{"id":17691,"date":"2009-11-30T08:01:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-30T13:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=17691"},"modified":"2015-01-09T19:25:26","modified_gmt":"2015-01-10T00:25:26","slug":"escaping-with-jeff-vandermeer-and-sandra-ruttan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2009\/11\/30\/escaping-with-jeff-vandermeer-and-sandra-ruttan\/","title":{"rendered":"Escaping with Jeff VanderMeer and Sandra Ruttan"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a Ravens game in Baltimore last night, but those of you who know me know that not only couldn’t I tell you who they were playing, but also that the only reason I even knew there was a game at all was because I headed into town for another reason entirely and noted the increased traffic and trouble parking. It was all worth it, though, because I was going to The Book Escape<\/a> to take part in the latest stop on Jeff VanderMeer’s five-week book tour for Finch<\/a>, for which he’d arranged a reading and discussion with mystery writer Sandra Ruttan.<\/p>\n

Sandra started by reading from her novel Lullaby for the Nameless<\/a>. I wasn’t at all familiar with her work, but she read a section from the beginning of the book which obviously moved her snd moved me as well. It was an intense piece of writing. Jeff read from Finch<\/i>, of course, and if you’re in the mood to, you can download and listen to his 11-minute reading here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After their reading, there was an hour-long discussion of noir, of what mysteries and thrillers can gain when set during wartime, of the recombination that occurs when fantasy and mystery mix, and more. <\/p>\n

After the event, about a dozen of us headed off to the Double T Diner in Catonsville<\/a>, where we compared the differences between mystery and SF conventions (who knew it was considered vulgar self-promotion to do readings at mystery cons, and frowned upon?), reconfigured the Geek hierarchy<\/a>, and explained furries and bizarro fiction to the unenlightened who probably would have preferred to remain unenlightened.<\/p>\n

\"JeffVanderMeerScottEdelman2009\"<\/a>
\nThat’s Jeff and me above. We’re not wearing our chipmunk suits, though based on last night’s conversation, that’s how you might see us next. Check here<\/a> if you want to see other photos from the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a Ravens game in Baltimore last night, but those of you who know me know that not only couldn’t I tell you who they were playing, but also that the only reason I even knew there was a game at all was because I headed into town for another reason entirely and noted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[598],"class_list":["post-17691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jeff-vandermeer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17693,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17691\/revisions\/17693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}