"You don’t even know how to spell Delany, bitch."
Of course, this has a limited use in my life, since most of the people I know do. But still: Book clerks around here seem to deserve it based on the response when I ask if they have About Writing in stock.
Corollary for my SF peeps: "You don’t even know what the R. in Samuel R. Delany stands for, bitch."
Well, c’mon, what does it stand for? First person to get it right wins … something. (Justine, you’re disqualified. Scott, you too, because she’ll just tell you.)
p.s. Yeah, bummer, I had to order it, because nobody had it in. And I need something ass-in-geary right now, because I’m not writing and I’m going a little bonkers because of it. The use of the word bonkers should suffice as an explanation.
i ordered this last week based on your link to the discussion of it. i’ll let you know what i think when it gets here!
I have just typed up a huge post on this but blogger is down so I can’t put it up! Anyway check at Light Reading later tonight & you can have some digested Delany to tide you over. It really is great though I was critical of some aspects of the book (mostly the way it’s so hodgepodgely put together, with some redundancy and quite a bit of rambling). Did you read Stephen King’s “On Writing”? A very different book, but also very appealing.
I had Delany’s spelled wrong on the Project site. Ellen kindly emailed to correct me 🙂
I’ve bought the book, but haven’t had a chance to crack it yet.
I’m reading the green bible right now at your suggestion. For basically the exact same reasons as you’ve ordered the Delany book.
Ray!
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. Now I have to find something for you to have won.
Delany used to give out photocopied packets of what became this book to his writing students. It’s well worth the read, particularly the piece on “experimental” fiction.
I think you’re way too optimistic about “SF peeps” ability to get it right. Seems to me that PNH, who does most of the Delaney-policing on the ‘net, finds sf fans writing the name that way as often as not.
In the UK, I’m told, all one has to do is say “Delany . . . the Scottish way” and people will get it right.
Great new insult, is what I’m in your comments section to tell you.
Yeah. Great insult. As a bookseller, I can tell you, we adore people assuming that if we don’t know absolutely every book and author, we’re uneducated illiterates.
On the other hand, if they can’t spell “About Writing”, then they get what they deserve.
Once upon a time I wrote an undergraduate dissertation in which I spent a lot of time writing “Delany”. Then, on the final day, I checked the library catalogue in a fit of panic, and on its say so did a search and replace, subsituting “Delaney” all the way through.