Playing Around on the Borders

Alex Dally MacFarlane talks about Interfictions and Text:UR, The New Book of Masks in the same review.

It made sense to me to review these two together, considering what they have in common: they both play around with the borders between genre fiction and mainstream fiction. Interfictions does it explicitly -- the purpose of the anthology is to examine the borders, to cross them and to blur them -- whereas Text:UR just does it anyway. That said, they are very different anthologies, a reflection of the difference in taste between the editors.

Of Interfictions, she "tended to enjoy most the stories that leaned closer to the fantastical."

"A Dirge for Prester John" by Catherynne M Valente, a fictional origin for the Letter of Prester John, was probably my favourite; "A Map of the Everywhere" by Matthew Cheney I liked for its strangeness and its touching love story, "What We Know About The Lost Families of ---House" by Christopher Barzak" I liked in particular for its collective and slightly creepy narrator, "A Drop of Raspberry" by Csilla Kleinheincz" attracted me because what's not to like about a love story between a lake and a person, "Black Feather" played excellently with fairytale bits and pieces and the idea of past lives.

She concludes: "The anthologies are both good... I will happily read Interfictions 2 and Text:UR 2 if they come into being."

"Buy this book."

That's reviewer Sean Melican's prescription for Interfictions in the newest issue of Ideomancer. "Various editors attempting to collect and define slipstream, or fabulist, fiction fall into the trap of simply clothing genre fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror) with a new term, not for the sake of defining or inventing a new genre, but attempting to make genre palatable to mainstream readers, writers, and critics. But ... Interfictions is the most successful anthology thus far, both defining its terms and presenting stories that function on those terms."

Interfictions-inspired art opening June 2

Three Dimensions: an interstitial art show combining art, music and writing inspired by the launch of the Interfictions anthology edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss.

WHERE:
Sleeping Dragon Gallery
340 W. Nepessing Street
Lapeer, MI 48446
Phone: 810-245-9278
Email: sleepingdragonart@sbcglobal.net

WHEN:

Friday, June 1 through Saturday, June 9, 2007

Saturday, June 2: Meet the Artists Reception, 2 to 5 p.m.
Hours: 11-5 Tuesday through Friday, by appointment on Mondays

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Ceallaigh Dwyer is a nationally known soft sculpture artist whose work has been featured in Art Doll Quarterly. Inspired by Brian Froud and Jim Henson, her pieces range in size from three inches to six feet. She blends nature, fairy tales, mythology and history to create sculptures expressing wisdom, charm and mischievousness. Working in a small studio in Flint, surrounded by her creations, she calls her company It's a Scream Productions. When not sewing, Ceallaigh writes fantasy and has been published in Nice Tattoo! The Magazine of Shadow Fiction and Morbid Curiousity. She currently has a novel in progress.

Tempest Smith Foundation: The portrait of Tempest Smith, painted by Kim Perkins-Murillo, will be on display. Hounded at school by teasing and bullying, Tempest Smith committed suicide at the age of 12. Following her death, her mother, Denessa Smith, founded the Tempest Smith Foundation to enlighten the public about diversity and acceptance. The portrait is an original oil on canvas depicting the three phases of womanhood and unity through diversity. For more information please visit www.tempestsmithfoundation.org

Melodie Bolt is a poet and short-story writer whose work blurs the boundaries of science fiction, fantasy, environmentalism, spirituality and feminism. Influenced by Greek and Roman mythology, Charlotte Bronte, Edgar Allen Poe, Frank Herbert and Ursula LeGuin, her characters' voices are diverse and lingering. Her work has appeared in Kiss Machine, Nice Tattoo! The Magazine of Shadow Fiction, Seasons of the Moon, Priestess Pathways, Pan Gaia and Sage Woman. She lives in Lapeer, Michigan with her husband, three children, four cats and a pond full of fish.

Don Morey is a fey changling who plays in the world as artist, musician and gallery owner.

Feedback from a story or stories, possibly

An alarming development?
Four grubby scraps of thought were slipped under my consciousness this morning, none of them signed. They are reproduced below, minus the grub - Anna Tambour (guilty of committing 'The Shoe in SHOES' Window')

I do feel more extra- than inter-
as in '-ordinary'. Is that splinter-
ing to a faction
or airy reaction?
Anarchy malarky misprinter.

Think you would like to be explained?

Collops being unobtainable in these parts, my neighbours were a handy and delicious substitute. I prepared them as for collops, being especially careful to free them from beards and grandmothers. Finished with a thick layer of fried breadcrumbs and a go-over with the blowtorch, they would have been better than collops, if I'd soaked them longer first. Too much grit.

Mere pages detain me? б-!л%$зX-и$@!

FYEO
Perhaps these are not feedback, but a dyspeptic mirage. I must report, in strict confidence, that the effect of the stories on my navel has been quite unnerving. It was always content to be an inny, but now that seems too in, and it doesn't want to be an outy. It has been trying to become interstitial, and that state makes it quite unstable. I feel as if I've eaten a ten-ton boiled pudding that's still alive. I might have to tie my navel in flannel if it doesn't settle back in and accept its lot in life.

"Odd, Deep, Delightful"

So says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an in-depth review of Interfictions this week by Michael Bishop, who writes: "Editors Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss — practiced fiction writers as well as Ph.Ds in Renaissance studies and English literature, respectively — gather here 19 profoundly strange stories. From these airborne stories stream contrails of traditional realism, philosophical fable, literary fantasy, existential horror, transmogrified myth, off-center science fiction and unabashed slapstick. . . . [Interfictions] belongs on the nightstand of anyone interested in the development of contemporary short fiction."

Kudos from Australia

The Australian SF site As If has posted a comprehensive and carefully reasoned review of Interfictions, wrapping up on this note: "The prose throughout Interfictions is faultless... The stories that I loved provided me with a sublime reading experience, and I will be listening out with great interest to hear which stories are praised by other readers and critics. So far, for me, this is most definitely the anthology of the year."

It's official: Interfictions is hip

Quoth our first official post-release review, at the Hipster Book Club: "Interfictions is a phenomenal collection, containing ghost stories, fairy tales, romances, and realistic tales, none of which are precisely what they seem. The stories are as slippery as eels, and are engrossing and provocative."