Category: Oregon

Categories
cats fiction Lethe Press Oregon short stories spec fic

heatwave!

Happy Revolt-Against-Your-Rightful-Monarch Day or whatever you call it.

I have not had much to say these weeks, what with Misses Charlotte and Jane not venturing into the terrifying outdoor world for a while, thankfully. A little earthquake this morning, first I’ve noticed since returning to the west coast although not the first to occur: the refrigerator shuddered, the leaves of the dracaena atop it trembled, and the building groaned. But nothing fell or broke. Also the area is enduring successive heatwaves with afternoon highs well above 90°F. Something I am finding novel about Oregon summers is that, however hot the days, the nights are cool, dropping thirty or forty degrees Fahrenheit between sunset and dawn. (I see too many dawns these days: also novel, and upsetting.) During New England heatwaves I sweated all night long, I well remember. The cats are not best pleased by the heat, languishing in decorative attitudes on the wood floors—I tell them to retreat to the foyer on the ground floor, routinely twenty degrees cooler than upstairs if unwelcoming otherwise, but they don’t listen—and my deck garden finds it stressful. This box of godetia and cosmos is pretty, though.

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The makeshift trellis supports sweat peas, not yet tall enough to be visible let alone to bloom. (There’s [invisible] scarlet flax in there as well.) The tall and blooming sweat peas in a different box are lovely and very fragrant.

Writing news? Publication news? Not much, alas. There’s a Top Secret Project possibly in train but I dassn’t say anything in public until a contract is signed. And there’s this, contributor’s copy received a few days ago:

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Huh. That title is not entirely legible on the laminated hardcover. Careless designer. ::slaps own wrist::

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I will note that this reprint is the author’s cut, so to speak, of “Shep: A Dog,” restoring some bits of characterization and plot-and-theme-wrapping-up the original editors chose to dispense with, and it can be read only in Best Gay Stories 2015.

If you were unaware, the publisher of the Best Gay Stories annual series* and all but one of my currently available books, Lethe Press, handsomely revamped its website a while ago. I could wish for an author index, but one truly welcome addition is a shopping cart. Yes, you may now purchase Lethe books direct and personally, immediately, help improve the press’s bottom line. (And mine. Not so immediately.) You might type sale into the search box: I expect you’ll find a Jeffers title or two at a scandalously low price.

*As well as the Wilde Stories annual, collecting a year’s worth of fine speculative fiction populated by gay men and other fantastic creatures. The 2015 edition, coming soon, will include my novelette of the Kandadal’s World “The Oily Man.”

Categories
Deprivation Ivri Lider Oregon self That Door Is a Mischief The New People The Padişah’s Son and the Fox The Young Professionals work in progress

oh, hi

Three and a half months since my last post. Wow. I never intended it and it doesn’t feel that long. The calendar says so, though: the calendar and the season, which—here in Eugene—is pretty definitely spring although people where I used to live are still digging out from under Snowpocalypse ’15. (Can’t say I’m sorry to have missed that.) The calendar, the season, the randy neighborhood frogs ribbitting all night long, and my beard.

Yeah, laugh if you want, I’m growing a fancy big beard. I never believed I could! One of the tragedies of my genetic heritage—I’ll never go bald up top but never have sufficient hair elsewhere to please me. But maybe I was wrong! (Not about my chest, dammit.) This selfie is actually a month old: there’s more to the thing now. I’m going to stick flowers in it like an Instagram hipster. And there will be flowers.

The crocuses in the wooden planter are nearly over and the dianthus above too heavy but I planted a bunch of flower seeds that ought to poke their tiny green heads out of the soil any day now. Lobelia, love-in-a-mist, sweet alyssum, sweet peas, nasturtiums. Iceland poppies and cosmos to come when I pick up a suitable planter—maybe later today. All suitable candidates. So, you know, I’m generally pretty cheerful right about now despite badly screwed-up sleep patterns and a sinus infection that will not quit.

