Two Notebooks

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Shown above are two of my notebooks--the Scribbledehobbledehoydenii I call them because I was once young and who wouldn't want to conjure up a word like that? The spiral-bound one is the Wedding Scribbledeobbledehoyden, and the black one is titled Dark Flame, or: Plum Pudding. There are reasons.

I'm just finishing up filling up the one and chanced across the other and was struck by how different they are. The one has a number of impromptu collages in it, including one (below) where I apparently wrote a story in and around it. (pictured below). Is the story any good? I have no idea. The amount of work it would take to decipher my handwriting is significantly more than it would take to simply write another piece of flash fiction for it. It's also jam-filled with loose papers: A menu from the reception of the titular wedding, a postcard from France, some dried leaves (below), a stamped and sealed letter to Michael Bishop that I was about to mail when I learned he had just died. Also throwaways, ephemera, and scribbled notes of no particular import.

The black notebook is much more austere. A few doodles, and a slip of notes or two, but almost entirely scenes from stories I'm working on, lists of things I must write, a wheel of potential novels I must choose one from, diagrams of sections of stories that are giving me trouble. 

Except for my execrable handwriting, they might have been compiled by two completely different writers.

Proof positive that function follows form.

 

 

 

 

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Reading Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge

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I've just finished reading Somerset Maugham's novel, The Razor's Edge. What a cunning writer Maugham could be! Here's how the book begins:

I have never begun a novel with more misgiving. If I call it a novel it is only because I don't know what else to call it. I have little story to tell and I end neither with a death nor a marriage.

The narrator is Somerset Maugham himself, and he promises a shapeless and meandering novel. 

He lies. The story is ostensibly about a young man who returns traumatized from WWI and refuses to become the respectable businessman all the world, his girlfriend included, desires him to be. Instead, he seeks to solve the mysteries of life. His story is told seemingly piecemeal, with an "I'll tell you about that later," and "Here's what I learned years later happened then," here and there, to disguise the fact that it's structurally brilliant. Along the way, he portrays entire lives: Of a rich, social climbing snob, of an All-American girl who becomes a hideous product of her society, of a woman's willful and understandable dive into debauchery.  All of them fascinating and, after having his satiric fun with them, most of them likeable underneath. 

Three quarters of the way through the book, Maugham begins a chapter by writing:

I feel it right to warn the reader that he can very well skip this chapter without losing the thread of such story as I have to tell, since for the most part it is nothing more than the account of a conversation that I had with Larry. I should add, however, that except for this conversation I should perhaps not have thought it worth while to write this book.

Isn't that wonderful? Who, reading that, could not read the rest of that chapter? 

What makes this particularly cunning is that it comes at the opening of a chapter that many would have decided to skim, midway through. Similarly, Maugham has been guiding the reader through a very complicated weaving of story all the way through, while denying any such intention.

At the end, the master trickster rings in the ending that he stated at the beginning he didn't have. It's satisfying. But I think he's lying again. I think what the books is really about it...

But I've run out of space. Buy me a drink next time you see me, and I'll tell you all.

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Dream Diary: June 14, 2026

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I dreamed that an artist had solicited unmatched socks from women around the world. She then attached precise weights at top or bottom of each and placed them in the Arctic Ocean, near the surface. Then she donned scuba gear and filmed a voyage through the forest of lost socks. A most dreamlike dream.

I do not know if all the materials were biodegradable, or if they were gathered up afterward, or if the artist merely assumed that with all the trash in the oceans of the world, hers would be negligible. But the decision would say a lot about her and her culture.

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Jane Yolen, 1939-2026

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I was talking with Jane Yolen once, in her house in St. Andrews, Scotland. I told her how much I admired her prolific output of books--something like 400 then, though it's grown since. She tried to duck the compliment by saying, "Well, yours are so much longer than mine."

"I've read Owl Moon," I said. (For those who don't know, it's an illustrated story sold as a 'children's book' but actually a gem of a prose poem of a reminiscence, possibly true and possibly not.) "How many drafts did that take?"

"A few hundred," she admitted.

"I rest my case," I said.

And now Jane's gone. It doesn't seem possible. She was one of those people you expect to just go on and on forever, getting a little older and wiser every year, but always there.

Jane was a journalist, a poet, an editor, and a writer of books both short and long. She had many friends and countless admirers. And she deserved every one of them.

