This weekend I’ll be in Vancouver (BC, not Oregon) at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference. Here’s my schedule, if you want to come to any of events or just say hi.

Fri Oct 19, 2018

12:45pm – 2:15pm “Meet and Mingle Luncheon” This is supposed to be a good chance for guests and attendees to meet and chat, so you should feel free to come up and say hi if you see me!

2:15pm – 3:30pm Breaking the Rules Workshop. This is the convention version of my online Breaking the Rules class (http://rachelswirsky.com/rules/)

3:45pm – 5pm World Building panel with Nalo Hopkinson, Cat Rambo, and Stephanie Stein, moderated by Mary Robinette Kowal.

5pm – 6:30pm Socializing at the hotel bar. Come say hi!

Sat Oct 20, 2018

10am – 11:15am Detail & Image Workshop (http://rachelswirsky.com/detail/)

12:45pm – 2:15pm “This Day We Write Luncheon” Another chance to come chat.

2:15pm – 3:45pm Blue Pencil Session This is where you can make a 15-minute appointment to have me read and critique 3 pages of your work (for free!). https://www.siwc.ca/blue-pencil-cafe/

5:30pm – 7pm Book signing. If you would like to buy a copy of my collection Through the Drowsy Dark, there will be some for sale at the conference. I’m also happy to sign loose paper or bookplates!

Sun Oct 21, 2018

11:30am – 12:45pm Second Blue Pencil Session

12:45pm – 2pm Closing Lunch. I may have to leave this one early to get ready for my trip home.

If anyone here is going to be at the conference and want to hang out, let me know!

This is Masque who belongs to friends of ours in Portland. We actually raised Masque from kittenhood at about three weeks when we found her and her brothers in our backyard. We bottlefed her, and weaned her onto solids, and wiggled the cat toys very gently on the ground so she could attack.

Masque lived with us for several years, but there was a lot of strife in the household by the end. After we got Masque fixed, she decided that she liked humans but she was no longer into the idea of other cats. Her brothers, with whom she had previously been very close, were very confused, and kept trying to play with and cuddle her. She was having none of it, so there were a lot of howling cats dashing around.

Since Masque moved up to Portland from California where we raised her, she’s become a floof. The winter has inspired her coat to become lush.

She runs away from me sometimes when we go to the friends’ house. I tell her that she’s ungrateful. “I raised you from a three-week-old kitten,” I say, and, “I bottle-fed you.”

If I stay long enough, she eventually comes to flop down next to me.

So, she’s like, half-grateful.

Many thanks to Mary Robinette Kowal for hosting me at her place today to let me talk about Making Lemons into Jokes, my campaign for responding to harassment with support for LGBTQ healthcare.

Trying to think about why I’m doing the fundraiser, and what LGBTQ care and harassment mean to me, I ended up in a sort of non-linear meditative space, remembering many needle-like moments that form the sharp space where isms live.

If you read it, I hope you enjoy!

Yay! Thanks to everyone who has participated so far in the Making Lemons into Jokes campaign for me to write “If You Were a Butt, My Butt.” (Full story here.)

For the $500 stretch goal, Liz Argall will be creating a brand new Things Without Arms and Without Legs (and presumably butts).

Just a reminder about the upcoming stretch goals — At $600, Brooke Bolander, Adam-Troy Castro, John Chu, Ken Liu, Ann Leckie, Juliette Wade, Alyssa Wong, and I, will write a round robin story about dinosaurs.

At $700, Mary Robinette Kowal will record the audio book.

At $800, Barry Deutsch will create original cover art.

I have a few more things in the works, too!

Since we reached $500 before Monday, I have promised to release the beginning of “Butts.” And here it is:

If you were a butt, my butt, then you would be a butt. This is a tautology, but it’s still true.

Since you are a butt, my butt—being a butt—I regret to inform you that the set of duties you perform are not always tidy or delicate. To begin, you are frequently sat upon, which most people object to—if you doubt me, try it on the subway sometime. Secondly, you are on a not-infrequent basis required to be an excretory passage.

Being an excretory passage may be erotic for some butts—but you are not that kind of butt, my butt, because feces are really gross.

Frankly, I’m surprised you need an orientation. You have been my butt for thirty-four years. You should have a handle on it by now.

#

A digression aimed at my esteemed readers:

By far the most difficult part of this enterprise is that the framework requires metafictional authorial insertion.

(Yes, I said insertion. Let’s face it. Everything from the title forward is going to be riddled with double entendres.)

Luckily, I live a strange and magical life, as I have documented before. For instance, there is my familial relationship with the phoenix as documented in Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead’s Cabinet of Curiosities. Also, I have written of my journeys with the guidance counselor, a time traveling madman who pilots a milk crate.

My shield for these stories is the fact that readers will assume my accounts are fictional. After all, I am a short story writer. Why not believe I am making things up? Probably, you should. Yes.

Everything from this point on is fake. Believe at your own peril.

This space intentionally left blank.

