Thursday, April 11, 2024

Speculative Fiction Links of the Week for April 12, 2024


 
It's time for the latest weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative fiction from around the web, this week with Star Wars in general, Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek in general, X-Men '97, Fallout, Invincible, Civil War, The People's Joker, Chucky, The Regime, Shogun, The First Omen, Twin Peak, The Matrix at 35, an uproar about Angry Robot planning to use AI to scan submissions. ttributes to Lynne Reid Banks and much more.

Speculative fiction in general:

Tributes to Lynne Reid Banks:

Comics and Art:
 
Film and TV:
 
Comments on Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek in general:

 
Comments on Civil War: 
 
Comments on The People's Joker:

Comments on Shogun:
 
Comments on The Regime: 
 
Comments on Chucky:
 
Comments on The First Omen: 
 
Comments on Twin Peaks:
 
 
Awards:

Writing, publishing and promotion:
 
Interviews:
 
Reviews:
Classics reviews:
Con and event reports:
 
Science and technology:
 
Toys and collectibles:
 
Free online fiction: 
 

 

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Monday, April 8, 2024

Interview with LCW Allingham, author of Muse



Today it gives the Speculative Fiction Showcase great pleasure to interview LCW Allingham, whose horror novella Muse has its debut on April 9, 2024 from Speculation Publications.

Tell us about the original inspiration for Muse. How does it relate to your previous work?

I watched the 2018 Suspiria remake and the themes of exploitation and greed really dug in with me and started churning in my creative mind. In all creative industries we have real life stories of these immense talents, burning so brightly, and the people who just mine that talent to depletion. In my stories I tend to be character driven and really break apart the psychology of the characters in these fantastical or horrific situations so with Muse the deep POV came out in three characters who are unaware they are all actors in a situation that has been set in motion.

The title is a telling one because so often in the history of art women were seen and treated as “Muses” but marginalised and overlooked as artists. How important is this theme? 

Exactly. A mortal muse is so often treated as just an object, to be moved and bent to the whims of the artist. It draws to mind these fey women from the Jazz age who were bold enough to break the social norms of the time. They were so adored for a moment and then tossed away for something new. So many were left disabled, addicted, sick, poor or just shunned while the artists would go on to achieve fame and fortune with their likeness.

The muses of myth, however, were immortal and they were subject to no man. The artists, were, instead reliant on them. Without their favour, an artist could produce no work. They didn’t evoke inspiration they were inspiration themselves. They had all the power.

Muse is your debut horror novella, and focuses on the power and danger of creativity. Where does the horror spring from?

People tend to think of creativity and art as a beautiful, light pursuit, but art is often pain and trauma channelled, and there are so many things that can go wrong with that pursuit. We all love Starry Night and marvel of the brilliance of showing air turbulence in art but the cost of that beauty was Van Gogh’s sanity. We jam out to Nirvana knowing that Kurt was tormented. Art makes life worth living, but the drive to create can drive creators into their own hell. And that’s just the creation process.  What about when you show that work to the world? When you have to rely on businessmen, fans and patrons to allow you make a living off your art? When they think that their investments entitle them to a piece of the artist themselves?

You mention that Muse also foregrounds themes of feminism and exploitation. Why are these significant to you?

These are major themes in many of my stories. First of all, I think to be a woman, or a marginalized person in America is to be exploited. Hard Stop. But when you add in the complications of being a creator, who makes something that no one else can make, marginalized people are expected to give themselves away for free. To educate the world. To provide their fruits, their cultures, their innermost thoughts and creations for the simple appreciation of those things.

I struggled with this in my own life. Shouldn’t I write just for the joy of writing? Screw the student loans I needed to pay off for my writing degree. And how dare I ask for a raise in my design job? I was lucky to be given the experience. And because we had so much fun playing in a band, we didn’t really need to make money doing it, right?

We have to value our creators and protect them. They are not products. They are vessels and they must be nurtured in order to flow.

Who are your protagonists, Cedric Fleck and Terra Desmarais, who find themselves working with unusual art associates in NYC?

Cedric is a point of view character in the story. He comes from a lot of trauma involving his family and his upbringing and he taps into that to create beautiful pastel work that is gaining traction in the art world, but without professionals in the business, he might languish in obscurity, which, for him, also would mean poverty and maybe worse.

When Cedric’s agent takes on Terra, Cedric really wants to hate her because everything seems effortless for her and she doesn’t even seem to care, but when he meets her, he feels this kinship. Neither of them come from privilege. Both of them are fish out of water in the shark tank of the NYC art scene.

They’re both artists at their core. There is nothing else for them but to create, and it bonds them tightly together in an unusual way.

What about the associates, Mr. Black, Mr. Silver, and Mr. Green? How much can you tell us about them? 

