#WordlessWednesday: The Legend of Briar Rose

“The Legend of Briar Rose”, by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, 1885-1890. Photos from three years ago today, February 16, 2019, at the Tate Britain in London.

#ThrowbackThursday: Olympic Hockey

Seeing as it’s the Winter Olympics again, I thought it might be time for this repeat blog post from February 2014, written during the Sochi Olympics:

Steve ready to cheer Canada in the Olympics

I don’t give a rip about hockey. Oops, did I say that out loud? I might have just jeopardised my chances of ever getting Canadian citizenship. Oh, wait! Wait! Before you send me hate mail, delete the link to my blog, unfriend me on Facebook and refuse to ever speak to me again, hear me out.

It’s true, I’m afraid – I don’t care about hockey, and I really know nothing about it. But one thing I do know, and that’s that Canadians care passionately about this game. I found out just how passionately four years ago, this very Sunday, during the Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010. The Man and I wanted to go for lunch, and we made the mistake of picking the local pub to get our eats. We got into the pub, and it was crowded – really crowded. Maple leaf motifs everywhere. And there was such a sense of excitement the air was practically crackling with it. We did get a seat, and then we realised that on the big TV screens there were guys on skates, and a big arena – that, in fact, they were winding up for the gold medal game, the final day, the BIG ONE – men’s hockey, Canada vs. the USA (which tells you right there where our heads were at; we didn’t even know it was on that day). I tell you, it was just a little scary. We were there early enough to be able to get our food and get out of there before the game started – slink out, rather. It would have been more than my life would have been worth to say out loud what I just said up top there; the crowd might have just torn me to pieces and fed me to the nearest coyotes. Besides, we knew our seats would get snapped up the minute we left. So we went home, and the Man and the offspring watched the game on TV – I went and had a nap, I’m afraid. But when I got up from my nap, I found out that Canada had, indeed, got the gold; at overtime, in a very dramatic play, no less.

And you know what? I was thrilled! I was so very, very excited. Not because the game means anything to me, but because the whole country erupted in celebration. All around me, people were ecstatic. The atmosphere of triumph, of victory, was fantastic. And it was EVERYWHERE. To have won the gold medal in Canada’s sport on Canadian home soil – there was nothing like it. Canada was one big party zone that day. It was wonderful.

The 2010 Olympic Flame coming through our little town

I might not care about the game, but I care about the people who care about the game – so I guess, in a sense, I do care about hockey, after all. I care because others care. I care because I live in Canada, and Canada cares about hockey. I’m actually quite nervous about the game that is being played as I write this, Canada vs. the US in the semi-finals. I’m not watching it, because, other than the fact that I really don’t know what’s going on on the ice, I find the tension hard to handle. There are too many people to whom this matters so very much. As for the men’s gold medal game on Sunday, I’ll be sure to stay out of the pub. I might just stay off the internet, too, until it’s over – just tell me who won afterwards, will you? If it’s gold for Canada, I’ll be very happy.

Canada is terribly passionate about hockey – my boys got to watch yesterday’s women’s gold medal game in school, one in math class, the other in the school theatre on the big screen while they were supposed to have gym class. I ask you, what other country would put their high school classes on hold so they could watch a sports game? Canucks have their priorities.

Life, the Universe, and Olympic Hockey. I guess I’m a hockey fan by proxy.

The Story of Steve

“These are the chronicles of a writer and her stuffed bear…” So begins a blog post, in a galaxy far, far… well, actually, no, not far away at all. Right here, in fact. The chronicles of a writer—that’s me—and her stuffed bear—that’s Steve.

If you’ve been with us on this blog for a while, you’ll have encountered Steve quite a lot over the years. But it occurred to me that lately, he’s not been much in evidence. So I thought we could re-introduce him to our esteemed readership, and while we’re at it, give you—Ta-daa!—THE STORY OF STEVE.

The Story of Steve starts with Christmas quite a number of years ago. Truth be told, I’m not sure how many—it might have been 2007? “Nobody ever gives me any stuffed animals for presents!” I lamented. The eldest Offspring took it to heart. Enter: a small brown teddybear.