Will McIntosh is an exceptional writer whose work deserves more recognition than it gets. He won the Hugo Award several years ago for the excellent short story “Bridesicle,” but I wish people had paid more attention to his following novels and short stories. He does aliens really, really well.

However, this story has no aliens. It has dreamy magical realism instead.

“One Paper Airplane Graffito Love Note” by Will McIntosh:

A paper airplane drifted high in the sky above the field. I nearly crashed my bicycle, straining to follow its path as it circled above the treetops at the far edge. It held the wind beautifully, effortlessly. Pausing, it hovered over the field just as a seabird holds its position above crashing waves.

I slowed to a stop, feeling for the ground with one foot, afraid to take my eye off the craft lest I lose it in the clouds. Neck craned, eyes to the sky, I let the bicycle drop. I tracked the paper’s elegant flight, running this way and that like a boy as it slowly, slowly lost altitude.

As it made its final pass, it gained speed, careening across the field. I loped after it as it tumbled end-over-end and lay still.

I plucked it from the grass.

It was folded in a distinct design—squat and wide, with a hinged belly. It was covered in writing. I recognized Anna’s handwriting instantly, and that familiar ache that I both loved and hated coursed through me. I flipped the hinge and unfolded the airplane. It was a letter to me, though because it was a graffito confession, I wasn’t named.

The leaves outside my window rustle like dry paper. The cat, stalking prey in the yard, is a paper cat. The paperboy is a paper boy, the waning sun a lightbulb. I miss you. . . .

Fingers trembling, fighting tears, I put it in my pocket. I would read it carefully in the privacy of my room above the sail shop.

My short story “Love Is Never Still” is featured today on Mary Robinette Kowal’s blog. For the My Favorite Bit series, authors write short essays about their favorite parts of their work.

I cheated a little, but only because it’s honestly true: “My favorite bit about “Love Is Never Still” is probably also my least favorite bit: the complex layers I built in over the course of four months of intense revision.”

In the essay, I discuss the techniques I used to layer complexity into the prose so that the sentences were densely packed with multiple meanings and purposes. I’m really proud of how the story came out, but it was a lot of work.

Read the essay here: http://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-favorite-bit/favorite-bit-rachel-swirsky-talks-love-never-still/

On my twitter feed, I wondered, what was the proper equivalent to lady editor? So I tried out a few.

With apologies to the authors, agents, and editors herein described, who I hope will find the joke fun:

Gentleman writer Ken Liu made a name for himself as much with his dapper dress as with his articulate storytelling.

Laddie editor Michael rose to prominence thanks to the help of his wife, Lynne Thomas, whose brilliant editing won her a Hugo.

Dude novelist Lavie Tidhar wrote stories with strong, active male protagonists, who worked alongside their female counterparts.

Chappie editor Niall Harrison persevered at Strange Horizons as a trail-blazing male among a staff of gender-fluid fiction editors.

Fella writer Chris East attracted novelist Jenn Reese with his willowy, nerdish charm.

Manly writer Kip charmed his wife, graphic artist Jenn Manley-Lee, into marrying him and helping to launch his career.

Bloke author Keffy Kehrli never neglected his appearance at signings: rakish hats and bright ties always accompanied his outfits.

Boy writer John Scalzi wrote charming space adventures that supplemented serious work by writers like Bujold and Bear.

Sonny boy agent Joe Monti made an effort to search out sonny boy authors who could join his stable alongside greats like Leicht and Howard.

Jonnie editor Nick Mamatas offended many readers with his shrill, testerical rantings.

And one last, for Mur Laffterty: Cock writer Dick Pricklington sported such a prodigious bulge that one editor suggested he sign his books in a swimsuit by the pool!

Late additions:

Prettyboy C. C. Finlay relied on a gender ambiguous pseudonym to lure readers into unknowingly picking up a book by a man.

Gent writer Paul Cornell was a master of work-life balance, continuing to write even after the birth of his baby.

Dudebro publisher Jason Sizemore proved males can stomach working in horror, though he acquired psychological stories, not splattergore.

Guy editor Jeff was often forgotten when he worked with his wife Ann Vandermeer who was always presumed the primary (or sole) editor.

Boyo cartoonist Barry Deutsch, though talented, didn’t do it alone; his acknowledgments admit script advice from writer Rachel Swirsky.

Stud editor John Klima is reputed to have slapped competing stud editor Jonathan Strahan; congoers gawked at the resulting “cock fight.”

Thanks to my very excellent friend Nicole Thayer, I am gaining a new website made of wordpress instead of made by my HTML.

It’s not fully complete yet, but she has set up a blog for me, so I will have a fancy blog with a professional address that will also send duplicate entries to my livejournal where my friends are.

In order to make this post not a total bore, I will now add an amusing note:

*We took in our two fluffiest cats to the vet today and had the groomers give them lion cuts. They came home looking a bit like someone had glued the heads of our cats onto weird, gremlin bodies. I expected them to look more ridiculous and less pathetic.

I can’t tell if they miss their fur or not. I think they may miss looking like they are about twice as huge as they actually are.

Pictures will occur, I promise.