Katharine B Kerr

I'm hoping to get a reverse mortgage to pay for Howard's continuing care.  This means sprucing up the old place to get a good appraisal, and of course to get the house safe for the winter.  At the moment a handyman is busy caulking some of the windows that needed it.  I'm hoping he's solved the Mystery Leak into the kitchen, which is directly below these windows.  He'll also put in a second safety rail on one set of interior stairs so that Howard can use both hands to steady himself as he goes up and down.  Howard is not walking well these days.

If we do get a good reverse mortgage, then I can put some of the money into further work on the house.  It's our one big physical assest, though my mass of copyrights do have some value, I suppose.  In our culture, intellectual property has been so systematically denigrated that I doubt if they're worth much.

Sundays are the caregiver's day off. He tends to spend most of them in church. Can't argue with that.  After he leaves, I have sole care of Howard, which is generally okay, though there are always Moments.  At the best, the day is boring. At the worst, it's filled with grief.  Normally it tends toward that "not all that bad" mark on the inner meter.

The worst part about caring for someone you love who has this disease is remembering what they used to be like. At this stage, anyway, the physical work is no heavier than caring for someone with the flu.  On Sunday this time of year there is football on TV, which distracts him for hours at a time. He'll also nap, or sit and look at art books while listening to music.  We have dinner, and at moments we can joke and laugh. He has a few flashes of clarity. At times friends come over for a few hours and break the day up.

But oh my gods, all of you! Seeing what has happened to someone who was once witty, incredibly talented, full of quiet life -- that hurts. He now has trouble using a fork. Like a toddler has trouble. Think about that for a minute.  The very worst thing -- he still knows what is happening to him.  It's the hurting for him, not whatever I may feel, that really hurts.

Other days of the week offer long hours of work and distraction. Not Sundays.

    One of the panels I participated in at Westercon was "Shakespeare in SF". You can doubtless guess that I was on it because I edited WEIRD TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE some years ago.  At any rate, the discussion drifted hither and yon, as panels will, and ended up talking about the move to excise Shakespeare’s plays from high school curricula because they "aren't relevant to today's teen." The panel's attitude can be summed up as "tough, keep them! They’re there to learn new things, not be reinforced in what they already know.” And just how is “Romeo and Juliet” not of interest to teenagers?
   To the argument, “the plays  are too hard for the poor kiddies to read,” we answered, “If kids are only fed pablum, they’ll never learn to digest meat.”
  However, a teacher in the Los Angeles area pointed out that many students come from non-Western cultures, and that these cultures are generally left out of the curricula. She made a valid point that schools should include the great works of these cultures, too, in literature courses. I completely agree – but why take Shakespeare out? Cut back, maybe, on the number of plays because of time concerns, but everyone being educated in a Western culture school needs to know the man existed, and why he’s ranked so highly. The students also need to know about the great theatrical traditions of other cultures, Japan and its Kabuki, for just one example.
Besides, Shakespeare and the other Dead White Males of the Western canon are relevant to everyone on the planet who has ever come up smack against Western colonialism and White racism. Does the phrase, “know thine enemy” mean nothing any more? Knowing your enemy is the best way to protect yourself against him, her, or it. I am quite serious. Do you wonder how the British could have arrogantly set out to rule the world? Read John of Gaunt’s speech, and you will see the heart of British Exceptionialism.
  Consider how Othello is treated. Racism has deep roots. The plays display casual anti-semitism – Shylock was considered a comic character, remember, by Shakespeare. The brutishness of Caliban and his witch mother show the Elizabethan attitude toward the native peoples of their conquests better than any later mumbling about the white man’s burden.
  Relevance so often depends on where you look. Teachers who guide their non-Western students through the Western canon will find plenty of material that will speak to their students. Their Western-culture students just might find their eyes opened a little farther, too.

           I saw the case first on the local news websites. "Prominent Bay Area Developer found dead!" the headline ran, above a picture of Albert Harlander from the files: bald, chubby, smiling, little pig eyes gleaming with corruption. My dad had worked in construction for years in San Francisco, and we all knew that if Harlander could save a buck by cheating his illegal immigrant labor, or using sub-grade materials and slapdash construction methods, he would. Among the  permit and oversight departments at various city halls, he wasn't known as "Baksheesh Bert" for nothing. The news article stank of murder with its vague hints about mysterious circumstances and unexplained details, but it lacked concrete information.
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SORCERER'S FEUD will be out in ebook on August 12 at bookviewcafe.com, both EPUB and MOBI.

Eh, I'll survive, most likely. I'm trying to make coherent plans to deal with the various problems Howard's illness has presented me. And maybe write a little, because, y'know, that's how I make our living.

I'm a lousy photographer, but this will give you some idea. It's the big all-in-one in the middle. The lit up components are the old PC. I'm still figuring out how to get stuff from one to the other, but Steve has offered to help, bless him! A true Deverry fan! I'm sincerely touched by all his help.

( Picture here )

Today I finished a 6,300 word short story, set in Deverry, and including a tuckerization I owed a very patient reader from the Con or Bust auction 2 years ago. Or maybe it was three . . . Gads, life has gotten too complex! His character, Benoic, a silver dagger, will also appear in the new novel, which I'm going to return to working on tomorrow.

Eventually the story will appear somewhere where everyone can read it, but Ben deserves to gloat for a while after the long wait.

It felt good to finish a second piece of writing on the heels of finishing FEUD.

I also finished reading Chaz Brenchley's excellently creepy new novel, BEING SMALL. Must write him a blurb, as it's going to be published soon.

I have finished two rounds of the revision on SORCERER'S FEUD. First, I got feedback from a beta reader and my writing group. Did those. Then I went through cleaning up, changing individual words, and trimming out unnecessary bits. Now to write the "historical note" and I will at last be done!

Since my agent asked Tor to revert the ebook rights to SNARE, they have suddenly sent us email saying that they just about to release their edition! After all these years, too. Funny how fear of losing rights they hadn't bothered to use has galvanized them into action.