You say "poe-tay-toe." I say "poe-tah-toe"

The first time I ever saw the word "Zounds," I thought it was a fine word. I was little and fond of words that started with Z, or with X because they often sounded like they started with Z (Xerox, Xenophobe). I had learned to read using phonics, so I was all about sounding words out. And so I thought that zounds was pronounced like "sounds" only with a Z.
I thought that for a very long time because the only way you realize you're mispronouncing a word is by hearing it pronounced correctly and "zounds" wasn't exactly a word on everyone's lips in Washington DC in the last part of the 20th century.
Then I encountered the word in a Shakespeare play and discovered that it was not an expression of amazement (sort of like "Outstanding," or "Excellent") but an oath--a swear--that was an abbreviation for "God's wounds" and that it is properly pronounced "Zwounds," which comes out sounding something like "zoonds."  (In other words, it sounded something like one of those old Zima commercials where they substituted Z for all the S words in the ad.)
Turns out that "zounds" isn't the only word whose pronunciation has changed over the years. Father/son actors Ben and David Crystal have put together an entertaining video illustrating the difference in modern and original pronunciation (known as OP). You can find it here.

Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling are at it again!

In March of next year, Tor is releasing Queen Victoria's Book of Spells, an anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy. The book will contain stories by Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen, James P. Blaylock, Elizabeth Bear, Kathe Koje and more. I can't wait. Thanks to the Mad Hatter's Bookshelf & Book Review for a sneak peek at the cover.

Four Actors You Might Not Expect to See Playing Shakespeare

Keanu Reeves--In Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film of Much Ado About Nothing, Reeves plays Don John. Don John is the villain of the piece and Reeves was fine in the role (and looked mighty fine).  Here's a brief clip of him as Don John, about to spread vile rumor about a lady.
Joss Whedon's next movie, by the way, is a modernized adaptation of the same play, with Nathan Fillion playing Dogberry. (In the Branagh film, Michael Keaton played Dogberry.)
Another unlikely Shakespearan is comedian/actor Russell Brand, who appears as Stephano in the Julie Taymor-directed production of The Tempest, with Helen Mirren as "Prospera." Stephano is part of a comic subplot involving Caliban and Brand is featured in the trailer, doing justice to the language. You can watch it here. That's Djimon Hounsou as Caliban and Alan Cumming as Trinculo.
Molly Ringwald was an uncredited Cordelia (the good daughter) in Jean-Luc Godard's 1987 sci-fi, comedy-drama mashup of KingLear, which starred Woody Allen as "Mr. Alien" and a few other big names (Julie Delpy, also uncredited, and Stage Director Peter Sellars as "William Shakespeare Junior the Fifth," which gives you an idea of just what a strange movie this was). Here's a short clip showing Molly with Burgess Meredith, playing Don Learo, her father.Five years earlier, Molly played Miranda in John Cassavetes' modernized version of The Tempest.  (Raul Julia played Kalibanos). Here's a clip from the opening of the movie featuring Molly, John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands.
Bill Murray doesn't often get a chance to do drama but in 2000, he played Polonius in a modern-day retelling of Hamlet starring Ethan Hawke, Julia Stiles, and Liev Schrieber and Steve Zahn as Rosencrantz.  Set in modern-day New York, the movie preserved the language of the play and in this scene, Murray gives the famous "Neither a borrower nor a lender be" speech to Schrieber, who is playing his son Laertes. For me, Murray never seems natural--he never quite clicks into the conversational cadence--and the language sounds stilted. Schreiber, on the other hand, is spot on. Stiles would go on to star in a modern-day retelling of Othello (O, co-starring Mekhi Phifer.

Shakespeare Silliness: Lori Handeland's Shakespeare Undead

In the vein of Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer, urban fantasy author Lori Handeland created the mash-up novel Shakespeare Undead. The title character is not the Will Shakespeare we've come to know and love but a vampire necromancer who has lived a number of places before ending up in 16th century London. She clearly had a good time with her Elizabethan-era zombies--the sequel, Zombie Island, was published last month. (A review is coming.) Handeland salts the books with lots of references to the plays (too many for one cranky reviewer on Amazon) and Shakespeare lovers who don't take themselves too seriously should have a great time with the book.
I love the cover.  I know the fangs are a little cheesy but if a book is about a vampire playwright...you need to go with the cheese.

