Outer Alliance Spotlight #79: OA Podcast #7 May 27, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : events, interviews, news, Outer Alliance Podcast , 6commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #79. 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 seventh Outer Alliance Podcast episode for you!
This is the big Outlantacon/Gaylaxicon tour episode. I basically spent my con weekend talking to fascinating people about their projects and their Outlantacon/Gaylaxicon experiences. It’s a great sampling of the con population, from gamers to cosplayers to writers to fans (and beyond!).
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:
Congratulations to the Award Winners! Steve Berman, Lynne Jamncek, Catherine Lundoff, Melissa Scott, Hal Duncan, and Sandra McDonald all deserve heaps of congratulations.
Sandra’s Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories just won the Lambda for Best LGBT Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror. You can buy that at Wizard’s Tower Press by following the link above.
Joan Slonczewski is a professor of microbiology and a science fiction author. You can find out more about both of those things at her website.
Michael Liebmann is a voice actor and filker. You can hear some of his voice work over at Starship Excelsior, and check out his filking at GAFilk, the Georgia Filking Convention.
Hushicho is a writer, artist and occasional Go-Go dancer. You can learn more about his work at his website.
Alex Martin is a gay gamer and gamecaster. You can follow his gamecasts on YouTube (and talk to him about playing an all gay game of League of Legends).
Dennis Upkins is the author of Hollowstone, a queer YA boarding school ghost story, which will be out next month through Parker Publishing. You can find out more about that at his website.
Catherine Lundoff is a writer and editor, who just made the Gaylactic Spectrum Award shortlist for best other works for the anthology she edited, Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades. Find out more about all her work at her website.
Rob Gates is the director of the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards.
Casey Fiesler is a PhD Student, Clarion graduate, and part of the YA lit track staff for Dragon*Con, you can find out more about her here.
JoSelle Vanderhooft is a writer and editor. You can learn more about her at her website.
Warren Rochelle is a fantasy author and has been part of the Spectrum judging process for several years now. His website is here.
Sara Amis is a writer, and mom to the awesome sixteen-year-old Raven, who joined us for this interview. Sara has a story and a poem (the one she read aloud on this podcast, in fact) in Southern Fried Weirdness: Reconstruction, which is a charity anthology to benefit tornado relief efforts in Alabama and Georgia. Since Sara’s hometown was flattened by a recent tornado, this is a pretty personal cause for her.
Dale Everett is one of the hosts of Prometheus Unchained, an LGBT radio show. You can find out more about that at flamingfreedom.com, and if you feel so inclined, you can download past episodes, like the one broadcast live during Gaylaxicon, which features calls from Angelia Sparrow and JoSelle Vanderhooft.
Lee Martindale is a writer, editor, warrior, and bard. Her latest anthology, The Ladies of Trade Town, will be launched at A-Kon 22 in June. You can find out more about Lee and all her projects at harphaven.net.
Em Elliot is an activist with Georgia Equality, and an avid costumer. SHe works to promote safety, fairness, and opportunity for LGBTQI people in Georgia. To find out more about how to help with that, visit the Georgia Equality website.
My Flickr set from Outlantacon/Gaylaxicon has photos of many of the people mentioned in this podcast (including one of Em in costume, and one of me being fabulous with Hushicho).
If you have feedback, leave a comment, tell us on the google group, or e-mail me at julia@juliarios.com.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #78: Jon Wilson May 23, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : interviews , 1 comment so farWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #78. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. This week we’re going to have two because that’s just how things worked out. First, for your Monday reading pleasure, an interview with Jon Wilson, author of The Obsidian Man.
Jon is a gay writer with two novels in two different genres under his belt. The Obsidian Man, his latest, is a YA fantasy, while his earlier work, A Hundred Little Lies is a romance/western. Jon recently started a blog, and he’s also active on GoodReads, where his publisher is holding a giveaway for The Obsidian Man this month.
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Outer Alliance Spotlight #77: Awards Season May 20, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : announcements, events, links, news , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #77. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. This week we’re focusing on awards!
By now the internet is all abuzz with the Gaylactic Spectrum Short Fiction Awards news I announced on Monday, but there are several other awards to explore.
The Ursa Major Awards for anthropomorphic literature and art were announced last weekend in Columbus, OH, and we’d like to congratulate Kyell Gold, who won both the short fiction (for Bridges) and novel (for Shadow of the Father) categories!
This weekend is Nebula Weekend, and scads of awesome writers are converging in Washington DC for that. Best of luck to all the OA members on the nominee list. Hopefully next week we’ll be able to congratulate some of you!
The 23rd Annual Lammy Awards will take place on Thursday the 26th in New York. Once again, best of luck to OA members, and we hope to congratulate you soon!
The Hugos are just around the corner, and here’s a special podcast from Cheryl Morgan and Kevin Standlee of the Science Fiction Awards Watch to answer all your questions about how the Hugos work. And, because we neglected to mention it before, congratulations to N. K. Jemisin for collecting a Hugo nomination for The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms!
In other Hugo news, the Hugo Voter Packet was released today. If you sign up as a supporting member of this year’s WorldCon, you can access much of the nominated work in electronic format to help you decide where your votes should go.
