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.

Blue Magic book launch is tonight!

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If you are in Vancouver and would like to attend, please consider yourself invited. It’ll be at 7:30 p.m. at the UBC Bookstore DOWNTOWN, OMG, please don’t go to Point Grey! at 800 Robson Street. There will be cookies and teas and a surprise guest artist too, and I will read something shiny and new that nobody’s ever heard before.

If you’re out of town and want to join the online party instead, I have continued to do some guest blogging this week:

Joshua Palmatier interviews me about the book, here.
Starmetaloak asked me about the First Nations storyline, so I wrote Raising the Roused for her.
Did I already tell you about The Magic of the Pacific Northwest

Finally, I will be at the Fan Expo Vancouver this weekend, selling, signing books and, I’m thinking, maybe doing a little stuntwriting. In other words, I might sit in the crowded Convention center amid a massive hubbub and see if I can crank words on the latest of The Gales, which is called “Island of the Giants.” Tweeting could ensue.

(The Gales? What Gales? The first is “Among the Silvering Herd.”)

Tuesday’s Girl is Full of Post

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Angel gets his stalk on in this week’s Buffy rewatch post, which is about “Passion.”

Contests! If you are in the U.S.A., Goodreads is giving away ten copies of Blue Magic. Contest deadline is May 4th–last I looked there are about 450 people with their hats in the ring for it. Those are better than lottery odds. And The Qwillery, meanwhile, has copies for Canadians and Americans.

I have been making appearances in other blogs in the past week. One was at The World in the Satin Bag, and it’s about why I chose Oregon as the setting for the Books of Chantment. People, especially Oregonians, ask this a lot. Another was at John Scalzi’s blog–I got to be a Big Idea author. I am a huge fan of Whatever so this was a big thrill.

When Life Hands You Windows, Buy Tea

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Being displaced by the window installers meant that last week was not a nutritionally adventurous one. I made a peanut-pumpkin Badger recommended, but otherwise dinner mostly consisted of things from the freezer and stand-by meals.
I did end up at a new not-coffee house though: the Urban Tea Merchant.
There’s this place on Alberni Street, Thierry, see, that I like very much. It’s not too far from Kelly’s office, and they make decent coffee and tea. They sell pricey macarons and very nice little pastries, and the two of us often go there for a quick cup early Friday mornings. After we discovered Thierry, I had thought it might make a good place to hole up and work now and then in a couple of other little windows in my week–times when it’d just be nice to pause and sit before lunging off to the next thing in my day.

Unfortunately, everyone else loves Thierry, too, such that the only time you can get a seat there appears to be at the crack of dawn Friday. They tend to be packed, packed, packed.

So Thursday before last, when I was displaced by construction, I peeked through their door, saw the throng, and walked on half a block to that pretty tea store I’d never gone into.

Urban Tea Merchant is basically a wine bar for tea snobs. They have a tea list, broken down by country and then again by blend, as well as a menu. A pot of tea can go for as ‘little’ as $6*, or you can splash out and spend, I kid you not, forty eight friggin’ dollars on a single pot. They have linen napkins and lovely bone china and an extremely unhurried atmosphere, and since they don’t serve coffee at all, it seems as though one can always find a seat in their tiny tea room, at least at the times of day when I’m looking for somewhere to park my butt.

They also do high tea in a number of forms, including a full-bore splashy morning tea service with baked treats, wee sandwiches, and champagne or tea-infused prosecco. Check out their menu. Marvel.

Having only just discovered the tea room, I haven’t had the opportunity to try a full range of the baked treats, but I will say their chocolate scone is godlike, and comes with a tablespoon of the freshest, most vividly-flavorful jam I’ve ever had.

I’ll be headed back there next time I need a little tea-flavored self-indulgence, and I’m seriously considering saving up some dosh so I can take my honey for one of the splashy tea cakes and sandwich events.

*That $6 pot of tea is quite huge, I should add. It’s pretty typical downtown to pay half that for a wee tiny pot o’ tea, and this is a huge portion of really good stuff. And they’re in no hurry to get you in and out, so if what you’re doing is paying rent on a table where you can scribble fiction for a couple hours while getting caffeinated, it’s not too bad.

Spoiler-free Smashing Telewitterings

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I am enjoying Smash a lot. I don’t know how true to life it all is, but the picture they present of a behind-the-scenes view of the development of a Broadway musical is very compelling. As is Angelica Huston, of course. Each week there’s been one new musical number for the proposed show, and some of them have been outstanding.

I like musicals, especially when they’re a little old-school.

Another element I find intriguing is that there are two actresses vying for the starring role in the fictional play the show’s about. One’s meant to be very seasoned but to somehow lack spark or star quality; the other’s meant to be inexperienced but incandescently talented. It’s an amazing thing for both actors to have to pull off, week by week–they each have to suck a little, sometimes, but in completely different ways. And, at the same time, they both have to be credible contenders for the big role.

Finally, Smash has a storyline that’s at once off-putting and completely intriguing because it’s got a one hundred and eighty degree reversal of traditional gender roles: a career-driven woman with a house-husband. The two of them are pacing through a classic storyline and she’s behaving in a very precise, classic-guy way… except with more crying.

Glee was back this week and the gap since the last (entirely horrifying) episode was long enough that I managed to take a look. The fallout from the big Cataclysmic Thingie wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, but having said that I must also say that the “Big Brother” episode was pretty much a stinker from start to finish, except for every single moment when Artie was singing. Kevin McHale currently lives in my dictionary for “Can Do No Wrong.”

Pics and Praises

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First, a supernice piece of feedback from @SunDriedRainbow, via Twitter: (NBD means no big deal):

I ADORE you have gay and trans characters and it’s NBD. thanks for writing what I want the world to be.

Folks, this not only swelled my ego, it darn near made me cry.

Second, I believe M.K. Hobson’s Kickstarter for THE WARLOCK’S CURSE starts today, on lucky Friday the Thirteenth.

My blogging routine has been thrown to the winds this week, naturally, by the Blue Magic release. It’ll all get back to normal soon, though with a lingering probability of “And now I’m guest blogging here!” showers.

Also because of the release, I’ve hit a stretch where it’s become obvious that, if I choose, I could spend all day every day just answering e-mails.

Here’s a thing: the faster you run on the e-mail wheel, the faster the notes come pouring back. Instead of scrambling like Alice and never getting anything real accomplished, I have made a real effort to move at a sane speed: do a couple things I need to (like, oh, my taxes?) and then clear out the inbox. Then go for a walk so I don’t become a mole person, clear it out again. Right now it all seems to be working. Or I’m deluded; we’ll see which turns out to be true.

All of which means I shot some spring flowers this week:

All Imported-4

When I first moved here, I didn’t know these were star magnolias. For a few years, we called them Daisy Trees.