Airships and Alchemy: June 2011

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Press-ganged

Your unfortunate narrator has been press ganged into service by lads of the Royal Navy. She hopes to make her escape soon to return to providing you further installments of this unique tale.

Cast of Characters

Helen Rochester, a young woman of adventurous desires
Pietro Romano, an Italian engineer of airships
Tuppence, Helen's raven
Edward, Helen's father
Belial, his horse
Cerberus, his dog
Jane, Helen's mother
Fairfax, Helen's older brother
Edmund, Helen's younger brother
Thompson, their head groom
Mrs. Hitchcock (née Wood), their housekeeper
Alessandro Maggiormente, an Italian alchemist
Eduardo, his familiar (a Venetian lion)
Édouard Manet, a painter
Berthe Morisot, a painter
The Linton Twins, rival airship pilots
Mme. Gabor, the Parisian concierge
Gustave, a Parisian poet
Alain Fabien, a baker
The baker's daughter, Brigitte
The baker's wife, Adèle
Maurice Delon, a mechanic

K. A. Laity, all-purpose writer

This is a blog for writer K. A. Laity, the author of Pelzmantel & Unikirja, a collection of short stories based on the Kalevala, Kanteletar, and other Finnish myths and legends, for which I won the 2005 Eureka Short Story Fellowship and a 2006 Finlandia Foundation grant, as well as other stories and essays. I teach medieval literature, film, New Media and popular culture at the College of Saint Rose, though I'll be at NUI Galway on a Fulbright for the 2011-2 academic year. The news blog title comes from my first student film, Un Amor Peligroso or the Wombat's World; it was also the title of a zine I used to publish. Unless otherwise identified, all writing here © K. A. Laity. Lege feliciter!