Author: Craig Gidney

Author of "Sea, Swallow Me & Other Stories" (2008 Lambda Literary Finalist); "Skin Deep Magic" (2014 Lambda Literary Finalist); "Bereft" (2013 Bronze Moonbeam Award and 2014 Independent Publishers' Award) "The Nectar of Nightmares" (Dim Shores Chapbook) and A Spectral Hue (2019)
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October 2013: New POC YA Release

Check out these new YA releases (October 2013). Curated by the librarian Edith Campbell.

Edith's avatarCotton Quilts Edi

I searched and searched until I could search no more! 7 days late, I had to get this up. So, please!! let me know what I’ve missed!

The other side of free by Krista Russell; Peatree Press 1 Oct  It is 1739. Young Jem has been rescued from slavery and finds himself at Fort Mose, a settlement in Florida run by the Spanish. He is in the custody of an ornery and damaged woman named Phaedra, who dictates his every move. When Jem sets out to break free of her will, an adventure begins in which Jem saves a baby owl, a pair of runaway slaves, and, eventually, maybe all the residents of Fort Mose.

While Jem and the other characters are fictitious, the story is based on historical record. Fort Mose was the first legally sanctioned free African settlement in what is now the United States. In 1994 the…

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NEW FREE FICTION: Thy Father’s Lies by Craig Laurance Gidney

My story, Thy Father’s Lies, is now up on Wattpad. This is a postcolonial fantasy, a sort of prequel to Shakespeare’s The Tempest, told from the spirit Ariel’s point of view. Ariel is my favorite Shakespearean character, so in a way, this is a piece of fan fiction. Enjoy!

 

Thy Father's Lies
Thy Father’s Lies
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MUSES: Danielle Dax, the Silver-Tongued Sibyl

“Up in the Big House, they’re branding niggers!” Danielle Dax gleefully warbles in her song, “Evil Honky Stomp.” A tape-loop of a sinister trumpet plods along with a collage of strummed and plinked sound effects. “Ugly boys with pious mouths,” she coos. The matter of race and the master narrative is skewered and laid bare in this song. Though, “song,” perhaps, is not really accurate. Dax’s first two albums are free-form assemblages of found sound, performance art, and dark parody. Her voice alternates between a high, piercing Kate Bush-like soprano and deep, dark Siouxsie-like contralto. Dax addresses a variety of subjects and issues with her bizarre surrealistic imagery. “Pariah,” a stark synthesizer-driven bit of cold-wave, addresses the racism faced by West Indian immigrants in London, and subsequent work addressed sexism, animal rights, and female genital mutilation. But Dax never took the role of scold. Rather, she was a silver-tongued sibyl, using allegory and arcane allusion.  Her first two albums, Pop-Eyes and Jesus Egg That Wept were all written, produced and performed by Dax by herself. They are a mash-up of various forms of music, ranging from Bollywood pop, madrigals, funk, synth pop and other hybrids. Dax plays, with varying levels of skill, saxophone, flute, sitar, banjo and toy instruments. Later work was more sophisticated, adding psychedelia and electronica to the mix. Her song about the Thatcher years, “Bad Miss M,” is a bouncy country-flavored tune.

Jesus Egg

Dax left the music scene after a bid to become more mainstream failed to take off.  Marketing was probably an issue. Dax had all the makings of an alternative pop star, with her appealing voice and stunning good looks. But her vision was too wacky and uncategorizable. Was she Goth? New Wave? Pop? World Music? Would Siouxsie fans find her too pop? Would Laurie Anderson fans find her too dark? Ultimately, a long bout with illness effectively ended her music career. Today, Danielle Dax (nee, Gardner) is a landscape architect who dabbles in music.

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Imaginary Beefcake Interview

The local gay bar paper/rag/newsletter has a section called Coverboy, which features beefcake pictures of a DC dweller, accompanied by an interview. It’s very reminiscent of The Jet Beauty and Page Three girl spread, only gayer. I will never make into those pages. And I am well aware that questions are tongue-in-cheek, and really, superfluous. But in an alternate world, where short and stocky is considered hot these would be my answers.

 
Craig Gidney lives and writes in DC. When he’s not pounding out enthralling stories, you can find him hanging out with friends, sampling the city’s cuisine or being uncle to his adorable nephew and niece. His hobbies include visiting museums, watching cult films and, of course, reading.
What’s on your nightstand?

I don’t really have a proper nightstand. The thing that serves as a makeshift nightstand holds my alarm clock.

What’s in your nightstand drawer?


Manuscripts full of my failed works.

