Galactic Suburbia is a bi-weekly (or, as they say in Australia, fortnightly) podcast, which exists to call attention to feminist issues in the speculative fiction world. In each episode, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Alex Pierce, and Alisa Krasnostein talk about news and noteworthy events, and then discuss the culture they’ve consumed. These conversations are open and fun, and often draw my attention to aspects of books and television shows that I wouldn’t have considered otherwise. I’ve been a fan for a while now, and I’ve mentioned that on this blog, in my own podcast, and during panels at conventions.

Given that, I was absolutely delighted and a bit flummoxed to find OA Podcast #11 on their Honours List. They chose to recognize me along with Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, hosts of one of my other favorite podcasts, The Writer and the Critic. Since several people have told me that episode #11 was their favorite OA Podcast episode, I must give Ian and Kirstyn the bulk of the credit here. They were wonderful guests.

I also want to congratulate everyone else on the Honours List. Special congratulations to Michele Lee, who is an OA member, and the first person I ever interviewed for this blog; and to Cheryl Morgan, who has been an active OA member from the start, and whose thoughtful posts often give me a new perspective on things to do with gender and spec fic. Seriously, though, everyone on the Honours List has done wonderful things, and I admire all of them.

Most exciting of all, perhaps, is this year’s winner. Nicola Griffith (also an OA member!) gets to take home a hand painted Galactic Suburbia Deepings doll for her Russ Pledge idea. Nicola called for everyone to read and talk about women’s writing, and people listened! Several book challenges and blog posts and podcast discussions started because of Nicola’s idea, and the conversation seems to be gaining momentum even now.

Two weeks ago, I was on a “How Not to Suppress Women’s Writing” panel at Arisia, which existed because of the Russ Pledge conversation opener. Andrea Hairston, who is one of the Guests of Honor for WisCon this year, was  our moderator, and we spent the session recommending books, talking about how to keep the conversation going, and exploring resources for news and other things like that (I actually recommended Galactic Suburbia there). It was a great panel, and lots of strangers stopped me later to tell me how much they’d gotten out of it. I’m so glad to see Nicola being recognized for her contribution.

Congratulations, Nicola! And congratulations to Carrie Goldman and Katie, Cheryl Morgan, Helen Merrick, Jim C. Hines, Kirstyn McDermott, Ian Mond, L. Timmel Duchamp, and Michele Lee! I think you’re all the bee’s knees, and I’m thrilled to  be in your company.

You can hear the Galactic Suburbia team explaining their choices for this award in a special podcast episode. A written explanation is here.

They’re also looking for nominees for the 2012 award, so if you see someone doing something wonderful to advance the feminist conversation, be sure to let them know!

Before we dive into the wide world of writerly education, there’s one bit of news I wanted to share. A lot of OA members have said they’re fans of Diane Duane, and cited her as an influence on their own work, so I thought I should pass on her call for help. Earlier this week someone fraudulently cleared out her bank account, and she’s scrambling to make ends meet while the bank sorts through fraud paperwork. A quick infusion of cash would be very welcome, so she’s offering a 20% discount on her personal e-book store. If you’d like to help her out and get some excellent books at a bargain price, just go over there and use the promotional code DDGOTSKIMMED.

Okay! Writing workshops!

The beginning of the calendar year is one of those times when a lot of people resolve to improve and grow. If you’re a writer, you might be drawing up plans to complete big projects, or making goals for submissions counts, or you might be trying to figure out how best to learn more about your craft. There are a lot of writing classes out there. Here are a few which are QUILTBAG friendly. All of these have either been recommended by OA members, or are taught by OA members.

I’m going to list these in order of pricing from high to low. I’m not valuing any workshop or class over another, though, just to be clear.

Clarion Workshops — These are six week intensive workshops. They’re competitive, and they’ll set you back a couple thousand dollars (though there are a few scholarships available). Several OA members have praised them for the diverse and knowledgeable instructors, and the residential setting, which focuses students on learning and making connections with their peers. Many Clarion students go on to sell a lot of work. If this sounds like your cup of tea, applications are open until the 1st of March for both Clarion and Clarion West. Both workshops this year feature instructors who have written stories with QUILTBAG content themselves, so it’s safe to assume they’ll be supportive of yours if you bring it.

Viable Paradise — Like Clarion, this is a residential intensive workshop with several instructors, and it’s also going to cost you a couple thousand dollars when all is said and done. Unlike Clarion, all the instructors are there together, and the whole experience lasts one week instead of six. It’s also competitive, and many Viable Paradise students go on to sell a lot of work. If the intensive residency idea appeals, but you have a job or family you can’t leave for long, this might be a good choice for you. Applications  for Viable Paradise are open until the 15th of June.  Again, the instructors here have written (or published) QUILTBAG material, so yours will be welcome.

