From: GeorgeAnna (talea1@hotmail.com)

Hi, I loved the Bending the Landscape series. Will there be any more of them? I thought the stories were well written and thought-provoking. These books are among the few that I can re-read and still feel that I get something new from them.

Well, I'm delighted to hear that, thank you. BtL (all three volumes) was a labour of love. I got essentially no money because my co-editor, Stephen Pagel, and I put most of our editors' advance towards paying authors. The way we saw it, you get what you pay for, so we were determined to pay top dollar. Unfortunately, the publishers (White Wolf and then Overlook) did their P&L sheets and came to the conclusion that anthologies could only be marginally profitable. So the total advance money was just a fraction of, say, one of my novels and had to be shared among twenty writers.

No, there will be no more Bending the Landscape anthologies. There are plenty of things like that out there now--lots and lots of LGBTI genre collections being produced by respectable LGBTI publishers. However, I do have ideas for a couple of other anthologies. One would be what I call my Gender Fuck anthology, mostly--though not entirely--reprints of short stories that have given me a thought-provoking rollercoaster ride. Another would be original stories (though I feel reluctant to talk about it in public until I figure out if the overarching idea makes any sense--yep, one of those [g]). Actually, now that I come to think of it, I have notions for several of these things. Hmmmn.

It seems to me that a lot of people put together anthologies with attention to theme and marketing and not nearly enough to the actual fiction. Most anthologies simply don't hold up. For me, the theme should be general enough that the reader doesn't get bored ("Oh, another story with a twist ending about gender. Um-hm. Yep. Thrilling."). Each story should be a gem of storytelling--with well-told and -written stuff happening to characters we care about.

If and when I start in on any of these projects, I'll certainly let readers (and writers) know. I quite fancy putting together some collections of my work, for example a collection of essays and Ask Nicola answers, or maybe some interviews, and a full and proper collection of my short fiction--with a couple of new stories that I've mulling for an age.

From: Elyssa (geoffsgrrl@writing.com)

I've just begun reading "The Blue Place". I wanted to tell you that I think it is an amazing piece of work. Terrific job. Aud is an extremely complex character, and I congratulate you for her.

I am 16 and have identified as bisexual for the past year and a half but am now beginning to believe I am a lesbian. Aud is a very strong character, too, and the girl on the front of the book is very pretty. She just may have tipped me off the edge in to full-blown homosexuality. In any case, you have made wonderfully thought-out characters as far as I can tell ("The Blue Place" is the first book of yours I've read, and I can't wait to read more), and I just wanted to compliment you on what a terrific author you are. For an aspiring novelist myself, "The Blue Place" is terrific inspiration.

As you're an aspiring writer, I'm going to get picky here for a minute about the specificity of words and phrases. Word choice is important. "Crimson" and "scarlet" and "red" might all mean very similar things, but the emotional baggage they trail behind them is different. (For example, those three words, to mean, have instant echoes of "king," "harlot" and "blood" respectively.) So I'd like you to ponder your use of the phrase "full-blown" homosexuality. "Full-blown" is usually used in connection with disease and/or corruption: full-blown AIDS, full-blown dysentery, full-blown decomposition, etc. I think of pustulence, maggot-ridden corpses swollen with the gases of corruption. Seeing it attached to "homosexuality" gives me the creeps. So many ill-considered or malevolent words are casually attached to "homosexuality" that I've become rather sensitive to it. For example, when I read that a person is an "admitted homosexual" I infer that either the admitting queer is ashamed, or the reporter is biased. We only "admit" to something if we feel it is wrong. Almost, but not quite as bad for me, is someone being an "avowed homosexual," as though it's an oath to you take to join a shady secret society. Me, I'm a dyke, and very pleased with myself (though I admit smugness is a failing of mine). Other supposedly non-perjorative words I dislike include "feisty" (only ever applied to women or very old people), "shrill" (to women and gay men) and "so East coast" (which usually turns out to be a dig at being Jewish). I'm sure there are hundreds more, but the point here isn't for me to vent (sorry about that) but to hope that word-choice is something you'll consider carefully in the future.

I'm glad The Blue Place pleased you, inspired you to look inside and see who is there. I learn a lot about myself from reading good fiction. (I learn a lot, too, from reading bad fiction: how judgemental and bad tempered I can be; how my throwing arm fares; how well or not I can still patch and paint dents in the walls.) I think that for some people, sexuality is contextual. I know a lot of women who fall in love with the person, not the biological sex: it doesn't matter whether the objects of their desire have innies or outies. Me, I'm totally a dyke. No man has ever made my eyes bug out painfully and my breath come short or my throat close up. Which isn't to say I haven't had very satisfactory sex with men. I have. It's just that, well, satisfactory isn't mind-blowingly good, y'know? I've never dreamt about men, never longed desperately for men or pursued them foolishly (not fruitlessly, just foolishly, sigh). Sexual desire, for me, is one of the drivers of life. Air, sex, water, food, shelter are my priorities, pretty much in that order. Though I admit I've never been dangerously thirsty, I have been dangerously hungry for food, and you know what? For me the drive for sex outweighs the drive for food. I accept, however, that we're all different. (My first girlfriend burst into tears one night halfway through our first two-week holiday. "I'm so tired," she said, "I just want to get some sleep!" I stared at her and thought, Why?)

