Because of these several impediments, as well as other technical difficulties, you will find typos and occasional replication of text. In our humble opinion, typos show that the logs are of *live* chats, not canned interviews, and minimal editing of these logs has taken place.

David M. Honigsberg's Home Page

Alexandra Elizabeth Honigsberg
Alexandra Elizabeth Honigsberg is known for her poetry and fiction that is often rooted in the arts, history, and realms of the spirit. Anthologies such as White Wolf's Dark Destiny series, Dante's Disciples, and Pawn of Chaos, as well as New Altars (Angelus Press), On Crusade (Warner/Aspect), Blood Muse (Donald I. Fine Publ.), Angels of Darkness (SFBC), The Crow (Del Rey), and Strange Attractions are its typical literary homes. She is a professional musician, a scholar of comparative religions and church history, and lives with her similarly inclined husband and cats in Upper Manhattan, land of forests, fjords, and the Unicorn Tapestries. 

Alexandra Elizabeth Honigsberg's Home Page

[Cybling] Hello David and Alexandra!
* Ryan waves
[Cybling] If you have questions for our guest, please just ask. But please, let the guest answer one question before you ask another.
[Alexandra] Hiya
[David] Hi everybody
[Cybling] How has the convention been treating you so far?
[Alexandra] Just fine, thanks.
[David] Wonderfully. Having a great time
[Cybling] Excellent! I know we've had a lot of lines at the elevators and lost folks this year.
[Cybling] You two just finished a reading...
[Cybling] can you tell us online what a reading is like?
[Alexandra] The elevators sitch has actually been very civilized, despite some waits.
[Alexandra] few brave folks out of Orson Scott Card's reading and had a great time.Readings...well...often @ a worldcon, no one comes, 'cause there's just so much else to do. But today we managed to corral a
[David] It's what you'd expect...folks in a room, listening to an author. It's fun (I think) because you really get inflections that you don't get when reading
[Cybling] I hear sometimes they're mobbed, but the hotel has little ropes set up....and the readings sound like fun.
[Cybling] Gives the convention attenders a closer feel for how you're thinking when you write.
[David] I always enjoy doing readings.
[Cybling] David, you were on a panel yesterday... Science Fiction on TV and Films: Is It a Curse of a Godsend to the Genre?
[Alexandra] The part of reading I like best is seeing the reactions in real-time and being able to tell the stories behind the stories.l
[David] It also allows the author to go into some detail about the process of writing
[Cybling] What was you position on that?
[David] Right. That was a blast. Most of the panelists' position was that it's both.
[Cybling] Both?
[David] Both blessing and curse, that is
[David] If done well, a blessing. If done poorly, it can really hurt the genre in the public's perception of what SF is all about
[Cybling] Blessed because it brings in new readers?
[David] Right...that's the potetial.
[David] potential, even
[Cybling] And yes, understand the curse as well.
[Alexandra] HIya, Nyx.
[Nyx] Howdy.
[Cybling] David, I see that you've worked on Ars Magica: Kabbalah for Atlas Games...
[Cybling] how does the Kabbalah relate to the atlas?
[Alexandra] Greetings, Horus.
[Cybling] If you have questions for our guest, please just ask. But please, let the guest answer one question before you ask another.
[Horus] :)
[David] Ars Magica players are always interested in new ways to expand their playing experience...
[Cybling] okay...
[David] Writing that Kabbalah book was a great way to open up new vistas for players. It tied together two of my favorite things -- gameing and mystcism
[Cybling] Ars Magica...I'm sorry I'm not familiar with it. Is it RPG, Cards?
[David] RPG, based in Mythic Europe (around 1213 CE)
[Cybling] Oh great. Quite a few RPGers here in DarkMyst.
[Horus] that the tim of the Crusades?
[Horus] time
[David] During that time yes...that spans a bunch o' years, of course
[Cybling] David and Alexandra...you mentioned that you did a concert last night?
[Cybling] Are you filkers, or more serious/ less serious?
[Alexandra] Yes, for the Frequency
[David] Although I know that many filkers are serious, we're not filkers, no. More mainstream -- rock, country, blues...
[Cybling] Okay...thanks. I knew we were talking yesterday with a couple of filkers...
[Alexandra] We're professional and commercial and 2 of us're conservatory trained and session musicians.
[David] The band is the Don't Quit our Day Job Players
[Cybling] and it seems to be a sort of convention disease that takes control.
[Cybling] Okay...thanks for clearing that up. So you do rock country and blues.
[Cybling] Any preference in those three styles?
[Alexandra] Filk is like fanfic -- it's own thing and fun, but not what we do as writers who make our living this way.
[David] I think that we're sliding more into the alt-country category, these days. Ya'lternative music
[Alexandra] I love everything but I think we're going into the ya'llternative category more, as they call it, since it seems more open to new things, commercially.
[Cybling] Okay...thanks. Alexandra, you write a lot of poety. What genre would you say your work falls into?
[Alexandra] Hm...
[David] Hi, Martha
[Alexandra] I spend a lotta time in the dark fantasy/horror realm, since my stuff can be sort of atmospheric (like Poe) and they seem to publish more poetry.
[Ryan] Hi Martha.
[Alexandra] Matty?
[Cybling] Okay good, and you write original lyrics for your band?
[David] We both do.
[Cybling] Excellent. Who handles the scores?
[Alexandra] Yes. Lyrics, music, the works...but arrangements're usually a joint effort.
[Cybling] Okay...so you arrange for how many instruments?
