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.

Sunshine, cheese, and a bit of whine on Sunday

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It is a warm, rainy and potentially thundery Monday morning as I write this, rain-drenched and delicious. We spent Saturday bumbling around Prince Edward County, exploring wine country with our friend Linda. Relaxation was had, a good thing because a big chunk of Sunday went to itemizing receipts from our 2013 move from Vancouver. The government would like to verify that lunging across the nation required a bit of expense.

Exploring wine country was a delight and, naturally, I took many pictures. It’s really exciting to realize that you can go either east or west and be in a vineyard in around 90 minutes, traffic permitting. I didn’t taste much, but I did have a few sips at the County Cider Company in Picton. Mostly it was nice to have a short road trip and a chance to explore.

Here’s a little structure that made me think: DIY Ancient Ruin…

Exploring Wine Country

Five movies I love, with actors I Meh

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imageI have watched many a bad Western because, well, Western! None of them has beat out Silverado‘s place in my heart. It’s so much a favorite that it’s one of the movies we took to Italy with us. Because: Danny Glover! Linda Hunt! Scott Glenn! Kevin Kline and a soupcon of John Cleese!

But, also… Kevin Costner. Wooden, dull, square-jawed Kev. He’s inexplicably good in this, and not just when he’s showing off how well he rides the horseflesh. He is even, at points, funny. Good direction and the fact that he’s still working hard to make his name, I think, are the explanation.

There’s something in me that resists Renee Zellweger. She’s a terrific performer, and I heart both Chicago and Down with Love with a mindless fannish passion. I wouldn’t want to see anyone else in either of those roles. And yet… some hardwired thing within makes me want to dislike her. (Chicago also gets bonus points for being my favorite Richard Gere movie.)

He makes my gorge rise, but I thought Woody Harrelson was very well-cast in The Hunger Games. I find him convincing as a hard-boozing asshole. (I know he does a similar thing in True Detective, but hours on end of that was too much Wood for me. Plus it’s not a movie.)

I actually pulled up Tom Cruise’s filmography to see if I could find something other than Minority Report that I loved, and found zippo, nada, nothin’. Phillip K. Dick and Neal McDonagh FTW!

(Tried the same with Julia Roberts and didn’t find a single thing I’d rewatch unless the plane was going down and I really needed distraction.) So instead I’m going with Angelina Jolie and Sky Captain & The World of Tomorrow. I’m not strongly against Jolie, and I enjoyed the Tomb Raider films, but she’s not someone I seek out, or get excited about.

What are your love the film, hate the actor faves?

Novel Gazing Redux reviews Child of a Hidden Sea

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imageOver at Novel Gazing Redux, Marissa Lingen says:

Sophie loves her adoptive family like crazy, but she’s still curious about her birth family. When she goes looking, things get wild very very quickly. There’s an angry birth mother who wants nothing to do with her, there’s an aunt who’s slightly more reasonable, there are people attacking the aunt, there’s transit to a watery world of ships and weird magic tech and different species of bug and bird and sea critter, with variable languages and national customs…and the variable languages and national customs matter. A lot. If you’ve ever complained about books where it was raining on such-and-such an entire planet, Dellamonica has your back.

Gardner Dozois may have had a hand in that. One of the things I remember most from Clarion West was his throwaway mention that too many writers imperfectly imagine their SF-nal settings, and that in particular they simply assume that each planet (sometimes each solar system, or galaxy!) will have one culture, one language, and one government. A lightbulb went off.

Anyway, now I have a planet with two hundred and fifty nations. Plus assorted languages, religions, official state sciences and other cultural ephemera.

My Terrible Mind Gets Subconscious…

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write memeI am at Chuck Wendig’s Terrible Minds today, talking about the process of writing Child of a Hidden Sea, and what it taught me. (Hint: I write talky books.)

This was especially exciting because I love Chuck’s blog, and often find myself sending students and other new writers to read his frequently-profane essays about writing and publishing.

I’m also very pleased to be over at Corey Redekop’s blog for his Subconscious Interview feature, blithering about apples and coffee.

Cat Parenthood, day 45

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photoAssuming their approximate birthdate at the beginning of April is correct, the babies are about twelve and a half weeks old now.

They’re getting noticeably into adolescence. Lorenzo is still bigger than Chinchilla, but she put on a recent growth spurt. Overnight, it seems, she grew the face and long legs of a teenager cat.

We are keeping them out of the bedroom at night. I’d like to get to a point where they might join us, but a good night’s rest is more precious than rubies. And right now they’re hitting the stroppy and disobedient phase of kittenhood, so there’s no way we want them cycloning around the bed in the wee hours.

I expect to be shouting “You’re not my supervisor!” on their behalf a lot in the next few months, by way of channeling their obvious response to our trying to introduce them to the laughable concepts of No, Bad Cat! and/or Geddown! I found Lorenzo sleeping on the dish-drying towel last night, having shoved all the glasses and other things aside to make room for his lanky body. CinCin dove through the hanging metal measuring cups this afternoon–clang, clang, dangle dangle!–and knocked the coffeemaker over on her way back to the floor. She’d probably been checking out what’s behind the microwave after a wander around the stove.

Even in naughtiness, they are adorable.

 

I had been keeping an eye on the various kabillions of photos I take of them, looking for something that might make the cut for Cats of Instagram, and when CinCin yawned in the face of the iPhone not long ago I got one that I knew was a great prospect. CoI put it up on Monday, and within 24 hours something like 60,000 people had liked it. Holy crap, eh? My baby’s a star!

Just now, to blow their little kitty minds, I put some ice cubes in their water fountain. They are staring at it in wonder and terror–you’d think it had grown tadpoles.