Books for Hope

         At this time of year it’s common to look forward to the next year, and these days most of us feel a certain amount of trepidation about the future.  Speculative fiction to the rescue!  Spec fic can remind us that no future is inevitable, that marvelous things are possible, and that it’s worth envisioning the world we want to see.  Today I’m sharing three (and a half) books to give you hope.

        A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers - This novella is gentle and contemplative.  The characters are few, the plot is sedate, and the most harrowing danger is self-doubt - yet in its own way, this little book packs a powerful punch… of hope.  Hopeful point 1: generations ago the world of Panga was very much like ours, careening toward self-destruction with fossil fuels, environmental degradation, and the threshold of AI sentience.  But before apocalypse, the people pulled themselves together and changed everything, giving rise to a new version of inhabiting their world which, while not perfect, is pretty darn utopian.  A big part of the allure of this book is simply the opportunity to be a tourist in this world and see what solutions they’ve come up with.  Hopeful point 2: there are no villains.  People are pretty much doing the best they can and trying to treat each other decently.  Another part of the allure is spending time with Sibling Dex and (eventually) Mosscap, two characters who are not only likable but lovable.  Hopeful point 3: The charming and beautiful writing is balm, giving an opportunity to draw breath and detox from too much hate-mongering news coverage.  (There is also a sequel, A  Prayer for the Crown-Shy, and I hope more to come.)  I enjoyed these so much that my kids gave them to me for Christmas, and I quickly whipped through my re-read of book 1.

        Binti by Nnedi Okorafor - Technically a trilogy of novellas, just think of it as one normal-sized book.  This one is not gentle and there are definitely villains and harrowing experiences, but it is nevertheless full of hopeful moments.  It’s beautifully written and offers a radical reimagining of how it is possible for enemies to come together.  Hopeful point 1: The protagonist Binti experiences the transformative power of reaching out to enemies — literally, physically transformative, so that she becomes connected body and soul with those who are the other.  Hopeful point 2: In a world that tends to hail as heroes only conquerors or “defenders” who defeat with violence, the story of Binti shows that the role of harmonizer takes even more courage, strength, and heroism.  Binti is in the genre of Afrofuturism, and blends harder sci fi with exploration of how African-inspired cultures might develop and influence a future space-traveling world.  In expanding those imaginary worlds, it has the power to expand ours.  This is not necessarily an easy read, but it is inspiring.

        Once More Upon a Time by Roshani Chokshi - Going to the opposite side of spec fic, this novella is a light and comic reimagining of classic fairy tale tropes, playing with what happens after the traditional fairy tale of the Twelve Dancing Princesses.  This is another fun and quick read, but it’s not just amusement value that gets it onto my list today.  Hopeful point 1: happily ever after isn’t static.  That means it may not always be happy - but it also means there’s always hope for more developments.  Hopeful point 2: It’s possible to find your way around and through and past all sorts of past baggage: dysfunctional families, slumping relationships, misunderstandings, and even curses.  It’s not too late.  This one is a small domestic romance rather than a galaxy-spanning political epic, but we all need hopes both personal and political.

        These books share a vision of hope, in a variety of ways, they share a faith in second chances (and more, if need be), and they share wonderful writing, which is balm to the soul in its own right.  Pick the one in your flavor of choice, or read them all; I recommend any 

and all of them.

        And for one more book of hope, here’s another foreshadowing plug for my own upcoming book, Bittersweetness & Light.  This will be a collection of my short stories, poems, and art, all of which are various genres and subgenres of speculative fiction, and all of which share the theme of finding joy and offering hope.  The Kickstarter campaign to publish the book will go live in just a couple of weeks, but you can visit the preview page NOW!

        As we start a new year, let’s make this the year we turn ourselves around, harmonize with our enemies, seize our second chances, find the good that’s still all around, and give ourselves real and meaningful reasons to hope.

A Bit of Hope

        Maria Popova of the blog Brain Pickings says that “Critical thinking without hope is cynicism.  Hope without critical thinking is naïveté.”  We need them both, of course, and strangely, they both seem in awfully short supply sometimes.  In the world of fiction writing, however, the balance often seems to fall away from hope, with anything that isn’t 100% cynical being labelled as too naively happy.  Happiness and hope are often accused of being unrealistic.  In 1969 E.B. White laid out the role of the writer with comments that seems absolutely spot-on for 2017.  He says,

        A writer must reflect and interpret his society, his world; he must also provide inspiration and guidance and challenge. Much writing today strikes me as deprecating, destructive, and angry. There are good reasons for anger, and I have nothing against anger. But I think some writers have lost their sense of proportion, their sense of humor, and their sense of appreciation. I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they happen to strike me.

