I’d started the story years earlier hoping to send it to a ghost story anthology. But—as happens rather often to me—idea and plot didn’t come together until much later. When it finally worked, I was able to finish the tale in under a week.
I like romance as much as the next person. But sometimes good marriages are compromises. As this story shows.
Sister Emily’s Lightship
This story won the 1998 Nebula for short fiction and has already been widely reprinted.
One cannot live in my part of the Connecticut Valley, twenty minutes from Amherst, and be unaware of Emily Dickinson. Her presence and her poetry are everywhere. The very robins sing her name. (“The Robin’s my criterion for tune,” she wrote.)
Years ago I was reading some of her poetry, which was set down in a gorgeous book about her life, with paintings by the precise and particularizing Nancy Ekholm Burkert. At that very moment, reading the poem about “a band of stars” which ends the story, I got the idea for Emily and her meeting with an alien. (I always called the story idea “Emily meets the Martians,” but the Red Planet sort of went by the wayside. Literally, as you shall soon see.)
The idea sat around, about one and a half pages worth of typescript, for nearly ten years. I knew it was a good idea, but I never quite got around to it, though I used a lot of Emily’s poetry in other ways—in speeches, in articles, and in some fiction as well.
And then we bought a house in Scotland. Named Wayside.
Nice segue!
In Scotland I found I was writing a lot about America. And Americans. About alienation, if not aliens. Suddenly I began working on the story of Emily D and her Martian/alien visitor for real.
This sudden immersion in the story was complicated by the fact that the holdings at St. Andrews University did not include a whole lot of Emily D scholarship. In fact, the latest critical biography they had was over twenty years old! I had the housesitter ship my own books over to me. (The most expensive way to do research!) I was especially interested in the feminist critics, as well as the new research about Emily’s long battle with eye problems. I was tickled to discover that she called herself “Uncle Emily” to her nephew Ned. Polly Longsworth, an old friend of mine and a Dickinson biographer of note, had been the first to discover Emily’s complicity in her brother Austin’s long affair with neighbor Mable Loomis Todd, but more work had been done since Polly’s groundbreaking book and I wanted to read it all! So I read—and wrote—and read some more.
And then editors Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden came for a visit, on their way to a convention.
I thrust the draft of the story at Patrick. For two days he said not a word. It was agonizing. I do not normally force my attentions on unwilling m/e/n editors. At last it was close to the end of their visit and Patrick had just come down the stairs into the living room.
I squeaked, “What do you think of my story, Patrick?” He gave me a stricken look and raced back up the stairs.
What did that mean? Had I embarrassed him? Had I given mortal offense? Was my career at an end? I hadn’t a clue.
Seconds later, Patrick raced back down, thrust the manuscript at me, and said, “I want it for my anthology, Starlight. But it needs revision in three places.”
The three places were so slight—a word in one place, a phrase in another, and the deletion of my afterwords/historical explanation. I just nodded and gratefully handed over my ten-year-gestated child to its new pa.
P.S. Patrick bounced my next story—sent by mail for Starlight 2. Then he bought a story I handed him for Starlight 3, when the Nielsen Haydens visited Scotland once again. Is there a lesson to be learned here?
Acknowledgments
“THE TRAVELER AND THE Tale,” copyright © 1995, first published in Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears, edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow, Avon Books.
“Snow in Summer,” copyright © 2000, first published in Black Heart, Ivory Bones, edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow, Avon Books.
“Speaking to the Wind,” copyright © 2000, first published herewith.
“The Thirteenth Fey,” copyright © 1985, first published in Faery, edited by Terri Windling, Ace Books.
“Granny Rumple,” copyright © 1994, first published in Black Thorn, White Rose, edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow, William Morrow & Co.
“Blood Sister,” copyright © 1994, first published in Am I Blue?, edited by Marian Dane Bauer, HarperCollins.
“Journey into the Dark,” copyright © 1995, first published in The Book of Kings, edited by Richard Gilliam and Martin Greenberg, Roc/Penguin.
“The Sleep of Trees,” copyright © 1980, first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine.
“The Uncorking of Uncle Finn,” copyright © 1986, first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine.
“Dusty Loves,” copyright © 1988, first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine.
“The Gift of the Magicians, with Apologies to You Know Who,” copyright © 1992, first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine.
“Sister Death,” copyright © 1995, first published in Sisters of the Night, edited by Barbara Hambly and Martin Greenberg, Warner/Aspect.
“The Singer and the Song,” copyright © 1996, first published as liner notes for Omayio, CD by Robin Adnan Anders.
“Salvage,” copyright © 1984, first published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.
“Lost Girls,” copyright © 1997, first published in Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Harcourt Brace.
“Belle Bloody Merciless Dame,” copyright © 1997, first published in Elf Magic, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Daw Books.
“Words of Power,” copyright © 1987, first published in Visions, edited by Donald R. Gallo, Delacorte Press.
“Great Gray,” copyright © 1991, first published in Fires of the Past, edited by Anne Devereaux Jordan, St. Martin’s Press.
“Under the Hill,” copyright © 2000, first published herewith.
“Godmother Death,” copyright © 1997, first published in Black Swan, White Raven, edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow, Avon Books.
“Creationism: An Illustrated Lecture in Two Parts,” copyright © 1990, first published in Pulphouse.
