Outer Alliance Spotlight #94: Stone Telling’s LGBTQ Issue January 6, 2012
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, queer-friendly publishers, submissions , 1 comment so farWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #94. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating QUILTBAG speculative fiction. Our guest today is Rose Lemberg, who is currently reading for a QUILTBAG issue of Stone Telling. Unfortunately, health issues prevented Rose’s co-editor, Shweta Narayan from joining this discussion.
Rose and Shweta have both been guests here before, so if you want to find further information about their taste in poetry and vision for Stone Telling, please check out Outer Alliance Spotlight #39 with Rose, and Outer Alliance Spotlight #71 with Shweta (who was not yet co-editor, but was guest editing an issue at that time with J.C. Runolfson).
For up to the date insights to help you figure out what to submit for this current issue, read on!
Stories! Free for your enjoyment! November 25, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : links, publications, queer-friendly publishers , 5commentsIn the United States, today is commercially known as Black Friday. It’s a day when people are urged to buy All The Things. Ads on television, in newspapers, and on billboards pester us for weeks in anticipation of this day. Stores plan giant sales. Some of them open at midnight, others at four or five in the morning. All the messages tell us that we should be embracing our national identity as consumers, and that Christmas (one of the biggest shopping holidays of the year for the culturally Christian among us) is officially coming.
Me? I’m a bit of a rebel. I hate shopping usually, and I loathe giant crowds. I tend to fall by default into the segment of the population which calls this day Buy Nothing Day. Some of my compatriots feel passionately political about their choice. I mostly just feel relieved not to be in the middle of that fevered mess of acquisition. This year, though, I thought maybe it would be fun to do a little more. Instead of just quietly hiding from the world, or (horror of horrors) going out and joining the hordes of consumers, what if I offered an alternative? Whether or not you’re in the US, if you’d rather spend a bit of time reading free fiction than shopping today (or even in addition to shopping), this post is for you.
One of the neat things about the OA is that so many of the members are writers as well as readers. This means that, as a group, we produce a lot of awesome fiction. Much of that is for sale, but thanks to this wonderful internet, there’s a lot of great free stuff out there, too. Below are a few stories by OA members which have appeared online this month. Enjoy!
“Conjuring Shadows” by Craig Laurance Gidney is a story about a transgender conjure woman in 1920s Harlem. Since November is the month in which the Transgender Day of Remembrance falls, I thought we’d lead with this one. It’s a lovely fantasy, which will take only a few minutes to read, but which might linger in your mind for quite a while after you’ve finished it. You may read it at Expanded Horizons (and if you’re unfamiliar with that magazine, I highly recommend it in general. It’s full of gems, and makes a point of celebrating diversity in specfic).
“Cockatrice Girl Meets Statue Boy” by Willow Fagan is a funny and sweet story about… well, the title says it all. It doesn’t feature overtly QUILTBAG content, but it does playfully examine gender assumptions, and the author identifies as genderqueer. The bio accompanying this story on the Cast of Wonders page explains that, “… they feel more like a pirate princess than like a man or a woman.” Rock on, Pirate Princess Willow! I love that description! You may listen to this story in two parts here and here.
“Eight” by Corinne Duyvis is a more somber exploration of personal sacrifice, war, and alternate timelines. The protagonist is a bisexual woman, though this is neither integral to the plot, nor really mentioned in more than a passing sentence. This is a story which suggests a hundred other stories, and given its subject matter and prose style, it might especially appeal to fans of Elizabeth Bear’s Jenny Casey books. “Eight” is available at Strange Horizons.
“The Day Alan Turing Came Out” by Leonard Richardson explores alternate timelines from a different perspective. This one has a bittersweetness, which comes from knowing that in our current timeline, history unfolded less pleasantly. This story first appeared in the Retro Spec: tales of fantasy and nostalgia, but the author has now put it up on his own website. If you are curious about the background on this one, you can find a brief interview with Leonard as part of the OA Spotlight post about Retro Spec.
