Check Check Sound Check

Hi, everyone! My name is Alyx and I'll be posting the occasional note here over the next few weeks, because Charlie was kind enough to hand me the mic. I thought I'd start with a long, musing whimsical thing about mincing subgenres and the nature of ecofantasy, because my upcoming book A Daughter of No Nation lies within that particular subgenre--when it's not passing for portal fantasy or a pirate story or crime fiction with magic.

Sadly, the opening of that essay is wayyyy too stuffy, at present, and needs to be beaten with a sack of oranges. Don't worry, I'll fix it before you see it. Anyway, I should introduce myself first, right?

So--official details: I'm in Toronto, I have gobs of stories out along with the four ecofantasy novels, the first two of which, Indigo Springs and Blue Magic, are chock fulla magically mutated animals, magical objects and queer folk. Seriously. I mention this last because a) I have the exceptional good fortune to be incredibly gay married to author Kelly Robson; b) my most recent book, Child of a Hidden Sea, was to my utter delight and astonishment nominated for a Lambda Award this year. The above-mentioned A Daughter of No Nation is its sequel. There will be a third; its current title is The Nature of a Pirate.

I do all the social media things, of course: Twitter, Instagram, Book of Face, Pinterest, all under the name alyxdellamonica.

Unofficially, here are five random medium-known facts about me:

1. The last four albums I bought were by Charlie Brand, Lord Huron, Corb Lund, and The Kills. The one before that was the Across the Universe soundtrack.
2. In person, I have a severe case of potty mouth and tend to use the Effbomb, as it's charmingly euphemized by the parents of preschoolers, in place of a comma.
3. I will alwaysAlwaysALWAYS click on the kitten video. Even if I was the one who uploaded it.
4. I will never click on the current news story, unless it is about climate change or other green stuff. I am not following the U.S. election. That war? No clue. Worrying too much about the state of the world, you see, makes it impossible for me to write. (I did try following the recent Canadian election and that was bearable, on a par with eating cold polenta because it let you get through a particularly trying day without having to cook, but I don't think it's an experiment I'll repeat anytime soon.)
5. Perhaps as evidenced by the polenta comment, I have occasionally been accused of committing surrealism.
6. I am, nevertheless, a kick-ass story doctor and teacher.
7. I am easily distracted. If you hate the idea of an ecofantasy essay, wave something shiny under my nose, preferably in the form of a question.
8. It's possible that counting to five may not be my strong suit.

Put another way, I'm happy to be here and look forward to talking to you all!