Lambda Literary Writing Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices – If you want to spend time with other QUILTBAG writers, this might be a good choice for you. It’s another weeklong intensive residency program, which, again, will cost a couple thousand dollars after you’ve accounted for transportation and room and board on top of the tuition (though there are scholarships available).  Applications are open until mid-April. Lambda Literary has more information here.

Loft Classes — The Literary Loft is a Minneapolis area organization which offers lots of different classes for writers both in person and online. These are a good option for people who have less money to spend, and they’re not competitive–anyone may enroll. If you live in the area, you might consider taking Catherine Lundoff’s one day class on writing and selling QUILTBAG fiction on the 18th of February (a steal at $46.50). If you don’t live in the area, you might like Lyda Morehouse’s science fiction class, Mars Needs Writers ($425.00 for six weeks of online coursework starting on the 6th of February–video introduction here). Both of these instructors are most certainly open to QUILTBAG work. To find either class, visit the Loft site, and look them up under the teaching artists field in the search page.

Cat Rambo’s Online Classes — For the writer who wants to experience a workshop classroom environment without leaving home, this is a great choice. These classes run from $99 to $249, and Cat teaches over Google+ hangouts, which are video chats. I’m currently taking one, and can personally attest it’s been helpful. Again, this is a non-competitive open enrollment situation, so your class will likely contain people at different levels. I’ve found that perfectly agreeable, as Cat gives equal time and attention to everyone and is very good about tailoring classes to specific students’ needs. And Cat’s an OA member, so you know QUILTBAG content is welcome. You may find info on how to sign up at Cat’s blog.

That’s what I’ve got for now. If you have other QUILTBAG friendly writing education recommendations, please tell us about them in the comments!

Finally, there are still a few days left to enter the drawing for a signed copy of Natania Barron’s Pilgrim of the Sky. Just comment on this post to get your name into the hat!

This whole idea of celebrating and supporting QUILTBAG civil rights, and fair representation of QUILTBAG writers and characters in speculative fiction, is not in competition with other rights movements.

There’s this thing called intersectionality, which basically suggests that all oppressed groups intersect in some way, and if we’re working toward fairness and equality for one group of people, really, we need to be working toward fairness and equality for all people. We’re all in this together. This is one reason why I think the conversation Nnedi Okorafor recently started is really important.

Nnedi is a woman of color, and her World Fantasy Award winning novel, Who Fears Death, is set in a future Africa with a protagonist who is a woman of color. Given that, it’s pretty understandable that Nnedi might feel uncomfortable with the World Fantasy Award’s form: a bust of H.P. Lovecraft. Her post is worth reading in its entirety, but in the interest of continuing the discussion with context, here’s some of the heart of it:

This is something people of color, women, minorities must deal with more than most when striving to be the greatest that they can be in the arts: The fact that many of The Elders we honor and need to learn from hate or hated us.

…

If Lovecraft’s likeness and name are to be used in connection to the World Fantasy Award, I think there should be some discourse about what it means to honor a talented racist.

Now, Lovecraft wasn’t just a racist. He was also a misogynist, and probably a homophobe as well. Sarah Monette talked a little bit about this in the 13th episode of the OA Podcast (on misogyny, around the 17:28 mark, she said, “I mean, Lovecraft has two female characters with names, and one of them is an inbred, passive receptacle for a monster, and the other one is a monster herself.”). And yet, Lovecraft is a giant influence on many modern fantasy and horror writers with much more progressive ideals. His work, his style, and his meshing of things both beautiful and dreadful, have seeped into modern American culture so much that Cthulhu, a tentacled horror, is widely recognized and reinterpreted in text, film, visual art, game, and plush toy forms (to name a few). A quick check on Amazon shows 683 items tagged with Cthulhu, and 515 tagged with Lovecraft. Like Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, the Cthulhu mythos has permeated pop culture enough that there are likely a lot of people who enjoy the references without ever having consumed the original source material, much less considered the author’s politics.

But many of the modern writers who cite Lovecraft as an influence have indeed considered those politics, and their work often engages in dialogue with them. Elizabeth Bear’s 2009 Hugo winning  “Shoggoths in Bloom” (with an African American protagonist, who considers Lovecraft’s shoggoths in the context of slavery and the oppression of minority groups) is one example, and Sarah Monette’s The Bone Key (which explores issues of gender and sexuality with several named female characters and a gay male protagonist) is another.