[Alexandra] I like to see what everyone in the band can come up with. I"ll start w/lyrics and melody and ideas for chords and some large ideas for bits of the backing, but it's full collaboration, after that.
[David] There are six of us - two guitars, percussion, bass, drums, percussion. Steven, the other guitarist also plays mandolin which opens up all kinds of things.
[David] OOps...and Alexandra plays violin and viola
[Ryan] Hmm
[Ryan] a band..
[Alexandra] I play violin and viola and will soon add another electric guitar to the mix.
[David] A band with a web site -- www.dqydjp.com
[Alexandra] And a lotta the tunes tell stories -- another good reason to go into country, as it's a storytelling music genre.
[Ryan] What are your feelings on mp3s and songs on the internet? are they good or bad? are you supporters or non-supporters?
[Cybling] David, you teach the Kabbalah as well. Alway been one of those mysterious words to me... can you give me a short description of what you teach? Is that possible?
[David] Ryan -- it's a blessng and curse. Great for promotion for those who want that.
[Alexandra] I think a few clips're very useful and if the things' outta print, then necessary. Otherwise, production costs're so high and the artists really bear it all, that we've gotta sell stuff to live, plain and simple.
[David] Short descriptions are tricky and incomplete; but Judaism, for centuries, has been full of mystical teachings. I try to make them more accessible...
[David] I
[Alexandra] I won't give my CD away on the web any more than I"ll do it w/my writing, but I'll give enough to give people an idea of what I do so they can make an informed purchase, which is only fiar.
[David] I'm a recently ordained Rabbi, and that helps lend a bit of "authority" to what I do now, as well.
[Cybling] Thanks David...
[Cybling] back to the band. I see...
[Cybling] the Don't Quit Your Day Job Players
[Cybling] are playing at the Fairmont tonight at 8?
[Cybling] Is this a panel or a concert?
[Alexandra] yes
[David] Full tilt concert
[Alexandra] full-tilt, boogeyin' show
[Cybling] We have a phrase for that online...
[Cybling] gmta or Great Minds Think Alike
[Horus] :)
[Cybling] LOL.
[Alexandra] ABsolutely
[Cybling] Beleive me, it happens more often than you would think.
[David] Full sound system, amps, the whole nine yards. It's going to be jumpin'
[Cybling] Dancing included/allowed?
[Alexandra] We do have group mind, in the band, in SFWA...can be a hoot or very scary. ;-]
[Alexandra] Please!
[David] ENCOURAGED
[Cybling] Encouraged dancing...this is good.
[Cybling] Depending on how many people show up and how large the room is.
[Alexandra] We even talk back to the audience if they talk to us.
[Cybling] that's good!
[David] The Crystal Room is large enough for dancing, no doubt
[Alexandra] MOre playing than talking...but a bit of talking, anyways, esp. if we break a string.
[cringe]
[Cybling] Alexandra...Sunday you have a panel on Grail Legends....
[Cybling] I thought there was only one. There are more?
[Alexandra] Many legends...Italian, French, German, Saxon, etc. Of course, the Celts were everywhere, so who knows whether or not they influenced all of them.
[Cybling] Okay...are they basically similar or are some very divergent?
[Alexandra] The infamous answers -- yes and no.
[Alexandra] The grail comes in many shapes and sizes, it can be something that tests, something you quest for, something that finds you or gives eternal life...but it's always mystical innature.
[Cybling] Yes, the celts were everywhere. The number of cultures that have bagpipes is terrifying.
[David] lol
[Alexandra] I like bagpipes.
[Cybling] Alexandra...you'll be doing an autographing session at this convention as well...
[Cybling] will you be autographing anything in particular?
[Alexandra] I'll have copies of our albums (TKB and Blues Spoken Here -- which can also be gotten in the dealer's room)...
[Alexandra] ...and I have new pieces out in anthos -- Strange Attraction ed. by Ed Kramer and Lisa Snelling...
[Alexandra] ...and The Crow: Shattered Lives & Broken Dreams (deluxe ed. by JAmes O'Barr and Ed Kramer)....
[Alexandra] ..And anything else that folks might find from my 10 yrs. in the biz.
[Cybling] Good. ARe the albums lp, cd, tape?
[Alexandra] CD. TApes can be made by special order.
[Cybling] Excellent. I know some of us are still in the sticks and stones era and have turntables.
[Alexandra] 16 songs. one hour of music on the new one.
[Cybling] That's great!
[Alexandra] We still hae a turntable and much vinyl, too.
[Cybling] David, Alexandra... do you have anything in the pipeline about to be published that you'd...
[Cybling] like to alert us to now?
[David] At the moment, I've got a new story out, "The Toy Room" in BRUCE COVILE'S U.F.O.'s
[Ryan] wb Martha.
[Alexandra] We're hoping to see another collaboration together (the last one in Katherine Kurtz's More Tales of the Knights Templar) sometime next year, but can't really talk about it, yet.
[Alexandra] That's "ON Crusade" for the Kurtz Antho.
[David] And, for me, Hero Games might release CHAOSWORLD CAMPAIGN BOOK and KABBALAH GRIMOIRE later this year
[Cybling] Won't press you for detail then. But I
*will
* thank you for coming out here and joining us today, and taking time away from the band and the convention.
[David] Two more RPG supplements
[Cybling] David, Alexandra...I'll be getting in touch with you about getting some software....
[Alexandra] And, hopefully, this convention yields a new contract or 3. ;-]
[Cybling] and getting you out to chat about your many many interests here in the future!
[Alexandra] Sounds cool.
[Cybling] We'll keep our fingers crossed for the contracts!
[David] Thanks for having us. This is our first online chat and it
[David] 's been lots of fun