Theresa Crater

Today is Mabon, the Fall Equinox. The day and night are equal. The sun rises due east and sets due west. This is the harvest of fruits. Lammas (August 1st) began the harvest season with harvesting grains. In Greece it was the time of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a major initiation. It’s also my granddaughter’s birthday, and she’s bringing us a new life next year!

I remember watching my grandmother and her daughters can during August and September. She had a wood stove, so this was quite an undertaking. Someone stoked the fire, another cleaned the jars, another put the jars in the big pot to sertilize them. Then others were cutting up vegetables or fruits, putting them in the pot to cook just a bit. Then there was getting it in the jars, a touchy business. My favorite was waiting for the tops to seal with a wonderful pop. I was very young then, always underfoot until Grandmother decided to put me to work keeping the fire in the stove burning. It was hot in that kitchen, before air conditioning.

It’s harvest time. Time to enjoy the fruits of your garden, trees, writing, work and life.

Writer Beware writes about the Google lawsuit today. It’s going to court at last.

Google wanted to become a library for out of print books, a noble goal, but in their jeal they grabbed books that were still in print, books that the author had the rights to. Then they posted these books in violation of copyright laws. When this was pointed out to them, what did they say? Tough.

They put my first novel up on Google Books while I still owned the copyright. We all had to go through a lot of rigamarole to get our books down. Some had luck; others didn’t. The courts refused to hear the case, although it was tried in Europe and the courts there found against Google.

University libraries have copies of these illegally obtained books and finally the case is going to court.

It takes a lot of work to write a book. Shouldn’t people get paid for their labor?

Listen to Megan’s trip to visit the fae in Beneath the Hallowed Hill with a couple of new paragraphs not in the current edition.

The latest Broad Pod, September 2011: Fairy Tales for Grown-Ups, is available for you to enjoy!

http://broadpod.posterous.com

Thank you, L.C. Hu, writer, artist, and all around geek, for hosting and assembling this episode.  Dragons and magical beasts, peasants and princesses, heroes and tricksters­—fairy tales are some of the first stories many of us hear as children; is it any surprise that they continue to inspire us into adulthood? This month brings us five new interpretations of the fairy story, as varied and wonderful as the tales that enchanted us as children.

Catherine Lundoff  tells us of Vadija the Merry, whose laugh inspires a talespinner to begin a life-changing journey.  Shauna Roberts gives us a
science fiction retelling of the old tale Maid on the Shore.  Theresa Crater leads us down beneath the Tor to meet the fae, as we follow a young woman’s initiation to become a priestess. Vonnie Winslow Crist spins us a tale about a young man who makes a deal involving death, deceit, and
devotion with a swan maiden. And Trisha Woolridge enchants us with the story of  a young woman wandering her uncle’s manor, who discovers a curious portrait in a dusty side room.

So sit back, and let yourself be swept away by these five fantastic fairy stories.

I recently received an email asking me if I was the same Theresa Crater who talked to Richard Nixon about the Beatles. I answered yes and asked how s/he knew (Lee P). This little piece of the past had floated up from the Seattle Times and been reposted:  Could Beatles Become Issue in Campaign?

One Sunday my father took me to the Greensboro Airport because Richard Nixon was scheduled to be coming through. This was February 3, 1964 and I was 13 years old. When he arrived, I noticed that people were walking up to him to ask questions. I thought that’s what we were all supposed to do. I didn’t realize these people were the press. So, I asked him about what was uppermost in my mind. “Mr. Nixon, do you like the Beatles?”

Everything stopped. He paused and waited for the press to gather close. Then he told me he didn’t understand them, but his daughters liked them. I thought he was a bit dense not to understand the Beatles. Now I realize I may have been partly responsible for Nixon’s political come-back. For that I offer my sincere apology.