Does any of this change that Lovecraft was a racist, or that his published and celebrated works include a lot of horribly racist content? No. Some argue that he seems to have had a change of heart at the end of his life–there’s a letter from 1936 in which he wrote, “The liberals at whom I used to laugh were the ones who were right—for they were living in the present while I had been living in the past.” Of course, the context of that statement is economics and not racism, but it does imply that he was human, and had the capacity to change and grow, which is somewhat reassuring. It doesn’t undo the horrible things he wrote, though.  And while I can’t deny that his work was compelling and remains widely influential, I have to say, I’m not sure why we need a bust of his head commemorating one of the more progressive awards out there (past winners include China Miéville, Ellen Kushner, and Margo Lanagan, among others).

Theodora Goss (another World Fantasy Award winner) has also posted about this, and (in addition to a brilliantly specific example of how she reads Lovecraft with a critical eye, and what she sees in his work despite the unpleasantness) she offers a suggestion for a new award form, which sounds pretty great to me:

I think the award should be different each year, and it should be designed by a contemporary fantasy artist. Imagine winning an award designed by Shaun Tan or Charles Vess or Omar Rayyan! That would also recognize the wonderful work being done in fantasy art, which is such an important part of book publication in this “genre” (a word I use for convenience, since I don’t think fantasy is a genre).

What does it mean to honor a talented racist? I don’t have a good answer. I think it’s good to recognize and respond to the sources which help shape our work. I think it’s good to remember and examine both their strengths and their flaws so that we can continue improving, evolving, and growing as artists and as humans. But it does trouble me to have this symbol on an award. Partly, I think it’s that when we choose to commemorate someone with a bust like that, we’re implicitly approving of everything about them, whether we intend to or not. And partly, it’s a broader issue for me. The World Fantasy Award is not about one person. It’s not an award for the work most like Lovecraft’s, it’s an award for the best fantasy works of any given year. Fantasy covers a lot of ground, and not all of it is tinged with the Lovecraftian influence. Why narrow the form of the award down to honoring one person? The Hugos and the Nebulas manage to do all right without being busts of anyone’s heads, after all.

What are your thoughts? How do you feel about Lovecraft, the World Fantasy Award, and Nnedi’s call for discourse? Have you seen other posts in this conversation which particularly moved you? Have you written one of your own? I think it’s a very good thing to talk about, and I would really love to hear from others.

Although this episode has an explicit tag, most of it is fine for everyone to consume. If you are concerned about exposing your delicate ears to a bit of salty language, however, you should avoid listening to the very last excerpt (from Patty Templeton’s story).

You can subscribe to the podcast RSS feed here or use this link to subscribe with iTunes. You can also hit play on the embedded player in this post and listen to the podcast on the web, or visit the individual episode page to download this episode as an MP3 without subscribing.

Notes:

Awards!
*The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards writeup is here. The OA sends hearty congratulations to all!
*Elisa Rolle’s Rainbow Awards list is here. So many OA members to congratulate! Excellent job all around! Particular congratulations to JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff, Cecilia Tan, Lauren Burka, Lee Thomas, Lee Benoit, and Kyell Gold!

Zen Cho’s Links
*Zen’s blog, which has links to all her stories.
*Eileen Chang‘s stories were part of the inspiration for Zen’s story in SteamPowered II.
*Malaysian and Singaporean writers: Jaymee Goh, Stephanie Lai, Fadzlishah Johanabas, Ika Koeck, Alfian Sa’at, Eeleen Lee, Joyce Chng.
*Ken Liu and Aliette de Bodard are not Malaysian or Singaporean, but Zen recommends their work, too.

Shveta Thakrar’s Links
*Shveta’s blog.
*“Lavanya and Deepika” is Shveta’s retelling of “The Beautiful Twin and the Ugly Twin” in Demeter’s Spicebox.
*Shveta recommends the Hindu myth comic books from Amar Chitra Katha.

Patty Templeton’s Links
*Patty Templeton’s blog.
*The Foxfire Books seek to preserve and celebrate the culture of Southern Appalachia.
*Naked Girls Reading is a group of women who like to read in the nude (yes, this page does contain pictures of naked women). They also give out a Literary Honors Award, which Patty won in 2010.

More About SteamPowered II
*Jaymee Goh interviewed every contributor for this volume on her blog. See the collected interviews here.
*The Skiffy and Fanty Show (a podcast co-hosted by OA member, Shaun Duke) had an LGBTQ themed episode with SteamPowered editor, JoSelle Vanderhooft this month.

This year’s Best Novel winner is Under the Poppy by Kathe Koja! You can read more about Kathe and this Spectrum winning novel in Outer Alliance Spotlight #53. It involves love, war, and puppets, plus it’s got a really interesting structure and voice. Kirstyn and Ian gave it a a rave review on episode #5 of The Writer and the Critic, and the Spectrum judges say, “… the
novel engages the reader from the start, provides a way to taste and smell the world through brilliantly-crafted prose, and presents a heart-wrenching romance.” You can buy Under the Poppy from Small Beer Press.

