Monthly Archives: February 2012

Artist of the Month: an interview with Arabella Proffer

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Justine, by Arabella Proffer

For February’s Artist of the Month, I’d like to introduce indie music mogul-ette and gallery artist Arabella Proffer. Arabella is well known for her wild but regal portraits of imaginary aristocrats from an alternate history that combine both the ruffs and corsetry of Elizabethan England and the punk rock styles of 1980s LA. She has a new book out– The National Portrait Gallery of Kessa: The Artwork of Arabella Proffer– from Cooperative Press, and she’s here to talk about her artistic inspirations and the story behind the genesis of her imaginary kingdom, Kessa.

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Hi Arabella! Where are you from? What led to you attend Art Center College of Design– and later, CalArts? Why did you leave California? Has your frequent traveling informed your artistic process?

I was raised in Ann Arbor MI, but moved to Laguna Beach CA when I was 16, and then Dana Point. I always found Orange County to be boring– aside from the punk shows– so I spent every second I could up in Silverlake and Hollywood. I always knew I was going to attend art school somewhere in California, since 7th grade really, so it was good timing!

I was accepted into a program at Art Center and did a few months there, but it was very geared toward design and I just wanted a looser environment. CalArts was better for me because I could take animation and film courses while being in the Art department; my plans were to work in the film industry because I knew I wasn’t going to get out of school selling $20,000 paintings! At the time, the program was really into installation art and uber conceptual stuff, they really didn’t like painting. I found myself taking more animation courses because it required so much damn drawing, whereas the art courses were a lot of lectures (mostly). It’s kind of funny to me that I went back to painting and dropped doing films, I totally thought I would be working at an animation studio or would have become a film editor. Continue reading “Artist of the Month: an interview with Arabella Proffer” »

Author of the Month: an interview (and giveaway) with Christine Pope!

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For February’s Author of the Month, I’d like to introduce up-and-coming romance author Christine Pope, who wrote one of my all-time favorite romance novels, Sympathy with the Devil. I’ve been a fan of Ms. Pope’s for a long time, since she was posting fanfiction on fanfiction.net; since then, she’s written an astonishing variety of short stories and novels, ranging from steampunk to science fiction to dark fairy tales to urban fantasy. Published by Pink Petal Books, Astonishing Adventures, Luna Quarterly and Dark Valentine magazine, Ms. Pope is a born storyteller with polished, witty and suspenseful prose that recalls Phyllis Whitney, Dorothy Eden and Mary Stewart at the height of her powers. Today she will be discussing her new book, Heart of Gold– a gaslight/steampunk romantic adventure set in the opulent late Victorian era– as well as fanfic, Phantom of the Opera, E.L. James’ “50 Shades of Gray,” and the perils and rewards of self-publishing.

But that’s not all. Ms. Pope is also giving away “Heart of Gold” to one lucky person who will then have a choice between print or an ebook. All you have to do is leave a comment below, and you’ll have a chance to win!

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Hi Christine! Where are you from? When did you first decide that you wanted to write? How did you come to this decision?

I’m a native of Southern California. I’ve moved all over within SoCal, but I’ve never lived anywhere else. I think I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was really young, probably as young as eight or nine. I was such a voracious reader that I wanted to tell stories like the writers I admired so much.

Who are some of your favorite authors? How did they influence your writing?

Of course this sort of thing is really hard to narrow down, but if I have to choose, it’s the writers I go to again and again, where I know I’m going to be entertained no matter which work of theirs I pick up. The top three are Jane Austen, Mary Stewart, and Stephen King. I’m not sure exactly how they influenced my writing, but a lot of people have commented on the sense of humor that comes across in my writing, and so I’m guessing some of that comes from reading Jane Austen and absorbing the way she would comment on human foibles. From Mary Stewart comes my love of the first person (which I know some people hate, unfortunately), and– I hope– some of her detail and couples you really want to root for. Stephen King… well, I’ve been told that people have found my books hard to put down, so maybe a little bit of that Stephen King page-turner quality rubbed off. Continue reading “Author of the Month: an interview (and giveaway) with Christine Pope!” »

Heart of Gold: a delightful gaslight romantic adventure

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I’ve had good luck with books lately. First Neil Gaiman’s American Gods; then Vera Nazarian’s Lords of Rainbow; and now Christine Pope’s “Heart of Gold.” It’s put me in such a good mood, that it makes me think my lucky run probably won’t last much longer.

