But there are tender bits.

Nymeth, on her blog Things Mean A Lot, finds a lot to like about the novel:

Tender Morsels deals with rape, but it’s never actually explicit. What it does is suggest what happens, and your mind does the rest. But nothing is actually masked. Especially not the impact, physical and psychological, that this kind of violence has on Liga. I love that Margo Lanagan doesn't ever make us pity Liga. She makes our heart break for her, yes, and she makes us love her, and respect her, and wish her the very best.

I seriously couldn’t have loved Tender Morsels more.

What's more, she will campaign for me: 'This is the book I will henceforth shove down the throats of people who dismiss fantasy, who dismiss YA.'

:)

What's more, 40 people have dropped by to comment—I've never had that many comments, even when I asked people how to stop drinking. How do you do that, Nymeth? (Get the comments, I mean, not stop drinking. Tee-hee.)

Not a comfy read

Jeanette on her blog A Comfy Chair and a Good Book, says of Tender Morsels (emphasis Jeanette's):

I heard so much praise about this book that I was very eager to read it. Unfortunately, this book turned out to be one that I did not enjoy at all and really probably should have stopped reading.
Tender Morsels takes the story of Snow White and Rose Red and turns it into something crude and grotesque. Child molestation, and gang rape against both male and female characters are just two examples of the events that left me feeling sick after reading. Pretty much all of the male characters could think of nothing but getting into the pants or skirts of women and I had to read about it over and over and over again. I got tired of reading about all these horny guys and bears. Yes, bears.
I've read so much praise describing this book as beautiful and moving but I found nothing beautiful at all and the story just grew tedious the more I read.
A book that is loved by many but that I found disturbing and uncomfortable to read.

I gather from the stork and countdown that there is a baby on the way—no, probably TM isn't a novel to read when you're pregnant.

Productivity

I am self-flagellating by not allowing myself to go to Draftbusters this weekend, not allowing myself to sleep in, and instead going up to the Writing Room at the crack of dawn to, you know, write. To see if I still can.

And you know what? I can! 7.5 pages' worth of post-Rapunzel nastiness.

Nah, it's not very nasty—but then, the witch hasn't shown her true colours yet.

So much achieved, and it's only 9.45.

Still not dead,

just a bit uninspired, although I have been making lots of notes, not towards anything in particular, just to stop myself falling right off the world.

I had two days arts bureaucratting, which was like the Royal Easter Show in my head, it was so colourful and stimulating after all that taxation.

I finished Greer Gilman's book, with regret - what a world to escape to! - and now I'm letting myself read her process blog, which would have to be the most fascinating (and beautiful in itself) account of three stories' creation ever put together. You will have to read the book, too, before you follow that link, to give the blog the right glister.

It keeps raining, like an extremely tasteless joke about the Victorian bushfires. I'm definitely feeling the need for some aerobic exercise, and to be working on something besides the dayjob.

Off to work now.

Saturday

Well, there was really no excuse for spending the whole week and more away. Except that nothing much happened, and blogging every day for 5 days over at Reading Victoria kind of overworked my blogging muscles and they needed a wee rest. I worked - let us speak no more of that - and I went to a really nice book launch at Berkelouw's Leichhardt (walking distance!) on Thursday evening for Scribe's New Australian Stories, edited by Aviva Tuffield, and I slept in this morning and have been to the shops in the rain, and just finished doing our three BASes and am feeling just a touch nauseated. Every time you dare to be a little bit optimistic, BAS time rolls around again.

Next weekend, the 2007-08 tax! Ah, the glamour of the writer's life. And now, to the crossword!

Over 'ere

Today, over the weekend and on Monday, I'm blogging at the Reading Victoria blog, which is run by the State Library of Victoria. I am a Summer Read author! Come and join the fun. A change is as good as a summer holiday, you know.

Locus Recommended Reading List 2008...

...is a Lanagan lovefest!

Tender Morsels is on the Young Adult novel list. Yes!

No fewer than 5 of 'my' anthologies are recommended: Jack Dann's Dreaming Again, Ellen Datlow's The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Nick Gevers's Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology and Jonathan Strahan's Eclipse Two and The Starry Rift.

Plus, I made the short story list, with 'The Fifth Star in the Southern Cross' (from Dreaming Again) and 'The Goosle', bwa-ha (from The Del Rey Book)!

UPDATED: OMG, I wrote a novelette, without knowing it! 'Machine Maid' from Extraordinary Engines is there, too! (Thanks, Tansy; it was very sloppy of me to miss it. :) )

Sideshow:

Ten Original Tales of Freaks, Illusionists, and Other Matters Odd and Magical—an ARC of this anthology for young adults, edited by Deborah Noyes for Candlewick Press, landed in my post box yesterday. The real thing won't be out until mid-July, but get ready for it. My story is about anthropological exhibits, and is called 'Living Curiosities'; the other stories are by Aimee Bender, Vivian Vande Velde, Danica Novgorodoff, Annette Curtis Klause, David Almond, Shawn Cheng, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Cecil Castellucci and Matt Phelan.

Matt Cameron interview

This interview with playwright Matt Cameron (by other playwright Hannie Rayson) arrived in the Australian Writers' Guild's Storyline magazine yesterday. He's a funny man. Here is his take on winding himself up to write:

How do you get into the mood to write?
I don't bother with that. I turn on the computer. The only chance for inspiration is through doing. If I waited for inspiration to hit, I'd be an old man.

It's like when I trained as an actor, we had to do impulse work. But I never had an impulse.
I have an impulse to go see a movie in the middle of the day. That's always a strong impulse. I can get quite inspired by the thought of that.

Do you?
Sometimes.
But mostly I think you've just got to commit to remaining in the chair for the day. You've got to run your own little Guantanamo.

And another interesting bit (not so funny, but good anyway):

Do you write imagining your play being performed in a particular theatre?
I picture it more as an idea of a place. I picture darkness mostly, pierced by light. In my imagination it's never about the dimensions of the space, or whether it's proscenium or not, it's what is illuminated in the dark, what's lit within the darkness. The theatre is like the mind to me, what I picture the mind to be like: darkness on the perimeter, lit up by an idea.

A bit of chat...

...about punch-pulling over at Chasing Ray (see the comments).