Recommended Short List:

Black Blade Blues by J.A. Pitts (Tor) — Urban Fantasy with dragons and adventure and a female protagonist, who has a girlfriend!
Bob the Book by David Pratt (Chelsea Street Editions) — A story about a gay book, who gets separated from his partner and interacts with other books and people as he tries to find him.
A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files (ChiZine Publications) — Weird Western with lots of action, magic, crime, and a gay couple at the center of it all.
Red Hood’s Revenge by Jim C. Hines (DAW) — The third in his Princess series, this book gives us tough, capable fairy tale heroines, some of whom are lesbians! Yay!
Stealing Fire by Jo Graham (Orbit) — Historical Fantasy set just after the death of Alexander the Great. This one features a bisexual hero, and is written by a bisexual author.
The White Road by Lynn Flewelling (Spectra) — The fifth book in Lynn’s Nightrunner series (which features a gay couple, and is often gushed about by OA members).
The Wolf at the Door by Jameson Currier (Chelsea Street Editions) — New Orleans, ghosts, and a gay hero blended into scary story with wit and sentiment.

Congratulations, all! You can read what the Spectrum Judges had to say about all of these books on this PDF handout. Have you read any of these? What did you think of them? Feel free to share your favorites in the comments!

Our guest this month is Sarah Monette, author of The Bone Key, which is just out in its shiny second edition with an introduction by Lynne M. Thomas (astute listeners may remember her as the guest on last month’s OA podcast). After the interview, Sarah also reads an excerpt from one of the stories in The Bone Key.

Annnnnnd…

She’s graciously donated a signed copy for our birthday giveaway, and we have two other books as well! Signed copies of Vintage by Steve Berman, and Hollowstone by Dennis Upkins are also up for grabs. Three lucky listeners will win one of these haunting tomes. The contest is open until the end of November. I’ll draw winners in December. To enter, send me an e-mail (julia@juliarios.com) with “Podcast Contest” in the subject line. I will ship anywhere in the world, and everyone who is not actually me is eligible. This means you!

You can subscribe to the podcast RSS feed here or use this link to subscribe with iTunes. You can also hit play on the embedded player in this post and listen to the podcast on the web, or visit the individual episode page to download this episode as an MP3 without subscribing

Notes:

News
*Malinda Lo has redesigned her website, and is also giving away books to celebrate!
*The World Fantasy Awards happened last month, and Alisa Krasnostein won in the Special Award Non-Professional category for Twelfth Planet Press. Hurray! If you would like to read some awesome Australian specfic (often with queer content), Twelfth Planet Press is a great place to look!
*The Tiptree Recommended Reading List  is full of awesome stories, many of which are by OA members! There is still time to recommend books and stories to the Tiptree jury, so if you’ve read something this year which explores or expands our notions of gender, do go tell them about it!
*Maria Lima‘s Bood Sacrifice has been nominated in the Best Urban Fantasy Protagonist category for the RT Awards! Hurray, and best of luck to you, Maria!
*It’s [Inter]National Novel Writing Month! Bon Courage to all the wrimos in the OA crowd!
*Dennis Upkins will be signing books at The Great Escape in Madison, TN on the 19th of this month
*Sarah Monette will be signing books on that very same day (with Elizabeth Bear) at Pandemonium Books in Cambridge, MA.

Sarah’s Work
*The Bone Key and Somewhere Beneath Those Waves are her two short story collections, available from Prime Books.
*“After the Dragon” and “The Devil in Gaylord’s Creek” are the two stories we talked about that appeared in Fantasy Magazine.
*“Letter From a Teddy Bear on Veteran’s Day” is one of the first stories Sarah successfully wrote (the other is the opening story in The Bone Key, “Bringing Helena Back”).
*Here is Sarah Monette’s Author Page on Amazon, where you can find all of her novels.

Other Works We Mentioned
*The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
*“Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” and “The Wailing Well” by M.R. James
*“The Statement of Randolph Carter” by H.P. Lovecraft (the inspiration for “Bringing Helena Back”)
*“The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” by H.P. Lovecraft (Sarah’s favorite Lovecraft story)
*The Dead Zone by Stephen King (in Sarah’s estimation, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century)
*P.G. Wodehouse (whose work, like Sarah’s Booth stories, features eccentric characters with strong personalities)
*Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner (which Sarah says is a huge influence on her fantasy novels)

That’s it for this episode. If you have feedback for me, please leave a comment here, talk to us on the Google Group, or e-mail me at julia@juliarios.com. And do enter to win one of the three books in our Birthday Ghost Story Giveaway!

