September 12

Goodreads chat!

galahad

I will be on the Dreamspinner Press Goodreads Group for a chat this Saturday (14 Sept.) from 3-6 p.m. CST.
Here’s the link: Meet J Tullos Hennig

Come for a cup of virtual tea, ask questions, get asked questions, see some excerpts from the Wode books as well as some totally new stuff–and participate in a giveaway or two to help me celebrate the release of Shirewode.

All are welcome, and I hope to see you there!

 

 
(archival image: George Frederick Watts)

September 9

It’s In The Water…

RobynIcon
It’s humbling–staggering, actually–the way creativity channels itself; not only in our hearts and minds and consciousness, but in that undeniable cogency oft known as the ‘collective unconscious’.  Things really do bide in the ether, and surface in the water.

And right now, a certain Notorious Outlaw is making the rounds again.

Thankfully, that Notorious Outlaw makes those rounds on a regular basis.  You can peer back through history and see nice, fat clusters of storytelling.  It’s brilliant, in every sense of the word.  Because those of us who are fascinated by something, who study it and obsess over it, love, live, and breathe it, are always willing for more.  People who crave a well-told story will visit–and revisit–that story again and again.  Each incarnation gives us new cause for either shattering insight or groans of utter dismay, brings new adventures and causes… all with which we can ponder the outlaw Robin Hood.

And there is so much to ponder.  So much to explore and discover.  He’s in the water, all right: a water horse, a kelpie who’ll cozen you to back him then throw you in to drown.  Or, even better a pwca, a trickster who’ll give you that wild ride but perhaps relent, share some advice and goodwill to see you back home on wobbly legs.

You see, it was nearly thirty years ago when I wrote and nearly published my own first invocation and incarnation of Robin (or Robyn, even as the first book has always been called Greenwode).  England’s greatest archer was popping his wolfish head above the water then, too.  Some amazing novels came from that particular surge–Parke Godwin’s retelling being amongst my all-time favourites of any genre.  There were also movies: one so-so, one not-so.  A man who was to become my friend was, unknown to me and across the pond, working on a very magical Robin Hood at nearly the same time as I was working on mine.  Both of these were (and are) akin in their mix of historical tradition, high romance, and old magic.  His went on to be an award-winning (and breathtaking) television series; mine was not so fortunate, though it did nearly go to contract twice before ending up in a file drawer as the cycle waned.

Such are the hazards of publishing.  Of course, it was terribly disappointing at the time.  Yet bad luck can hold its own share of fortune.  Those books that almost were, now are–and all the better for it.  Even more, several years ago when I dusted off an old manuscript and decided to totally rewrite and structure it, it seems Robin was also dusting off the old longbow and taking aim back into the collective mainstream.  For now, nearly a year after Greenwode released (and just in time for today’s release of Shirewode), it’s happening again: new tales and retellings, little wildfires popping up here and there… quite apropos to a firebrand archer.  I’m sure the signs have been there for a while, but admittedly I’ve been spending more time larking my own ‘swete greenwode’.  Amidst my larking I’ve shaped a story which is beginning to garner some critical acclaim; a satisfying debut for a story that has been poking at my back brain for… well, for much of my life, really.  A strange thought, perhaps, to spend so much time in creation when our modern existence extols “hurry, put it out there, now!”  But I don’t find it strange, not at all, and it is my sincere hope many others will find my books, sit back… breathe… and enjoy the ride as much as I have.

Robin Hood–aka Robyn Hode–more than perhaps any other figure from myth or history, is discontent to merely bide in the depths of history.  In a very real sense he challenges it, both flaunts and mirrors what changes history and society would choose to reveal.  How fitting that a figure often connected with the Green Man would be so wrapped up in the spiral of the Eternal Return, both mythic and prosaic.  For someone whose historical existence is ever in doubt, Robin has the ultimate extant power: he sparks stories in those of us who are compelled to tell them.

He’s a pwca, all right.

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Yes, SHIREWODE is now available!!SWSmall150res
Both in e-book and trade paper!
*throws confetti*

LINKS:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

AMAZON
POWELL’S BOOKS
OMNILIT

And of course, through my verra own author page at Dreamspinner Press:
JTH at DsP

September 3

Research books are better than candy…

They are!

So, finished the latest WIP.  Not ready to start tackling the dreary task of flaying myself for a readable synopsis and starting to shop it around.  Then one of the books I’d requested from inter-library loan came in.  Which means the burgeoning To Be Read pile has to burgeon just a little while longer… at least this ILL book wasn’t one with a 1 week deadline! Because they have been.

(Gonzaga always has the coolest Medieval Lit titles.  Just sayin’.)

Not only is Gamelyn there, but Thomas of Erceldoune, who was a key player in the Book What Almost Got Movie-d.  I really like reading essays about the ballads; agree or disagree with them, new opinions are always good in some fashion, they trigger more insights.  And with chapters like “Sons of Devils’ and ‘The Anti-Heroic Heart’… I’m really looking forward to this one.

Called Heroes and Anti-Heroes in Medieval Romance, (ed. Neil Cartlidge), it had me from the introduction:

“Anti-heroism in medieval romance is not just about ideological or moral values… Medieval writers and their audiences seem to have been attracted to anti-heroes, not because of any real anxiety about the meaning of heroism, but simply because of the dramatic possibilities it creates… the concept is useful because it helps to explain the different ways in which medieval narratives invite admiration of figures who are obviously flawed, failed, sinister or destructive…”

Though we modern readers also like anti-heroes, I think we are more anxious about the meaning of heroism.  Is it because we have more unrealistic expectations of heroes? Because heroism is always predicated by which ‘side’ views it?  Because we are more aware of such things… or less aware?