        I’ve written about this before, particularly in my post on Happy Endings, where I point out that newspapers are full of bad news not because bad news is more “realistic,” but because newspapers operate under the belief that a problem generates more sales than its solution and sudden disaster generates more sales than the slow process of overcoming disaster.  As a writer I believe that I have a job to do in accepting and reporting the warming rays of the sun whenever they strike me, not mindlessly or naively, but in an effort to serve up ample helpings of both critical thinking and hope.

        Maria Popova concludes beautifully,  Yes, people sometimes do horrible things, and we can speculate about why they do them until we run out of words and sanity. But evil only prevails when we mistake it for the norm. There is so much goodness in the world — all we have to do is remind one another of it, show up for it, and refuse to leave.

[Picture: O What A Beautiful City, wood block print from Walk Together Children: Black American Spirituals by Ashley Bryan, Atheneum, 1974.]

Quotations from The Paris Review Interviews, vol. IV, and Brain Pickings, where you can read Popova’s whole article “Hope, Cynicism, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves.”

A Desperate Little Exhortation About (Bitter)Sweetness and Light

         Hooray!  My Kickstarter campaign is fully funded, and my book Bittersweetness & Light will really be happening!  I’m so glad and grateful that this project will be shared with the world… And yet… let me share a couple of recent conversations that gave me pause…

        During a reading I was explaining that my book was meant to give hope and joy, and that my stories are always guaranteed to offer some sort of “happy ending.”  A lovely and well-meaning person responded eagerly, “Oh yes!  Sometimes you just need a fluffy beach-read!  And other times you need something with more depth to really engage in, so it’s so important to have both kinds of books.”  In another conversation a couple of days later I suggested that movies and other media that are nothing but unrelieved doom and gloom, misery and blame, don’t necessarily motivate people to work for good.  The immediate reply was a disparaging, “Right, Ignorance is bliss.”  The automatic assumption I keep facing is that anything that isn’t dark and painful must be shallow and mindless; that happiness is “fluffy;” and that only violence and misery are “real” or worthy of serious engagement.

        Well, I’m serious about joy.  I absolutely believe that joy and hope are real, important, engaging, and worthy of deep consideration.  I have no problem with “fluffy beach-reads” and the occasional escapism (and indeed, some of the stories to be included in my book are certainly “fluffier” than others!)  But it drives me crazy and breaks my heart that people can’t even imagine that a “happy ending” could have substance.  It doesn’t even cross their minds that anyone serious, intelligent, well-informed, and rational could share causes for joy or reasons to hope; if you’re not wallowing in misery, you must be burying your head in the sand.

        Let’s break down these assumptions.  For some time now the whole world (and certainly myself) have been suffering from unhealthy levels of stress, trauma, and anxiety.  Obviously this is partly because there are so many real, serious things going on that of course cause stress — but it’s also because we are so immersed in the bad news that we never get a chance to focus on the good things.  It’s because there are forces in this world that actually benefit by keeping us too depressed and cynical to stand up against injustice.  It’s because our species is actually hard-wired to be hyper alert to every possible danger and focus more on the things that might go wrong.  It’s because even when we try to fight injustice, we just end up beating ourselves up and burning ourselves out.  In the face of all these reasons, it is actually an act of fierce defiance to acknowledge joy.  To stand up and claim that Goodness does exist, that Love is powerful, that Joy is possible, and that we all need to work harder at finding that joy, and sharing it with each other.

        I keep trying to spread that message, but honestly, these conversations coming one after another gave me a bit of a crisis of confidence.  Clearly whatever I’m saying doesn’t seem to communicate the point I’m trying to make: that one can look at a world that is broken, full of suffering, and feeling ever more precarious, and yet still see that there also exists infinite beauty, capacity for love, and possibility of redemption – and more than that, we need to take a long, hard, serious look at all that beauty, love, and possibility if we’re going to have any chance of surviving these threats and making things better.  Maybe I’m not the right person to be the messenger, if apparently I don’t seem to be very effective at expressing the message.  Still, I have to keep trying – because I do still have hope - and Bittersweetness & Light is part of how I’m still trying, as one small person with just a small voice.

        So, I’m serious about joy, but that absolutely does not mean that I’m now turning “joy,” too, into something drearily dutiful.  This collection of stories, poems, and art is serious in the sense that I hope it will engage you, make you think, and reach somewhere deep in your heart – but that doesn’t mean it has to be serious in the sense of somber, dark, and depressing.  I hope this book will be make you happy and lift your spirits!  I hope it will be entertaining to read, fun to look at, and delightful to your mind, heart, and soul.

        I suggest you try a little exercise: pay attention as you go through your day and start noticing how often you encounter those assumptions that only the bad, mad, sad stuff is worthy of serious consideration – or tend to make such assumptions yourself!  Start pushing back against them, and keep reminding others (and yourself) that joy is real and that we need to share it with each other.  Let me know how it goes, because I need all the help I can get!  And if you do want to join in the Kickstarter campaign for Bittersweetness & Light, you have just one more day!  The campaign ends just before the stroke of midnight on February 13, so procrastinate no longer, but come share my joy in this!

H is for Haiku

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi.  I’ll be sharing lots of excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, and I’ll also be sharing some of the background on why we urgently need joyful stories.  Also, be sure to check out the Master List of A to Z bloggers.)

        As I explain in the End Notes, “I’m honestly not usually a fan of haiku – you can tell by the other poems in this book that I tend to revel in the English language the way Scrooge McDuck revels in a pile of gold coins.  But sometimes all I have is a very simple observation, for which a very simple poem is enough.”  So here’s the haiku that appears in my book:

        Each dandelion

    Lives its tiny galaxy:

Sun, then moon, then stars.

        I like dandelions, somewhat to the chagrin of some of my neighbors with more “perfect” lawns, and I think they’re absolutely magical.  Every child knows that dandelions are something special, and if you find that you’ve forgotten that, I hope you’ll take a moment and try to remember how it feels to know that so much wonder really is everywhere.

        H is also for hope, and hope is a muscle that grows stronger with exercise.  Be sure to keep yours in shape, because the stronger your hope muscle is, the more miracles you can accomplish.

        Marketing Moral: “Signal Boost.”  Follow, like, and share my social media posts.  The more engagement something gets, the more it will be raised up by the algorithms of our AI overlords.  Just like dandelion seeds on the wind, every little bit helps spread the word.  (I don’t actually do a ton of social media myself, but in addition to this blog, I’ve got Instagram here.)

        Proper Moral:  Dandelions can survive almost anything, and indeed take over desolate wastelands, because of two traits: deep roots, and generous sharing of their gifts.  Don’t you find that suggestive?

        How do you feel about dandelions?  Or are there other weeds that you especially love or hate?

[Picture: Dandelion Sun, Moon, and Stars, rubber block prints plus digital drawing by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]

Theme Revelation: Stories, Poems, and Art

         Now that I’ve been participating in the April A to Z Blog Challenge for many years, I can lead up to this year’s Theme Revelation by way of a little review of themes of the past.

        Did you enjoy last year’s mythical botany in 2024?  This year I’ll have magical dandelions and mushrooms.  If you’ve enjoyed all the fantastical creatures in 2022, 2019, 2018, and 2017, allow me to assure you that this year there will be strange and mysterious creatures including Rainlings, Venusians, ineffable feathersquids, witches’ familiars, a Blue Thing, and of course dragons, to name just a few.  If you enjoyed the magical places we visited in 2021, this year we’ll be travelling to Xyblik’s Cosmic Emporium, the Yem-Thress Zone of Contention, the Home for Dispossessed Familiars, the cloud decks of Venus, and many other strange worlds.  Or perhaps you enjoyed the block prints I featured in 2023, 2020, 2019, and 2017?  Well, I’ll once again be featuring block prints as the vast majority of the illustrations, and this year the block prints will all be my own.  If you enjoyed snippets from my own writing in 2019 and 2018, I’ll be featuring more of my work this year.  And I’ll even continue with my A to Z custom of ending each letter with a moral (or two), because what’s the point of having a pulpit if you can’t preach a bit?

        Here are all those previous years, if you need a quick review…

2024 - The Botany of the Realms of Imagination

2023 - Alphabet Squared: an Alphabet of Block Printed Alphabets

2022 - How to Make a Mythical Creature

2021 - Mythical and Imaginary Places

2020 - Nursery Rhymes (and their Block Printed Illustrations)

2019 - On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination

2018 - Characters from My Own Books

2017 - Block Print Artists

2016 - Mythical Creatures

        And now… What is the theme that allows me to include a sampling of all this most excellent stuff that I hope you’ve enjoyed through the years?  Why, it’s my new book: Bittersweetness & Light, a collection of magical short stories, poetry, and art!  All through the alphabet I’ll be sharing snippets from the book, teasers, fun facts, behind-the-scenes insights, illustrations, and more.  The book was released in January, and has been doing its best since then to bring a little joy and hope into the world wherever it goes.  Goodness knows we need as much sweetness and light as possible, so I hope you’ll join us.

        To start us off today, I’ve got Felicity & Comfort’s Bottled Purrs, the Original & Best Surefire Remedy for Listlessness, Melancholy, Loneliness, & Chills!  Shown here is the version that appears in the book, with colors added digitally from the black and white original, which is a rubber block print.  I find that purrs are utterly fascinating from a scientific standpoint, and also a bit of a mystery as to why humans should find this random animal sound so marvelously comforting.  But whatever the reason, they are definitely a panacea - and when you get them bottled, you don’t even need to worry about allergies!  It’s wise to stock up and make sure you always have plenty on hand, for yourself and to share.

        In my standard A to Z tradition, I’ll be starting early so that I can take a few days off during the month of April.  Join me in getting a jump on the alphabet, or come back in April, when I’ll direct you each day to the correct letter so you can stick with the proper schedule if you prefer.  Either way, I’ll see you soon!

        The moral of this introduction is that I’ll be spending the month trying to show you why my book is almost as good as purring.  But also, the more overwhelming Things feel, the more important it is that we keep reaching out to each other - friends and strangers alike - with all the wisdom, joy, beauty, hope, and humor we can summon.  And since that’s what the A to Z Blog Challenge can do, that’s why I’m here, and that’s why I hope you’ll join me.  To see who else is revealing their A to Z theme, look here.

        Question: Cats or dogs?  Should Felicity & Comfort try bottling tail-wagging, too?

[Picture: Sustainably Harvested, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2020 (originals sold out), from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]

Bittersweetness, Light, and Love

        Back in January I launched a Kickstarter campaign for Bittersweetness & Light, a collection of stories, poems, and art.  One common theme of the work is that it’s all various flavors and genres of speculative fiction (sci fi and fantasy), and the other common theme is that it’s all about looking for the best in others and the world, affirming joy, and finding reasons for hope.  As I’ve been putting this book together over the course of the year, the clouds of anxiety have continued to gather, so that it has indeed been bittersweet to be bringing out a book about hope just when I and so many people I know have been feeling such a desperate need for it.  And as I’ve been shipping out the finished books to my Kickstarter backers over the past week, my heart has been torn in two.  Half of me feels like it’s petty and pathetic to be talking about a mere book in such desperate times, but the other half of me truly believes that sharing our stories of hope and love is actually one of the most important things we can be doing right now.  Only if we can build up our connections with each other, only if  we can reach out to each other with our stories, and only if we can encourage each other to keep looking for the good all around and never stop loving… only then can we survive.

        Already I’ve heard from a few people that receiving the book this week was exactly what they needed, and that gives me hope that this whole project is indeed worthwhile.  Whenever I feel helpless and it all seems pointless, I keep reminding myself of the words of Joey Hartmann-Dow: Art changes people, and people change the world.

        If you backed my Kickstarter and haven’t yet received your book, I'm taking the last batch to the post office tomorrow, so you should look for it in your mailbox soon!  If you didn’t get in on the Kickstarter campaign but are curious about the book, you still have to wait a little while.  The Kickstarter backers are all getting advance copies, and the official release is not until January 6, 2025.  However, I am hoping to figure out how to make it available for pre-order by the end of this month or December, so I’ll be sure to let the world know if I can make that happen.  In the meanwhile, don't forget to look for instances of love and kindness, and whenever you find joy and hope, be sure to share it!

        To help with this desperate need for us to send each other love, I’ve made a new set of notecards based on a bunch of my block prints that focus on messages of love.  I send emails all the time, and texting certainly has its value, but a handwritten card is still something special.  What do you think?  What’s your favorite way to reach out to friends and family?

[Bittersweetness & Light, by AEGNydam, info at NydamPrints.com;

Love cards, designs by AEGNydam, at NydamPrints.com.]

#AtoZChallenge

        I will once again be participating in the April A to Z Blog Challenge this year, and it’s time for the Theme Revelation.  *Cue the fanfare*  For 2019 I will be featuring fantastical creatures from my upcoming bestiary, On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination.  I’ve featured lots of these wonderful animals before, plus lots of other alphabetical mythical creatures, too.  On the one hand, it would be no fun merely to copy previous posts, but on the other, I want to make sure interested readers get the maximum alphabetical creature goodness,  so this year’s A-Z posts will be heavy on the links.  If you want to get the full content for each letter, you will have to click through to additional posts.  Of course I hope to entice you by including lots of new content, as well.

        So, what exactly is a bestiary, and what is my book all about?  From the explanation in the book:  Especially popular around the twelfth century, bestiaries were best-sellers of Medieval Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.  Bestiaries are, of course, collections of beasts, but the medieval ones that the word "bestiary" usually implies include not only natural history, but also all sorts of symbolism, moral lessons, and what we now believe to be sheer fairy tale.

        My take on it for this project is a beast for every letter of the alphabet (plus half the letters ended up with two), which are all fantastical creatures from mythologies and folklore all around the world.  Each animal is illustrated with an original relief block print, a description and a little vignette or story, and a moral lesson.  The whole thing is written in a deliberately old-fashioned style, but with stories and morals that I hope will resonate with modern readers.  It’s a bit quirky and doesn’t necessarily fit into any easy marketing category — it’s a picture book but it’s not really for children; it’s fantasy, but not really a story; it's an alphabetized collection of mythical creatures, but not really an encyclopedia or reference work; it’s got moralizing, but it’s not really a sermon, or a religious book, or self-help… — but nevertheless I hope it will catch your fancy!

        “Okay,” you say, “Nice Theme Reveal, but I can’t help but notice that the banner above says ‘March 18’, and this happens to be March 11.”  My, aren’t you observant!  I hope you read all my other posts so carefully.  Yes, I am officially Revealing my Theme early because, as always, I’m tweaking the official schedule the better to suit my own blogging habits.  Once again I’ll be starting the challenge early, and this year the hard-working and innovative A-Z Challenge Team have announced that there will not be a separate daily list for each letter.  That means that if you’re coming from the Challenge you’ll be using the Master List, and that means that for every day except Y and Z you will find the wrong letter when you land here.  I’ll provide yet more links to help you find your way, and I trust you can roll with it.  So, welcome back to the A to Z Challenge.  Enjoy!

[Picture: draft cover design for On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination, by AEGN, 2019.]

Art Changes People

        It’s been a while since I quoted someone at you to prove again how important art, fantasy, and imagination are, but as we watch the swirling storm clouds over a world that cries out for change, it seems a good time.  First, here is writer Rebecca Solnit acknowledging the sometimes deep and invisible roots of change:

        After a rain mushrooms appear on the surface of the earth as if from nowhere. Many do so from a sometimes vast underground fungus that remains invisible and largely unknown. What we call mushrooms mycologists call the fruiting body of the larger, less visible fungus. Uprisings and revolutions are often considered to be spontaneous, but less visible long-term organizing and groundwork — or underground work — often laid the foundation. Changes in ideas and values also result from work done by writers, scholars, public intellectuals, social activists, and participants in social media. It seems insignificant or peripheral until very different outcomes emerge from transformed assumptions about who and what matters, who should be heard and believed, who has rights.

        Ideas at first considered outrageous or ridiculous or extreme gradually become what people think they’ve always believed. How the transformation happened is rarely remembered, in part because it’s compromising: it recalls the mainstream when the mainstream was, say, rabidly homophobic or racist in a way it no longer is; and it recalls that power comes from the shadows and the margins, that our hope is in the dark around the edges, not the limelight of center stage. Our hope and often our power.

        Of course I want to call attention to Solnit’s mention of the work done by writers, and add to that the work of artists.  One part of our job is to bring forth the mushrooms of imagination, taking tiny mycelial threads of ideas and popping them up into the white stalks and frilled and spotted caps that others may notice, and consider, and perhaps remember.  Our mushrooms loose their spores into the air, millions of miniscule specks, like particles of smoke, of which we never know when, whether, or where one may land in a hospitable environment and lead in time to the mushrooming forth of further imagination somewhere else.

        I try to avoid politics in this blog largely because, while I do not wish to be an ostrich with my head in the sand, nevertheless we all need places we can go to have respite from the stress.  Still, I have always maintained that art and writing do not exist merely as the negative space of not-stress.  They have an important job to do as the positive space of helping us imagine a better world, so that we can move toward it.  At times like the present I find it easy to feel like my small-time art and writing are not much, certainly not enough, and perhaps really a waste of time altogether.  And that’s when it’s important to remember the simple but powerful words of artist Joey Hartmann-Dow:

        Art changes people, and people change the world.

[Pictures: Wood block prints from The herbal, or, Generall historie of plantes by John Gerarde, enlarged and amended by Thomas Johnson, 1636 (Images from Internet Archive).]

Quotations from Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit, 2016 (as quoted by Maria Popova in “Brain Pickings”), and Joey Hartmann-Dow as quoted in Friends Journal, June/July 2018.

#AtoZChallenge 2022 Reflections

         My A to Z Challenge theme this year was How to Make a Fantastical Creature, in which I explored 26 traits that are widely shared among the monsters and marvels of fantasy and folklore.  I learned about a lot of new creatures myself in the course of putting together my posts, and I hope you were entertained and learned something new, as well.  I certainly appreciate everyone who came by, left comments, shared your responses, and helped make this month feel like a community endeavor.  In this Reflection post, I’ll share some bonus material that I hope may be of interest to anyone who enjoyed my theme throughout April.

        First, I would like to present an award.  My point with all the “flashbacks” and “foreshadowings” in all the posts was to show just how many of these mythical creatures involve multiple magical traits.  Without bothering to go through and confirm, my guess is that the winner of Most A-Z Traits is the dragon.  “Dragon” can sometimes be a broad 

category, but even confining ourselves to a pretty standard western dragon, we’ve got Anthropophagus, Breathing Fire, Chimeric, Demonic (especially in medieval lore), Extremes, Flight, Glowing, Hoarding, Jewelled, Knowledge, Language, Magic, Gigantism, Sentience, Transforming, and X variables.  That’s a pretty darn magical beast!  But there were certainly plenty of other creatures who exemplified 3 or 4, or even more traits.

        Second, this blog is usually about both fantasy and block printing, but of course this year’s theme gave the block printing short shrift.  I also didn’t feature very much of my own work.  So for anyone who’s curious about my work as an artist, here’s a guide to where you can find some of my block prints of magical creatures through the course of this year’s alphabet.

     B - dragon

     C - yali, (plus links to malacomorphs, ypotryll, umbrellaphant)

     E - (links to xana, isnashi)

     F - Pegasus, (plus link to malacorana)

     G - will o’ the wisp, (plus link to hercinia, qilin)

     J - unicorn

     K - (link to ouroboros)

     N - season fairies, (plus link to cherufe)

     P - fairy village, (plus links to pussy willows, ziz, aspidochelone)

     S - gargoyles

     Y - yale

     Z - wapaloosie, capybureau (plus links to fur-bearing trout, ypotryll, musical beasts)

        As for my author hat, I’ve written stories featuring lots of these wonderful creatures.

• On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination has more than 45 magical beasts, and you can see most of them here, or revisit my 2019 A to Z Challenge to find out much more.

• The Kate and Sam Adventures is a read-aloud or elementary-age trilogy that features sentient/talking animals, fairies, dragons, jinn, a griffin, a shape-shifting rabbit, a will o’ the wisp, a golem, plus bit parts for giant spiders, a skunk ape, a weewilmek, and a descendent of Grendel.

• The Otherworld Series is a 6-book high fantasy series (high school through adult) involving dragons, wizards, sulchym, and a lylit.

• I’ve also had a couple of short stories published: one about the wild ape-leprechauns of Borneo and another featuring a slimy, tentacled Old One.  In addition, my recent spate of short stories (a number of which are currently out on submission - fingers crossed!) includes a siren, a unicorn, a ghost, a gigantic underground beast called the 

Horn, and some small feathered spirits.  I hope someday to be able to share some of these with you, as well.  In the meantime, you can always find all my art and books at my web site NydamPrints.com.

        Third, I would like to direct you to some prior posts that include fun creature-themed interactive games that may amuse you:

     • Explore the wonderful world of mythical millinery with Monsters in Hats

     • Pit your wits against the odd artistic visions of medieval illuminators with Guess that Medieval Beast  (These creatures are all 100% real animals, but definitely not as you know them!)

        The moral of all this is: the magical creature fun never ends around here!  My Pro Tip for everyone is always to keep your eyes (and heart) open for magic and wonder - broadly defined and encompassing our own real world as well as the worlds of the imagination.  Feel free to visit my Instagram for a dose of Daily Delight, in the form of one picture a day of something that brings me joy.  (Mostly it’s nature, but some other Interesting Stuff, as well.)

        I will end with the words of G.K. Chesterton: "Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

[Pictures: Portrait of the Artist, rubber block print by AEGN, 2019;

Dragon, wood block print by Jost Amman from Thierbuch, 1592 (Image from Library of Congress);

Assorted books by AEGN, featuring magical creatures;

Dracula in a Mae West hat, photoshop adaptation from movie posters, by AEGN, 2011;

The Dragon of Wantley, engraving by John June from the comic opera of the same name by Henry Carey, 1770 (Image from Google Books).]

Words of the Month - Non-Binary They

         Today’s episode of Words of the Month is both a post about grammar and a confession.  I have a number of friends who use they pronouns, and sometimes I get it wrong.  These are people I respect, admire, and have great affection for, and yet I still sometimes get it wrong, and I’ve been thinking a lot (and beating myself up a bit) about why I have this difficulty.

        Point 1.  I wrote a post about they as a gender-neutral pronoun for indefinite use, which you can read here.  I’ve never had any difficulty with that, but that was 13 years ago and since then they has come into more common and mainstream use as a specific pronoun for specific individuals.  That’s what I’m talking about today.

        Point 2.  I’m in my mid-50s, and while that may not be ancient, it’s certainly old enough to have a pretty solidly set internal grammar.  And when it comes to they pronouns, my internal grammar has a way of acting like autocorrect.  You know how autocorrect goes: you type “I hope to be by in ten minutes”, hit send, and see, to your annoyance, that your text has popped up on the screen not the way you could swear you typed it, but instead as “I hope you die in tenements,” because autocorrect oh-so-helpfully figured that obviously that must be what you really meant.  I feel the same way sometimes when I know perfectly well that someone uses they pronouns, and yet I hear the pronoun she come out of my mouth.

        Point 3.  Just because I’m old and set doesn’t mean I can’t learn.  In fact, when I’m talking about someone who isn’t there at all, I actually do fine.  Sometimes when I read or hear a sentence with they pronouns, it leads me astray and I have to do a quick recalculation.  For example, on the back cover of a book I might read “Writing this book was their lifelong dream” and for a moment I wonder who the second author is.  But I’ve reached the point where once I get into the rhythm of it, my grammar accepts they as a singular pronoun for a specific individual and I carry on without difficulty.  But there is one situation in which I just keep getting it wrong…

        Point 4.  The thing I keep messing up is when I’m in a conversation with multiple people so that I’m mostly using second-person pronouns.  Then within that conversation, when I need to refer to one of those people in third person, that’s when my autocorrect insists on picking he or she even if I know they use they.

        Point 5.  I assume that all I need is sufficient practice to get this through my not-quite-ancient head and teach my internal grammar the new rules.  But although I know lots of people with they pronouns, there is no one in my immediate circle of family or friends whom I speak with on a daily basis, so I just don’t have that daily reinforcement and practice to speed the process along.  My children, of course, are fully fluent in this new English, but I was a speaker of English for nearly 50 years before this entered my grammar, and it’s still not coming as naturally as I’d like.

        Any living language is constantly changing, and since I’m a pedant there are plenty of changes that I resist kicking and screaming.  This isn’t one of them.  Non-binary they serves a purpose and fills a need, so there’s no reason to object to it - but my autocorrect objects anyway.  I hate that I do this, as it’s never my intention to make anyone feel that I don’t acknowledge or respect who they are.  I know that it can be hurtful to them, as if I don’t care or don’t accept their identity.  To them it seems like it should be easy, but I do hope they can be patient with my unhelpful autocorrect, and know that my spirit is willing, even if my internal grammar is weak.  And in the meantime, I truly do apologize, and I really am trying to work harder get it right!

[Picture: Perspectival Fantasy Landscape with an Obelisk, wood block print from Geometria et Perspectiva by Lorenz Stör (block cut by Hans Rogel), 1567 (Image from The British Museum.)]

Hope

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

      To find the lost,

      To heal the broken,

      To feed the hungry,

      To release the prisoner,

      To rebuild the nations,

      To bring peace among people,

      To make music in the heart.

        I wish you peace, joy, and hope in the new year.  May you share many stories with others, and feel how all our stories are unique, and all our stories intertwine.  Make your own life be a story of love!

[Picture: Hope, rubber block print by AEGN, 2015.]

Poem “Now the Work of Christmas Begins” by Howard Thurman.

Kickstarter Campaign is LIVE!

         Announcing the launching of the Kickstarter campaign for my next book, Bittersweetness & Light!  You could skip this blog post and head straight over to KICKSTARTER where all the details are laid out (and there’s a little video of me being earnest).  But over here on this blog I’ll give just a little more of a peek behind the scenes.