Crossed Genres has been actively involved in the Outer Alliance from the start. I interviewed owners Bart and Kay back in 2009 for OA Spotlight #8, and they’ve been industriously celebrating, promoting, and soliciting queer content for the duration of Crossed Genres Magazine‘s run.

Earlier this month, they announced that the magazine will be closing. This is sad news for those of us who have loved anticipating each new theme for the past three years, but it’s actually great news, too. The reason Bart and Kay are closing the magazine is so that they’ll have more time to concentrate on anthologies and novels, like Fat Girl in a Strange Land (whose table of contents just went live today!)  and Broken Slate (which was the subject of OA Podcast #9).

With a solid track record of diverse content, we can certainly look forward to excellent things once the magazine closes, but first, Crossed Genres Magazine is having one last major hurrah. Issue 36, which will come out in December, has the theme: Different. Submissions are open until the 31st of this month, and they’re accepting all sorts of different things for this one.

For this issue, we are open to all types of media. Previously we haven’t accepted poetry, or podcasts, or photography; now we are. We’ll even consider longer or shorter pieces of writing. (maximum 10,000 words though!) This will make the final issue – well, different from anything we’ve published before.

And we’re looking for as diverse a body of submissions as possible to choose from! We want submissions with characters of color, quiltbag characters, disabled characters, elderly or child M/C’s. We want underrepresented perspectives!

Wouldn’t it be lovely to see a lot of OA members in that last issue? I think so! If you have something Different for Bart and Kay to look at, do send it in!

I’m Here, I’m Queer, What the Hell Do I Read?: Lee Wind’s awesome book recommendation blog. He reads all kinds of things and shares his thoughts with the rest of us–and there’s always an open comment thread. Seriously excellent resource. Right up there with…

Bibrary Book Lust: Sally Sapphire’s super book recommendation resource. Sally’s open to all sorts of genres, and super interested in keeping the conversation going–she started the Gender Identity and Expression Book Challenge at the beginning of this year. There’s still time to participate, if you like!

Twitter #FeministSF Chat: This happens every Sunday at 2pm EST. Every week there are one or two host/moderators who guide discussions on particular themes. This Sunday, Catherine Lundoff and Kathryn Allen are going to be talking about outsiders and cyberpunk. Sign into Twitter and follow the #FeministSF hastag. Anyone can participate, and it’s a great way to meet other people and get book recs.

In Person in New York This Month: On the 24th, The Center for Fiction is hosting an Outsiders in SF panel with Steve Berman, Samuel Delaney, Andrea Hairston, Carlos Hernandez, Alaya Dawn Johnson, and Ellen Kushner.  And on the 10th (that’s Monday!) Bluestockings is hosting a reading from Milk and Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry. Rose Fox will be a part of that one. Honestly, if you’re ever in New York, it’s worth checking out the Bluestockings events calendar, since they have stuff going on nearly every day.

In Person in Washington DC This Month: Capclave is next weekend, the 14th-16th in Gaithersburg, MD. Catherynne Valente is one of the Guests of Honor.

In Person in San Diego This Month: The World Fantasy Convention is on the last weekend of October. It’s already completely sold out, and has been for some time, but it promises to be full of exciting conversations, which I’m hoping will spill over onto the internet so that people like me, who can’t be there, can join in the fun.

If you know of other places where excellent conversations are happening, please tell us in the comments here or on the google group. And if you’re going to any of these in-person events and want to share your experience with us, we’d love to hear those, too!

Earlier this week over at Genreville, Rose Fox lent her blog to Sherwood Smith and Rachel Manija Brown so that they could share their experience submitting a post-apocalyptic YA novel with a gay point of view character. They wrote about how an agent offered them representation if they’d change that character to make him straight.

Rose asked for honest conversation, and in the days since that post went live, I’ve seen hundreds of responses. Several agents and editors have publicly said they’re open to/actively hoping to see LGBTQIA content in their submissions piles, a representative from the agency in question responded claiming it had all been a misunderstanding, the #YesGayYA hashtag on Twitter took off and was full of recommendations and discussion, and many people have taken this as another prompt to point out their favorite YA books with non-straight characters. So that’s all good and happy and we’re done, right?

Not so fast.

As Sherwood and Rachel pointed out in their first post (in which, I note, they deliberately chose not to name the agent in question so as to focus on the larger problem):

Forcing all major characters in YA novels into a straight white mold is a widespread, systemic problem which requires long-term, consistent action.

