Therianthropes away!

[mrissa]

alecaustin and I have our first published collaboration for public reading today! Brief Interviews With Therianthropes is live at Daily SF. It is not perhaps the most serious thing either of us has done together or separately. We had fun with it, and we hope you will too.

Comments

[redbird]

Nice. I especially like the were-unicorn segment.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We were sort of wondering whether people would self-select out into taxonomies.

[sheff-dogs.livejournal.com]

You made me laugh, good on a damp drizzly day. Thank you.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

What a crackup! I loved it!

I also want a were-puma.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

...is this a Smothers Brothers joke?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, talk about a blast from the past!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The Smothers Brothers fixed the book I'm writing right now. No, seriously. There are pumas. In the cravasses.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

That sounds awesome!!!!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Folk performance is my secret weapon when I don't know what to do. My Orpheus story has mice in because that's what I know about hell (dark, deep, full of mice). And this novel was missing elements, and I thought, "It's full of holes! Fissures! Swiss cheese! Cravvasses!.......well, we know what's in cravvasses......."

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

This is WAY better than the zombie or explosion rule. ("SOmething missing? Insert zombies. Or explosions.")

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, instead of "insert," I tend to ask myself, "What do I know about this situation?" or, "What do I know about these people?" And sometimes it's mature stuff like, "Well, she and her mother have this thing in their relationship where they have these random late-night talks about what they want out of life, and that really hasn't come out in the book yet, so this would be a great time for them to do that and for it to get interrupted by this other plot point event." And sometimes I'm like, "I know that there are pumas in cravasses! But these are not regular pumas!" The knowledge does not always have to be, like, mature erudition.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

*total nod of comprehension"

This completely meshes with my understanding of the messiness of novel composition.

[aedifica]

"Hundreds of years ago..." and then I forget what comes between that and "the nations!" etc.

Sure look like pumas. But they weren't.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Here you go (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIfl2o44zb0): "the railroads started in America." And a great deal else. Including the vast bosom of America. Where maybe some came over to visit.

Re: Sure look like pumas. But they weren't.

[aedifica]

Oooh!

That's a slightly different version than I know! In mine I think the vicious beasts were eventually identified as mountain lions who looked a lot like pumas.

Seeing that inspired me to look for their song "Chocolate".

Re: Sure look like pumas. But they weren't.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The summer before Grandpa got sick, my dad and I sat with him and the laptop and just watched Smothers Brothers videos on YouTube for ages once. It was one of those great things that you can't put on some bucket list or to-do list.

Re: Sure look like pumas. But they weren't.

[aedifica]

Oh, I'm glad you had that experience.

I suppose you could put it on a list ("Item: watch Smothers Brothers videos with beloved relatives [chose two]. Check.") but it wouldn't be the same thing at all, no.

Re: Sure look like pumas. But they weren't.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, and "[choose two--have others wander in and out and holler advice]" is even harder to quantify. So yah.

Re: Sure look like pumas. But they weren't.

[aedifica]

Yeah. (And I just IM'd Christopher "Mris sent me pseudopumas!")

[carbonel]

Enjoyable. And leads to thinking about population dynamics when were-animals are so common. Is there a tipping point where everyone is some sort of were-critter? Or is this just selection bias?

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it muchly, and liked how you were able to present an actual story in this format.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That was important to us, yes.

[aedifica]

That filled me with delight. Thank you!

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to have been of some service in that regard, and I imagine Mris is also.

[aedifica]

My sister also enjoyed it. We didn't *talk* about it, but I emailed her the link this afternoon, and then when I saw her this evening I mentioned the story in passing and she conveyed through body language that she'd enjoyed it very much (by a sort of grin-and-bounce combination she does that I suspect I also do but I can't tell), and then we moved on to whatever the thing was that we were talking about.

(The length of this comment is brought to you by my sleepiness. The content is not.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yay your sister! Who is a person and not a concept to me after last 4th St.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Awesome.

(The idea of good Chinese food in Renton strained credulity, though...)

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Consider the source? (Dumpster-divers are not universally known for their discernment, alas...)

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I too would look forward to the paper on the were-vole of the high plains-- I picture it being vaguely in the same line as The Natural History of Carnivory in Unicorns (http://madscientistjournal.org/2012/05/the-natural-history-of-carnivorism-in-unicorns/).

(Aw, poor selkie!)

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Liked it!

[coffeesvp.livejournal.com]

I have always laughed at absurdities and you are a masterful creator of the absurd. I always laugh whenever I recall a line from your last story. “Endangered?” said Pa Casey. “Hell, son, they're extinct.”

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That's lovely, knowing that it stuck with you like that.