From: anonymous

This is more of a comment than a question. Every once in a while I have a meditative reading experience. It is hard to explain but when I surface from the narrative, it feels as if I have spent a few hours meditating and I feel refreshed or maybe contemplative is a better word. My second read of Ammonite and Stay was that kind of experiences.

My ex. first introduced me to your work about 2 years ago but it wasn’t until recently (after the break up *chuckle*) that I really got into your work again. I find that there’s a certain something that your main characters have in a common – a lost but searching quality. Hmm, there is a better way to describe that. I found that Aud and Marghe were both observers of their world until they met their soul mates. You know that “in the world but not of it” sort of thing, and then they meet these women whose love pulls them into the world. Aud and Marghe fascinate me. There’s something about that much introspective independence that I find compelling. I almost regret it when they join the world – but even the most independent soul deserves some love too, so I will not begrudge them their happiness.

I also enjoy your descriptions. They are large, lush, sensual descriptions that really drew me in. Sometimes I could smell the sawdust is Aud’s workshop or see Jeep’s sky.

I also appreciate the way you make yourself available to your fans. That is truly rare quality, thank you.

P.S I actually realize that I do have a question – at the end of Stay, does Aud have sex with Gorman’s (I think that’s name) ex? It does not really matter but I’m curious.

Tammy, Dornan's ex-fiancee, tried to seduce Aud twice, once off-page in the time frame of the The Blue Place (well, just before that narrative opened, actually) and then once in the first section of Stay. The operative word is "tried." But then, near the end of Stay, they sleep together. They don't have sex, they don't even kiss, but they sleep together, the way kittens and puppies do, for animal comfort. To feel the cellular hum of another human being.

I wrestled for a long time with both Aud/Tammy not-quite-sex scenes in Stay. For one thing, it's weird to write a whole novel without a sex scene so it would have been soothing to have them go Woo-hoo! at the end there and get some uncomplicated sex with someone they are relatively safe with. However, the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it became. The hardest scene to wrestle with, though, was the first one, when Tammy needs Aud, needs her to show her some uncomplicated and physical love. Aud is a hero: she's wired to help damsels in distress. Tammy was in distress. She thought sex would fix it--fix her physical jitters, and fix Aud's stubborn refusal to just, y'know, fix everything for her. She was treating Aud as a boy-like sex machine. Aud resented that; she also knew she was supposed to be protecting Tammy. She also hadn't had sex for months. I got myself all twisted in a knot. Sex, as I've said before (see answer above), is very important to me. If some woman needs sex, to me it's as humane to give her sex as to offer a thirsty person a glass of water. (I don't feel the same way about giving men sex, maybe because of the complicated gender power struggle that's been going on for thousands of years. Sexual relations between women and men differ from that between women and women.) So it seemed wrong for Aud not to have sex with Tammy. I also knew it would be wrong for her to *have* sex with her: she doesn't like her one bit; she is still grieving for Julia. In the end--after much beer and many conversations with a very patient Kelley (much of which, for some reason, happened while sitting on the kitchen floor)--I went with my gut, which was no. The longer I've sat with it, the more I think I made the right choice.

Funnily enough, I'm going through a similar wrestling match with the new Aud book. There's one particular sex scene that I've written and cut and restored and cut again and lie awake fretting about at night. I still don't know what will happen with it--but if it doesn't go in the final book, I'll release it on the website because I think it's a very cool scene.

Meditative reading. Yes. Sometimes a good novel, especially one I already know, is like an hour of zazen, or like lying by a stream in the wilderness, looking at the white puffy clouds and chewing on a grass stem: refreshing. Re-setting. Soothing and smoothing and delicious. The best books, for me, are like that wilderness: more real, in some ways, than "reality." And there's that added lusciousiousness of knowing how things turn out; it's a sort of safety, like being an antelope heading for the water hole knowing that today there will be no surprises. I wonder if anyone has written an essay about that--from either a psychological or critical perspective. It's an essay I'd like to read.

From: paola (parvlove@hotmail.com)

A couple of years after reading your book ... finally I find courage to thank you for that, the only italian one...

Yes, I'm italian and the book is "occhi di cemento", "the Blue Place" in english I think ...

I'm sure that I shall not be able to explain the way you made me feel with your words, feel, pain in that novel... But I am sure that is the best book I've ever read ... So, I am here to ask you: why that is the ONLY book translate in italian?

I really want to read every book of yours, but I feel that reading them in english will not be the same thing ... I fear not to understand your real emotions. Please, tell me that there is a project for translate your books...

Thanks for your time and forgive my simple and basic english. It's a big honour to can write you, thank you!

There is another Italian translation, coming from the same publisher, Saggiatore (Marco Tropeo Editore), of the second Aud novel, Stay, but I don't know what the publication date will be. I'm sorry. But here's the contact info for the publisher. Perhaps they have more information.

And thank you for writing in English. I can't speak a word of Italian. I really appreciate the effort. I have several Italian readers who have written to me--three or four, I think. Perhaps you'd like to join my Yahoo chat group and post something and see if you could contact any of them? (Note: the chat group is not an anonymous kind of place. There are well over two hundred people on the list, yes, and sometimes it's very active--sometimes not--but I read every single email posted. I learn a lot. I've had dinner with a couple of people after getting to know them. We have people from all over the world.)