She came to Philadelphia once, to do a reading at a children's bookstore, so I was there. Many parents had brought their little ones to hear her and the store had laid out toys to keep them occupied in the build-up to the event. When it was time for her to read, the parents rounded up their reluctant children, who had no idea who this lady might be or, indeed, what an author was. The kids were all grouchy and complaining about being taken away from the toys. And then Jane began to speak.

Her words were oil upon troubled water.

She got the children's attention, made them forget the toys, and read to them. They listened raptly. Then she took questions. Her answers were all lucid, respectful, and without condescension. She spoke to them as equals and they responded in kind.

Jane could talk to adults like that too.

So many of us are in mourning today! But sadness is the price we must pay for riches bestowed. And Jane was well worth how you and are feeling now. Many times over.

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Coming Soon: Basil, Pepper, Salt, and Garlic Greens: A Year in a Witch's Kitchen

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Dragonstairs Press (whose creator, editor, and sole proprietor, I feel obliged to occasionally mention is Marianne Porter) is releasing a new chapbook this Saturday at noon, Philadelphia time (EDT). It's a lovely creation--handstitched, numbered, and signed, in an edition of 80. The wrapper is Thai mulberry paper with incursions of flower petals. 

The story, written by yours truly, is a gentle Medieval fantasy in four rounds, all narrated by Auld Agnes, a witch and a brilliant cook rapidly approaching thirty years of age. 

Here's how it begins:

Basil

Sumer is icumen in

Lhude sing cuccu

—Medieval English Round

Ah, me dears, but when the weather turns into a blistering heat that coats a body in sweat, that's when a cook is at her best. Listen carefully to Auld Agnes. Though I am twice a widow and almost at an age when a woman turns crone and thus unmarriageable, I know my way around a hearth. And life too, for that matter.

Cooking in summer is easiness itself. Fruits and nuts fall from the trees, vegetables burst from the earth, and rabbits, squirrels, and other wildlife blunder into snares without a second thought. Songbirds can be caught with quicklime, plucked, roasted, and eaten cold for breakfast. If you have a milch-cow, as I do, your table will groan under the weight of butter and cheese.

In summer, the laird of the estate is at his least difficult...

And since you ask . . .

The chapbook will go for $11 shipped domestically or $13 shipped internationally.  PayPal only. At 

www.dragonstairs.com. 

Best set your alarm clocks, though. Dragonstairs chapbooks sell out fast.

And though you didn't ask . . .

I really like Auld Agnes as a character. She's capable, outspoken, direct, and a tireless worker. And not one bit more ruthless than a woman occasionally has to be in this difficult world of ours.

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A New Dragonstairs Chapbook, Huzzah!

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Friends of Dragonstairs Press should set their alarms early. Marianne has crafted a beautiful chapbook for a short medieval fantasy by her in-house content provider (me). The fiction chapbooks always sell faster than the non-fiction ones, so I expect this will sell out very quickly.

It goes on sale next Saturday at noon, East Coast time.

Here's the letter that Marianne just sent out to her regular clients:

Michael Swanwick's Basil, Pepper, Salt, and Garlic Greens: A Year in a Witch's Kitchen is a spicy, even saucy, medieval romance, full of useful advice from a woman who knows her way around a hearth, and life, too, for that matter. Issued in an edition of 80, each copy is 5 ½ x 4 ¼ and wrapped in Thai mulberry paper with flower petal inclusions. All are handstitched, numbered, and signed by the author.
They will be offered for sale on Saturday, May 30, 2026, at noon, Philadelphia time (eastern daylight savings) at the Dragonstairs website. www.dragonstairs.com

Shipped domestically, $11.

Shipped internationally, $13.

--

Marianne Porter (she/her)

editor, publisher

Dragonstairs Press

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Big Huge Tachyon Memorial Day Weekend Sale Blah Blah Blah

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Tachyon Publications, publisher of my brilliant and wildly entertaining short story collection, The Universe Box, has a sale this weekend. Twenty percent off of anything and everything when you use the magic code above.

And here I'm supposed to tell you how wonderful I am, blah blah blah.

But I won't. Instead, I'll suggest you go to their home page here and browse their catalog. Because Tachyon publishes a lot of the best SF and fantasy writers at work today, and if you're at all familiar with the field, you're going to find something you want.

I found two books I plan to buy--and that was on the first page only.

Oh, and Tachyon Publications also published most of my previous collections. So, you know, blah blah blah.

And because I know you're curious . . .

No, I won't tell you which two books. I know what writers are like. If I told you, every other writer on that page would conclude that I hated them and that their career was over.

You probably think I'm kidding. But I'm not even exaggerating.

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