He was a Gund, and his tag said his name was “Aiden”. As anyone knows, when you adopt an animal, you rename him to properly make him part of your family (Louis the Cat was called “Sugar” at the SPCA. Yeah, no). So what to call this little brown guy? “Call him Steve,” the Offspring suggested, “because Steve’s a nice name!” That’s a quote from the movie Over the Hedge, in which the woodland animals are frightened by the sudden appearance of a hedge in their forest, and they decide to name it Steve in order to be less scared of it. For some reason that line is eminently quotable. So I laughed, and Steve it was. (The incriminating “Aiden” tag got removed in a labelectomy some years later.)

Steve spent the next couple of years hanging out on my bedside table. But his real rise to prominence came with my first ever blog post, August 1, 2010. I’d taken a course on how to blog, and the instructor said to never publish a post without a picture. So, I took a quick photo of Steve and stuck it in the post. “That’s Steve,” I said. “He’s better-looking than me, not to mention more photogenic, so he gets to have his picture in the blog first.”

Steve got popular quite quickly, being the designated cover model for the blog. He came along on coffee dates, he shoved in his oar on poetry and fairy tale studies, he wrote a blog post or two, he even acquired a Facebook page. (He claims I don’t let him on that page much, but, come on, when he has gone on he’s hardly posted anything.) He underwent a fashion makeover—from stylish bow to cosy knitted sweater—and he got several new friends in stuffed-animal-land .

He also came along on pretty much every trip I’ve been on in the last dozen years (except for the one where he was forgotten). He’s very portable, being so small and squishable. He’s been to writer’s conferences, family visits, sightseeing trips, weekend getaways, and once even a cruise; he’s seen Munich, London, Vancouver Island, Cambridge, and Stuttgart (mostly from the inside of my bag). I sometimes wonder what hotel housekeeping staff make of that small bear sitting next to my bed, and I live in dread of forgetting him someplace one of these days.

Steve writes poetry, but he’s never deigned to share it with me in a publishable format. He also has definite opinions on what stories I should write (they’re supposed to have bears in ‘em). Other than that, he’s a very restful roommate. At the moment, he’s hanging out with Molly the Plot Bunny on the bookshelf behind me in my study, keeping the print copies of my published books warm (he’s useful that way).

Steve has been a wonderful companion over these last few years. If you’ve ever considered inviting a stuffed bear into your life, do. I can highly recommend it.

So this, for today, was Life, the Universe, and the Story of Steve the Stuffed Bear. Stick around, you’ll see more of him. He’s that kind of bear.

#FridayFragment, 04.02.2022

The little boy came running into the room, coat tails flapping.

“Quick!” he cried, “hide me! They’re after me!”

Olive put down her embroidery.

“Who is after you?”

“Them!” the little boy wailed ungrammatically as he wiggled his way under the sofa. “The chief mages!”

“Watch out for the cookabon—“ Olive broke off as a loud yelp came from under the sofa. The chief mages, huh? If they were after that boy, that might explain the proliferation of such creatures as the cookabonna dragon under the sofa. They never could figure out how much of an effect their promiscuous spellcasting had on the whole community. Or perhaps they just didn’t care.

Olive hung her head upside down in front of the sofa.

“Tell the cookabonna there’ll be some biscuits available presently,” she said to the vague shapes scuffling around beneath. “And don’t worry about the mages. They know better than to come in here.”

Shameless Advertising, or: A Roundup of Stories

I finally, at long last, finished a book again. (I know, right?) Just to clarify, no, it’s not a Septimus Series book, it’s a standalone. And by “finished” I mean that last week I buckled down and implemented the changes my editor, the intrepid and amazing E. L. Bates, had suggested. So now, I think, the story is finished and is the best that I can make it.

So now what? Actually, one thing I’m considering doing with this book is to send it to publishers, to see if one of them might put it out under their label. And one of those publishers I’m looking at requests in their manuscript submission form that I supply links to my web presence, but only of sites that I use to promote my work. Umm, okay. Then I guess I better do some promoting. The publisher wouldn’t want to just see posts about my cat and my stuffed bear, would they? No matter how handsome Louis and Steve are.

So, yes, in case you were wondering, my books and short stories are still out there to purchase and/or read! There are quite a number of them now. I tend to forget just how many.

There’s the Septimus stories: Seventh Son, Cat and Mouse, Checkmate, and Star Bright. In between Cat & Mouse and Checkmate, there’s the short story “Lavender’s Blue”. The books are all available in ebook (Kindle, epub, Kobo, Nook, iBooks, pdf, what-have-you), and in print (from Amazon); the short story is free to download here.

