I wrote in September that I’d decided to take my own “Imagining Venice” challenge by writing a story about an imaginary Venice. Here’s a bit from the very beginning of that story, “Code of Blood,” which will be published in Corsets & Clockwork in May 2011 — exactly when our class will be leaving for Venice! And yes, we’ll be standing exactly where Chiara’s standing, although I sincerely hope we won’t hear any gunfire while we’re there.

Pushing through the shoulder-to-shoulder mob was impossible. Everybody in the city seemed to have collected along the fondamenta, from fishmongers to foreigners to fashionably dressed nobles, all pressed together without concern for rank or gender. Nobody seemed inclined to make room for anybody else.

Chiara squirmed and twisted to the water’s edge. Ornate, gilded boats bobbed around the massive bulk of the Bucintoro like cygnets around a mother swan. The Bucintoro itself, its great, two-decked body adorned with a riot of gilded clockwork sirens, hydras, putti, and zephyrs, loomed over the Molo. A removable walkway draped with flags and ribbons and wreaths swung from its top deck to the piazzetta.

And there, in the piazzetta, she spotted a crowd of ceremonially robed councilors surrounding her grandfather, the doge of Venezia, Carlo Dandolo.

Somebody jostled her and she nearly lost her footing. Grabbing the nearest arm, Chiara pulled herself away from the water with a quick apology and then darted the bystander’s merry attempt to catch her around the waist. His laughter followed her as she hid behind a group of heavyset grandmothers who were barreling their way through the crowd with the implacable dignity of age and righteousness. Chiara meekly followed in their wake.

Crossing the Ponte di Paglia was another struggle, but her advance guard of nonne battled through, spitting dire imprecations in fierce Veneziano. Chiara stayed close behind.

She had just set foot on the other side of the bridge when she heard a series of sharp reports. For a moment she thought somebody had set off fireworks, but then an explosion ripped through the air and people began screaming….

Thank you, Trisha, for giving me permission to excerpt it here! (If you’re interested in the anthology, you can pre-order it from Amazon here.)

The photo to the left shows my makeshift workspace today as I abandon the overheated loft office of my apartment for the (relatively) cooler dining-room table. I’m taking this day off in my lecture schedule to work on my short story about an alternative, alchemical Venice.

“Imagining Venice” isn’t just a task for our students, you see. Earlier this year, when I signed a contract to write a short YA romance for an upcoming anthology, I decided that I was going to take the opportunity to imagine a Venice of my own and set my story within it. My Venice is one in which the Venetians made alchemical pacts with the elements around them, especially the undine of the lagoon and Adriatic. It’s a Venice in which that pact successfully thwarted the French invasion of 1797 and allowed the republic to retain its independence. It’s a Venice in which, on May 4, 1815, my young heroine is caught in one last, brutal French assault against the city as its alchemical bond with the sea is about to expire….

It’s a Venice I wish had been: a Venice in which Doge Lodovico Manin had been able to rally the resources and military might to block the French and to prevent the fall of the once-great republic. But imagining that Venice has led me to immerse myself even more deeply in this Venice, as the books and maps (and one Italian dictionary) on my dining room table will attest….

I hope our students will find themselves drawn into similar research efforts as they pursue their own creative interpretations of La Serenissima!

While talking to Terry about this class today, I suddenly remembered another manga/anime series besides Hetalia that refers to Venice — Aria, set in the early 24th century on the planet Aqua. In this highly praised series, 15-year-old Akari Mizunashi comes to the watery planet to learn how to become a gondolier in the tourist-ridden city of Neo-Venezia. It’s interesting, given our recent post on the struggle female gondoliers have been facing to be accepted in Venice, that all of her fellow “undines” (as they’re called in the series) are female, as well.

The city of Neo-Venezia was created in honor of the Earth city of Venice, which was destroyed, according to the series, in the 21st century.

The manga has been given high reviews for its quiet, introspective mood and beautiful artwork, and the equally lovely anime is available in English from Right Stuf (see official website). This illustration from the anime shows our heroines standing in Piazza San Marco next to the doge’s palace… but you recognized the setting already from browsing our photos, didn’t you?

Here’s the trailer, for anyone interested!