Reasons to be cheerful:

  • Mr ’Nathan Burgoine was a vocal Liam fan long before I completed That Door Is a Mischief so I’m p.r.e.t.t.y well convinced this complimentary review isn’t all down to my naming a couple of characters after him (and killing ’em both off)…or dedicating the book to him.
  • I’d never even heard of Big Gay Horror Fan before my attention was drawn to this review. It made me smile.
  • Mr Jerry L. Wheeler of Out in Print has been kindly disposed toward my work in the past but I kind of wondered whether he had too many review copies in his queue to squeeze my new one in. I was wrong. And pleased.
  • Oh, and there’s a gentleman who calls himself Constant Reader when he ventures into the swamp of the Amazon. (I know his real name. He’s been writing me kind letters and e-mails about my fiction for, goddamn, nearly twenty years. And I, I fear, am a rotten return correspondent.) Just recently he took it into his head (to cheer me up) to post extremely thoughtful reviews in aforementioned swamp. So far he’s hit three, including the very first review ever of the M-Brane Press Double of which half is my The New People; Deprivation; and The Padişah’s Son and the Fox. Thank you, sir.

 

  • Mr Ivri Lider (him again, you say) released his new studio album, Ha’ahava Ha’zot Shelanu [This Love of Ours], last month. I was briefly too broke to justify purchasing it—a tragedy of epic proportions—but now it’s on endless repeat on my iTunes. It strikes me as his most varied, accessible, and foot-tapping group of tracks since Ha’anashim Ha’chadashim [The New People] but what do I know, I don’t understand a word of Hebrew. Anyway, it makes me happy. Word is his side project, the ¥oung Professionals, will have a new album out soon as well. Those lyrics will be English, I expect.

 

  • The black widow in the corner of my bathroom (I’m convinced it’s a black widow) hasn’t bitten me yet. Nor Curious Jane, who follows me downstairs nearly every time. You can bet I’m keeping that door closed. I had forgotten how much more creepity-crawly indoor fauna there is on the West Coast than in New England.

 

  • It’s not expected to rain today.

 

  • I’m writing again.

Least likely for last, eh? I have a new novel in mind. First chapter-plus and a good bit of background material composed since early February. I’m not prepared to say much about it yet—so the in progress tab up top will continue to default to Bedtime Stories for the Boy Himself, Perhaps, a worthy project returned to the trunk again—except that the working title is The Goblin’s Bride, it starts out in Eugene (right here in a version of this very apartment!), and the lead character is a girl. A young woman, I mean—she’s seventeen in chapter one. For the moment her name is Helen.

 

Categories
Ivri Lider Oregon self That Door Is a Mischief

odds, ends, bits, pieces

I’ve been quiet, yes. It turns out I remain as stupidly sensitive to inclement weather as ever, even after a transcontinental move and while continuing to take my meds. The weather turned inclement just about the time I installed the cats and myself in our new home. What did I expect? It’s fall, edging into winter, in the PNW. At any rate, my get up and go has been…spotty.

For the record, I define clement weather as merciless sunshine, 75+°F. Yeah, I know, I should have moved to Costa Rica.

the last rose

imageNot the last ever, or at least I hope not. The last of the year from my little deck garden, cut and photographed a few weeks ago before frost could turn it to mush. Because it was cold in Eugene that week, really damn cold. Not like the Midwest, granted, or even New England, but I’m out of practice. Thank merciful and compassionate God I wasn’t so stupid as to discard my gloves, coats, or longjohns when I packed to move west.

The forced paperwhites in the blue pot behind the rose are presently a yard high and blooming ferociously, while the other pots contain tender perennials brought indoors for the winter. Clockwise from top right: so-called French lavender (Lavandula dentata); lemon verbena; the last survivor of my collection of scented geraniums, Lady Plymouth; and Goodwin Creek Grey lavender, a cross between dentata and angustifolia (so-called English lavender, of which I have two varieties still on the deck).

the apartment

My brother and brother-in-law helped me move the last of the furniture from storage just before the end of October. These were pieces I couldn’t handle all by myself—inherited antiques that never made it into the Rhode Island apartment because they wouldn’t go up the narrow, twisty staircase and which I basically hadn’t seen, let alone sat on, for a decade. It’s lovely to have them again.