“Allerleirauh,” copyright © 1995, first published in The Armless Maiden and Other Tales for Childhood’s Survivors, edited by Terri Windling, Tor.
“Sun/Flight,” copyright © 1982, first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine.
“Dick W. and His Pussy; or, Tess and her Adequate Dick,” copyright © 1997, first published in Dick for a Day, edited by Fiona Giles, Villard Books.
“Become a Warrior,” copyright © 1998, first published in Warrior Princesses, edited by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough and Martin Greenberg, Daw Books.
“Memoirs of a Bottle Djinn,” copyright © 1988, first published in Arabesques, edited by Susan Shwartz, Avon.
“A Ghost of an Affair,” copyright © 2000, first publication herewith.
“Sister Emily’s Lightship,” copyright © 1996, first published in Starlight 1, edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Tor.
A Note from the Author
THIS IS THE MOST recent of the collections of my short stories I have compiled over the years, and one of the most complete. I made an initial cull of stories and sent them to my editor, and she then made the final choices. They were not the same choices I would have made. But I listen to my editors; they are, after all, educated readers first. That’s because we come to every story with our own life luggage—the size of handbags, backpacks, suitcases, even steamer trunks—informing what we read. So an editor’s choices are personal in addition to editorial. I like that.
These stories are essentially for adults, but because my work—especially the fantasy stories—tends to cross over age lines, some of the stories here began as published work for children or young adults.
Of course, since the original publication of this book, I have almost e
nough for another collection of stories. Hmmmm, must think about that!
Jane Yolen
A Personal History by Jane Yolen
I was born in New York City on February 11, 1939. Because February 11 is also Thomas Edison’s birthday, my parents used to say I brought light into their world. But my parents were both writers and prone to exaggeration. My father was a journalist; my mother wrote short stories and created crossword puzzles and double acrostics. My younger brother, Steve, eventually became a newspaperman. We were a family of an awful lot of words!
We lived in the city for most of my childhood, with two brief moves: to California for a year while my father worked as a publicity agent for Warner Bros. films, and then to Newport News, Virginia, during the World War II years, when my mother moved my baby brother and me in with her parents while my father was stationed in London running the Army’s secret radio.
When I was thirteen, we moved to Connecticut. After college I worked in book publishing in New York for five years, married, and after a year traveling around Europe and the Middle East with my husband in a Volkswagen camper, returned to the States. We bought a house in Massachusetts, where we lived almost happily ever after, raising three wonderful children.
I say “almost,” because in 2006, my wonderful husband of forty-four years—Professor David Stemple, the original Pa in my Caldecott Award–winning picture book, Owl Moon—died. I still live in the same house in Massachusetts.
And I am still writing.
I have often been called the “Hans Christian Andersen of America,” something first noted in Newsweek close to forty years ago because I was writing a lot of my own fairy tales at the time.
The sum of my books—including some eighty-five fairy tales in a variety of collections and anthologies—is now well over 335. Probably the most famous are Owl Moon, The Devil’s Arithmetic, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? My work ranges from rhymed picture books and baby board books, through middle grade fiction, poetry collections, and nonfiction, to novels and story collections for young adults and adults. I’ve also written lyrics for folk and rock groups, scripted several animated shorts, and done voiceover work for animated short movies. And I do a monthly radio show called Once Upon a Time.
These days, my work includes writing books with each of my three children, now grown up and with families of their own. With Heidi, I have written mostly picture books, including Not All Princesses Dress in Pink and the nonfiction series Unsolved Mysteries from History. With my son Adam, I have written a series of Rock and Roll Fairy Tales for middle grades, among other fantasy novels. With my son Jason, who is an award-winning nature photographer, I have written poems to accompany his photographs for books like Wild Wings and Color Me a Rhyme.
And I am still writing.
Oh—along the way, I have won a lot of awards: two Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott Medal, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, two Christopher Awards, the Jewish Book Award, and a nomination for the National Book Award, among many accolades. I have also won (for my full body of work) the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Grand Master Award, the Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal, the University of Minnesota’s Kerlan Award, the University of Southern Mississippi and de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection’s Southern Miss Medallion, and the Smith College Medal. Six colleges and universities have given me honorary doctorate degrees. One of my awards, the Skylark, given by the New England Science Fiction Association, set my good coat on fire when the top part of it (a large magnifying glass) caught the sunlight. So I always give this warning: Be careful with awards and put them where the sun don’t shine!
Also of note—in case you find yourself in a children’s book trivia contest—I lost my fencing foil in Grand Central Station during a date, fell overboard while whitewater rafting in the Colorado River, and rode in a dog sled in Alaska one March day.
And yes—I am still writing.
At a Yolen cousins reunion as a child, holding up a photograph of myself. In the photo, I am about one year old, maybe two.
Sitting on the statue of Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park in New York in 1961, when I was twenty-two. (Photo by David Stemple.)
Enjoying Dirleton Castle in Scotland in 2010.
Signing my Caldecott Medal–winning book Owl Moon in 2011.
Reading for an audience at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2012.
Visiting Andrew Lang’s gravesite at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew in Scotland in 2011.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2000 by Jane Yolen
Cover design by Gabriel Guma
978-1-4804-2327-5
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Jane Yolen, Sister Emily's Lightship: And Other Stories
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