Outer Alliance Spotlight #86: OA Podcast #10 July 31, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, Outer Alliance Podcast , 4commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #86. 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 tenth Outer Alliance Podcast episode for you!
Ellen Klages joined me at a coffee shop to talk about her work, queer history, and other awesomeness.
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 N. K. Jemisin, Elizabeth Bear, and all the other World Fantasy Award nominees!
Ellen Klages’s Work (and things she’s been involved with):
*The Green Glass Sea and White Sands, Red Menace are novels about kids whose parents worked on the Manhattan Project.
*Portable Childhoods is the short story collection, which contains her two overtly queer stories, “Triangle” and “Time Gypsy”.
*The GLBT Historical Society
*Exploratorium: the museum of science, art and human perception
Some of the Historical Details We Discussed:
*Here’s a photo of the 1956 raid at Hazel’s in San Mateo County (as described in the lesbian time travel revenge story, “Time Gypsy”).
*The Stonewall riots (which Ellen mentioned in passing) were a major turning point in US LGBTQ civil rights history.
*San Francisco Pride, and the Dyke March are awesome reminders of how far we’ve come in the past 50 years.
*pink-triangle.org has some information about the experience of gay people in Nazi Germany. This page does not go into much gruesome detail, but keep in mind that even so, it’s awful stuff.
*Here’s a state by state breakdown of anti-miscegenation laws in the United States.
*Here’s a brief explanation of Loving Vs. Virginia, the Supreme Court Case that marked the end of anti-miscegentation laws in the US in 1967 (not 1970 as Ellen guessed, nor 1968 as I guessed).
Some things that have given me hope lately:
*The first legal same sex marriage in New York–two grandmothers at Niagara Falls, which was all lit up with rainbow colored lights!
*More pictures of couples getting married in New York!
*Lesbian married couple saves 40 people in Norway. I’m in serious awe of these women for doing what they did, and also really happy that we live in a time when they can be married, and it’s okay to report that as one of the facts. No one’s going to arrest them for being married, or loving each other, and it’s not the most important thing about this story at all.
Stuff we’ll be discussing in the next podcast in late August:
*Hal Duncan‘s Spectrum winning story, “The Behold of the Eye”. Read it for free online, buy it in Wilde Stories 2009, or listen to it for free at Podcastle.
*Kim Westwood‘s story, “Nightship”. Buy it in Dreaming Again, or listen to it free at Terra Incognita.
*Peter M. Ball‘s novellas, Horn and Bleed. Buy them in print or e-book format from Twelfth Planet Press, or get the instant dowload e-book versions from Smashwords. Trigger warning! Horn contains graphic sexual violence.
That’s it for this time. If you have feedback, please leave a comment here, tell us on the google group, or e-mail me personally at julia@juliarios.com.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #85: Readercon Recap July 22, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : events, links , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #85. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. Last weekend was Readercon, and several OA members were there, so that’s our focus.
C.S.E. Cooney (newly minted Rhysling award winner!) is posting writeups on the Black Gate blog about her experience, including a mention of the Steam Powered group reading. Alas, I had to miss that one as I was frantically preparing for the Interstitial Arts Exchange Party I hosted that evening, but word around the con was that it was excellent.
The Crossed Genres Broken Slate party was hopping on Friday evening. I slipped in a for a few minutes while I was supposed to be setting up the arts party, and got to hear Camille Alexa read, which was excellent. It looked like some other OA types were in there, too, like Craig Laurance Gidney.
Steve Berman was on a panel about gender and sexuality in SF, which I also sadly missed, but I hear that was pretty great, too. I did get to snag a copy of the latest issue of Icarus from him, though.
The Readercon website has a list of con reports from attendees.
My own con report with links to my very small amount of con photos is here. I also got to wave at Joselle Vaderhooft, share a couple of meals with Brit Mandelo (who does the lovely Queering SFF column over at Tor.com) and briefly speak with Madeleine Robins. I wish I could have spent more time with more awesome OA people, but I suppose there’s always next con.
So, where will you be? And when?
Outer Alliance Spotlight #84: OA Podcast #9 July 14, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, news, Outer Alliance Podcast , 2commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #84. 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 ninth Outer Alliance Podcast episode for you!