Finally, a non-awards-related piece of news:
Tennessee has passed the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill. How terribly disappointing. But! George Takei offers an alternative. If you want to express your Takei Pride, you can order It’s OK to be Takei items here.
That’s all for this week. Come back next Friday for the big Gaylaxicon OA Podcast episode!
Gaylactic Spectrum Awards and Outlantacon/Gaylaxicon Mini OA Podcast Special May 16, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : announcements, events, interviews, news, Outer Alliance Podcast , 4commentsFresh from Outlantacon/Gaylaxicon, here is a special mini OA Podcast update for you! In this short (about 7 minutes long) episode, we congratulate the winners of the Gaylactic Spectrum Award for short fiction, and talk to fan guests of honor Wayne Hergenroder and Don Schermerhorn about Mobicon.
Mobicon is happening this weekend, the 20th-22nd in Mobile, Alabama. It’s got all sorts of exciting programming lined up, and all the proceeds go to benefit the Bay Area Food Bank.
There will be a much bigger fabulous Gaylaxicon episode coming up on the 27th with lots of interviews and awesomeness, but this is a little sneak preview to whet your appetite (and entice any Mobile, Alabama area locals to attend Mobicon this weekend!).
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.
Rob Gates announced the winners for the 2010 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards in the categories of Short Fiction and Best Other Work on Saturday night. Congratulations to all the winners, and to everyone who made the shortlist!
The two winning short stories were:
“The Behold of the Eye” by Hal Duncan, which appeared in Lone Star Stories, and was reprinted in Wilde Stories 2009 (edited by Steve Berman). If you’re a fan of audio fiction, you can also listen to it at PodCastle.
“The Rocky Side of the Sky” by Melissa Scott, which appeared in Periphery: Erotic Lesbian Futures (edited by Lynne Jamneck).
And here’s the shortlist of notable works:
*”Angels Alone” by Carolyn Ives Gilman in Periphery: Erotic Lesbian Futures
*”Behind the Curtain” by Joel Lane in Dark Horizons, Issue 22, also available in Wilde Stories 2009
*”The Bloomsbury Nudes” by Jameson Currier in Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet (edited by Vince Liaguno and Chad Helder), also available in Wilde Stories 2009
*”City of the Dead” by Kate Welsh in Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories (edited by Catherine Lundoff)
*Firooz and his Brother” by Alex Jeffers in the May 2008 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, also available in Wilde Stories 2009
*”Here Lies the Last Lesbian Rental in East Vancouver” by Amber Dawn in Fist of the Spider Woman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire (edited by Amber Dawn)
*”I’m Your Violence” by Lee Thomas in Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet
*”In Circles” by Aurelia T. Evans in Fist of the Spider Woman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire
*In the Night Street Baths” by Chaz Brenchley in Lace and Blade (edited by Deborah J. Ross)
*”One Horse Town” by Melissa Scott in Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories
*”Parts” by Kal Cobalt in Wired Hard 4 (Edited by Lauren Burka and Cecilia Tan)
*”Remember” by Astrid Amara in Tangle (edited by Nicole Kimberling)
*The Succession Knoorikios Khnum” by Zachary Jernigan in Wired Hard 4
*”Waiting Tables and Time” by Lyn McConchie in Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories
Best Other Works:
*Were the World Mine, a film by Tom Gustafson.
*Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories (edited by Catherine Lundoff)
*Periphery: Erotic Lesbian Futures (edited by Lynne Jamneck)
*Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet (edited by Vince Liaguno and Chad Helder)
*Wilde Stories 2009 (edited by Steve Berman)
Congratulations to all!
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 #75: Remembering Joanna Russ and Congratulating Several Others May 6, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : announcements, events, news, Uncategorized , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #75. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. This week we have a few news items for you.
This Sunday there will be a memorial Twitter chat in honor of Joanna Russ. To participate, just log into Twitter at 1400 (2pm) Eastern Daylight Time on the 8th of May, and follow the #FeministSF hashtag. Several OA members and other people who are interested in feminism and speculative work will be talking informally about Russ and other pertinent subjects.
Congratulations to OA founder Natania Barron, who became an associate member of SFWA this week! You can read recent story “Without a Light” in the first issue Fantastique Unfettered (which is open for submissions for issue #3 right now).
Sunny Moraine has a new short story in Strange Horizons this week. “The Thick Night” is story both dark and hopeful with an interesting F/F relationship.
Congratulations to Katharine Beutner, who won the Publishing Triangle Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction for her novel Alcestis! Here’s a writeup of that awards ceremony from Lambda Literary.
Next week is Outlantacon/Gaylaxicon! Several OA members will be attending this convention, which exists to celebrate queer speculative fiction, gaming, media, and fans. JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff will be hosting a launch party for the print version of Hellebore and Rue. Steve Berman and JoSelle will be reading selections from the book, and we’re tentatively planning to have that serve as an OA meetup, too, so if you’re in that area, come hang out and talk awesome queer fiction with us!
That’s it for this week. If you’ve got thoughts on any of this, or news of your own, please let us know!