In their personal blogs, in response to the agency’s post, they add:

This is why we went public: After the initial exchange a month ago, we spoke in private to a number of other writers, without mentioning the name of the agent or agency. There was an overwhelming response of “Me too!” Many other writers had been asked by agents and editors to alter or remove the minority identity of their characters, sometimes as a condition of representation or sale. Sometimes those identities had been altered by editors without the writers’ knowledge or permission.

…

We urge you all to continue focusing on the bigger picture.

The bigger picture does seem to be something everyone involved professes to care about, so let’s take a look at it.

Not every author has major trouble around this kind of thing. Malinda Lo‘s Ash, a retelling of Cinderella in which the main character happens to be a lesbian (and no one in her world thinks that’s strange or anything!), seems to have had a fairly easy road to publication, for instance. This spring, she wrote a long post about how little homophobia she’s had to deal with in her professional life. In that post, she pointed out the difference between personal homophobia and cold hard marketing numbers crunching. Then, this week, she crunched some numbers and made some colorful graphs and charts. These numbers are encouraging in some ways, and very discouraging in others.

Encouraging:

*All the major publishing houses consistently put out at least one YA book with LGBTQIA main or supporting characters each year.

*The numbers dropped sharply in 2010, but rose again in 2011.

*There has been at least one trans or genderqueer character each year.

Discouraging:

*The number of YA books with LGBTQIA main or major supporting characters comprises less than or about 1% of all the YA books out there. Now, the lowest estimates I usually see about LGBTQIA people tend to say that we make up about 10% of the general population. If that’s correct, 1% is a rather low representation.

*Of the LGBTQIA YA books out there, 50% are about gay males. This means Lesbians, bi people of all genders, genderqueer, trans, questioning, asexual, and intersex people are even more under-represented in YA than gay males.

*Very few of these books feature LGBTQIA characters as the protagonist of the book. Many have LGBTQIA supporting young characters (the gay best friend, etc.), or parent/guardian characters instead.

*Many of the books with LGBTQIA characters as the protagonist are Issue Books. That is to say, they’re about the struggles associated with accepting one’s gender identity and/or sexual orientation. While these kinds of books are good to have around, by being the overwhelming majority of this tiny subset of YA books, they’re also contributing to a general sense that LGBTQIA people are not normal. If all queer stories feature people trying to accept their LGBTQIA identities, then what we’re saying as a society, is that having an LGBTQIA identity is something that isn’t easily acceptable. Do we really want to be telling ourselves that? What I hear over and over from members of the community is that we’d love to see more books where people are queer as a matter of course and not as an issue which requires great personal struggles. I think many of us would love to see more books like Ash, in which the protagonist’s orientation is not an issue, and her journey is about more than coming out or learning to accept her identity.

*Out of the eleven LGBTQIA YA books on Malinda’s list, which were published in 2010, only one was a specfic book.  YA is a major market for specfic. In almost every bookstore I’ve gone into in the last two years, there’ve been separate sections for non-specfic YA and specfic YA, because there was just so much YA specfic out there. So the fact that only one book on that 2010 list is a specfic book? Is really sad to me. I haven’t counted the other years. Maybe they’re better. But I’m betting the numbers are still pretty low.

Below are a few collected responses to this debate:

Seanan McGuire (AKA Mira Grant) wrote a great post about what she wants to see in fiction.

When I talk about wanting diversity in my YA, I’m not asking for more specifically “queer YA.” I love it, I want to see it keep getting published, I think it’s important, and I think it’s not the point of this particular sword. What I want is paranormal romance where the lead is in love with the head cheerleader, not the head jock. What I want is heist books and con men where it’s Mike and Dan, not Mike and Dawn.

Nicola Griffith wrote a post and included a video of her telling the story of her struggles getting attention for her book, Slow River.

I think just about every queer author has been through this. I imagine people of colour go through it, too. We all choose whether or not to walk away. I dealt with this in 1994–instantly, satisfyingly (though it was a jaw-dropping shock).

Dennis Upkins wrote a post, which supported Nicola’s musing about people of color facing under-representation.

Do you honestly think this was an isolated incident or these kind of attitudes are happening in a vacuum?

This is most pervasive of the industry as a whole.

Ask yourself how many novels there are out there in mainstream speculative fiction that feature LGBTQs, particularly gay males, as the primary protagonists? For that matter ask yourselves how many mainstream speculative novels feature POCs, or better yet how many feature queer POCs.

Corinne Duyvis posted a roundup of arguments and counter arguments about this issue (well worth reading all of them if you have the time).

One point I did want to make–and something I’ve seen most people echo, thankfully–is that the agent’s reasons for requesting these changes don’t matter. whatever her personal biases or lack thereof, requesting a change like this contributes to the marginalization of an already underrepresented group.

