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.

Revenge of the cat

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Since we’ve been home, Rumble has been profoundly determined to get some snuggles out of either me or Kelly at least every three or so hours, which means a rather aggressive wake-up call at two in the morning. This has enhanced the difficulties of jetlag exponentially, and he’s decided he doesn’t care much for our usual deterrents–the squirt bottle, for example.

He’ll settle down and start taking us for granted soon, I know, but in the meantime there’s a bit of an exciting sleep deprivation issue here at Chez Dua.

Still, it’s nice to be loved, right?

A farewell to the blankie

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In 2001, before we left for Greece with Snuffy, I bought one of those fleece blankets they make from recycled pop bottles, and wedged it into my backpack with a bunch of other warm-weather gear that I thought might be superfluous.

It turned out it wasn’t a bad idea at all. We were there in April and May, on the cusp of summer, and there were some scorching days but also more than a few really chilly ones.

This year, to celebrate the blanket’s tenth birthday, I took it back to Europe… and left it there. Hopefully someone will give it a good home. Kelly and I decided to travel light, you see–in fact, we took carry on luggage only. Our wee bags were pretty crammed when we left, and part of the plan was to jettison some old clothes and other items if we acquired new items or souvenirs.

The blanket made it all the way back to Rome before it got the boot. It was an odd but nevertheless satisfying sacrifice. And before we let it go, I asked Kelly to pose for a good-bye shot.

All Imported-899

WIP Snip, from the current story in progress…

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The working title is “The Boy who would not be Enchanted”

I had seen a wood-cut of the Moscasipay harbour once, and there is an old painting of the lighthouse in one of my cousin’s shops. Neither picture prepared me for the size of that porcelain man, for the shock of meeting his glazed, lake-blue eyes and feeling the Worldclock beneath him, the resonant tick-tock-tick blanketed in the normal sound of sea and wind, a rhythm, not really heard, that nevertheless came up through the timbers of Nightjar and seemed to find fault with the speed of my pulse.

95 days until Blue Magic is out!

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That’s right, it’s just over three months away! You can expect to hear more as we get closer to April 10th–there will be at least one contest, and I or TOR will almost certainly put up a first chapter, and I have yet to figure out what else.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! In just a couple weeks I’ll have a new story up on Tor.com. It’s called “Among the Silvering Herd” and I hope you all enjoy it very much. Or, if you’d rather get your Whedon fan on, watch the TOR blog for my 2012 Buffy Rewatch series, coming any second now.

AND A SET OF STEAK KNIVES: there are still exactly three slots open in my winter UCLA course, “Creating Universes, Building Worlds,” which begins January 25th. Come spring, I’m scheduled to teach Novel Writing I… and I’ll let you know when registration’s open for that. Finally, I will be teaching Novel Diagnostics at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle on Sunday, January 29th from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m..

What have you all got going on?

Exquisite Words, the back to work edition

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This is from the intro of the book Snuffy bought me for the holidays. It’s to the point, beautifully phrased, and encapsulates something I relate to, very much, in my role as a teacher of writers. In fact, it might pass for a 2012 resolution if it weren’t something I’m trying to get others to do.

I am committed by trade to urging people to attend carefully to the verbal surfaces of what they read.

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt