Margaret Atwood in October

One wonders if Margaret Atwood's Ellmann Lectures on science fiction will be akin to Salman Rushdie's eloquent lecture on fantasy literature...brilliant but apart from a distinctive voice, mostly nothing that many of the readers of this journal don't already know from less mainstream scholarly sources. (Rushdie's observations on fantasy considered as realistic literature were usefully succinct, however, and his discussion of body counts and motivation in the frame tale of the Thousand and One Nights was downright illuminating.)

In any case, for those who like to plan ahead, here is the announcement of the Ellmann Lectures at Emory University:

Renowned author Margaret Atwood will deliver the 2010 Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature at Emory University Oct. 24-26, 2010. The events are free and open to the public.

Her Ellmann lecture series is titled, “In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination.” All the Ellmann events will be on the Emory campus in Glenn Memorial Auditorium. The first lecture, “Flying Rabbits” will be held Sunday, Oct. 24, at 4 p.m. The second lecture, “Burning Bushes,” will be held Monday, Oct. 25, at 8:15 p.m. The third lecture, “Dire Cartographies,” will be held Tuesday, Oct. 26, at 4 p.m. with a book reading and signing at 8:15 p.m.

In delivering the Ellmann Lectures, Atwood will join a distinguished roster of authors that has made the Ellmanns one of the leading literary lectures series in the English-speaking world. Recent Ellmann Lecturers have included Salman Rushdie (2004), Mario Vargas Llosa (2006) and Umberto Eco (2008).

and for my few true fans

Since most of my readership probably still consists of fans of John Crowley, or occasionally the Master Himself, this may be of limited interest, but my best writing lately has been over on the Atlanta art-reviewing site burnaway.org; three pieces on the home page at the moment, all of which are of possible interest to the folks who followed me over from crowleycrow. URLs under the cut:

( here )

how time flies when you're having fun, or even when you aren't, actually

March 22 was the thirtieth anniversary of the Georgia Guidestones, written up in a story on CNN's website with the note that the identity of the late R. C. Christian will remain forever unknown (unless the man's son decides to say something) because, as the sole remaining witness says, "He told me, 'If you were to tell who put the money up for this, it wouldn't be a mystery any more, and no one would come and read it.' That had to be part of the attraction, to get people to come and read his 10 rules that he came up with." Makes sense to me, whether the ten rules do or not. Just one more mystery from June 1979, when the gentleman drove into Elberton and set forth his deliberately secret-laden specifications.