings in which people have seen something large -- not a bear, not a moose, not a human being. Eyewitnesses have come forward with accounts dating back into the late 1960s, with other encounters moving right up into the 2000s.

Perhaps optimistically, I continue to theorize that there are many unexplained encounters in Maine that are not on record.

This has been a long process. I started working on the historic end of things (old newspaper articles from the 1800s, etc), sifting and sorting through digital and microfilm archives, over a decade ago. While that was a real needle-in-a-haystack challenge, my current focus has turned out to be even more complex.

Over the last two years or so, I have been collecting eyewitness accounts. This involves talking to real live people, sometimes in person, more often over the phone or via email. My job is to record their experience, and put that encounter down on paper so that other people who are interested can read about it in the context of all the other sightings by people who -- to this day -- do not know what they saw. There is no place for it in the taxonomy of large Maine mammals. But even anomalies must find their place in history. That is where I come in -- to write it all down.

And what a process! To achieve the smoothly written narratives that people will (hopefully!) enjoy reading as they page through this book takes a ridiculous amount of behind-the-scenes work. When I have interviewed folks on the phone, or I begin from an existing video interview, I next transcribe the interview, typing and re-listening for hours on end, making sure that there are no mis-quotes (the human mind likes to transpose words and phrases between the time you listen to them and write them down, did you know that?).

Then I go through a printout of the transcription, and note all the important bits -- dates, places, details, a turn of phrase that really tells the person's point-of-view in the story. The first of the questions emerge. There is always something forgotten in the flow of an interview!

Then I have to try to write it all out coherently. Interviews, while they sometimes start out with a straightforward account, inevitably wind up wandering. Humans are very distractible creatures, after all! Details are clarified when I ask questions later in the talk, the scene is filled in before and aft, and as it turns out, the questions are never-ending, often resulting in follow-up emails containing elements that have to be added into the story later as well.

At the end of all that (sometimes spread out over months or years), one has the first draft of a chapter -- substantial, in a logical progression of events, and hopefully with a good build-up of mood, with its setting told in a way that the reader finds themselves there with the witness as they read along!

Last week I wrote the drafts of two chapters -- the first accounts to come out of my interviews. Each was a long account -- years long. I had to research certain elements to verify them -- place names, locations, family histories in the region. I still need to make fieldtrips to the sites themselves, so I can see them in person, to give me a better idea of the landscape. I want to be sure to get it right when I put it into words. I need to email the witnesses with more follow-up questions, things that I wondered about when I began finally writing it out -- and things I forgot to ask before.

This week I wrote the drafts of THREE chapters! While each of these were shorter accounts, the assembling of their elements into reading form was, if possible, more complex than last week's chapters. Questions were spread out between more than one witness in one case, and months of emails in another. Two of the cases were early interviews -- one happened before I even had come up with a worksheet to fill out, the notes from it scribbled on a piece of scrap paper.

Trying to place the locations on a map is often difficult -- one witness is unable to pinpoint the spot out in the remote wilderness from decades ago, another spot was somewhere in an area divided in four by the USGS topographic maps (this happens a surprising number of times, they often seem to take place at in-between areas). Another was tricky since they wanted to stay anonymous and the case involves family property.

Luckily, the two-witness case was well lined up. Both men were in agreement about the majority of details -- I interviewed them independently via phone. I just had to assemble the details, compare and contrast, and as each interview had gone in a different order due to differing conversational styles, there was a lot of flipping back and forth between the two printouts, trying to find details from one or the other. I eventually started checking off paragraphs in the printouts in an effort not to miss anything. Phew!

Add to all this further research -- corresponding with Maine black bear experts, reading about black bears, learning the basics of primatology, DNA sampling, how to build a hair trap, store and transport samples, cast tracks in the wild, reading about the Maine wilderness, reading histories of tiny northern towns, and cobbling together all the background that needs to be filled in to give these incidents their normal, everyday context, and to build a reasonable system for verifying what I can about what are often once-in-a-lifetime happenings.

So that's what I do when I'm not in the shop. That and continuing to pursue additional leads for other unknown accounts -- the search is still on!

Speaking of which -- If you or someone you know has had such a sighting or experience, please feel free to call me on my cellphone at (207)450-6695 -- please leave a message, so I can call you back, as I am working and unable to answer calls a fair amount of the time -- or simply email me at michelle.souliere@gmail.com -- or if you prefer pen and ink, you can write me at P.O. Box 5302, Portland, Maine 04101.

And thank you, as always, for reading.

Paperbacks from Hell LIVE! in Portland Maine

Hi everyone! I am super excited to announce officially that after months of plotting and scheming, the Green Hand Bookshop and SPACE Gallery have picked a date for Grady Hendrix to come to Portland and regale you with the wild world of vintage horror paperbacks!!!

I know a lot of you have already been reading his great book, Paperbacks from Hell, either because you stumbled across it on your own, or because my ravings drove you to come find a copy at my shop or elsewhere, and from everything I've heard back, you are all loving it to death.

Now, take it to the next level! Grady in person!!!

[Tune in next for: "How many exclamation points can Michelle use when she's really excited and typing about it?!!!!!" The answer: So many. So, so many.]