This month our guest is Kelly Jennings, author of the novel, Broken Slate, which is out now through Crossed Genres. Kelly talks about successful slave revolts, the trials and tribulations of being a socialist and atheist English professor in Arkansas, and lots of other interesting things. After the interview, she reads an excerpt for us, too.
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:
Farewell to Wayne Hergenroder
One of the fan Guests of Honor from this year’s Gaylaxicon (featured here previously in the special OA Mini Podcast) has passed away. He will be much missed. If you have thoughts or memories to share with us, please leave a comment here or on the google group.
Find Kelly Online at her personal blog and at FanSci, the group science fiction and fantasy blog she shares with Barbara Ann Wright and Marilou Goodwin. You can buy Broken Slate in print or e-format through various venues. Crossed Genres has all the details.
Kelly’s Recommended Resources on Slavery
*The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James
*Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild
*Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon
*Born in Slavery: Narratives from the Federal Writers Project 1936-1938 (an online resource)
*Ta-Nehisi Coates’s blog at The Atlantic.
Reminder: Next Month is our Writer and Critic episode!
Do check out the stories we’ll be discussing if you can.
*The Writer & the Critic (in case you want to start listening to one of my favorite podcasts right away).
*I recommended Hal Duncan‘s Spectrum winning story, “The Behold of the Eye”. Read it for free online, buy it in Wilde Stories 2009, or listen to it for free at Podcastle.
*Kirstyn recommended Kim Westwood‘s story, “Nightship”. Buy it in Dreaming Again, or listen to it free at Terra Incognita. I listened to it this month, and really enjoyed Kim Westwood’s reading.
*Ian Recommended Peter M. Ball‘s novellas, Horn and Bleed. Buy them in print or e-book format from Twelfth Planet Press, or get the instant dowload e-book versions from Smashwords. Trigger warning! Horn contains graphic sexual violence. Bleed does not (though it isn’t non-violent, generally), and it explains all the necessary backstory if you want to be up to speed for our discussion, but can’t deal with the other content.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #83: Diversity is Hard July 8, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : links, news , 2commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #83. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction.This week our focus is on diversity. I know, I know, that’s basically our focus every week, but this week we have a few different things to look at.
Let’s start with Cheryl Morgan’s post, Diversity is Hard. Cheryl included a link to a study in which researchers tried different approaches toward discouraging prejudice in their subjects. The result? Subjects who had more education and positive encouragement expressed less prejudice than those who were simply told they shouldn’t be prejudiced. Says Cheryl:
Obviously this is just one study, but it is worth bearing in mind. If you tell people they are doing something wrong, they tend to get defensive, and eventually angry. If you encourage them to do things differently, they are more likely to respond. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
With that in mind, we’re going to take a look at some recent things that have been upsetting people in the specfic community, with a focus on what we can do to make things better, and why we should want to.
First, a problematic poem in Star*Line, the official magazine of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Mike Allen, former president has left the organization over this, and he’s explained why in great detail. Shweta Narayan has a links roundup.
All of this has been greatly distressing to a number of people, myself included. So what would make it better?
Listening
When someone says they’re hurting, listen. Even if you consider yourself a liberal-minded progressive type of person, especially if you consider yourself a liberal-minded progressive type of person, listen. It’s no fun at all to realize that we’ve hurt people, but when that happens, the best thing to do is to listen, and not to deny the validity of the other party’s feelings. A lot of the discussion about this poem within the SFPA turned to people claiming that the author of the poem and the editor of the magazine were not bad people and didn’t deserve to be attacked. Now, they may well not be bad people; that’s not actually what the poem’s critics were arguing. But by making those assertions, defenders of the author and editor rather derailed the conversation about why the poem itself upset people, and worse, dismissed the very real distress people felt over the poem’s content. When you see someone else hurting because of something you or one of your friends has said or done, try to remember times you’ve been hurt, and think about how you’d like to be treated in that situation. We’re all people, we all want compassion, and we’re the ones who can do something about that. It’s not like a compassion fairy is going to drop out of the sky to spread love and understanding if we don’t.
Apologizing with Sincerity
The SFPA debate isn’t over yet, so I don’t know how Star*Line is going to handle this in the end. One thing they could do is take a leaf out of Strange Horizons’s book, though. A story they published upset some people, and so this week Strange Horizons posted a response with honesty and sincerity. When I spoke with David Levine for Outer Alliance Podcast #8, he said that sometimes you do everything with the best intentions, and you still get it wrong, and when that happens, you have to take your lumps and try to carry on the best you can. That’s what Strange Horizons is doing here. We all make mistakes. No one is immune. Owning up to them and trying to learn from them is about all we can do.
