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.

2013 Books Read

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keep readingHere’s the annual list of everything I read last year. It’s a new low, numerically–between the move and a couple other things, I wasn’t in the right headspace. I did read a fair number of short stories, but I often forgot to record them. A few made it to their own list, though, at the bottom. Of those, my favorite was the John Chu story

The best novel for me, this year, was Hild, by Nicola Griffith. You probably remember that I reviewed it, here.

1. Best American Science and Nature Writing, edited by Dan Ariely and Tim Folger
2. Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
3. The Cat’s Table, by Michael Ondatje
4. The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey
5. Suspect Identities: A history of fingerprinting and criminal identification by Simon A. Cole
6. The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime that Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars, by Paul Collins
7. Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World, by Matthew Goodman
8. The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg
9. Black Rubber Dress, by Lauren Henderson
10. The Given Sacrifice, by S.M. Stirling
11. The Summer of Dead Toys, by Antonio Hill
12. Hild, by Nicola Griffith
13. The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, by John M. Barry
14. The Voices In-Between, by Charlene Challenger
15. Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn
16. The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes
17. Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel
2 student novels, plus partials

Short Stories
“About Fairies,” Pat Murphy
“The Water that Falls on You from Nowhere,” John Chu

“Running of the Bulls” by Harry Turtledove
“Brimstone and Marmalade,” by Aaron Corwin,
“Dormanna,” by Gene Wolfe
“House of Dreams“, by Michael Swanwick

Sleepy Time on the #BuffyRewatch

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This week’s essay is called “My Sire can Beat Up Your Sire.”

The holiday here was very low-key. We talked about going to movies, and didn’t. We ate out a couple times, and ate in a lot. There was a Walking Dead marathon that took us through the first season but hasn’t drawn us back yet. This may be a show I have to watch fast, in big chunks–it was perfectly good snack food, but also seemed a little boring.

I spent a stunning amount of the holiday period unconscious. Slept in a half-dozen times, and followed up some of that decadence with naps. The conclusion I’m left with is that after gone through a very intense spring, a cross-country relocation, the exploration of a new city and the cancelling of our summer vacation, it’s possible I was tired.

Which isn’t any kind of “poor me” lament. Quite the contrary. The sleeping was delightful, in every sense a gift. In the stretch of years since Dad died, remaining konked out past the hour of five in the morning has been just about impossible. Somehow in the move to Toronto, I’ve found a new rhythm that feels closer to right. Hurrah for that!

So I’m rested, and I am looking forward to getting back to my regular routines and writing/teaching/reviewing schedule soon. I hope this finds you all in a similar state of renewal and anticipation.

New Life! (Toronto, Day 224)

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Today I went and shot pictures at the St. James Cemetery and Riverdale Farm. Among the domesticated life forms I got to see, in one of the barns, was this brand new baby lamb:

There were also horsies and birdies and pigses and a cow. And many of the paths were blocked because they hadn’t been swept yet, so when I go back there will be much more to see.

The whole set will end up here, when I get them uploaded. Right at this second, it’s just the farm animals.

True Dua Conversations about Hannibal

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imageSo the thing you have to know to understand this is that the building whose exterior “plays” Hannibal’s office on Hannibal is a single block away from Kelly’s office. That’s right: Chez the Cannibal is just around the corner from her workplace.

K: What do you want to watch now?
A: I’m kind of into the Hannibal rewatch.
K: We might have to stop partway. I’m pretty tired.
A: That’s okay. We know where it’s going.
K: Hannibal. ‘Cause he’s my neighbor.
A: (singing). Would you be my neighbor?
K: OMG Yes!
A: He does kind of dress like…
K: Mr. Rogers! Yes!

And yes, we’re more or less sober.

And on that note, best holiday wishes to you each and every one.

Latest Buffy Rewatch, and a fun fact about me

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The latest Buffy Rewatch is up at Tor.com – it covers “Conversations with Dead People,” which I suspect you’ll all agree is one of the better S7 episodes.

I am at home cooking and working on the next Buffy essay (I’m on “Potential”) and I have my Schmaltz playlist on. The dictionary definition of schmaltzy is “excessively sentimental,” and I don’t know if all of my choices qualify, but I will admit, publicly, that Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” is on it. Essentially they’re songs that make me feel sentimental.

So, I’m puttering around chopping veggies and the Eagles come on, with “New Kid in Town,” a song that’s been making me emo since the Seventies. And it occurred to me, in a distant way, that the lion’s share of my listening brain takes the one lyric: “Great expectations/everybody’s watching you,” literally. It’s as if in mid-song the narrator breaks off to personally address a Masterpiece Theater version of Great Expectations, to say “Hey, there. We’re tuning in. All of us. Just FYI.”

Yeah, so that happened.

Another thing that’s happened, as some of you may have heard, was that we got some freezing rain in Toronto. Here’s a picture: