Outer Alliance Spotlight #8: Bart Leib and K.T. Holt November 6, 2009
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, publications, queer-friendly publishers , trackbackWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #8. Each Friday the Spotlight features an ally (or two!) who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. This week we’re celebrating November’s special LGBTQ themed anniversary issue of Crossed Genres with the editors, Bart Leib and K.T. Holt.
K.T. (Kay) and Bart are married, and both of them are bisexual. They started Crossed Genres together in 2008, and decided in the first couple of months that they wanted to do an extra large LGBTQ themed issue for the magazine’s first anniversary. The idea for Crossed Genres, which features stories that combine SF/F and another genre, grew out of Bart’s Genre Challenge community. Genre Challenge (which prompts members to write in a new genre each month) is still going, but has a new moderator now that Crossed Genres has taken off.
Kay’s love of speculative fiction runs deep. She wrote her first story (about a talking dolphin and his pet boy) at the age of six, and later got into college because of an essay on worldbuilding. Bart started writing poetry when he was in 8th grade, and took up prose fiction the next year. His non-fiction piece, “The Successful Hero’s List”, appeared in the April 2009 issue of Fantasy Magazine.
Bart and Kay live in Somerville, Massachusetts with their 3-year-old son, Bastian, and two cats named Romeo and Scout. In addition to writing and editing, both Kay and Bart take a keen interest in science. Kay works a day job in medical research administration, and is appalled at how little money brilliant researchers make. Bart’s particular scientific area of interest is sustainability, and people who use minimal resources to do amazing things. Kay and Bart encourage anyone with an interest in the future to blog about their favorite science news stories, and to fund research if possible.
What’s the story behind Crossed Genres? How did you come up with that particular idea for a magazine, and how do you choose the theme for each issue?
K: Bart tells this story better than I do. 
B: I do? News to me!
It started with the Genre Challenge, which was something I came up with to help myself as a writer: each month I picked a new genre and had to write a story of at least 1000 words in that genre (without mixing it with genres that I found easier, like SFF). I’d originally intended to only do it myself, and spontaneously decided at the last minute to open the idea up to others. Now the Livejournal community has 250-plus members. See how I failed at that?
We’d talked about the idea of converting Genre Challenge into a magazine, but felt it wouldn’t work for a variety of reasons. Kay was the one who came up with the idea of having each month combine a new genre with SFF. Some conversations we had at Denvention III (WorldCon 2008 in Denver, CO) solidified the idea, and we decided to go for it very shortly after.
How we choose the genres varies. We want to encourage as much diversity in submissions as possible, and from all over the world, so we try not to pick any genre that’s too narrow. We never want to have any that are too similar too close to each other. We also really like pushing the boundaries of what defines a “genre”, which is how we’ve ended up with themes like Child Fiction (September 2009) and Antihero (accepting submissions in February (2010). We’ve got some real doozies on our list but we’re saving the really tough ones for further down the road.
In the current LGBTQ themed issue, how varied is the queer content? Did the submissions trend toward any particular part of the LGBTQ spectrum? Were there any types of characters you would have liked to see more of?
B: I think it’s not surprising that we received a lot of stories about transsexual and transgender characters – SFF has a long history of playing with the definition of gender. But for the same reason, I was pretty surprised at the lack of genderless or intersex characters. Still, overall I was very pleased with the diversity of submissions we got.
One other thing I was surprised at was how few stories we received that had human/alien pairings. But in retrospect I can see how that type of story might be seen as drawing a parallel (however unintentionally) between queer relationships and something literally alien.
How is it working as a husband and wife editing team?
K: Well, I think it’s more relevant that we’re best friends than that we’re married. First and foremost, we have fun running CG together. The fact of our marriage just means that we can run it from our living room. Spending this much time together is certainly good for our marriage, but I doubt that would be so if we didn’t both enjoy the work so much.
B: If we didn’t love doing it then we’d have quit long ago, married or not. But one of the biggest things that brought us together as a couple in the first place was a shared love of literature, fandom and geekery. Crossed Genres is essentially an extension of our shared passions, which makes it so easy to enjoy together.
Bart, you gave Kay an amazing birthday surprise at WorldCon this year. How did you manage to pull that off? And Kay, just how excellent and unexpected was it? Have you been getting a lot of use out of your CINTIQ in the past couple of months?
B: Rather than try to condense what happened, I think it would be easier if people read my after-the-fact blog post. It’s long but worth the read.
Pulling it off was… well read the post to see just how tricky it was. But it’s the first time I ever spent 5 solid months on a birthday surprise, I’ll tell you that. (And another HUGE thank you to all the wonderful conspirators!)
K: Completely unexpected. It was good enough for me that I was attending WorldCon for the second birthday in a row!
I’ve been having a lot of fun with the Cintiq, though of course I wish I had more time to spend making art. Soon after I started playing around with the Cintiq, I was honored with an invitation to do a guest comic for The Apple of Discord. And since then I’ve been posting the occasional doodle to my DeviantArt gallery, not counting the still-secret art gigs I’ve been doing for very patient friends.
Crossed Genres is a year old, and it’s still going strong. Do you have any advice or resources for other people who might want to start zines of their own?
K: The learning curve is steep; if you’re honest about the mistakes you make and learn from them, most people will understand. You don’t have to pander to the masses; it’s okay to start small and stay small. Don’t quit your day job. And get some sleep, for goodness sake!
B: Remember that you won’t make money – if you do it, you’re doing it because you love it. If you don’t love it, don’t start, because it won’t last. Set deadlines and stick to them, because the second one thing falls behind, everything will. Plan as far in advance as possible – in fact, set aside time just for planning ahead. And I’ll second what Kay said about starting and staying small. If that’s what you love, it’s what you should do. Don’t allow your zine to be forced to be something you don’t enjoy yourself. Keep it yours.
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Thanks, Bart and Kay! Join us next Friday for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, go check out the LGBTQ issue of Crossed Genres!
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