Hello, readers.
Here are some things of an awards-eligible nature.
Thing one.
To see some of what we talked about over on the Storyological Podcast last year, and which is eligible for awards this year, go here.
Thing two
I published a story last year in Phantom Drift called “Maemi.”
It is eligible in the SHORT STORY category for all such awards, like the Nebulas or Hugo’s, which enjoy the presence of a category for short stories.
Below, you will find reprinted what I wrote about that story in an old blog post from the before now time:
I wrote “Maemi” during the third week of Clarion, in answer to Delia Sherman’s challenge that I do that thing people sometimes do which is to go read a bunch of fairy tales and select one with which to muck about.
I spent several days in the UCSD library and sat at the window, reading many fairy tales. Off and on, on the ledge of the building near my window, a crow would come and sit and hop about and look at me curiously. As much as I might have wished, the crow and I never said more than a few words to each other. Alas, most of the time I was doing most of the talking.
The fairy tale I chose involved a little girl, and a lion, also a bird, and no small amount of magic or betrayal. It turned out this was “Beauty and the Beast.” It wasn’t called that in the book I read, and I didn’t recognize it, but when Delia told me that this was the true nature of the story I had chosen it made sense. At least, that is, the kind of sense one finds in fairy tales. Which is a sort of inscrutable sense that tricks you into understanding something altogether different and more important than whatever thing you set out to understand.
I combined this fairy tale with the story of a little girl in Korea who was sold by her father into sexual slavery during the second world war.
I lived in Seoul for two years and, while there, I taught English at an all-girls school. One weekend, during my second year, I went with a group of friends (some of whom were part of a group called Durebang), to the House of Sharing in Gyeonggi-do. We walked through a museum and an art gallery and, later, met several of the women who lived there and who are called, sometimes, “comfort” women. A large group of kids showed up, at one point. A school trip, I think. One of the old women, through some manner I never entirely understood, instigated a K-pop dance-off among the kids, the teachers, and some of the group that inclued me. Roly Poly1, I believe, was the song of choice. I’m pretty sure Roly Poly will always be, because of this, my favorite K-pop song. All of those kids and everyone dancing. And the old woman who danced for a bit and then sat, chuckling at the gorgeous mayhem she had created 2.
There are many books about that time in Korean history. I have read many of them. Two I remember, in particular, both by Nora Okja Keller, are Comfort Woman and Fox Girl. Here are some others.
As it happens, there are no lions in the story I ended up writing, but there is a bird and no small amount of magic or betrayal. I added a bit of music, as well. It seemed the right thing to do at the time.
Happy Monday, readers.
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- This is the video of Roly Poly. The long version. If you are only interested in the music, I would suggest skipping to the four minute mark or so. I have the whole thing on in the background right now. It later became a musical. Because that’s how things work in Korea. ↩
- Some of all of this came back with me to Seoul. And I talked about it with my students, one day, in an after school class in which there were only maybe eight of us. I talked about what they knew about that part of Korean history. I don’t remember what they said, really. And I don’t remember if I talked with them about how it felt that week in school, seeing every classroom full of girls the same age as though taken during the war. I think maybe I did. ↩
the magnelephant review 