YES! IT'S TRUE!!!

WHAT: Paperbacks from Hell LIVE!!!
A wild ride through the world of vintage horror paperback culture
PLUS! A screening of 80s horror schlock classic The Re-Animator
WHO: Grady Hendrix, author of My Best Friend's Exorcism and Horrorstör
WHEN: Friday, April 27th, 2018; doors open 6:30pm, starts 7:00pm
WHERE: SPACE Gallery, 538 Congress St, Portland, ME 04101
FMI: space538.org/events/paperbacks-hell-grady-hendrix

Facebook event page here:
facebook.com/events/144073082948819/

After seeing Grady's presentation at NecronomiCon last year down in Providence RI, and meeting him in person, I became determined to bring him up here to Stephen King country to do his live version of Paperbacks from Hell LIVE! for all of you. Thanks to the lovely folks at SPACE Gallery, we are able to make this happen!

Paperbacks from Hell LIVE! will be followed by a screening of Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator, starring one of my Lovecraftian favorites, Jeffrey Combs in one of his iconic roles. Since it's based on an H.P. Lovecraft story, and because "When in New England...," Grady will be adding special bonus Lovecraft (and Stephen King) content to the show for this one night only.



Some of you told me about Grady before this awesome book came out, because he is also the author of two other excellent and entertaining horror novels, My Best Friend's Exorcism and Horrorstör. I'm reading both of them now, and I agree wholeheartedly with my customers' reviews.

Grady Hendrix portrait by Kagan McLeod of INFINITE KUNG FU

So -- bring your books, or buy them at the event (I will have all 3 of Grady's books on hand for sale), and you can have Grady sign them for you as a special treat during this evening of horrific fun!

It's going to be a fantastic evening! Don't miss it!!!

Habits of a Northeastern Bookworm

I was reading a message board thread a few weeks ago about how many pages folks would read into a book before they decided not to finish it.  The discussion made me really think about the evolution of my own reading habits.

When I was younger, I read the whole thing because... well, that's just what you do, right?  I didn't question much of anything before the age of 13.  Including the protocol of reading books.  I was a voracious reader, and just plowed through everything I read.

Later on, I still read books all the way through, but more because I was an aspiring writer, and I felt like I should give the author a chance to paint their full picture.  I saw a book as a canvas.  Sometimes the parts were lesser than the whole, and reading the full book would fill in all the blanks.  Sometimes this just meant I wasted time on mediocre books, but other times it was rewarding (Frank Herbert's Dune series for instance).

I tempered this a bit when working at the local library.  If a book didn't really grab me, that was okay.  I still walked away with an idea of what the author's prose and technique were like, and the themes of the book, so even if I returned the book without finishing, I still had enough of a grasp of it to be helpful to library patrons if they asked me for recommendations. 

I also started doing book reviews around this time, and sometimes there just wasn't enough time to linger on a book -- I had to get it done and assessed by the deadline.  This really helped me think critically about what I was reading, and why it did or didn't hook me, and what qualities it might (or might not) have that I had to gauge regardless of my personal preferences.

The next step was when I opened my used bookshop.  All the skimming skills I picked up at the library had to kick into high gear -- customers weren't borrowing these books for free, so the stakes of recommending books to someone were much higher.  I take my job pretty seriously, and I do my best to help my customers spend their money carefully.

These last couple of changes in my reading habits were more on a professional level -- my personal reading stayed on its own track for the most part.  I still didn't feel beholden to finish a book if it wasn't grabbing me, but I did give it an honest try in respect to the author and the piece of work.

Then even my personal reading habits changed in response to a series of events.  Over the course of a year, I found myself in the position to help dissolve and re-house the personal libraries of two different friends, both of them writers and avid book-lovers, both of whom died suddenly from heart attacks with no warning.  I had to handle this professionally, assisting the families with my expertise and heavy labor when they were just coming out of the shock of unexpected bereavement -- coping better but still overwhelmed.

My grief for these two was brought to bear on the number of books they had on their shelves that had obviously not been read yet.  I began to think of the number of books I had yet to read, and for a time my reading choices were laser-focused, channeling an urgency I had never felt before.

Thankfully, that urgency has been tempered, because there is nothing like the untrammeled joy of picking up a book and taking it home just because it looks tasty. 

It still flares up from time to time, but this is helpful in small bits. It means my "to read" pile gets weeded out on a regular basis to eliminate the flash-in-the-pan appeal of certain books that (to be honest) I know I'll never actually get around to reading. 

Instead, I'll add the title to my "To Read" list in case I do want to read it some day in the future when I have time (ha!).  This allows me to put the book itself back in circulation freely, without any wistful longing to hang onto it.

I have also stopped making New Years resolutions -- instead I make two or three lists of 10-20 books apiece that I want to read during the year, including a "Books I Should Have Read by Now" list.  It's working out pretty great so far -- I'm on my third year of doing this now, with at least a 50% success rate (often more) for each of the little lists.

How do you guys direct your own reading choices to get to the books you wind up actually reading?
(IF you've read this far in my surprisingly long post!  Where did all that come from?!)