Hello all!

Well, I'm enjoying the last weekend of the official summer over here. Actually, I'm clinging on to it with all my might. That's because I live next to a school. And they go back on Sunday (the school /work week here in Israel is Sunday-Thursday). So I will return to being awakened at 7.30am by the gentle screeches of seven year olds at play a metre away from my bed. Ah well... you can't have everything, can you? But there is a lot you can have from the Bright Weavings world, so I'll end my lamentable bid for sympathy, and begin telling you what you really want to know....

GGK News
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> World Fantasy Award Finalist
The final ballot for the 2001 World Fantasy Awards, covering publications in 2000, has been released, and Lord of Emperors is on the list (yay!) The other finalists are Declare, by Tim Powers, Galveston, by Sean Stewart, The Grand Ellipse by Paula Volsky, The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman and Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Winners will be announced at the World Fantasy Convention in Montreal, November 1 - 4, 2001 (GGK is attending). Judges for this year's awards are Steven Erikson, Paula Guran, Diana Wynne Jones, Graham Joyce, and Jonathan Strahan.

> GGK in Winnipeg
GGK has now confirmed that (along with all the other Sunburst Award nominees) he will be appearing at the Winnipeg International Writers Festival, September 28-30. The award ceremony is on the Saturday afternoon, and he'll be doing a reading on Sunday night. So if any of you Canadians reading this fancy popping over to Winnipeg you could get to meet the man himself. Of course I'm not precluding non-Canadians from attending...

What's New on Bright Weavings
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> Yet More Cover Art!

We've been getting in a steady stream of new cover art recently, and this month is no different. I am grateful to Vladimir who saw the appeal for different covers on the site, and sent in jpegs of the Russian covers of The Fionavar Tapestry. Also new this month is the cover of the second book of The Sarantine Mosaic in German. Why do I call it the second book rather than Lord of Emperors? Because for reasons best known to them, the German publishers of GGK's work have decided to split the Mosaic into four books, so this is actually only the second half of Sailing to Sarantium. I expect German fans aren't too happy about that - I know I wouldn't be! Also new on the site this month are covers from a reissue of The Fionavar Tapestry in France, by the publishing house J'ai Lu. The German cover seems to be a fairly stock cover - as I mentioned last month, the cover of the first German cover is actually the one used in the American edition of Mary Gentle's Ash - and this new one seems to be taken from the same generic pile. The nice thing about the Russian and French covers on the other hand, is that whether or not you like the artist's interpretation, they were clearly done by people who have read the books:

New Fionavar covers: http://www.brightweavings.com/artgallery/covfionavar.htm
New Mosaic cover: http://www.brightweavings.com/artgallery/covsarantium.htm

> Teaching Literature
A new essay for the site - or rather, a speech. GGK was invited to be a keynote speaker at the 2001 Annual Conference of the Ontario College Association of Language and Learning, and I have the text of the speech transcribed on the site. GGK makes mention of some of the topics we're familiar with, such as the use of fantasy when exploring history, but he also explores ideas of teaching and literature that anyone who has felt the thrill and expansion of studying and understanding truly great literature will recognise. He's also kinda funny, which probably won't come as a surprise to any of you...

http://www.brightweavings.com/ggkswords/ggkorillia.htm

> Miscellaneous
There are a couple other new things on the site which I haven't mentioned in the 'What's New' section on the actual website, as they're minor - but still fun! A couple more 'How to tell you're reading too much GGK' hints were sent in by C. Anita Nunez (http://www.brightweavings.com/funstuff/toomuchggk.htm), and JB sent in an annotation about the Nightwalkers of Certando in Tigana and their source that I've added to the annotations page - http://www.brightweavings.com/scholarship/annotations.htm).

Tidbits
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We're on a Fionavar focus at the moment, what with our group reading of The Summer Tree on the forums this month. And with that in mind, with apologies to Stephanie, Dave and Joshua, I thought that you might be as moved as I was to find out that some people really use GGK's books in their own lives. What am I talking about? Well, Stephanie subscribed to the newsletter a couple of weeks ago, and in her comments to me she mentioned that her husband had proposed to her using the Fionavarrian tradition that Diarmuid revives in The Wandering Fire. And because she was the third person who had either directly or inadvertently told me about their Fionavarrian proposal, I thought it was time to share them with you. The others are actually out there on the web, so I'm assuming they don't mind people being told. Dave Kelsen told us about his proposal to his wife on the Fionavar list a few months ago - you can read his message here - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fionavar/message/13, and I found out about Joshua and Megan because their website with wedding photos links to Bright Weavings - http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/~jmadden/wedding/pictures/. And for those of you who haven't been told that the sun rises in your eyes, there's always the hotbar you can get from the site to adorn your web browser which has the phrase together with a beautiful picture of a sunrise. That's at http://www.brightweavings.com/funstuff/skins.htm.

