16 Comments
Jan 11, 2022·edited Jan 11, 2022Liked by Ellen Kushner

Great read! I love to learn of positive ways in which technology connects people that might otherwise not find each other :)

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Jan 11, 2022Liked by Ellen Kushner

One of my happy memories -- seeing Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick back in, I'm guessing it was the late 90s?, at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis, MN, and being close enough to the stage to hear him say, "Bugger!" when he muffed a note.

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For what it's worth, I am always very interested to hear more about your time at WGBH. I read Swordspoint in the 90s, at the behest of my friend Angel, who insisted that if I read it, we would become only better friends (she was not wrong...) and then your WBGH days and Terri's Endicott Studio blog kept me company through the latter time of grad school and post-doc. And, well, I've always been afraid to ask more about Sound & Spirit -- what it was horrible? what it was painful? what it if was better left unsaid? .... There was (and still is) something truly magic about Sound & Spirit, simultaneously daunting and delightful, and incredible intelligence that tackled themes and concepts aurally, always a bit of a puzzle, always edifying, always a delight.

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Sound & Spirit remains one of my all-time favorite radio programs.

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I love when you stray into memoir territory in these newsletters. I suspect it's unlikely that you'll sit down to write a book-length memoir anytime soon (although you should), so I'll take whatever snippets of memoir I can get. And I vote for more, please. I'm also grateful for the links to podcasts and vides you (and Delia) have featured in. It's hard to keep up with you two -- you do so much! -- and I don't want to miss anything. :)

I'm clearly going to have to read Beeswing, aren't I? Even that small bit you've quoted is tantalizing. Maybe I'll re-read Electric Eden by Bob Young afterwards for a full-on feast of folk geekery....

I've already got my ticket for the Martin Carthy house concert. And for the record: I still think Delia's novel *should* have been called The Famous Flower of Serving Men, and I'm still very cross that the Ace Books marketing department insisted on the change. The title aside, it's a fabulous book and ought to be much, much better known.

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It's People Time! I was in the Nutcracker, two years running. Party Boy and Trumpeter. The Redheaded Girl Next Door got me to sign up for ballet school.

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I knew there was a song you told me to listen to while we were chatting at WorldCon, and I swore I wrote the name and performer down, and then got home and promptly forgot and then holidays and ... thank you for making my life easier by posting the link to the Youtube for "Dominion of the Sword"!

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Ged is based, in part, on Le Guin’s parents’ stories of Ishi. Ever since I heard Le Guin say that in an interview, Ged has been a PoC in my mind’s eye.

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