Anyway, I first became acquainted with Christine Pope’s writing back in her fanfiction-writing days, when she wrote fun, very well-written stories set in the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings universes. After a brief spell where we worked together on the late, great Dark Valentine magazine, I became more of a fan, and I was happy to see her writing career start to take off. Unlike her previous novels, her latest work is a historical romance; but it doesn’t have a stereotypical Regency setting and plotline. “Heart of Gold” is quite a different beast– in fact, I can’t think of any other story quite like it on the market today. It’s a splendid, exciting gaslight romantic adventure, with just a hint of steampunk.

The story follows the adventures of Miss Lavinia Greene, a well brought up but inquisitive young lady who is called by her eccentric inventor uncle to visit him at his castle in Romania. But there are no vampires here, but a mysterious and handsome young assistant, a sparkling metal-clad airship, and danger lurking around every corner. After her uncle is murdered by a pair of nefarious Russians who are out to steal his latest invention, the assistant, Joshua Jones, helps spirit her to safety– but then he disappears off the face of the earth. Convinced of his demise, she finds solace in the arms of the roguish Earl of Langdon– but she soon discovers he is not who he seems. There’s gloomy castles, daring escapes, and more excitement than you’d find in a penny dreadful. I found it almost impossible to put down. Continue reading “Heart of Gold: a delightful gaslight romantic adventure” »

Lords of Rainbow: a colorful and romantic fantasy epic

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Back in high school, I used to read a lot of fantasy of the Tolkien-lite variety– mainly various “Dragonlance” books or anything involving dwarves, elves, or the shorts you’d read in “Dragon” magazine. It was not brilliant stuff, but it was comforting– and when I was that age, there was a certain comfort in reading stuff set in a familiar fantasy universe, where elves were snooty pretty tree-huggers, dwarves were burly gruff dudes with Germanic sounding names, and everyone started their adventure in an inn with buxom but feisty barmaids.

But after a while, I tired of the same kind of schlock, and I looked for other fantasy authors who were different, and who were not writing stuff set in the same old Ye Olde Western European D&D-esque setting. Well, I discovered Tanith Lee and later Neil Gaiman; but for the most part my fantasy reading dried up, since it seemed that decent fantasy authors with a unique voice where few and far between.

My stable of reliable fantasy authors is somewhat larger now– over the years I’ve become a fan of Jack Vance, Clark Ashton Smith, Ted Chiang, Guy Gavriel Kay, and GRR Martin. But so many fantasy books seemed inaccessibly dense and tedious, and were, God forbid, in the forms of trilogies or something even longer. It’s hard for me to keep up enthusiasm for a narrative when it continues for books and books. (I admit, I even have this problem with Martin.) Hence my love for Lee and Gaiman; they write lots of one-offs. But they don’t stint on their world-building either, their prose is well-crafted yet engaging, and their characters are always memorable, believable and with rich emotional lives.

Now, I think I’ve found another author who can write wonderful, distinctive non-cliched fantasy as well as any of my favorites; and that’s Vera Nazarian. She was giving away copies of her fantasy epic “Lords of Rainbow” on LibraryThing in exchange for a review, and I bit, because I’ve enjoyed her work in the past. It took me a while to get to it, but once I started reading, and I adjusted to her style, I devoured it in days. Continue reading “Lords of Rainbow: a colorful and romantic fantasy epic” »