Elizabeth Knox & Spec-Fic Christchurch
Elizabeth Knox: The Angel's Cut
Well known speculative fiction writer, Elizabeth Knox, author of the Vintner’s Luck and the Printz award winning Dreamhunter/Dreamquake duology, was in Christchurch last night for an event sponsored by Women on Air, Plains 96.9 FM (the radio station and programme for which I do interviews.)
The weather was agin the event, but Elizabeth Knox has a dedicated following so the numbers, although smallish, were enthusiastic as Knox spoke of her love of the Fantasy genre; although, in fact, she describes her writing as “fantastic naturalism”—fantastic happenings (if I have this right) in worlds that are very real. For example, even though the world in the Dream- duology is not our world, the society described is realistically Edwardian. And in terms of topography and landscape, very like Nelson/Golden Bay in New Zealand. (You see, not just Middle-Earth.)
Knox also spoke of the current gulf that exists between so-called “literary” fiction and the rest of literature today, a gulf that led her to steer away from the “Fantasy” label with novels such as Vintner’s Luck, in order to be taken seriously as a writer. If I understood Knox correctly, she believes that the gulf is artifical and so-called “literary” fiction simply another genre that has cleverly managed to occupy the moral high ground of the literary world. She then went on to talk about what for her is the great attraction of writing ‘Fantastic Naturalism’, in that it enables the writer to step outside the straitjacket of realism, e.g. how the world really is, and/or the constraint of how history really happened, and make one’s own rules.
The evening concluded with a reading from Knox’s latest book, The Angel’s Cut, which is the sequel to Vintner’s Luck and follows the fortunes of the angel Xas in 1930s Hollywood. Audience members also had the opportunity to talk informally with Knox afterward.
Amongst the audience were eight of the incipient SpecFicNZ, an umbrella organization for NZ writers of SpecFic (including Fantastic Naturalism), which will be launched in Wellington in August, as part of Au Contraire, the 2010 Science-Fiction Fantasy convention. (SciFi, Fantasy, SpecFic, Fantastic Naturalism—as you can see, we’re definitey spoiled for choice of terminology.) Once the Knox event—definitely what brought us all out!—was done, we repaired to a local coffee house (The Coffee House, in fact) for refreshment and conviviality in what was definitely a first ‘meet in person’ for most of us. Writers of Epic Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Speculative Short Fiction and Supernatural Horror were all represented. Most importantly, a good time was had by all—and we have agreed to ‘do it again soon’ over the traditional long lunch.
It really was a wonderful night all round! I rather like the term “Fantastic Naturalism”. It’s a similar term to magical realism, but for those of us who don’t include magic in our fantasy. It was interesting hearing her advice for new writers too, very much what I’d worked out for myself, but it helped to hear it from someone in her position. Our get together afterward ended up being just as interesting, I’m really looking forward to the next one! (And congratulations to Andrew for not taking a horrible photo of me, the man is a genius!)
Well, I’m happy to agree that Andrew is a genius! And I agree that “Fantastic Naturalism” is a good companion to “Magic Realism”, but I don’t know about “no magic” in Knox’s work: I thought the power of the dreamhunters in the “Dream-” duology and the creation of the Sandman, for example, were fairly “magical” even if that word was not used in the books. Also decidedly “Fantastic!”
Oh, good point! I was so stuck thinking about The Vintner’s Luck, I completely forgot about the Dream Duology! Actually, Xas was pretty magical himself (at least in my head).
‘Fantastically natural.’ [Grins.]
Great summation of the evening Helen, and fun was definitely had by all. Now, I have to figure out what to write on my blog about the evening that you haven’t already said:)
I thought there were a few things in Elizabeth Knox’s talk that I didn’t cover, including her advice to aspiring NZ specfic writers (but I didn’t want that get confused with being my advice, so decided to omit.) Also that theme and subtext would emerge of their own accord. But I saw Joff taking notes so he may have a more comprehensive report on his blog. 🙂
I used to think that Elizabeth Knox was rather like Margaret Atwood – “passing” as a writer of literary fiction when, in fact, much of her work would be classified as genre fiction (fantasy in Elizabeth Knox’s case, science fiction in Margaret Atwood’s) was it not written by someone who already had a reputation as an author of literary fiction. I’m very heartened to see that Elizabeth Knox is now identifying herself as a writer of fantastic fiction – when a writer of her stature does so, it helps create a space within the New Zealand literary scene for other authors to do so as well.
Tim, another point Knox made (which resonated with me) was that mainly she strives to write the best fiction she can and that is nothing to do with the “type” of story she is drawn to tell. She also pointed to the long tradition of the fantastic in literature, which existed long before the narrow (post modern?) divide between “literary” fiction and the main body of literature was created. I think Neil Gaiman’s comments about “story”, and the diminishing value for good story telling in some quarters–in the article I linked to in my “Neil Gaiman on Stories” post earlier in the week–are also apposite.