Author Archives: Alyx Dellamonica

About Alyx Dellamonica

Alyx Dellamonica lives in Toronto, Ontario, with their wife, author Kelly Robson. They write fiction, poetry, and sometimes plays, both as A.M. Dellamonica and L.X. Beckett. A long-time creative writing teacher and coach, they now work at the UofT writing science articles and other content for the Department of Chemistry. They identify as queer, nonbinary, autistic, Nerdfighter, and BTS Army.

Cat TV and other pleasures

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I am writing this in the cafe where I do most of my novel-writing, on a damp Friday morning. Vancouver has just had a week of fog in the mornings, with chilly sun and blue skies in the afternoons after it burned off. We’re trending back to warmth and downpour now. It’s one of the things I love about winter in the Pacific Northwest. It’s usually chilly but gorgeous *or* rainy but warm. The silver lining is always very apparent.

What’s more, she bragged, we’ll have flowers soon. The snow drops are over an inch high in places, and I’ve seen crocuses breaking the ground here and there.

(Edited to add: since I drafted this post, it’s busted out sunny and warm. Bask, Vancouver, while it lasts!)

Part of the winter entertainment at our house has been feeding birds. We have two ‘window cafe’ bird feeders suction-cupped to our windows. As they are also meant to amuse the cats, we call them cat cable and I’ve named the window feeders BBC1 and BBC2 as a result. The hummingbird feeder (which hasn’t had any visitors yet as far as I know) is ITV.

The seed feeders have had starlings, chickadees, bushtits, goldfinches and one downy woodpecker. They swoop in about a meter from our dining room table to grab seeds and run for it. It’s all I can do not to spend my days slack-jawed in the kitchen, staring fixedly at the thing.
bushtits at bbc 2

My class “Writing the Fantastic” has opened its virtual doors and I am getting to know a (mostly) new group of feisty and enthusiastic new writers. This is an intermediate workshop, open to both novelists and short fiction writers. Next quarter, I’ll be teaching Novel Writing 2 again . . . I don’t know about summer courses, but they’ll let me know soon.

And speaking of novels, I shall be starting mine–the third in the trilogy I sold to TOR last year–next week. Or possibly tomorrow. I was going to keep working on the outline until after Kelly and I go to Victoria next weekend, but I think I’ve gotten as far with planning as I can, and I’m keen to get into the first scene.

The Victoria trip is for Gottacon, and as I mentioned last week, I’m especially excited about it because it’s my first Guest of Honor gig. Eeee!

I love Victoria; I went last year to go sailing as research for the trilogy, which has a lot of old fashioned sailing ships in it. Kelly hasn’t been in ages–when her parents moved to the Island, we started going to Nanaimo, Parksville and Qualicum–so we are very much looking forward to it. We’ll have dinner at Clive’s Classic Lounge, home of the grilled cheese sandwich cocktail.

Catworld Revision Project #4 – Honorary Kittizenship

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A number of people claim to be part cat; a smaller number just obviously are. The former shows a proper sort of respectful adoration, in its way. However, our feline overlords have made it clear we can’t just go around making these claims for ourselves without some input from above.

Speaking of those who sit above, here are Toes and Zap of East Vancouver. Admire and obey!
zap and toes

Henceforth those of us who want to claim kinship with catkind must be approved. The approval process will be entirely arbitrary and possibly whim-driven, but here are a few things that may be taken into consideration when issuing licenses:

  • How many hours a day does the candidate spend napping?
  • How many smaller creatures have they killed this week, and who did they give them to?
  • Nobody expects a human to to lick their own chest hair or other, you know, regions, but overall how well groomed is the candidate?
  • Fingernail length?
  • On an average day if ten people ask the candidate to do things, how many of those things do they opt to do?
  • How would you describe their singing style: a) timid; b) tuneful; c) unabashed; d) Diva
  • What happens if you dangle a ribbon just beyond the candidate’s reach at, say, a staff meeting or awards ceremony? Do they just pretend it’s not happening, thereby showing concern for primate social considerations? (Hint: if so? Not a cat.)
  • Has this individual ever thrown up on the bed, moved over, and gone back to sleep?

    • As always, you are invited to submit other possible criteria for assessment, along with your arguments for specific individuals. The global feline conspiracy may read, shred, or snooze on these as it pleases.

    The Irreplaceable, Indispensable, Unforgettable Xander on the #BuffyRewatch @tordotcom

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    Xander gets a not-actually-evil twin and does the Snoopy Dance. I wrote about it in the usual place, at the usual time.

    I am more than halfway through the rewatches now and I know that some of you visit them via the links here but aren’t big on joining the Tor comment threads. This is, of course, totally fine! But if you have something to say about the rewatches or the show, or anything BtVS related, do consider yourself invited to do so.

    Weird Sked and long weekends

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    My work and play rhythms have been shifting around a lot lately; I moved one of my regular commitments from Thursday to Wednesday, and have returned to doing yoga a few evenings a week (hatha, at Open Door), after a long stretch of not. Kelly had some deadlines that made it worthwhile for us both to work all day last Saturday, and then to take off Friday the 18th. This worked out nicely because we had a date that night to celebrate the 24th anniversary of the not-legal wedding. (Which, we figure, is also the 25th anniversary of our having met as adults.)

    California Academy of Sciences (Actual anniversary is today! Monday the 21st!)

    Between holidays, K catching a cold, and the deadlines, we haven’t had a five-day, nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday work week since before we went to Nevada. And in the midst of it Kelly and I were somehow having so much fun cooking in the early part of this year–making favorite old recipes and fun new things–that we’ve packed our freezer to bursting.

    I could probably do nothing but thaw delicious homemade things for dinner for three weeks or more.

    Some of that culinary activity passed for thinking about the new novel: chopping veggies and wool-gathering are very compatible activities, for me. Some of it was about not yet having much to do for my latest UCLA Writers’ Extension Program course… I’ve been setting up the virtual classroom for Writing the Fantastic, but the class actually opens to students on Wednesday. Some was also about internet time wasteage… “I should find a new recipe for X, holy yum this looks amazing… must make must make cooking explosion!!!

    In any case, it has been a pleasant, productive and relaxing few weeks.

    Cities I have seen – the Pinboard

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    I am filled with love for Pinterest. I can’t help myself: sticking things up on walls so I can see them is pretty much my preferred way of remembering things. (As opposed to, you know, actually remembering them.) And though I tend to ‘do’ Pinterest with what I think of as downtime, it’s remarkably productive for downtime. All those pretty nature pictures, especially the nudibranches, really are research for the current trilogy. And the writing essays, and the book covers–it’s just handy to have this particular bunch of virtual baskets.

    So one of the boards I’ve been assembling is simply a list of cities I’ve traveled to. What’s been fun about this is I keep remembering other places I’ve been. I wouldn’t say I’m very well traveled, but this makes me realize how lucky I have been.

    The board is here.

    Please do tell me all about your favorite pinboard!