On the evening of Tuesday, 3 January 2009, the New York Review of Science Fiction Readings Series featured a special evening of readings by members of the New York writers’ group, Tabula Rasa. (The name is apt. Writing was once described as staring at a blank sheet of paper—these days, a white computer screen—until beads of blood form on one’s forehead.) The event, billed as “The Writers of Tabula Rasa: Episode 1” (Episode 2, “Spawn of Tabula Rasa”, will be held on 5 May), was guest-curated by Richard Bowes at the NYRSF Readings Series’ current venue (through the next few months), the main building of the South Street Seaport Museum, at 12 Fulton Street.
Following brief opening remarks about future readings (and looking ahead to the Series’ 20th season) before the audience of more than 30 (the snowstorm that fell the day before didn’t deter the crowd), the Series’ executive curator, Jim Freund, host of WBAI-FM’s Hour of the Wolf radio program on sf and fantasy, turned things over to Bowes.
Rick took a moment to praise writers’ groups like Tabula Rasa for providing enormously helpful feedback and critiques, then introduced Christopher M. Cevasco. In addition to being a writer, he noted, Chris is editor/publisher of Paradox: The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction. Cevasco read a new story, “Une Mémoire de Chanson”, set in 1066 (and all that) Normandy as Duke Guillaume (aka William the Conqueror) is setting out to invade England. The “chanson” is The Song of Roland, and it haunts the focal character, a dwarf jongleur who believes himself mystically descended from the epic’s hero.
The second reader was Barbara Krasnoff. Though perhaps better known as Jim Freund’s partner, and the person who collects the Readings’ admissions donations, her short fiction has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, she is the author of a non-fiction book for young adults, and is currently Features & Reviews Editor for Computerworld. Barbara read “Waiting for Jakie”, an unpublished story loosely based on the lives of a couple of people she knew. As it unfolds, an elderly German Jewish woman reminisces about the ghosts of her postwar past and her return to life, happiness, and love. Though the Holocaust is a much-treated topic, uncommonly the story only indirectly alluded to her experience in the camps, and was quite captivating. (I did, however, have a small quibble, which I shared afterward with Barbara.)
After a break, Rick again took the podium, filling in for the third, originally scheduled reader, writer and editor Robert J. Howe, who had to cancel due to a last-minute professional commitment. (He will be reading at May’s Tabula Rasa, Episode 2.) The Nebula-nominated Bowes is, of course, no stranger to the NYRSF Readings, having read from his story in The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy at the anthology’s launch party back in May. This evening he read sections from a work-in-progress, “Pining to Be Human”. The grip of the past seemed to be, coincidentally, a theme of the evening. Here, a late ’60s college student reflects in sessions with his shrink on the magic of memories (and perhaps the memories of magic), moving between a contemporary production of Dark of the Moon (to which the story’s title alludes, its plot loosely based on “The Ballad of Barbara Allen”) and decisive theatrical incidents in his childhood decades previous.
The audience included Saladin Ahmed (another of May’s readers from Tabula Rasa), Kris Dikeman, Amy Goldschlagger (the evening’s fill-in gatekeeper for Barbara, and next month’s guest curator), Nora (N.K.) Jemisin, Andrea Kail, Matt Kressel, Gordon Linzner, Jon Messinger, Eugene Myers, Ama Patterson, Liz Rab, and Terence Taylor. Afterward, as customary, the guests and about two-thirds of the audience adjourned to a nearby pub for dinner and conversation.