Things that made me very happy in the past 24 hrs.

Yesterday night I went to sleep too late for my own good, but horribly happy, all because I started reading the essays and introductions and author bios in The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1. It's an entire award and, subsequently, an entire community on gender in sci-fi/fantasy! Two of my favorite topics! And this sheer geekery comes from only reading a few of the essays and one of the short stories. I'm really tempted to gulp the whole thing down at once, but part of me also wants to parcel it out. It shouldn't be so surprisingly that there is this sort of professional community around this topic, and while I've always known in the back of my head that it was there, it never felt all that real to me.

Embarrassingly, I went to the panel and subsequent signing on the Tiptree Awards (with Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy and Debbie Notkin) without actually realizing it was on the Tiptree Award. I think after reading The Jane Austen Book Club, my brain may have just stopped skimming after "Karen Joy Fowler" -- the process was probably something like: "Ooo, famous author at one of my favorite bookstores! Must go!" and I didn't even think about talks or anything. But I'm so very glad I went, and it made the people giving out the award and the people receiving it that much more real and close. Usually when I think of authors, they feel like some far-away deity creating works of art. But this was a dialogue! Discussion! A real community interested in this and talking about it and giving recs and reading. So yes, I was very, very happy. All the essays were fun to read, and especially the introductions. There's a good one by Ursula K. LeGuin on genre and the pluses and minuses of it, and how one can never quite abolish the idea of genre, despite how it often ghettoizes authors and books, because it's very hard to critique something properly if you have no real sense of what tradition it's coming from.

And then after I had read all the essays, I found the list of winners and the short list (or long list) in the back, and yes, of course my reading list has just tripled ^_^. Very few things make me feel richer than having a wealth of book recs in front of me. And I checked out all the author bios. Speaking of which, while I've never read anything of Kelly Link's, fannishly, you might find her interesting. Apparently Salon says her Stranger Things Happen is "an alchemical mix of Borges, Raymond Chandler, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

I can't help wishing that there were something like the Tiptree Award for romance novels. Is there? Do I just not know about it? If I made one up, I would probably want to give it to books like Laura Kinsale's Shadowheart, Megan Chance's Fall From Grace and others I can't think of. Anyone have more suggestions? In actuality, I just want the award out of purely selfish reasons. I want to encourage authors to write interesting, gender-bendy romances because that's what I like, and then there would be winners and short lists and tons of recs for me.

The other thing that has made me very happy is the large bowl of polenta with mushrooms that I had for dinner, along with angel hair pasta in a light tomato sauce. I think polenta may be a comfort food for me now. Also, the place we went to has really good bread. Food makes me happy. It's the season for comfort food now, and I desperately need it, because the waning sunshine is driving me out of my mind. I really need to invest in some full spectrum bulbs. Or move to the equator. Comfort food that I find myself hankering after right now: polenta with cheese, because there's something soothing about the slightly gritty texture of corn and the blandness of it helps offset the saltiness of the cheese, and it's piping hot. Creamy tomato soup with little bits of roasted garlic. Rice congee with preserved egg and pork. Large bowls of noodles in soup -- ramen, udon, pho. Warm, crusty bread that's soft and moist on the inside. Mashed potatoes.