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Now if I could just get it together to finish organizing kitchen and bedroom….

notices

Jeffers_ThatDoor_hi-rez

That Door Is a Mischief has received a few reviews since pub date in September. I’m particularly grateful to Hilcia at Impressions…of a Reader, who suffered a devastating loss too recently and yet has continued to read and review. She expanded a bit on her mini-review in a November wrap-up. Novelist Ajax Bell published a review on her blog that made me blink and shiver. Discovering one’s work has affected somebody so strongly is sobering. Surprising me, Lambda Literary reviewed That Door only a month and half after publication (they don’t have an especially good history with me, spec fic, or Lethe Press).

Writer N.S. Beranek, whose story followed mine in Best Gay Romance 2014, embarked on a major project back in January, reviewing a short story a day for the entire year. I hadn’t been following her posts regularly but it turns out she’s covered five (!) of my stories so far—a couple nobody’s noticed—with perception and tact.

I am thankful and pleased.

thanksgiving

I ventured back to Roseburg for the holiday. I was thankful my sister chose to cook duck instead of turkey (I’m not fond of turkey), and it was lovely duck with lovely accompaniments, and an all-around lovely visit. Even though it rained the whole time. The Roseburg cats remembered me: Fritz was very happy when I ventured outside to fondle him (well, to smoke), Jüppsche and Cecelia were their usual genial (Jüpp) and skittish (Celia) selves, and beautiful Apollonia deigned to visit me in bed. Didn’t stay long—apparently my hip is too boney to make a comfortable pillow—but I was charmed and honored.

writing?

Ha ha ha. Well. Maybe. The conclusion to a longish story from the Kandadal’s world, begun in September ’12, is nearly solid in my head, but getting the words down is the usual frustration and battle. And there’s some stuff floating around that might cohere into my first science-fiction story since “The Arab’s Prayer” in 2010 (published ’11).

music

Mr Ivri Lider (I do go on about him, don’t I?) has a new studio album due in February. In the last few weeks he’s dropped two tracks onto YouTube and the usual online marketplaces. I like them both. A very great deal.

Categories
Oregon self

bittersweet adieu

Since the Event of Late June, my sister and her husband have been incomprehensibly generous—most obviously by providing cheerful, unstinting hospitality to me and my cats for two months. But the day of Jane and Charlotte’s parole has arrived.

That is, they will be released from inhumane (to their minds) confinement in a perfectly spacious and comfortable guest room, bundled into their travel cages, and chauffeured seventy miles north, from the Umpqua Valley to the Willamette Valley and their new home. I have myself been making that round trip nearly every day for a week, shuttling stuff from storage into the apartment. Nearly everything has been moved, although nearly nothing is in its proper place and I will be without home internet access for a period unpredictable except to the sellers/packers/shippers of the Wi-Fi hotspot device ordered a week ago. It is to be hoped I can track down a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi in the neighborhood to feed my addiction in the interim.

Not that I won’t have more useful tasks to occupy my time. Besides unpacking and rearranging and cleaning my god (the glass of all my framed art is filthy) and settling myself and coaxing the cats to come out from under the bed. Such as gardening.

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This being but the start of my balcony garden: a miniature rose (fragrant, astonishingly), two varieties of lavender, chives, and French tarragon. Since added but not yet repotted, a third variety of lavender, another mini rose, and more herbs. It’s been too long since I’ve been able to get my hands dirty in honest soil.