That’s all I’ve got for today, but if you have recommendations for great free fiction, I’d love to see them! Please consider leaving them in the comments!
Outer Alliance Podcast #13 November 8, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, links, news, Outer Alliance Podcast, queer-friendly publishers , 1 comment so farIt’s the first anniversary of the Outer Alliance Podcast! Because I love ghost stories, I decided to run with that as our Birthday Podcast Theme, and to make the month extra exciting, we’re giving away books!
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!
Outer Alliance Spotlight #92: Crossed Genres October 21, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : announcements, links, news, queer-friendly publishers, submissions , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #92. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. Today we’re celebrating Crossed Genres!
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!
Outer Alliance Spotlight #76: Two Submissions Calls May 13, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : announcements, queer-friendly publishers, submissions , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #76. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. This weekend is Outlantacon/Gaylaxicon, so a light blogging week, but we’ve still got a couple of submissions calls to share.
Crossed Genres is accepting submissions for a new anthology. Fat Girl in a Strange Land will be a science fiction and fantasy anthology with fat female protagonists. According to the guidelines, “Fat can’t just be a passing detail of the main character’s physical description. It should have an impact on the plot and character development. Just like in real life, fat should be an asset or a liability, or even more realistically, both over time.” And, of course, queer content is always welcome at Crossed Genres.
JoSelle Vanderhooft is now reading submissions for Femmes Fatales, a noir lesbian mystery erotica anthology. This will be published by Lethe Press in 2012, and while it is not strictly SF, speculative fiction is open for consideration .
Outer Alliance Spotlight #71: Shweta Narayan and J. C. Runolfson April 8, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : announcements, interviews, links, news, publications, queer-friendly publishers, submissions , 5commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #71. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. This week our guests are Shweta Narayan and J. C. Runolfson, co-editors of Stone Telling #4.
Before we get to our main dish, though, there are some news tidbits to share.
*The Jessica Verday situation has developed and drawn further comment from many people since OA Spotlight #70 went up two weeks ago. Charles A. Tan has a good summary at Bibliophile Stalker.
*This week marked the release of Malinda Lo‘s second YA fantasy novel, Huntress. Happy release week, Malinda! Huntress is set in the same world as Ash (a retelling of Cinderella with a lesbian protagonist), but several hundred years earlier. Malinda will be traveling with the Diversity in YA Fiction Tour in May, so you might want to check and see if she’ll be visiting your area.
*And, finally, Lauren McLaughlin and K. T. Holt weigh in on the proposal to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood. Lauren explains why this is not actually about abortion, while Kay offers a Super Uterus t-shirt to anyone who wishes to make a fashion statement. All the profits from t-shirt sales go to Planned Parenthood.
And, on to our awesome interviewees!
Shweta Narayan is a writer and visual artist. She received the Octavia Butler Memorial Scholarship for the Clarion Writers Workshop in 2007, and is an active proponent of diversity in speculative fiction. Her stories and poems have appeared in Steam Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories, Clockwork Phoenix 3, Jabberwocky 5, and Apex, among other places. Her novelette, “Pisaach”, which appeared in The Beastly Bride, is currently up for the Nebula Award.
J. C. Runolfson is a poet, reviewer, and knitter. Her reviews have appeared in The Fix and Strange Horizons. Several of her poems have been Rhysling nominees, and she has new ones forthcoming in Goblin Fruit and Mythic Delirium.
Stone Telling is a quarterly poetry magazine published (and usually edited by) Rose Lemberg. Stone Telling welcomes queer content any time, but Shweta and Jules wanted to come talk about what kind of poems they’re especially hoping to see for Issue #4. They have a general guideline theme of inter- intersectional, international, interstitial, and the reading period for this issue is open until the 25th of May.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #52: Coming Out 2010 October 15, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : links, news, publications, queer-friendly publishers, submissions , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #52. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. Coming out Day was Monday the 11th (Tuesday the 12th in the UK), so that’s our focus this week.