Scott Tracey posted about his experience getting his book with a gay protagonist, Witch Eyes, published.

I don’t like to talk about it, because I still feel like someone’s going to come and rap my knuckles with a ruler, but WITCH EYES had it’s moments.  I had agents who said there wasn’t a market for a paranormal with a gay character who had a romance.  I had editors suggest they would reconsider the book if Braden and Trey became Brenda and Trey.  Or if I removed the romance and made it a straight girl/gay guy buddy comedy.

Scott asks us to buy more LGBTQIA YA if we want to see more published. I think that’s a really important thing to do, but it only works if we have LGBTQIA YA books available to buy.Which brings us to our ending point for today.

Rick Lipman wrote a post about his experiences being a young queer reader and writer. His ending words bring us straight to the heart of this issue:

Listen. I am not that old. When I was growing up, there were no gay characters. And then, when there were, it was Will & Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I did not get to see people like me in books, or on television, or as superheroes. We were not mainstream. We were not acceptable or appropriate for public consumption.

I’m 24 years old. Times have changed a lot in recent years, but to act like there isn’t still a long road of progress ahead is arrogance, plain and simple. I didn’t grow up with role models or stories of my own.

It is unconscionable to me that teens today may still be in the same position.

I’m going to leave it there for today, but I welcome further discussion. I’m not particularly interested in attacks on or defenses of Sherwood, Rachel, or the agency in question, though. I’d rather we keep this discussion to the larger issue, because this isn’t about three people; it’s about all of us.

We have yet another controversy rocking the queer specfic community this week. It’s one I have reservations talking about, but I know it’s deeply important to a lot of our membership that the OA addresses it, and I do understand and support that sentiment, so here I am.

Three years ago, Tor published a collection of novellas, which included one by Orson Scott Card. He retold Hamlet. I didn’t hear about it at the time. By then I’d already stopped buying books by Card, or submitting work to his publication, because I knew that our fundamental values were at odds. He’s publicly said many times things that indicate that he doesn’t support LGBTQI rights, and believes a lot of things I find offensive and damaging. Now, my personal response to that has been to ignore him. He has the right to say what he wishes, because we both live in a time and place where freedom of speech is a protected right. I have the right to speak out against him if I choose, but to date I’ve always felt that exercising that right would give his damaging viewpoint more attention, and I didn’t really want to do that.

People talk about honest reviews being good, and I agree. People have said that negative reviews can help boost sales, and I agree with that, too. I’ve bought books before because I read a review that made me sure I’d like them even though the reviewer didn’t. More than anything, reviews give books attention. I wouldn’t have known about this book if it hadn’t been for a review. I’m guessing a lot of other people wouldn’t have either. I worry that the fervor over it will lead to results other than what the protesters would hope. I know that I’m potentially fueling that unwanted attention by adding my voice to the conversation, and that unsettles me.

I’ve said before that it’s important not to attack people personally. I don’t wish to do that, and I won’t be doing that today. I’ve also said that it’s important to speak out against injustice, and important to educate people when we can. It is my hope that I will accomplish these things, and also that this post will serve as a part of an extended open dialogue with the specfic community at large.

Now, the review in question was in response to a reprint of Card’s Hamlet retelling, not the original Tor collection. The standalone novella came out this Spring from Subterranean Press. I was especially dismayed to hear that news, and to hear, in the first cries of outrage, people calling for a boycott of Subterranean. That particular press has often published great books and stories with queer content, and by queer authors. I’ve bought some of them, and always felt good about supporting an open-minded small press with really nice production values. Seriously, if you’ve ever bought a book from them, you’ll know that they use highest quality materials. Their art is usually great, and every time I receive one of their books, I feel a sense of tactile joy, because they understand about texture at Subterranean. Their books are a pleasure to hold.

When this all erupted in a flurry of passionate e-mails on the OA google group, I said that if I boycotted every publisher who ever put out something I found offensive, I’d severely limit my reading choices. Others asked why people hadn’t called for a boycott of Tor. Still others pointed out that this was a troubling reprint because it was specifically chosen by a small press, and we ought to demand to know Bill Schafer’s reasoning. Along with boycotting, demands for various other concessions floated about, but none seemed to unite everyone in agreement.

Then someone pointed out that it was in fact possible that Bill Schafer and others hadn’t realized how and why this story was offensive. People who have the privilege of not being targeted by these damaging tropes are often unaware of them. Indeed, Bill Schafer’s response to the whole thing indicates that this might have been the case for him. He asks for people to share their thoughts, and says that he’s listening. If all of this results in a publisher learning a little more about how and why works he publishes might actively hurt people, then I suppose it’s worth the risk of giving attention to an author I’d rather ignore. Here is a collection of accounts by OA members of their experiences with this particular controversy, followed by some recommendations of queer-positive Shakespeare stories.