        Bittersweetness & Light is a project I’ve been thinking about for a long time, as I’ve become more and more convinced that acknowledging joy is not childishness, naivety, or escapism, but is, on the contrary, a vitally necessary act of fierce defiance.  So I’m pulling together a selection of my work into a book that I hope will hold up a hopeful vision of goodness to be found all around.  Here’s what you can expect

• a full-color, fully-illustrated, slightly oversized paperback book

• short stories, poems, and art (mostly relief block prints)  Why?  Because stories, poetry, and art can put us in others’ shoes, expose us to new ideas, and connect us on the deepest levels.  (And also because I love it.)

• various flavors and genres of speculative fiction

including space exploration, a knitting witch, alien encounters, an Old One, an adventuring librarian, a puzzled ghost, and more.  Why?  Because speculative fiction has a unique ability to save the world!  (And also of course because I love it.)

• some humor, some heartbreak, some irreverence, some focus on the spiritual, some whimsy, some earnestness…

• happy endings, looking for the best in others and ourselves, affirming joy, and finding reasons for hope.

        A few of these stories and poems have been previously published in magazines and anthologies, but most will appear in this collection for the first time.  Each written piece is illustrated, plus there will be additional art that’s in there in its own right.  Again, some of the artwork has been created specifically for this project, while other pieces have been drawn from my entire catalogue of work.

        I launched this campaign yesterday, and it’s already a third of the way funded, so I’m feeling pretty optimistic.  If you feel like you could use more reminders of joy and more messages of hope, by all means check it out and join us!  And as always, please be sure to spread the word to any friends and family who you think might also enjoy this project.  We small-time artists and authors are utterly dependent on word-of-mouth to get out the news about our work.

        Profound thanks to everyone who joins me in this project; making connections so that we can encourage each other is what it’s all about!

[Pictures: all images by AEGN, representing drafts of details from Bittersweetness & Light, 2024.]

A is for Arches

         (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.  I’ll be sharing lots of excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, and I’ll also be sharing some of the background on why we urgently need joyful stories.  If you like strange creatures, magical worlds, and being reminded of the good to be found in this world, come along with me.)

        These arches are a mixed media illustration: a collage of papers which had been printed using a collagraph and a gelli plate.  To give a little printmaking background, a collagraph is a printing plate built as a collage (which you can read about in this prior post).  If you press a collagraph plate onto a gelli plate, it removes ink on the raised areas, thus making a sort of reverse, which can then be printed onto paper.  In this case, the paper was pages from an old dictionary.  (You can read about a previous gelli plate experiment of mine here.)

        This illustration appears in my book with a poem called “Love Song in a House of Words.”

    Thin, twining words that thrust their roots between emotion’s masonry,

    Dull, brazen words that glitter like a gong,

    Pebbles of sound that sink at once but leave their spreading rings,

    Deep, dusky words whose rings are blown of smoke,

 

    Take these to build your house, and furnish it with words…

        If it weren’t for the tyranny of the alphabet in the A to Z Challenge, I wouldn’t have started here, since this is neither a typical relief block print like most of my others, nor a particularly representative poem.  In terms of places to begin my introduction of this book, I might have chosen

    Art, in which I could write about how the pictures in this book are not mere illustrations of the text, but an important component of the book in their own right.  I envisioned this as a collection of short stories, poetry, and art, in which all three work together to bring delight…

    Adventure, in which I could write about the adventure of running a Kickstarter campaign and putting together this labor of love, as well as the magical adventures in some of the stories…

    Anxiety, in which I could write about how many of us are feeling an extremely high level of anxiety about the world these days, and how I hope that this book offers in some small way a bit of an Antidote, by reminding us that joy, beauty, and love do still exist all around, if we keep our hearts open to recognizing them, and stand up to support them.

        To find out more about the short stories, poetry, and art - and also about the joy, beauty, and love - I hope you’ll stick with me through the month of April.

        Marketing Moral:   Buy my book!  Okay, that’s not exactly subtle, but it is part of my moral of the entire month.  Throughout the A to Z Challenge I’ll be including a variety of ways to support small-time/indie authors and artists so that we can keep making art and keep bringing light into a world that certainly needs it.  It may seem like no big thing, but

in the words of artist Joey Hartmann-Dow, “Art changes people, and people change the world.”

        Proper Moral: A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it’s even cooler when you get words and pictures together!  I love them both!

        Words or pictures?  Do you have a preferred method of communicating, learning, or processing?

[Picture: Arches, collage by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]