OA Members Talk About Coming Out:
Nicola Griffith shared an excerpt from her memoir, And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner Notes to a Writer’s Early Life. This is a sad, alarming, amusing, and sweet glimpse of Nicola’s teen years before she became a well-adjusted and happily out adult.
Cheryl Morgan reminded us that being out is not always simple, easy, or safe with a post examining some of the challenges trans people face.
Catherine Lundoff agrees that being out is a privilege, and asks that we consider supporting organizations which help queer youth like District 202.
New Releases:
Rigor Amortis, the anthology of zombie erotica edited by Jaym Gates and Erika Holt is available at amazon, and contains stories by OA members Kay Holt and Kaolin Fire.
The Little Death of Crossed Genres, edited by Chris Fletcher and Jaym Gates is available in both electronic and print formats through the Crossed Genres website.
The latest issue of Weird Tales contains Natania Barron’s three part poem about “made” women in mythology. “The Wakened Image” appears alongside pictures by Brigid Ashwood.
Calls for Submissions by Queer-friendly Publishers:
Rose Lemberg would love to see poems with LGBTQI voices for Stone Telling. The current submission window is open until the 21st of November, and at present, Rose says there hasn’t been nearly enough queer content in the submissions pile.
Port Iris Zine is accepting submissions for issue #4 until the 5th of November. See their guidelines for more details.
Karen Romanko is looking for Halloween themed stories for her next anthology, Jack-o’-Spec.
That’s all for this time. Join us again next week, and please share any news you might have here in the comments, on the Outer Alliance google group, or via Twitter (mention either @omgjulia, or @outeralliance)
Outer Alliance Spotlight #51: We Got Your Back October 8, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : links, publications, queer-friendly publishers, submissions , 2commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #51. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction.
We Got your Back:
Another excellent project to give hope and support to LGBTQI teens popped up this week. The We Got Your Back Project wants your written or video stories, whether you are part of the LGBTQI spectrum, or a supportive ally. Their site is full of great resources for people who are considering suicide, or people who know others in that position. If you submit something to this project, please let us know and we’ll link to your story.
New Releases:
Sandra McDonald’s story, “Seven Sexy Robot Cowboys” is up at Strange Horizons. It’s got queer content and there’s a link to a video of sexy ice-skating cowboys at the bottom in case sexy ice-skating cowboys are your thing.
Salon Futura’s latest issue features a podcast discussion in which Nicola Griffith, Hal Duncan, Cheryl Morgan, and Catherynne M. Valente talk about writing LGBTQ characters.
Lee Benoit’s novel, Moonspun is out as part of Loose Id’s special Coming Out Day 2010 collection.
Angelia Sparrow’s erotic steampunk romance novella, Sky Rat is available from Pink Petal Books.
JoSelle Vanderhooft announced the table of contents for an anthology she’s editing, Steam Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories. The book should arrive in January of 2011, but you can pre-order or request review copies now by contacting JoSelle.
Calls for Submissions:
Circlet Press has four anthologies open right now. Like an Iron Fist: Dystopian Erotica and Like a Moonrise (erotic coming of age stories about animal shapeshifters) both close on the 15th of October. Sense and Sensuality (paranormal Jane Austen inspired stories) is open until the 1st of November, and Like a Cunning Plan: Erotic Trickster Tales is open until the 15th of December.
The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival Short Fiction Contest is open until the 1st of November. They’re looking for 5,000-7,000 word LGBT stories in all genres. There’s a $15 entry fee, and the top winners will receive $250 for first place and $50 for second and third place as well as publication in n anthology, which will be launched at the literary festival in May of 2011.
That’s all for this time. Join us again next week, and please share any news you might have (or links to your We Got Your Back Project contributions!) here in the comments, on the Outer Alliance google group, or via Twitter (mention either @omgjulia, or @outeralliance).