The associates have been in the business so long they’ve practically invented it, even down to taking on names that are almost caricatures of themselves. Black for ink of art reviews, Silver for money given in patronage of the arts, and Green for finding fresh talent. These aren’t their real names, but it’s the ones they use as they work quietly together to rule the art world.

For an artist, drawing the attention of one of them is both the big break that will make their career, and also the most dangerous thing they could ever do.

You have wide experience in the fields of writing, art and music. To what extent has your personal experience inspired the story behind Muse?

I grew up in a vibrant art community, as the child and grandchild of artists and craftsmen and then worked as a musician in my 20s before moving fully into the writing community. 

I could go on and on about all the complicated dynamics of creative people and those who love their work, but I think it can be summaries by saying in any art industry, an artist needs to have a strong core, especially once they start to find some success. There is a reason drugs and depression are so rampant in the arts. The crush between over-the-top adoration and increasingly harsh criticism from strangers is compounded by the inner critic most artists carry with them.  I’ve seen many friends and acquaintances go numb in one way of another.

As someone who has worked in the visual arts, what are the different challenges of writing?

I don’t know that it is really different. In both mediums, at least for me, it is an act of having an idea in my head that I’m trying to translate to the physical world. The translation process is what every creator has to work out for themselves, through constant skill building, workshopping, and just work.

 My mom used to say you’re an artist when you complete your one hundredth painting. I think the same can be said with writing or really any kind of composition. It’s not the actual one hundredth piece of work you produce. It’s the skills, discipline and unique voice you develop while you get there.

Talk to us about Speculation Publications, where you are one of the founders and the executive editor. What is its remit?

Speculation Publications has focused primarily on anthologies of folklore, myth, horror and fantasy. We started with an annual anthology that we had been putting out for a few years called the Collections of Utter Speculation. Initially it was a way for authors of different genres to write on a common theme, the theme being generally some type of historical or potentially supernatural mystery, like The Jersey Devil. We formed the press and opened it up to other authors with The Dancing Plague and it was pretty amazing.

We have deviated a bit from those themes but it seems to always come back to the folklore and myth. We did a book of summer romance last year, called Beach Shorts, and so many of the stories turned out to have shape shifters or magic of some kind.

This year, we’ve moved onto novellas. We’re currently reading the submissions for the Utter Speculation Novella series and will announce our first book of that series within the next month or so.

As well as Muse, you are also preparing for the publication of your debut novel, Lady, which will be out in September through Mirror World Publishing. What can you tell us about Lady, which you describe as a feminist historical novel, and how does it relate to Muse?

Lady is an amalgamation of histories that we only have little scraps of because they’re about marginalized people. It takes place in fictional barony in the War of Roses Era of England, a time of incredible violence and upheaval, just before the reign of the Tudors when the entire system was upended. It is about smaller people than the Yorks and the Nevilles and the Lancasters, but the ones whose lives and livelihood felt the ripples and sometimes tidal waves of the decisions made by those famous players.

I recently heard a quote from Nicola Griffith about how people will find a way to be themselves and that is what this novel is at its core.

The novel centers around a young baroness, Rosalynde, who is in a marriage unlike what we expect of that time, but which I suspect was prevalent. Her husband, Alexander, is a prominent baron, and queer. Rosalynde is very capable, pragmatic, and although she can play the part of a demure and submissive lady, she is not those things. She’s drawn to athletics and warfare. These two chose to be together for the benefits of marriage, and in doing so have some to respect and love each other in a way that is much deeper than bodice ripping romance. So when Alexander falls deathly ill, Rosalynde is entrusted to maintain the barony, and the best way she can do so is by posing and fighting as her husband.

I was told before that I write in too many different genres and on too many different subjects. I should hone in on exactly what market and genre I wanted to focus on and that is very good and practical advice that unfortunately doesn’t work for me. But what I do have in common is these themes of finding one’s true self, finding their power as a woman, as a neurodivergent person, as a marginalized person, as an immortal goddess locked into the tyrannical patriarchy of her father. Lady, just like Muse, is a story of woman vs the system and how to win in that system set up to destroy you.

You are an art collector as well as an artist. Does that give you a differing perspective on the creative process? 

Growing up so immersed in art, there wasn’t much separation between what I could potentially create myself and what was out there in the world and it wasn’t always healthy or helpful. It used to be that I would see something gorgeous and think, I should be able to learn how to make that. If I would try, I would fail because while imitation can help you hone your skills the results will always be hollow. A pretty picture, maybe, without any soul.

I developed my own style when I started to step back from that weird inner critic that told me I should be able to make everything myself and I just allowed myself to appreciate how exceedingly beautiful and unique the variations of art are. My style is nothing like what I tend to collect. I don’t even always like my own paintings, but they’re entirely from me, just as the art I collect is entirely from the artists. 