The Septimus series is what started it all. It began with a blue pottery bowl:

“Cat was ordinary—until the day a blue bowl whirled her off to a magical medieval world…
Catriona, ex-librarian, dumped by her boyfriend, is just trying to restart her life when she gets sucked into and carried off by a blue pottery bowl. Suddenly thrown into a world where she can’t move for mysteries, how is this modern town girl going to cope alone in the woods with a comatose man and a muddy baby? And there’s that hint of something sinister…”

I do have plans for more stories in that series!

The other books available in ebook and print right now are the Christmas novellas: The Twelve Days of Christmas and The Forty-Dollar Christmas.

The Twelve Days of Christmas is the story of a woman whose boyfriend mysteriously vanishes on Christmas Eve, just when some unearthly beautiful people show up in town. Can Mac get Tom back in time before the Twelve Days of Christmas are up?

The Forty-Dollar Christmas is what I call a “here-and-now” story, i.e. contemporary fiction: a tale of how Liz tries to show her neighbour and his little girl that for celebrating Christmas, it’s not the content of your wallet that counts.

Again, both those books are available on Amazon for Kindle and print, and at most other ebook vendors in other ebook formats.

As for short stories, there are quite a number of them out there right now, and most of them are available to read for free! Go over here and follow the links.

So there you have it, that is Life, the Universe, and A. M. Offenwanger Stories to Enjoy. Get reading!

On Sleep and Having Nothing to Say

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

It’s what you say when you have nothing to say, as we all know. There, I’ve said it.

The problem with maintaining a blog is that one really ought to post something on said blog. Well, I haven’t been able to think of anything to say. Yes, I know it’s Wednesday and that calls for a Wordless Wednesday post, but I don’t have any particular picture I wanted to post today, either.

But then, it’s been two years, really, since I’ve been doing much of any posting, quite aside from the year I “officially” took off. And in those two years I’ve accumulated a lot of pictures. So, how about, for the next while you’ll get some retro-pieces? Retro-thoughts, retro-pictures. And the thing is, when I first started blogging, more than ten years ago now, I did warn my esteemed readership that this wasn’t going to be a blog “about” anything in particular. Hence the tag line: “Life, the Universe, and a Few-Odd Other Things”.

It’s been two years… And we all know what those two years entailed. It’s sapped so much of my energy, of my ability to think and to create.

I’ve just re-hung my Burne-Jones “Sleeping Beauty” (“The Rose Bower”) on my wall – a piece that I got to see in real life at the Tate Britain in 2019.

As you’ll know, if you’ve followed this blog for a while (or know me in real life), “Sleeping Beauty” is one of my favourite fairy tales. I keep thinking about why that is, and why this story holds such fascination for us as a society that it’s one of the perennial favourites. I mean, it’s kind of boring, isn’t it? It’s literally about a girl who… sleeps. But I don’t find it boring, and neither do any of the other millions of people who keep enjoying this story.

Just to get something out of the way, no, it’s not because the story is about the prince’s heroic journey to rescue the girl. That’s a Disney addition. In the Grimms’ version, which is the one I love, the prince does nothing more exciting than walk up to the thorn-covered castle, which lets him in because he unwittingly happened to show up at the right time. No dragons, no sword fights, no baddies to battle. Only sleep, so powerful it even knocks out the flies on the wall and the cook in the middle of smacking the scullery boy.

It’s the sleep that’s the real antagonist in this tale – and its solution, the way it is defeated, is to let it run its course. Once the hundred years are up, a prince shows up and the princess wakes. The prince is nothing special (apart from being a prince, but in fairy tales, those are a dime a dozen); he’s not “the chosen one”, he’s not “destined to fall in love with the princess”, let alone her previous lover who actively seeks her out to rescue her (most film versions of the story go with the latter, but, sorry, that’s not actually in the folktale). The only thing he does, and does right, is to listen to the story an old man tells him about the enchanted princess in the thorn-covered castle that nobody can get to, and let his curiosity get the better of him.

And suddenly there are roses on the thorns, and they part to let the prince in just in time for the princess to wake up.

Maybe that’s what we need to hear today: The sleep will run its course. There is nothing to do but wait it out, but once it’s done, there are roses and kisses and, unfortunately for the scullery boy, a smack upside the head.

Perhaps I had something to say today, after all.

Life, the Universe, and Sleeping Beauty. The sleep ends when it’s run its course.