About Alyx Dellamonica

After twenty-two years in Vancouver, B.C., I've recently moved to Toronto Ontario, where I make my living writing science fiction and fantasy; I also review books and teach writing online at UCLA. I'm a legally married lesbian, a coffee snob, and I wake up at an appallingly early hour.

Fall, interrupted

I have been trying to make an illusion like this one for at least three years, ever since the first time I found a fallen leaf dangling from a near invisible cobweb, arrested in mid-air.

DSCN5672

I’ve stopped for web-tangled leaves only to have them disappear into the visual noise of whatever is behind them, had them hang too limp and still to convey the pull of gravity, had them swing too wildly in the wind to allow me to focus.

A few have been too tattered and scabrous to satisfy my sense of pretty. But now, with this, I’m pleased. I will keep chasing tethered autumn leaves, but this gives me a worthwhile image to improve upon.

Indigo Springs paperback copies have arrived!

I’m getting all my contributor’s copies (can you still call them that when you’re the sole contrib?) this week… the pretty pretty new version of my book arrived on Wednesday, and after I’d unpacked them in a fit of excitement, I put them all back and declared them ready for their close-up:

Indigo Springs MM paperbacks

Eee!

Gleeful about Glee, puckish about Puck

My contributor’s copies of Filled with Glee have arrived, and they look very fine indeed, packed with interesting articles like “You think this is hard? Try being an Antagonist, That’s Hard!” by Jennifer Crusie, (Quote: “Aristotle would have loved Sue Sylvester”), “Musical Promiscuity” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Diane Shipley’s “Not Just a River in Egypt.”

Editor Leah Wilson’s introduction is here: it’s all about the brilliant imperfections of the show, and how it rises above them.

And, of course, I’m in it too, with “Who’s the Real LIMA Loser? The Curious Friendship of Finn Hudson and Noah Puckerman,” in which I say, among other things:

Cheating, lying, and competing for the affections of women are all ancient human behaviors, of course, and if he were called upon to explain himself, it seems more than likely that Puck would say he was letting his groin make his choices for him. But on Glee, nothing is ever so simple. Fans of Puck’s bad-boy mystique have to ask whether poor impulse control is the whole story.

If you’d like a chance to Gleek out more than once a week, check it out. All articles should be entirely spoiler-free for S2, as the deadline for the book was just after the S1 finale. Enjoy!

Favorite November viewing

This being Monday, I am over at Favorite Thing Ever, raving about the cop show Boomtown, which was cut off after a tragically short and thoroughly terrific run on NBC in 2002-2003. Or if you’re not inclined to humor me about the crime TV, check out Nate’s praise for Nanowrimo, which begins today!

Since it’s the beginning of a new month, I’m closing the door on the spider and cobweb pictures for awhile, and instead offer you shadows in the autumn fog:
October mist and moisture