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.

Grandma grimace and consumer therapy

My grandmother’s health has gotten steadily worse this past year, and she has just been moved into a new care facility in Stony Plain. I had to do a little surfing Tuesday to determine whether it was a hospice–nope–and I am glad she’s getting more care, whatever that more happens to be. (In point of fact, the place is run by the Good Samaritans Society, who also ran the facility in Hinton where K’s dad spent his final year. So there’s a bit of familiarity there at least.)

I am blessed to be forty four and still have a grandma–and such a fantastic one at that!–but the fact that I’m grateful doesn’t keep me from greedily wanting more Joan. That said, she’s ninety-one and the last time I saw her, her lot in life seemed deeply uncomfortable. So the news of this latest development brings with it some sadness, a little effort toward accepting the inevitable, and hope that in the near term things are somehow easier for her.

Here’s Joan in 2006:
Portrait-Joan52

On a much cheerier and significantly more consumerist note, the next phase of sprucing up Chez Dua will involve less painting and more small appliances. We hated our toaster from day one (long story) and now it’s dropping parts. As soon as we find a cute toaster we like, it’s gone gone gone! We desperately need a vacuum and just plain want a coffee grinder.

I replaced our bathroom fan Monday night after the long long drive from Orycon, because the fan store is inconvenient to get to unless you happen to be on the road home from America.

The trip from Portland was cheering and restful, as working weekends go. We got to hang with some of our most beloved U.S. peeps, and to talk with them about all the cool little bits and pieces I am stuffing into the world of Stormwrack.

Free for the reading from @tordotcom: “Wild Things”

A couple weeks ago I told you all that this novelette, which is set in the same universe as my books INDIGO SPRINGS and BLUE MAGIC, was available for pre-order at the usual big e-retailers. Today it’s officially out, and you can read it on the Tor site.

“Wild Things” takes place between the events of the two novels, but is mostly set here in British Columbia rather than in Oregon. It’s a little picture of the mystical outbreak as it plays out in Canada, in other words. Here’s the opening.

My swamp man wasn’t what you’d call a sexy beast, though I found his skin strangely beautiful. It was birch bark: tender, onion-thin, chalk white in color, with hints of almond and apricot. He was easily bruised, attracted lichens, and when he got too dry, he peeled.

And the thoroughly gorgeous Allen Williams cover:

A #BuffyRewatch link from a crazy busy Alyx

Yesterday’s Buffy Rewatch is about “A New Man,” the S4 episode where Giles gets all demonic.

I am just back from Orycon and the pile of stuff to be dealt with is simply immense. But by day’s end if you’re waiting on an e-mail from me, you’ll have a reply. If you’re waiting for me to check your homework, it’ll be done. If you’re a pear sitting in my kitchen, you’ll be chopped and cooked to perfection. Mmm, pears.

I suspect you’re all watching politics on TV and I’m the furthest thing from your minds, so that’ll let me stealth in and catch up. U.S. friends, I am thinking of you.

Latest #BuffyRewatch, Orycon 34

First, this week’s Buffy essay: “You say potato, I say Doomed!!”

I will be at Orycon this weekend, sitting on panels, connecting with people and celebrating the launch of M.K. Hobson’s thoroughly awesome THE WARLOCK’S CURSE. It’s a terrific convention, one of my favorites, and if you are around I’d love to see you.

I’ll be signing books on the Sunday, with so many other wonderful authors–list below!–at the Authorfest 6 at Powell’s Bookstore. Note: Ten percent of total proceeds will go to benefit the Beaverton Education Foundation.

Here we are:
Alma Alexander
Kevin James Breaux
Alyx Dellamonica
Ru Emerson
Mark Ferrari
Barb & J C Hendee
M K Hobson
Louise Marley
Michael Martin
Todd McCaffrey
Devon Monk
Peter Orullian
Shannon Page
J A Pitts
Phyllis Irene Radford
Deborah Ross
Ken Scholes
Mike Shepherd/Moscoe
Dave Smeds
Brent Weeks
Daniel Wilson
Matt Youngmark

Alyx wants to be Friends with Facebook on Facebook

Facebook is messy; this probably will be too.

I initially signed up for Livejournal because Spike was there, and I loooooove Spike. And it was Keff who encouraged both Kelly and I to get Facebook pages.

I looooove Keff. So you see the trend here.

I decided, at the time, that the page should be a public space. So it has remained. Anyone can friend me and will stay that way unless they spam, flood or set off my Creep Alert. And if it ain’t fit for the whole Interwebs to hear, I don’t say it there. (This has become my policy, speaking very generally, about posting anything, for reasons that should be obvious. But in case they’re not, heeeere’s Scalzi!)

What I put into Facebook is largely generated elsewhere. Status updates, often in the form of Tweets. Pictures from Instagram and Flickr. Lately, pins from Pinterest. Notes that are links to blog entries. I also answer any e-mails that come to me there.

What I take back out of the great blue river of updates, posts, videos, pictures, game invites, event invites, and you name it?

First and no big surprise: with OMG so much fiddling!, I’ve learned to have Facebook forward, to my e-mail, what the Close Friends list is up to. Many of the people I used to read on LJ are Facebookians now. I want to know every little thing going on with my beloved peeps. (We may need a new word for benign stalkage of willing loved ones. Following seems imprecise.)

Second: I like to make ten or twenty Scrabble moves a day and I have a handful of friends who humour me in this. If you play the official Scrabble app on Facebook and you’d like to say you creamed a novelist who can’t learn not to make cool words like LIZARD or VORTEX, even when HA would yield twice the points, this is the one game invite I will notice and accept.

And in most cases I won’t even send you this shot of myself waiting for you to make your next move. That kind of nagging is reserved for poor, dear, much put-upon Liz.

I sent this picture to L to hint that she really should make a Scrabble move now.

Third: A reasonable percentage of my inlaws and nearly all of my genetic relations are on Facebook. I have wonderful filtered lists that let me check out baby pictures, complaints about the weather in Alberta (land of snow, guys, come to the coast where we have crocuses in January!!) and whatever else they’re thinking about. Which is just damned nice. It’s not as good as being there in May or June. It beats the hell out of being there in February. (Daffodils! Tulips! The first cherry blossoms!)

As for all the other lovely people who aren’t my best buds and family? I look at the updates, if somewhat randomly. I get writing links, political stuff, news items, cat macros, videos of Kristen Bell bawling her eyes out over sloths, announcements to the effect that McKinley has a bear in her backyard tree, David Gerrold’s recent juicing disasters, Hallowe’en costumes and other stuff. If I like them, I even “Like” them.

But Facebook is something I often need to sieve: lots pours through it, and I’m trying to find stuff I connect to personally.