Yet every change has its sadnesses. Although they won’t be far—certainly not a transcontinental distance—and they drive up to Eugene frequently, I will miss my sister and brother-in-law’s everyday support, conversation, and good humor—my sister’s fabulous cooking—their lovely house in the hills above Roseburg—their cats. Jüppsche took to me almost at once, with his turtledove purr and sinuous, elegant whiteness. Black Fritz was harder to convince—Tragic Fritz, I called him, for his heartrending “Love me!” cry—but I will miss our pre-dawn assignations on the deck. Calico Cecilia eventually warmed sufficiently to recline on the sofa back and read the iPad over my shoulder. Gorgeous tortoiseshell Apollonia remains reserved but not unfriendly. I do hope I won’t be a terrifying stranger again next time I darken their door.

So…a bittersweet and grateful adieu to Roseburg, and off to new adventures in Eugene.

Categories
Oregon self

windows 10.14

New Microsoft operating system? Ha ha, no. I try to live a largely Microsoft-free life.

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New digs in Eugene, Oregon, for Misses Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen…and yr humble seruant, if they permit such indignity. (They’d better.)

The move in will begin this coming Friday. It is likely to be protracted, partly because of a previously planned overnight trip that weekend, partly because I’ll remain based in Roseburg for a bit, sixty miles (ninety-six kilometers) south, partly because nearly everything that needs to be moved in is already in storage not far away so I can take my time. Nevertheless, I expect to drag the kicking and screaming cats north sometime next week—new windows to peer through! New corners to explore! More space! Stairs to run up and down! No worrisome human or feline strangers just outside the door!

Perhaps I’ll even get back to writing fiction.

Categories
Oregon self That Door Is a Mischief

That Door Is a Mischief

Oh, hello.

After a very long time—or so it seems—my third novel, That Door Is a Mischief, is just about to go to press. As any thoughtful writer will tell you a book is never actually finished but this one’s about as done as I can make it before the announced publication date. Long stretches of the last three days have been preoccupied with going through the proof one last time (pruning commas, mostly) but this morning, resigned, I created final files for the printer.

So. That announced publication date is 15 September. Possibly the print edition will go on sale a bit earlier. For complicated reasons beyond Gentle Publisher’s control, I’m afraid the e-books will be delayed, maybe as long as a month. Apologies to them as prefer their books readable but not touchable.

Jeffers_ThatDoor_hi-rez

Advance reaction has been gratifying. Well, there was a rather negative review in one of the industry’s trade journals. I’m not about to link to it but, truthfully, I found it amusing. The underpaid anonymous reviewer misunderstood what I was doing partway through and ran with that misunderstanding, irredeemably distorting her reading of the novel’s latter half. These things happen.

But other pre-pub readers have been outrageously complimentary. You can see the flyleaf blurbs on the dedicated page linked above but these two I especially treasure:

Melissa Scott—“In this story of a fairy child adopted into a gay family in our own world, Jeffers slides seamlessly between impossible and all too probable, creating both in luminous, extraordinary prose. This is a novel of aching love and perfect loss, amazing and utterly unforgettable.”

Jeff Mann—“What a beautiful, beautiful book this is: haunting, romantic, powerful, and perverse. Alex Jeffers is an amazing storyteller and a master stylist.”

And so, what else has Jeffers been up to since last seen in these parts?

Not writing, I am not acutely sorry to say. These past two months it’s seemed more crucial to learn (or learn again) how to be a proper person with a loving family, caring friends, and benevolent acquaintances. Working a little, relaxing and reading a lot, seeing the sights, devouring my sister’s delicious meals. Comforting my own dear Charlotte and Jane, locked up together (horrors!) because they, unlike the resident familiars, have never been indoor-outdoor cats and are very poorly socialized. Gradually making friends with said resident cats and marvelling at the chickens (and rooster!). Opening a local bank account. Briefly succumbing to extravagance after long deprivation: new dishes I didn’t really need, a grill pan I really did.

But tomorrow! Tomorrow I will begin searching in earnest for a place of my own…and then we’ll see.