B58 Mini Interviews with KT Bryski, Greer Gilman, and Marcin Klak

Welcome to the Boskone 58 Mini Interview Series! Get to know some of top authors, scientists, artists, and creators in the science fiction, fantasy and horror industry, why they’re looking forward to Boskone, and perhaps a sneak peek at what they’re working on next.

We are continuing our first week of Boskone 58 Mini Interview Series with KT Bryski, Greer Gilman, and Marcin Klak!

KT Bryski

KT Bryski is a Canadian author, playwright, and podcaster. Her fiction has appeared in Nightmare, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Augur, among others. She’s won the Parsec and the Toronto Star Short Story Contest, and she has been shortlisted for the Sunburst Award. KT co-chairs ephemera, a speculative fiction reading series occurring monthly in Toronto (or YouTube, depending on COVID-19). KT is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing, and she is represented by Kim-Mei Kirtland of the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency. When she’s not writing, KT can be found frolicking through Toronto, enjoying choral music and craft beer.

Visit KT Bryski on their Facebook, Twitter, and Website!

What you most looking forward to at virtual Boskone 58?

I’m looking forward to connecting with a vibrant, passionate community of readers and authors! I’ve always enjoyed Boskone (it was my last pandemic pre-COVID) and I’m pleased to experience some of the camaraderie and insights from afar.

If you were planning a holiday or vacation and could visit any location, whether in the real world or fictional worlds, where would you go? Why?

Prior to the pandemic, some friends and I were planning a walking trip across Scotland. I’d still very much like to go – sometimes dreams just get delayed, that’s all.

What are you currently working on? Any new releases that fans should know about?

Currently, I’m working on a novel based on faeries and body-snatchers (the 19th century practice of stealing recently-dead cadavers, not the aliens!). I’m also juggling a few short stories at any given time – you can find my most recent in Nightmare (CW for queerphobia/homophobic slurs): http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/tigers-feast/

Greer Gilman

Tiptree, World Fantasy, Greer, of the Gilman kind, Writes—and has written of Jonson and Cloud; Gives airy nothing a Life and a larynx, in Mythopoetical Ink, and aloud. Greer Gilman’s mythic fantasies are Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter’s Tales (Small Beer Press) and Moonwise (Prime Books). Small Beer has also published two of her metaphysical mysteries set in 1610s London, with Ben Jonson investigating: Cry Murder! In a Small Voice and Exit, Pursued by a Bear, which appeared at the Grolier Club in a 2018 exhibition of notable books in the history of fantastic literature. Her prefaces for Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Kingdoms of Elfin (2018) and Of Cats and Elfins (2020) have come out from Handheld Press. Her essay “The Languages of the Fantastic” appears in The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. Among them, her works have won the Tiptree, World Fantasy, Shirley Jackson, and Crawford awards, and have been shortlisted for the Nebula and Mythopoeic Fantasy awards. She likes to say she does everything James Joyce ever did, only backward and in high heels.

Visit Greer Gilman on their Website and Dreamwidth!

What you most looking forward to at virtual Boskone 58?

Conversation. Faces. I’ve missed you.

If you were planning a holiday or vacation and could visit any location, whether in the real world or fictional worlds, where would you go? Why?

O my. What I’m longing for is a gathering of friends from everywhere: fabulous company in an ancient many-roomed house with (of course) a great library, artworks of all centuries, a cabinet of curiosities, and windows opening on marvelous views. Gifted musicians and great cooks would be of the party. Private theatricals…

Hey, what book is this? Do I have to write it?

All right, we’re in a manor house in a wood between worlds. There’s a pleasant walk any way you set out: paths to any place at any period you like, or into any otherworld. If it’s countryside you want, you can stroll into May Day in the Très Riches Heures, or Mole End, with the carollers coming, or the Green Knight’s castle in midwinter, or a wood near Athens. Or if it’s cities you desire, you can spend your time in Harlem in the 1920s, or 15th-century Florence, or the Floating World, or fin-de-siècle Paris; in Xanadu, Heorot, Alexandria, Gormenghast, Time City, or Lud-in-the-Mist. Myself, I would head with friends (immune to plague) for Shakespeare’s London, to see the first performances of all his plays, not excepting Cardenio and Love’s Labour’s Won.

There are rooms for all, and doors to all your longed-for places. You’re invited.

Authors, artists, and creators often listen to music while they work. If you have a playlist you’d like to share or an album to recommend, please add it here. We’ll be compiling a list of lists to help Boskone attendees get their creative juices flowing.

https://nineweaving.dreamwidth.org/477901.html

What are you currently working on? Any new releases that fans should know about?

How do I hedge gracefully? I don’t. Like many artists, I got stomped flat by 2020. But as the world reopens slowly, slowly? I hope to take up and re-imagine my evolving story about Ben Jonson, John Donne and his unruly daughter, and the machinations of faerie.

As long ago (or recently) as 2019, I got to write an introduction for Of Cats and Elfins, a fantastic collection of Sylvia Townsend Warner?s stories, out from Handheld Press. It includes The Cat’s Cradle Book of the folktales cats tell their kittens, and her uncollected elfin stories, above all, the magnificent, queer The Duke of Orkney’s Leonardo. I also wrote and performed in a one-act blank-verse play, Little Kingdom. Scene: the Moon. Ben Jonson has been stuck in an afterlife, auditioning for apotheosis. Now he is joined by Dame Ethel Smyth, composer, suffragist, Sapphist. Opera ensues.

Marcin Klak

He joined fandom in 2002 and became involved in conrunning from the very beginning. He began with M&A conventions but later his focus shifted to SF&F cons. So far he visited over 200 conventions in 12 countries. He is an avid reader, he also loves RPGs and board games. In 2018 he became an European GUFF delagate. After hours, he blogs about fandom and conventions at www.FandomRover.com.

Visit Marcin Klak on their Facebook, and Website!

What you most looking forward to at virtual Boskone 58?

I firstly heard about Boskone a few years ago and I wanted to attend it ever since. I am especially looking forward to meeting other fans and feeling the convention atmosphere. I live in Poland and meeting fans from other countries and learning how we differ yet remain similar is a thing I really enjoy. I am also really curious about the programme and all the interesting items there.

If you were planning a holiday or vacation and could visit any location, whether in the real world or fictional worlds, where would you go? Why?

That is a tough question! I have plenty of places in the real world I would love to see but if I would get the chance to go to fictional world I would definitely choose it. As a big Tolkien fan I would love to visit Middle-earth in one of the relatively calmer periods. I think that the tour around Beleriand would be perfect. It would give me the chance to not only see the beauty f the country but also meet some of my favourite characters. Yet I am really not sure how Fingolfin would react to a fanboy asking for an autograph?

What are you currently working on? Any new releases that fans should know about?

I am not a writer or artist so there is rather no big releases from me. I am regularly writing about conventions for my blog (www.FandomRover.com). I also work on my fanzine but as it is published in Polish I am afraid most people will find it unreadable :(.

Curious about who else is coming to Boskone 58? With 3 days of over 100 top-notch items paired with top authors, scientists, artists, and creators in the science fiction, fantasy and horror industry, you won’t want to miss out. Join your fellow fans and writers by registering today!

Don’t miss out! Register for Boskone 58 today!