Author name: Skiffy Fanty

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Month of Joy: Translation by Rachel Cordasco

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Many things bring me joy: books, chocolate, my kids (when they’re behaving), languages, books, opera, embroidery, and did I mention books? One thing that has recently been bringing me joy is translation. I’ve always loved languages, going back to when I was 6 or 7 and watching “Pepe le Pew” whisper sweet faux-French nothings into the ears of very uninterested cats. I started buying dual-language dictionaries around that time and never looked back. I’ve studied Hebrew, French, Russian, and Italian, and would have learned Chinese next but life got crazy and I’ve had to postpone it until…probably retirement.

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Month of Joy: My Favorite Books of December 2017 by Martha Wells

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This was an incredible year for SF and fantasy, both in long and shorter fiction.  There were outstanding debut novels and incredible new work by established authors.  So much new work was original and innovative and outside the box, it was hard to pick a favorites list. Back in November, I did a book rec list for the year on the Book Smugglers blog: http://thebooksmugglers.com/2017/12/books-year-smugglivus-post-martha-wells.html and I wanted to take this chance to add a few books to it that I read in December.

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Month of Joy: Finding Joy in a Fountain Pen by Keith A. Manuel

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One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2018 is to take up writing by hand again. I bought my first ever fountain pen, a Pilot Metropolitan, and the most un-holiday-ish Christmas cards I could find on after-holiday discount at my local big retailer store. I also picked up a nice journal and some color pencils. My tools are ready for a year of putting pen to paper. I’ll see how it goes, one page and one day at a time. It seems a retro, nostalgic thing to write this way, but I’m not alone. The Internet of all places is a good place to find pen pals. The prospect of having to wait a week or more for a response to a message when we have multiple, popular direct messaging platforms, Twitter and Facebooks public posts, email, and blogs for instant communication, whether to whoever is interested to read it or to a more restricted audience.

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Month of Joy: Pens and Ink by Anne Lyle

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When I was eleven years old I started at the local girls’ grammar school, where it was mandatory to use a fountain pen for “neat work”: homework, tests and so on. My parents bought me a Parker 45 Flighter, a pretty swanky pen for a kid, and I felt very grown up using it. That pen served me well through school and university, and for years it was the only fountain pen I owned, apart from a battered vintage Conway Stewart that I sadly lost somewhere along the way.

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Month of Joy: Audio Commentary by Alex Bledsoe

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As both a full-time writer and stay-at-home parent of three children, two cats, and a dog, my days tend to be packed. There is joy in my responsibilities, to be sure, but it’s often balanced by stress, doubt, and the sense of futility experienced by all artists (and parents). However, there is one tiny area where I do find moments of absolute unqualified joy: the audio commentary. I discovered my love for movies – and stories – simultaneously: with the 1977 release of STAR WARS, followed by years of magazines and books that picked over its sources and influences. And to this day, I love movies almost as much as I do books. They’re both ways to tell stories, after all, and the things that make a good story apply in both forms. And just as I learn from every book I read, I pick up things from movies as well.

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Month of Joy: Sharing My Joys with My Son by Maria Turtschaninoff

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This year, my husband and I have introduced roleplaying to our son. He was 6 at the beginning of the year, so we thought it was time. I never got to role play as a kid. I had the games, and I would have loved to play, but I had no-one to play with. I was the only nerd in my class (not that I even knew the term). I spent hours making characters, drawing maps, and planning adventures. It was difficult to plan the adventures, though, as I did not really grasp how the game was supposed to work, never having tried it for real. It wasn’t until I met my (nerdy) husband, who DM-ed for me, that I got to play. I love that we did that together! I even got to DM for him.

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