Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells
This month, #TorChat is exploring the nineteenth century and the world of gaslamp fantasy! Join us as editor and moderator Ellen Datlow chats with Catherynne Valente, Kaaron Warren, Leanna Renee Hieber, and Jeffrey Ford on March 20th at 4 PM Eastern.
Tor Books (@torbooks) is thrilled to announce the March #TorChat, part of a monthly series of genre-themed, hour-long chats created by Tor Books and hosted on Twitter.
This month, #TorChat is looking back on the nineteenth century and the subgenre gaslamp fantasy. Gaslamp fantasy, according to the new anthology Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells, can take place any time during the 1800s, and is primarily set in England or in places where the British had a strong cultural presence. Rather than being a narrow subgenre, however, gaslamp fantasy is actually rather broad, and can include steampunk, historical fiction, detective tales, gothic fiction, and so much more.
Joining us to talk about this emerging genre are four authors who contributed to Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells. Catherynne M. Valente is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen works of fiction and poetry, including the crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship Of Her Own Making and the gaslamp fantasy short story “We Without Us Were Shadows;” Kaaron Warren, the award-winning author of Slights and the short story “The Unwanted Women of Surrey;” Leanna Renee Hieber, an actress, playwright, and the author of “Charged,” as well as the novel The Strangely Beautiful Tales of Miss Percy Parker; and Jeffrey Ford, the multiple award-winning author of The Shadow War and the story “The Fairy Enterprise.” Together, they’ll discuss what, exactly, gaslamp fantasy is, and why the subgenre is here to stay.
The chat will be loosely moderated by Ellen Datlow, who has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for over thirty years. We hope fans of gaslamp fantasy, as well as those interested in learning more about it, will follow the chat and join in using the Twitter hashtag #TorChat!
About the Authors
ELLEN DATLOW (@EllenDatlow) has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for over thirty years. She was fiction editor of OMNI magazine and SciFiction and has edited more than fifty anthologies, including the annual The Best Horror of the Year; Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror; Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy; Blood and Other Cravings; Teeth: Vampire Tales; and After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia (the latter two young-adult anthologies with Terri Windling). She has won nine World Fantasy Awards and has also won multiple Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Stoker Awards, International Horror Guild Awards, and the Shirley Jackson Award for her editing. She was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention, for “outstanding contribution to the genre.” She has also been honored with the Life Achievement Award given by the Horror Writers Association, in acknowledgment of superior achievement over an entire career. Her latest anthology is Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells, co-edited with Terri Windling, which publishes on Tuesday, March 19th.
JEFFREY FORD (@jeffreyford8) is the author of eight novels (most recently The Shadow Year) and four collections of short stories (most recently Crackpot Palace). He is the recipient of the World Fantasy Award, Shirley Jackson Award, Edgar Allan Poe Award, and Nebula Award. His story “The Drowned Life” was recently included in The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, 2nd ed. Also his story “Blood Drive” appeared in the YA apocalyptic and dystopian anthology After, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (Tor), and “A Natural History of Autumn” appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He lives in Ohio with his wife and sons.
LEANNA RENEE HIEBER (@Leannarenee) is an author, actress, and playwright with a BFA in Theatre and a focus in the Victorian Era. A member of Actors Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA, Leanna works periodically on shows like Boardwalk Empire. A Goth girl with an enormous collection of corsets, she resides in New York City with her real-life hero and their beloved rescued lab rabbit. Her debut novel, the B&N best-seller The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, won two Prism Awards, multiple regional and genre awards and is currently in development as a musical theatre production. Her fourth, Darker Still: A Novel of Magic Most Foul, was selected as a Scholastic “highly recommended” title. Leanna’s short fiction has been featured on Tor.com, in Willful Impropriety, and in the new anthology Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells, publishing on March 19th. Her upcoming Gaslamp Fantasy series, The Eterna Files, launches in 2014 from Tor Books.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE (@catvalente) is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen works of fiction and poetry, including Palimpest, The Orphan’s Tales series, Deathless, and the crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship Of Her Own Making. She is the winner of the Andre Norton Award, the Tiptree Award, the Mythopoeic Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Million Writers Award. She has been nominated for the Hugo, Locus, Nebula, and Spectrum Awards, the Pushcart Prize, and was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award in 2007 and 2009. Sjhe lives on an island off the coast of Maine with her partner, two dogs, and enormous cat.
KAARON WARREN (@KaaronWarren) is the author of the short-story collection The Grinding House, which won the ACT Writing and Publishing Fiction Award and two Ditmar Awards. Her second collection, Dead Sea Fruit, also won the ACT Writing and Publishing Fiction Award. Her third collection, Through Splintered Walls, was recently published by Twelfth Planet Press. Her critically acclaimed first novel, Slights, won the Australian Shadows Long Fiction Award, the Ditmar Award, and the Canberra Critics’ Award for Fiction. Since then she’s had two other novels published, Walking the Tree and Mistification, both short-listed for a Ditmar Award. Warren’s stories have been picked for The Year’s Best Horror and Fantasy and Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year, as well as The Year’s Best Australian Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy anthologies. Warren lives in Canberra, Australia, with her husband and children.
About #Torchat
#TorChat is a genre-themed, hour-long chat series created by Tor Books and hosted on Twitter. Guest authors join fans in lively, informative and entertaining discussions of all that’s hot in genre fiction, 140 characters at a time, from 4 – 5 PM EST on the third Wednesday of every month. Each #TorChat revolves around a different genre topic of interest, often of a timely nature, and strives to provide a new media opportunity for readers to connect with their favorite authors.
About Tor Books
Tor Books, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, is a New York-based publisher of hardcover and softcover books. Founded in 1980, Tor annually publishes what is arguably the largest and most diverse line of science fiction and fantasy ever produced by a single English-language publisher. In 2002, Tor launched Starscape, an imprint dedicated to publishing quality science fiction and fantasy for young readers, including books by critically acclaimed and award winning authors such as Cory Doctorow, Orson Scott Card, and David Lubar. Between an extensive hardcover and trade-softcover line, an Orb backlist program, and a stronghold in mass-market paperbacks, books from Tor have won every major award in the SF and fantasy fields, and has been named Best Publisher 25 years in a row in the Locus Poll, the largest consumer poll in SF.