Outer Alliance Spotlight #48: Bill Tucker September 17, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : events, interviews, queer-friendly publishers, submissions , 1 comment so farWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #48. The Spotlight features news about (and interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. This week, our interview guest is Bill Tucker, editor of Rockets, Swords, and Rainbows.
News & Notes
*This week marks the inaugural issue of Stone Telling, the magazine of boundary-crossing speculative poetry. Rose Lemberg has done a great job of seeking diverse voices for this issue. It’s full of excellent work, including some queer content.
*Tomorrow, the 18th, Connie Wilkins (AKA Sacchi Green) will be reading at the Strange Horizons fundraiser reading event at Pandemonium Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I’ll also be there as a member of the audience. Do say hello if you see me (I’ve got blue hair, so I’m hard to miss). If you’re on the other side of the country, there’s another Strange Horizons reading with some West Coast authors in Portland, Oregon on Sunday the 19th.
*Bookview Cafe has just released a charity anthology to benefit Gulf Coast oil spill relief efforts. Breaking Waves is available as an e-book for $4.99, and includes a story by Sandra McDonald.
Interview with Bill Tucker
Bill Tucker works as a civil servant with law enforcement officials by day, and writes and edits speculative fiction by night. He grew up in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, but now lives in Boston, Massachusetts. He’s currently seeking stories for an anthology of LGBTQI science fiction and fantasy. Rockets, Swords, and Rainbows is open to submissions until the 21st of November, and will be published by The Library of Fantasy and Science Fiction (an imprint of The Library of the Living Dead).
Outer Alliance Spotlight #47: Congratulations! (and some changes) September 10, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : announcements, links, news, publications, queer-friendly publishers , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #47. Traditionally, the Spotlight has featured an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. It’s been a year since the Spotlight started, though (I’ve missed a few weeks due to travel and so forth), and it’s time the Spotlight format changed a bit. We’ll still have interviews some weeks, but from now on the Spotlight will also be a news and notes column. There may be more exciting changes in the works, too, but I’m afraid I’m not going to say more about those just yet. For now, let’s get to the news!
First, congratulations to all the Hugo winners! Lots of awesome stuff up there, including plenty of things by LGBTQI friendly people. Congratulations, too, to all the nominees who didn’t end up taking home a rocket ship of their very own. It was a great crowd this year. Special thanks and congratulations to Cheryl Morgan, who provided live coverage of the awards (alongside podcast superstar, Mur Lafferty), and shared the Best Semiprozine win with Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace of Clarkesworld.
Second, Congratulations to Outer Alliance founder, Natania Barron, for a few things! Aside from being in on the groud floor of the new Geek Mom blog, our fearless leader has a story in the new Dark Futures anthology. She’s in great company as the anthology is full of stories by excellent writers, including two who’ve been interviewed here before: Sara Harvey and Michele Lee.
But that’s not all Natania’s been up to! She’s also agreed to take on editorial responsibilities (along with OA member, Jaym Gates) at Crossed Genres starting next year. Bart Leib and K.T. Holt will still be the publishers, but they’re handing over the editorial reins so that they can focus on putting together anthologies, and managing the Science In My Fiction site, which they started last March. The best part? Science In My Fiction will be publishing short stories each month, which means there’s yet another LGBTQI friendly SF market in the world (here are the submissions guidelines). Hurray!
Next is something not speculative fiction related, but noteworthy all the same: the fine folks at Lambda Literary have posted a call for submissions to a Mothers of Trans Children Project. This will be published by Cleis Press and edited by Rachel Pepper, co-author of The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals.
And finally, here’s a thoughtful guest post about bisexuality and gender-bending in paranormal romance by Cecilia Tan on the GLBT Reading blog.
That’s it for this week. If you have any Spotlight-worthy notes, news, links, etc., please let us know in the comments, on the OA google group, or by telling me on Twitter. You can address me directly, or use the Twitter tag #oaspotlight to let me know what’s new. I look forward to hearing from you!