What are your television favorites?


Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, American Horror Story

What was your favorite cartoon when you were a kid?

Speedracer

Who’s your greatest influence?


LaWanda Page

What’s your greatest fear?


A future dystopia controlled by the Religious Right.

Pick three people, living or dead, who you think would make the most fascinating dinner guests imaginable.


Diamanda Galas ; James Baldwin; H.P. Lovecraft. Diamanda would sing an aria, while Baldwin read Lovecraft the riot act.

What would you serve?


Macrobiotics

How would you describe your dream guy?


Someone with the soul of a poet, the compassion of a saint, the humor of Emo Phillips. But I’ll take hot over that any day.

Who should star in a movie about your life?


Alfonso Riberio.

Who gets on your nerves?


Devotees of Ayn Rand.

If your home was burning, what’s the first thing you’d grab while leaving?


My cat. Though she wouldn’t appreciate it.

Who’s your favorite musical artist?


Right Said Fred.

What’s your favorite website?

Goatse.cx

What’s the most unusual place you’ve had sex?

In the catacombs beneath Paris. With a C.H.U.D.

What’s your favorite food to splurge with?


Anything with lots and lots of saffron.

What’s your favorite season?


Winter. It’s a season of death.

What kind of animal would you be?

A cassowary. They look like a cross between a turkey and a velocioraptor, and can eviscerate you with a single kick.

What kind of plant would you be?

A corpse flower.

What kind of car would you be?

A jalopy

State your life philosophy in 10 words or less.


Watch it, sucker.

Watch it Sucka

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FICTION: Quench by Craig Laurance Gidney. TW-violence, homophobia. Inspired by a Throwing Muses song.

I wrote the story “Quench” after listening to a song by Throwing Muses, entitled “Vicky’s Box,” about twenty years ago. The story is about a lost young man and his sexual compulsions. It’s a kind of realistic horror story, and closely mirrors the sad story of the late Matthew Shepard.

You can read the story over at Wattpad.

Thirst

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The Importance of Visibility: Patrick Ness at the National Book Festival

Last Saturday, I got to hear author Patrick Ness speak at the National Book Festival. I’ve read his Chaos Walking series, and am looking forward to his adult novel. He writes high concept fantasy and science fiction that deals with gender issues.

He was a charming speaker with a nice self-deprecating sense of humor. But the thing made me really like him was that he came out as a gay man in a nonchalant way. He alluded to his husband in an aside. I’m loving this way of being visible; the actors Zachary Quinto and Wentworth Miller went this route as well. Instead of a grand announcement, it’s just stated as a fact.

This is extremely important, especially for the audience he’s writing for. Gay youth are at risk for suicide in spite of increased acceptance. It also helps straight youth to have a happens-to-be-gay role model.

Patrick Ness

 

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BOOK REVIEW: City of Bones by Martha Wells. Proto-New Weird Fantasy

City of BonesCity of Bones by Martha Wells
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An earlier entry in the Martha Wells oeuvre, City of Bones nicely balances her intricate, almost mystery-styled plots with her imaginative world-building. It’s admirable how the author manages a certain baroque richness to the prose, while maintaining a fairly action-packed, complex plot. The setting is a sort of post-apocalyptic fantasy world with a rigid caste system and strange rituals. Two outsiders stumble upon a mysterious artifact, and ultimately, a sinister world-threatening plan. The magic is magical and weird, and the suspense “pulse-pounding.” In a way, City of Bones fits into the New Weird aesthetic championed by China Mieville, in that it’s a little bit fantasy, a little bit horror, with a dash of science fiction and mystery thrown in for good measure. Fans of Mieville and Tanith Lee should check this book out.

View all my reviews

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Childhood Heroes: Katherine Paterson & Susan Cooper at the National Book Festival

Susan Cooper at the National Book Festival 9.222.13
Susan Cooper at the National Book Festival 9.22.13

I had the opportunity to hear two of my favorite children’s book authors speak today at the National Book Festival. They were the rock stars of my childhood.

masterpupsignedkay11 nightingales

Katherine Paterson is mostly known for her excellent contemporary fiction for kids, notably Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved. But my favorites were her Japanese historical fiction. Both The Master Puppeter and Of Nightingales That Weep are meticulously researched adventures set in turbulent times, full of character and atmosphere.

The-Grey-King

The Grey King was the first Susan Cooper novel I read. It was maybe the first fantasy novel I’d read from cover to cover. It’s a dark tale, full of illness, madness and magic, with one of the most haunting endings I’ve ever read.