Muse is dedicated to your mother, the late artist Patricia Allingham Carlson, who passed suddenly in September 2023. What can you tell us about her and why you chose to dedicate the book to her? 

Art and creativity and my mother, Pat, are all completely intertwined in my life. My mom was an art teacher and a watercolour artist. She embodied both in equal measure and all the time.

In every home we lived in, no matter how modest, the family room was converted into a home art studio where she would teach classes and make her own work. Other kids had big screen TVs and ping pong tables and we had a matting table and self-drying clay and student acrylics. She had hundreds of students over the time I grew up, and some I am still friends with today. She made a big impact on many lives.

She and I often talked about the nature of inspiration. She actively encouraged me in my writing from a young age so she often was the first one to read a piece I wrote. She read an early draft of Muse and she related to Cedric and how he just needed to create, even when he wasn’t sure why. When she passed, it was a lot and too fast and I still have a lot of complicated feelings about it, but putting out this book which draws on so much that I got from her, feels like a way to work along side of those feelings, move with them instead of trying to solve them.

What are you planning to write next, and what are you working on now?

Between Speculation Publications, and putting out two books of my own this year, I am squeezing in writing time in bits and pieces but I have a novel I finished the first draft on that I’m really excited about. It’s a twist on the classic haunted house troupe about a family that moves to the northeast to get a fresh start after a pretty terrible break from the abusive patriarch.

Tell us something about your upcoming appearances for 2024 and where your readers can find out more about them.

I did a bunch of readings earlier this year and I’m actively booking more now. I believe the excerpt I read of Muse for for Strong Women, Strange Worlds will be available on their website at some point.

Muse will have a release party sometime in April, so check my website and my socials for what one. 

Quakertown Arts Alive Festival, in Quakertown, PA has a book corner where you can find me with Spec Pub on May 18

I’ll be with Speculation Publications at the Horror on Main horror convention in Harrisburg, PA in where I might also be reading. That will be June 28 – 30

And I’ll be at Creatures Crimes and Creativity Con in Colombia Maryland in September 13 – 15th. It’s a really great, intimate convention where the readers and writers are all sitting down together.

My co-editor, River Eno, and I are also putting together a podcast called Utter Speculations where we just go down rabbit holes together about books, writing, creativity, feminism, philosophy, movies and magic. You can find very raw episodes on Buzzsprout for now.

Everything else will be on my website at www.lcwallingham or my socials (below).

 


presale links


About L.C. Allingham:





LCW Allingham (she/her) is a Philadelphia area author, artist, musician and editor. Her early education was uniquely rich in the arts, learning music, performance and fine art all of her life, but she was always compelled toward the written word and storytelling. She received her degree in Journalism from Temple University and wrote home renovation articles before turning her focus exclusively to fiction. Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and publications and she is an editor for the Collection of Utter Speculation series. In 2022 she co-founded the indie press, Speculation Publications, with her long-time editorial partners and serves as executive editor. She writes in many genres but particularly horror, fantasy, historical and speculative fiction. She is an active feminist and human rights advocate and lives in Pennsylvania with her family, her pets and her ever expanding art collection.

Muse is her debut horror novella, and her debut novel, Lady, will be out in September 2024.


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Thursday, April 4, 2024

Speculative Fiction Links of the Week for April 5, 2024


 
It's time for the latest weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative fiction from around the web, this week with the 2024 Hugo finalists, Star Wars in general, Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek in general, X-Men '97, 3 Body Problem, Monkey Man, Doctor Who part, present and future, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, Civil War, The People's Joker, Renegade Nell, The Regime, Shogun, The First Omen, Godzille x Kong: The New Empire, the fight for control of Disney's board of directors, tributes to Vernor Vinge, Maryse Condé, Barbara Rush, Louis Gossett Jr. Chance Perdomo, Ed Piskor and much more.

Speculative fiction in general:

Tributes to Vernor Vinge:

Comics and Art:
 
Film and TV:
 
Comments on Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek in general:
 
Comments on 3 Body Problem:

Comments on Monkey Man:
 
Comments on Civil War: 
 
Comments on The People's Joker:

Comments on Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire:
 
Comments on The Regime: 
 
Comments on Shogun:
 
Comments on The First Omen: 
 
Comments on The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live:
 
Comments on the struggle inside the Disney board of directors: 
 
Tributes to Louis Gossett Jr: 
 
Tributes to Barbara Rush: 
 
Tributes to Chance Perdomo:
 
Awards:

Writing, publishing and promotion:
 
Interviews:
 
Reviews:
 Classics reviews:
Con and event reports:
 
Crowdfunding:
 
Science and technology:
 
Toys and collectibles:
 
Free online fiction: 
 

 

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