When characters take on a life of their own...

I have been speaking to an agent (squee) about my WIP Misbegotten and he strongly suggested I put together a biography of my main character--paracrimes journalist Kira Simkins. I had bits and pieces of her in folders and files and notebooks and sticky pads, but when I started pulling it all together, I realized that she had taken on a life of her own. I invented two true crime books for her and Joy Sillensen, my go-to-gal for covers, whipped up a couple of dummy covers for me.
I like the covers so much that at some point, I might actually write the books that go along with the covers. 
I never actually intended for my paranormal Los Angeles to be the setting of so much of my fiction. Kira was just a character I conjured up for a story I wrote for John Donald Carlucci's Astonishing Adventures Magazine.
There's a comfort zone there, though. I've lived in Los Angeles longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life--though for an Army brat who moved every year as a child, that's not much of a boast. My first job here was working at Los Angeles Magazine at the same time I was a cityside reporter for the now-defunct L.A. Weekly.  I know my adopted city and am inspired by it every time I leave the apartment. Putting the magical overlay on top of the city amuses me, and the settings I use the most often--Griffith Observatory, Hollywood, Malibu Creek Park--have a magic of their own even in their mundane state. 
When Patricia Cornwell first started writing her Kay Scarpetta stories, she disguised details of the Richmond, Virginia setting. (They were thinly disguised and it was easy to pick out the neighborhoods where the crimes were taking place.) By her second book, Cornwall's depiction of the city was so accurate a reader who found herself stranded in the city would not have needed a road map to get to downtown, where the Medical College of Virginia (location of the morgue) is located.
I can think of other writers who have picked a city and made it their own--from Matthew Funk's New Orleans stories to the adventures of Janet Evanovich's quintessential Jersey Girl Stephanie Plum.
I'm curious--how often do other writers return to a favorite city? Is it their own city or a place they consider their spiritual home town?  Do they ever set a story in a particular city but leave it anonymous?

The Summer of Shakespeare is coming!

I am newly excited about the bard. And a conversation I had with a friend has  fired me up. He's never read one of the plays and believes he's not the poorer for it. A screenwriter, he is full of suggestions where Will could "show not tell" in filmed productions of his plays. He says when he goes to a Shakespeare movie  it's like listening to a foreign language and he needs subtitles.
He is convinced that no one in high school even studies Shakespeare any more and that "things have changed since you were in school."  (He's only five years younger than I am, so you can imagine how well that comment went over!)  He said listening to me talk about the beauty and the richness of Shakespeare's  language gave him new appreciation for the geeks who love to learn Klingon. 
He is convinced that I am operating with a different set of cultural references than most people and even when I pointed out that practically every single news article on the Nicole Brown Simpson/Ronald Goldman murder referenced Othello somewhere, stood firm.
"Why do you think William Shakespeare is the greatest English writer?" 
I told him why but didn't convince him.
So, I started thinking about the question. I started thinking about how falling in love with Shakespeare informed my writing and enriched my life.  And the result is going to be a summer long obsession with Shakespeare.  No matter what else I post, there's going to be a whole lot of shak3-spearing goin' on.  Hope you can join me.

Patti Abbott's Drabble Contest

Over at her blog, Patti Abbott has posed a challenge--write a drabble using one of several photographs for inspiration. (A drabble is a story that is complete in exactly 100 words, a fiendish literary form.) The links to the entries are posted at Pattinase, check out the others.

Here's mine.

Image of Unknown Cultural Artifact

The T’andoor’ii explorers had not thought it likely they would encounter any standing structures remaining in the explora-zone, so they were thrilled when they came across a ruined building that still had an intact roof.

There was much debate about the purpose of the building, which was too large to be a single-family dwelling but too small to contain a whole community. The youngest of the explorers suggested it might be some sort of house of worship but his-her suggestion was dismissed. From what the explorers knew of the dead civilization they were studying, it had been a godless one.