In the Forums
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Well there's been some great activity on the forums this month, not least a group read of The Summer Tree, which has proven very interesting. But before I get on to that, a couple of other threads have been started/revived this month, also related to the group read:

> Which actors/actresses would you cast if you were making a film of one of GGKs books?
This thread has been going for a while, but it's been getting a lot of attention this month, and people have been focusing almost exclusively on Fionavar. I still maintain that Kate Winslet would make a great Jennifer. Jude Law is a popular choice for Diarmuid, although I'd prefer a young Cary Elwes or Val Kilmer (hey, it's my newsletter; I get to state my preferences!). Many others have been mentioned, for a variety of roles, including Ryan Phillipe, Billy Crudup and Cate Blanchett. So if you have any opinions on which actors/actresses you think would make good Fionavarrians, then have your say. In fact, only today, Alec took the conversation in a slightly different direction, asking who you -wouldn't- cast. One of his examples of bad casting - Britney Spears as Jennifer. Go see -and say- for yourselves:

http://www.brightweavings.com/scgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?6/14

> Would you go with Loren?
Elizabeth started this thread as a spin off from the group read. She asked: "If you had been invited along for the ride, to be one of the five - knowing nothing yet, as they didn't - would you? Suspending reality, if the opportunity really came your way, what would you do? Fear of the Unknown warring with the fear of everlasting regret and "what if I had..." There's been a mixed response, perhaps unsurprisingly, with some people knowing they'd just have to go, others saying they have too much to leave behind. What would you do?

http://www.brightweavings.com/scgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?5/103

> Fionavar Group Read
At the beginning of the month I put up a reading schedule, and a few points to have in mind as we read The Summer Tree. Points included the use of myth in the book, particularly looking at fathers and sons, looking at plot and character and how character growth directly furthers plot, and finally, what it is about the books that affects us the most. It's been a fascinating and fun exercise, and I think people have enjoyed it, with many people giving interesting insights into the book. I expect we'll move on to The Wandering Fire this month, once we've had a little more time to discuss The Summer Tree in totality. I'll put together another schedule, but we'll be thinking of the same points and themes as we read. A few interesting snippets from the current thread to tantalise:

Nic gives an extremely lucid exegesis on father/son relationships within the five:
Dave, like Paul, is an outsider; unlike Paul, however, he is what I would call an aggressive outsider. Whereas Paul distances himself through silence, Dave does it noisily ["Dave's heavy voice crashed in. 'I've got nothing to do with these people.'"]. He is all "bristling belligerence" - and when we meet his father, we see where he gets it from. Without greeting or preamble, Josef launches into accusation and hostility - covering old ground, to judge from Dave's weary "'what is it this time?'" response - and draws from Dave a "reflexive anger". The key word here, to me, is "reflexive"; anger is a defence for Dave, much as silence is for Paul or humour for Kevin. Juxtaposing this is the Kevin/Sol scene, affectionate - if also, in its own way, sad - in tone. Significantly, it takes place in person, rather than over the phone (which can be unplugged, thus preventing communication). There is understanding here; see, for example, the way Sol immediately gets to the heart of Kevin's frustration/sadness over Paul, or Kevin's reflection on Sol's attitude to Jennifer ["So through their short time together, and after, Kevin's father had treated Jen like a jewel of great worth." - love that bit]. By contrast, Dave's thoughts in the previous scene tell us little about his father beyond the Ukrainian accent - we're left to draw our own conclusions from the conversation itself. Kevin gives us background on his father's life and beliefs; caught up in the argument and its attendent anger and pain, perhaps, Dave has nothing to spare for explanations. Our upbringing, of course, shapes the people we become. As mentioned above, Dave seems to share his father's tendency to opt for anger over communication. Kevin, too, has inherited at least one trait from Sol that I can see: an inclination to blame himself for things he has little control over. Sol hates his own inability to accept Kevin and Jennifer's relationship; Kevin cuts himself up because he can't penetrate Paul's silence.

From Castiron:
An interesting name note -- a ford is a place where you cross a river, and Kim Ford is the person needed to make the crossing into Fionavar. I don't know if that was intentional, but it's nice. Anyone know anything about the meanings of the other names?

Bridget on Aileron and Diarmuid:
The Aileron/Diar thing parallels the Kevin/Dave relationship. I'd describe it as the charmer versus the strong silent type - I know what you mean about lover/fighter, but I always think of Kevin in terms of how he can turn on the charm in group situations, be the centre of attention. Which makes it interesting in this section to observe how he and Diar relate. The difference between the two pairs is that Dave reacts to Kevin with hostility, probably because of envy of what seems to him to be an effortless life. Aileron's reaction to Diar is dismissiveness, because he has no wish to be other than he is, and certainly wouldn't want to be anything like his brother. Dave doesn't really understand all there is to Kevin at this stage, and Aileron certainly doesn't understand Diar. Both Aileron and Dave have a problem in their relationship with their father, but in Aileron it's recent and so hasn't made him bitter in the same way that Dave is.

There's plenty more, but I'm not going to repeat it all here! In terms of general discoveries, we all love Cavall and the Dalrei, and the rest is there for you to read and comment on yourselves at:

http://www.brightweavings.com/scgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?99/100

That's it from me for this month. On the site in September we''ll be moving on to The Wandering Fire in our discussions, and no promises, but I might be able to bring you something very special on the site - original poetry by GGK! So have a good month, and keep visiting...

Till then,

Deborah