Learning How to Do Better
Finally, we’ve all got to keep trying to do better. I mean all of us. Which is why it’s good to try to find resources to help improve our work, and also to provide those resources for others when we have the time and energy. It’s sometimes really hard to step out of hurt and anger enough to do that, but when we can, we’ve got the opportunity to help other people get it right. Not everyone will get it right, mind. Heck, a lot of people won’t even listen at all. But! And this is the important thing: you never know when someone will see the right resource at the right time and start becoming more awesome because of it.
This week, Dennis Upkins stepped up and offered a resource for people who want to write M/M relationships. Now this resource is not in any way work safe, so make sure you’re cool with seeing lots of half-naked men and, ah, colorful language, before you click through. If you write about men with men and you’re not a man, though, this is definitely worth a read. Now, it’s not the only resource for that kind of thing, and it shouldn’t be your only resource, but it’s a start. If you’re doing something outside of your direct experience, try to get as much perspective from the people you’re writing about as you can. And then it’s a case of lather, rinse, repeat. Do your best, listen, apologize when necessary, and keep trying.
Navigating diversity in this minefield of systematic oppression is hard. Don’t let anyone tell you any differently. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible, or that it isn’t worth doing. What’s in it for us? A better world with more acceptance of diversity, more compassion, and more awesome fiction. For me, those are all things worth vying for.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #82: Podcasts July 1, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : links , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #82. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. The Outer Alliance Podcast exists to bring you LGBTQIA news and interviews and fiction excerpts, but there are also a lot of other podcasts out there. Some of those others either involve, or may be of interest to OA members, so this week we’re going to take a look at a few of them.
The SF Squeecast is a brand new podcast, which, it seems, has been months in the making. The first episode came out yesterday, but it was recorded back in January. Lynne Thomas (curator of rare books and special collections at Northern Illinois University, and editor of pop culture essay collections like the Hugo nominated Chicks Dig Time Lords) moderates conversations in which Elizabeth Bear, Catherynne Valente, Seanan McGuire, and Paul Cornell get their geeky excitement on about SFnal stuff they’ve enjoyed. The first episode tackles The Middleman, Unstoppable, Yarn by Jon Armstrong, and A Dream of Wessex by Christopher Priest.
The Writer and the Critic is one I’ve mentioned before! It’s one of my favorites, and in addition to being future OA Podcast guests, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond have another OA connection: the most recent episode features guest reviewer Cat Valente. In this live recording from Continuum 7, they discuss Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King, Among Others by Jo Walton, and Embassytown by China Miéville.
Galactic Suburbia is another Australian podcast. Tansy Rayner Roberts, Alisa Krasnostein (the person behind Twelfth Planet press, which published the two novellas Ian recommended for our August OA podcast episode), and Alex Pierce discuss SF fandom from a feminist perspective. I know I’ve mentioned this one before, but I’m bringing it up again because their next episode is going to be a discussion of Joanna Russ’s The Female Man, How to Suppress Women’s Writing, and “When it Changed”.
Broad Universe has two monthly podcasts. One is authors reading excerpts of their work, and the other is a discussion of a particular theme or writing style. Since June was pride month, both the June episodes of the Broad Universe podcasts had LGBTQ themes. The Broadpod featured excerpts by Kelly Harmon, Jennifer Pelland, Connie Wilkins, Roberta Gregory, and Jessica Freely, while Broadly Speaking had Cecilia Tan, Racheline Maltese, Elissa Malcohn, Catherine Lundoff, and JoSelle Vanderhooft discussing queer SF. Both June episodes were hosted by Trisha Wooldridge. I’ll be hosting July’s Broadly Speaking discussion on the theme of writing humor, too, so look for that at the end of this month.
Podcastle and Escape Pod are weekly audio fiction podcasts, which have featured stories by several OA members like Amal El-Mohtar and N. K. Jemisin (who just won the Locus Award for Best First Novel!).
That’s it for now, but please do tell us about podcasts you like to listen to in the comments here, or on the google group!