Reviews, Interviews, New Things! From the Desk of C. S. E. Cooney
FIRST, A FEW REVIEWS!
Rich Horton's (AWESOME KIND WONDERFUL) review of Witch in the Almond Tree for Locus Magazine
"The Witch's Garden Series is an ongoing set of erotic tales from C. S. E. Cooney. One appeared in Strange Horizons, and a longer one has just been released in electronic form at Amazon: The Witch in the Almond Tree.
Mar is a very talented witch at the Conservatory of Spellbinding and the Beguiling Arts in Doornwald. She has a boyfriend she likes and who is good in bed (but who also likes lots of other girls and boys), and good marks at school, but not much money, so she agrees to visit her mother, with whom she has a tense relationship, and her mother's new husband, for one summer, to save money and to help her sometimes careless mother. When she gets there she finds the new husband, an almond grower, to be a nice enough man, and she is quite taken with his son, who is about her own age.
But something is strange about her mother, not to mention the fact that her new stepbrother is confined to the almond farm by the spirit of his dead mother, plus the local tales of a haunted juniper tree. Soon it seems that some magical expertise might be called for -- but is she up for it? Cooney is a natural storyteller with an easy way with her characters, and the story is a delight to read, with plausible and interesting magic (plausible in context) and a tense and exciting plot."
Amal El-Mohtar's (BEAUTIFUL AMAZING LOVE THIS WOMAN) review of "Witch, Beast, Saint" for her Tor.com column Rich and Strange.
An excerpt:
"A witch discovers a beast dying in a forest, and takes him home to keep. She can tell right away that he was once a man; she washes and revives him, feeds him, takes care of him, and they become companionable. Soon they become rather more than that; not long afterwards, the arrival of an itinerant saint troubles their romance.
I loved this story chiefly for the witch. All my other loves derive from her. Her voice, her hungers, her frank perspective on the world, her utter contentment with herself and her needs-I adored her sly wit and generosity, her uncomplicated kindness, her fierce vengeance. Also it was shockingly delightful to me to see such a beautiful depiction of enthusiastic consent, kink, and polyamory in a fairy tale setting-no technical terms, no rhetoric, just the cheerful twining of compatible desires in a magical world."
To read more, go here.
NEXT, A FEW INTERVIEWS:
Mark Rigney, author, playwright, blogger, was so MUNIFICENT and PRINCELY as to interview me for Black Gate Magazine!
An excerpt:
“The Sea King’s Second Bride” seizes English by the throat. Linguistically, you roam from the poetical (“tintinnabulations”) to the rank and file (“cranky”) with the ease of crashing surf. How intentional is this? Does such language help to keep a big myth modern?
I like jokes. (All my fancy literary allusions are really just jokes.) I love the “tintinnabulations” line, because it’s my Poe joke. In performance of that poem, it always gets a laugh, because it’s paired with “the bells, the bells.” Of course, the only people who would get the joke are people who already like poetry. Or Poe. On the other hand, everyone understands the word “cranky.” We wake up with ourselves every morning, after all.
To read more, go here.
Patty Templeton (THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS) interviewed me for the Interstitial Arts Foundation's TUMBLR!
An excerpt:
The last interstitial work (art, book, film, etc.) to inspire me was…
That would be Flock Theatre’s “The Burning of Benedict Arnold” festival in New London, CT. It’s much like a Guy Fawkes party, only with a local traitor from history. There is an effigy burning, yes, but that’s only at the end of a long day of historical performances, a parade with puppets and masks, local food and beer under a tent, and a dance party where everyone from the Devil on stilts to girls in mobcaps to barefoot drummers to Morris dancers are rocking out to “Disco Inferno” and “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” There is enough ritual in the event for it to be rather chilling, and enough tongue-in-cheek to make it goofy good fun again. It’s history, it’s theatre, it’s religion, it’s a party, and it’s the end of summer all in one.
To read more, go here.
LASTLY, THE NEW THING...
The latest GOBLIN FRUIT is LIVE!
SUMMER IS DEAD!
Long live RED AUTUMN!
And I have a poem in it. "Little Sally and the Bull Fiddle God." And I love it. And I'm glad the Goblin Queens published it. And I also did an audio recording. Which you really, really, REALLY ought to listen to. Because... Because it's FUNNY. At least, I think it's funny. It's the SUPER MOST FUN THING TO READ ALOUD EVER. At least, since "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band.
Of course, I may exaggerate slightly. BUT NOT TOO MUCH.
I haven't had a chance to read the rest of the issue yet, but I DID read alexandraerin's reflection onshweta_narayan's poem "Triumph XXI: Atman." It was great. Now I'm looking forward to a quiet evening with myself, some candlelight, and the deathly beauty of this issue.
THAT'S IT FOR NOW!!!
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