WORLD WEAVER PRESS
  • Home
    • Start Something New
  • Books
    • All Books >
      • Beyond the Glass Slipper
      • Bite Somebody
      • Bite Somebody Else
      • Black Pearl Dreaming
      • Cassandra Complex
      • Causality Loop
      • Clockwork, Curses, and Coal
      • Continuum
      • Corvidae
      • Cursed: Wickedly Fun Stories
      • Dream Eater
      • Equus
      • Fae
      • Falling of the Moon
      • Far Orbit
      • Far Orbit Apogee
      • Fractured Days
      • Frozen Fairy Tales
      • Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers
      • Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters
      • Grandmother Paradox
      • Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline
      • Haunted Housewives
      • Heir to the Lamp
      • He Sees You When He's Creepin': Tales of Krampus
      • Into the Moonless Night
      • Jack Jetstark's Intergalactic Freakshow
      • King of Ash and Bones (ebook)
      • Krampusnacht
      • Last Dream of Her Mortal Soul
      • Meddlers of Moonshine
      • Mothers of Enchantment
      • Mrs Claus
      • Multispecies Cities
      • Murder in the Generative Kitchen
      • Recognize Fascism
      • Scarecrow
      • Sirens
      • Shards of History
      • Shattered Fates
      • Skull and Pestle
      • Solarpunk (Translation)
      • Solomon's Bell
      • SonofaWitch!
      • Speculative Story Bites
      • Trenchcoats, Towers, and Trolls
      • Weredog Whisperer
      • Wolves and Witches
    • Anthologies and Collections
    • Novels
    • Novellas
    • Fairy Tale
    • Fantasy
    • Romance
    • Science Fiction
    • Urban/Contemporary Fantasy
    • Young Adult SFF
  • Blog
  • About
    • Anthologists
    • Authors
    • Editors
    • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Submit: Anthologies
    • Free Review Copies
  • Press / Publicity
  • Newsletter Signup
  • Privacy Policy
  • Store

WORLD WEAVER PRESS

What’s cooking?

9/27/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Guest post by Meg Pontecorvo

What's cooking?

My novella, Murder in the Generative Kitchen — oh, wait.  It’s done — and ready to serve!
 
For quite some time now, I’ve measured the ingredients with care, chopped, sifted, stirred, adjusted the seasonings, then, hmm, baked? Braised? Simmered? No, now that the novella is finished, I need to can the food analogies--except, obviously, they’re too tempting. Indeed, early reviewers have also yielded to the temptation, perhaps impossible to resist, given the novella’s theme of cooking in the future.
 
But no — I’ll set Murder in the Generative Kitchen on the back burner for a minute to marvel at how often we adopt food analogies to describe our experience with books, no matter the subject. Some books we devour; others leave a sour taste in our mouths. Clever plotting is delicious, while poor plotting — as full of holes as Swiss cheese — is hard to swallow. We commonly say that readers are voracious, especially readers of genre fiction, who may relish one particular genre — say, Thrillers or Mysteries — and find other genres stomach-turning. Romance novels can be sweet, or spicy, or both. If habitual readers go too long without a book, we feel starved, and crave the next one. I know that some reviewers dismiss genre fiction as being as addictive as potato chips (and therefore not nutritious). But we genre readers take such judgments with a grain of salt — or, really, a whole shaker full. Good Science Fiction, in particular, offers plenty of food for thought, and food for thought doesn’t have to be unpalatable gruel. Having acquired the taste for genre fiction, we savor every page.

Picture
Oh no — now food metaphors themselves are becoming like those potato chips. But seriously, I find it fascinating that food analogies lend themselves so easily to how we understand, and try to describe, book consumption. In their fascinating study, Metaphors We Live By, linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson would classify them as a structural metaphor “ideas are food”: one of the ways we try to make abstract experience concrete. 
 
Perhaps such a classification is especially appropriate for those of us who read e-books, which lack physical presence in the world. But for the rest of us, a book is a physical object experienced through the senses: the size and weight of the volume in the hand, the look of the art on the covers and of the typeface on the pages, the smell and feel of the paper. We take books with us to the most intimate, yet ordinary, places:  we curl up with them in bed; we balance them above the water in our baths; we prop them on the kitchen table during meals. So associating books with a physical need, like eating, feels logical — and natural. Books nourish us. 
 
With that in mind, I will take Murder in the Generative Kitchen off of the back burner and place it, with a flourish, on the table:  your table. As a novella, it’s not a banquet, nor is it fast food, but mixed, instead, to be “just right.” And no, don’t expect this rather dystopian satire to be Chicken Soup for the Soul (a series that I think of as cheezy). But I hope the book gives you pleasure — and, yes, food for thought.
 
Will there be dessert? Not yet — but I’m planning a second course. So please, pardon me while I slip back into the kitchen — to cook up the sequel!


Picture
A writer and artist dedicated to multiple genres, Meg Pontecorvo earned an MFA in Poetry Writing from Washington University in St. Louis and is a 2010 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Meg has published a novelette, “Grounded,” in Asimov’s, and her artwork in collage and pen has been featured in experimental video performances in the Bay Area. A native of Philadelphia, she grew up in the Midwest and now shares a small apartment with her partner and cats in San Francisco, where she cooks in a tech-free kitchen.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    World Weaver Press

    Publishing fantasy, paranormal, and science fiction.

    About WWP
    Books
    Authors
    Contact

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013
    October 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012

    Tweets by @WorldWeaver_wwp
World Weaver Press | Books | About | Contact | Blog | Press

© 2012-2022 World Weaver Press
  • Home
    • Start Something New
  • Books
    • All Books >
      • Beyond the Glass Slipper
      • Bite Somebody
      • Bite Somebody Else
      • Black Pearl Dreaming
      • Cassandra Complex
      • Causality Loop
      • Clockwork, Curses, and Coal
      • Continuum
      • Corvidae
      • Cursed: Wickedly Fun Stories
      • Dream Eater
      • Equus
      • Fae
      • Falling of the Moon
      • Far Orbit
      • Far Orbit Apogee
      • Fractured Days
      • Frozen Fairy Tales
      • Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers
      • Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters
      • Grandmother Paradox
      • Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline
      • Haunted Housewives
      • Heir to the Lamp
      • He Sees You When He's Creepin': Tales of Krampus
      • Into the Moonless Night
      • Jack Jetstark's Intergalactic Freakshow
      • King of Ash and Bones (ebook)
      • Krampusnacht
      • Last Dream of Her Mortal Soul
      • Meddlers of Moonshine
      • Mothers of Enchantment
      • Mrs Claus
      • Multispecies Cities
      • Murder in the Generative Kitchen
      • Recognize Fascism
      • Scarecrow
      • Sirens
      • Shards of History
      • Shattered Fates
      • Skull and Pestle
      • Solarpunk (Translation)
      • Solomon's Bell
      • SonofaWitch!
      • Speculative Story Bites
      • Trenchcoats, Towers, and Trolls
      • Weredog Whisperer
      • Wolves and Witches
    • Anthologies and Collections
    • Novels
    • Novellas
    • Fairy Tale
    • Fantasy
    • Romance
    • Science Fiction
    • Urban/Contemporary Fantasy
    • Young Adult SFF
  • Blog
  • About
    • Anthologists
    • Authors
    • Editors
    • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Submit: Anthologies
    • Free Review Copies
  • Press / Publicity
  • Newsletter Signup
  • Privacy Policy
  • Store