Rose Fox summed up the whole sordid saga in a concise and comprehensive manner over on the Genreville blog.

[T]his is the thing about offensiveness grenades: they may look entirely inert for so long that you forget they’re dangerous, but sooner or later, they explode.

On the google group, Rose added the following:

I am really sad and disappointed that Subterranean Press and Tor Books, which publish many books by queer and trans authors and with queer themes, also published a novella that vilifies queer people and equates us with child molesters. I call on those publishers–and on all SF/F publishers, imprints, and magazines both large and small–to refrain from publishing books and stories that vilify any group of people in such a fashion.

Cheryl Morgan said much the same thing to me, and explained why this particular reprint is so upsetting:

There is, I think, a difference between publishing the story as part of a retrospective of Card’s work, which can put it in context, and publishing it has a high-priced collectors’ edition, which suggests it is something special and of extra value.

Elizabeth Schechter posted about her personal reaction on her blog:

To be honest, right now, I’m more at the stage of sputter…sputter… whiskey  tango FOXTROT???

And my reaction isn’t because Card wrote this. Anyone who is following along and playing Homophobic Bingo: the Home Game just maxed out their score. This is no surprise.

The surprise is that Subterranean Press published it.

River Willow Fagan posted an extremely brave and heartfelt open letter to Bill Schafer, explaining how and why this kind of thing damages people:

One of the most painful aspects of being a queer survivor has been the doubts: what if all those hateful voices were right?  What if I am attracted to men because my father abused me?  What if I really am sick, what if my soul really is twisted and broken like all those conservative Christians say?

Sunny Moraine called for people to demand better stories, and posited that small-mindedness leads to bad writing:

I think that it’s important to recognize that art can be really offensive and still have a huge amount of value. But I also think that believing stupid, hateful things – more often than not – makes you a bad artist. As it cripples and stunts your mind and heart and spirit, it cripples and stunts the things that your mind and heart and spirit produce.

Brandon Bell, talking of the demands for more good queer stories, noted:

I’m certainly happy to see queer-themed Shakespearean works at Fantastique Unfettered.

Angela Korra’ti expressed a hope that people would not buy the book now that it has received more attention, and offfered a few alternatives for people who want good queer retellings of old stories:

So to all of you who never knew about this work, I’m a bit sorry to have brought it to your attention, and can only hope you will continue to not only not buy it, but will specifically not buy it because bigotry is not okay. To those of you who already knew about it and elected not to buy it on that basis, I thank you.

To counter its existence, I’d like to commend to your attention the Lethe Press anthology Time Well Bent, in which Catherine Lundoff has a story in which Shakespeare isn’t queer, but his sister Judith is–and so is his friend Kit Marlowe. Hayden Thorne has Arabesque, a dark m/m adaptation of Snow White. And I’ve mentioned this one already, but it’s worth mentioning again in a post whose theme is “adaptations of classic stories”: i.e., Ash by Malinda Lo.

Several people recommended Elizabeth Bear’s Spectrum Award winning Stratford Man duology. Warren Rochelle, one of the judges for the award, shared his thoughts about the books alongside some quotes from the official Spectrum Award writeup:

Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth, the two volumes in Elizabeth Bear’s duology, “were far and away the work most deserving of our award for the year.” I was quite taken by this universe in which Shakespeare and his rival and teacher and sometime lover, Marlowe, move back and forth between the worlds of Elizabethan England and Faerie and even Hell, a universe in which “the worlds of a great writer can shape the world as a form of magic … {Y]ou’ll find yourself believing that this magic of words is more than a fantasy story.”  All three worlds are masterfully done and I was more than willing to suspend disbelief.  I was caught up in the ongoing crises, crises “that only a handful of individuals, including Shakespeare, can overcome . . . Both Shakespeare and Marlowe . . . must face their own demons, their own mortality, and their own desires if they are find immortality for their own work, and the two kingdoms they come to love.”

And, finally, Hal Duncan offered his own playfully modernized screenplay retelling of As You Like it, free of charge. You can read his explanation of how it came to be, and the first scene in this blog entry, and you can download the whole thing at this site.

That wraps things up for this harrowing monster of a blog post. As I said earlier, I hope that it will be a part of an extended open dialogue. I’d love to hear more from anyone who wants to share their thoughts about this, and I’m especially interested in ideas about how we can use this situation to make our community better and stronger. Please leave a comment here, talk to us on the google group, or email me directly at julia@juliarios.com.