Outer Alliance Spotlight #74: We Say Gay April 29, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #74. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. This week we have only two things to share, but both are significant.
First, the sad news:
Joanna Russ has died. After she was admitted into hospice care earlier this week, today we learn that one of the best beloved feminist SF writers has left us. Russ was the author of The Female Man, How to Suppress Women’s Writing, and several other books, both fiction and non-fiction. When I ask people for influences or old favorites, they cite her almost every time. She’ll be much missed.
And now, something a bit more encouraging:
We Say Gay is a website where people can gather to protest Tennessee’s Don’t Say Gay bill (which, as we mentioned last week, would ban any mention of sexual orientation other than heterosexuality in Tennessee primary and middle schools). Mary Robinette Kowal‘s nephew, a Tennessee resident, is one of the group who started the site. The bill is going to vote on the 5th of May, so the time to speak up about it is now. You may sign the online petition even if you are not a Tennessee resident.
If you’ve got thoughts about either of these things, please feel free to share. We’d love to hear them.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #73: Spring Break April 22, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #73. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. Your intrepid correspondent is on vacation at present, but here are a few links of interest:
*The Philip K. Dick award will be presented tonight at Norwescon in Seattle, and you can watch it live here. Elizabeth Bear’s Chill is on the shortlist (go back to last week’s podcast for more about that).
*Malinda Lo has a new story out! “The Fox” is set in the Huntress universe, and you can read it free online in Subterranean’s special YA issue.
*Via Maureen Johnson’s Twitter Feed, we learn that the “Don’t Say Gay” bill has cleared the Tennessee senate panel, and will go to vote on the Tennessee senate floor. This bill would ban any educational materials (including books! Like Malinda Lo’s Ash, for instance!) which present any sexual orientations other than heterosexuality from elementary and middle schools in Tennessee. If you live in Tennessee, now might be a good time to contact your senator and let them know how you feel.
*Finally, happy Earth Day!
Outer Alliance Spotlight #72: OA Podcast #6 April 15, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, Outer Alliance Podcast , 4commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #72. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. This week we’ve got the sixth Outer Alliance Podcast episode for you!
In this episode, Cheryl Morgan joins me to talk about Wizard’s Tower Press and trans characters in spec fic, and Elizabeth Bear joins me to talk about her new subscription service and all her other ongoing projects (and there’s a special guest appearance by the Giant Ridiculous Dog).
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:
Books Cheryl sells include:
*Bob the Book by David Pratt (in which a gay book lives happily in a bookstore until someone comes along and buys his partner–oh noes!).
*Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories by Sandra McDonald (featuring a transwoman who does all sorts of extraordinary things). This one’s on sale because it’s a Lambda Finalist.
*Wilde Stories 2010 edited by Steve Berman (gay spec fic anthology). This one is also part of the Lambda sale.
*Goblin Tales by Jim Hines (the first author-published book Wizard’s Tower has carried).
*White Queen by Gwyneth Jones (the first in the Aleutian Trilogy–if you buy all three together, there’s a discount, too).
Books not available through Wizard’s Tower Press, but which Cheryl recommends include:
*Supervillainz by Alicia Goranson (set in the Boston area trans community).
*Living With Ghosts by Kari Sperring (on the Tiptree shortlist, and featuring a feminized male protagonist).
*Brasyl by Ian McDonald (who will be a guest of honor along with Bear at Eurocon in June).
Explanations for some miscellaneous stuff Cheryl and I mentioned:
*Cheryl’s post about the Ibis Reader (a web-based e-reader for people like me who haven’t got a dedicated e-book device like the Kindle).
*THE…. Sodomite Hal Duncan!! (Because Hal is awesome and owns the hatemail like nobody’s business).
*Australian Podcasts (hello, Australia!): The Writer and the Critic, Galactic Suburbia, Notes from Coode Street.
*Clarkesworld (where Cheryl is the Non-Fiction Editor).
*Lauren Beukes and Angelia Sparrow (whose names we have historically mispronounced–oops).
Small Presses or authors who want to sell their books in Cheryl’s store should write her at info@wizardstowerpress.com.
Bear’s Creatively Funded Projects:
*You can sign up at her LiveJournal or on her Facebook Fan Page for the subscription service and/or to get a hand-decorated postcard story.
*Shadow Unit (the virtual television show about unrealistically sexy FBI agents who fight monsters, and who may in fact be monsters themselves).
*Veronique is Visiting From Paris (A collaborative story told in 12 postcards, featuring text by Bear, and Photos by Kyle Cassidy).
Bear’s Traditionally Published Books Mentioned in This Episode:
*The Jacob’s Ladder Trilogy–Dust, Chill, and Grail (Arthurian fantasy tropes revisited in deep space with a lot of chewy explorations of gender).
*The Edda of Burdens–All the Windwracked Stars, By the Mountain Bound, and The Sea Thy Mistress (science fantasy trilogy in an alternate world where Norse magic is real, and they have technology, too). By the Mountain Bound stands alone as the “Big Gay Norse Fantasy” with hot gay Vikings who have, uh, magic swords…
*New Amsterdam is the first in the Vampyr series, and is available in e-book format at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The White City is the third in the series, but makes sense if you’ve read New Amsterdam. Seven for a Secret is the second in that series, but takes place later than the events of The White City.
*A Companion to Wolves (co-written with Sarah Monette) is an animal companion fantasy, which features giant, telepathic wolves, and a lot of sex (but not that kind of sex!). The sequel, The Tempering of Men, is coming in August.
*Carnival (SF set on a world run by radical lesbian separatists in a future where nanites have eaten all the white people, which means that, no, Vincent isn’t a white guy, even if he does have reddish hair and freckles).
*The Jenny Casey Books–Hammered, Scardown, and Worldwired (in which all the major characters are bicultural, and several of them are also queer).
Miscellaneous Stuff Explained!
*Marc Bolan of T-Rex (who inspired David Bowie to write the song, “Lady Stardust”).
*Patti Smith’s Just Kids (where she tells the story of her first meeting with Allen Ginsberg).
*The Turkey City Lexicon explains Burly Detective Syndrome (and a bunch of other literary pitfalls).
*70s feminist science fiction: The Female Man by Joanna Russ, Walk to the End of the World by Suzy McKee Charnas, and the works of Jo Clayton.
*The previous interview with Bear about Chill and other exciting stuff is Outer Alliance Spotlight #22.
*Gratuitous photo of the Giant Ridiculous Dog (in case you were wondering what that mysterious barking entity looks like, the answer is: a giant muppet!).
That’s it for this time! If you have feedback, please leave a comment, or e-mail me at julia@juliarios.com. I’d love to hear from you.
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.