Story
My one brief appearance in Nebula waters was with this story, which went on to be anthologized a few times.
Not everyone liked it (surprise!) and one friend took me to task for its YAish sensibilities, which caused me to think about what draws us to literature. Of course it's young adultish, I argued (in my head): if I wrote an adult version of that story, it would be horror. For parents, what is more wrenching than to have your kids vanish?
Another version might be about the parents knowing that the kids were going to a magic world, and the tight, anxious compromises and negotiations and worries . . . but in that case, why the magic world? Why not just write a realistic story, zeroing in on the anxious losing-control-inch-by-inch feelings that can plague parents, often in the middle of the night, when their kids have that first sleepover, when they begin to drive, when they move out?
I did touch on that in my story, but for me, that was enough, because I'm just not interested in focusing exclusively on that aspect of parenthood.
I guess it all comes back to what people want from their reading. I do not want to put down a story or book and feel worse than I did when I picked it up. Every so often I read a dystopian downer (I tried The Wind-up Girl at WFC) but so far, I haven't found any better insight in dystopias, any profound wisdom. Just a lot of bitterness, anxiety, fear, despair, sometimes grim courage aware of the pointlessness of effort, the powerlessness of the individual against entropy. I can get that from listening to ten minutes of the news. Or my own nightmares.
I guess there must be a thrill of some kind in plunging into the grim downer. Or maybe a sense of virtue. There's definitely in some critics a strong sense of moral superiority--which is kind of funny in a tweaky way.
Not everyone liked it (surprise!) and one friend took me to task for its YAish sensibilities, which caused me to think about what draws us to literature. Of course it's young adultish, I argued (in my head): if I wrote an adult version of that story, it would be horror. For parents, what is more wrenching than to have your kids vanish?
Another version might be about the parents knowing that the kids were going to a magic world, and the tight, anxious compromises and negotiations and worries . . . but in that case, why the magic world? Why not just write a realistic story, zeroing in on the anxious losing-control-inch-by-inch feelings that can plague parents, often in the middle of the night, when their kids have that first sleepover, when they begin to drive, when they move out?
I did touch on that in my story, but for me, that was enough, because I'm just not interested in focusing exclusively on that aspect of parenthood.
I guess it all comes back to what people want from their reading. I do not want to put down a story or book and feel worse than I did when I picked it up. Every so often I read a dystopian downer (I tried The Wind-up Girl at WFC) but so far, I haven't found any better insight in dystopias, any profound wisdom. Just a lot of bitterness, anxiety, fear, despair, sometimes grim courage aware of the pointlessness of effort, the powerlessness of the individual against entropy. I can get that from listening to ten minutes of the news. Or my own nightmares.
I guess there must be a thrill of some kind in plunging into the grim downer. Or maybe a sense of virtue. There's definitely in some critics a strong sense of moral superiority--which is kind of funny in a tweaky way.