Lambda Guidelines Change Again August 30, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : announcements, links, news , 5commentsBack in 2009, the Lambda Literary Foundation changed their requirements for awards eligibility to include only authors who self-identified as LGBT. This was a pretty divisive decision. At the time, Nicola Griffith, who was on the LLF board, said, “Our explicit mission is to honour and reward openly LGBT writers.” Others voiced concerns that this policy might exclude people who were not comfortable being out publicly, or (worse) result in unwanted outings. Being a part of the LGBTQI spectrum is something which comes with a certain amount of safety concerns. Some of us are lucky enough to live in places where our orientations are acceptable, but others of us face discrimination and violence on a daily basis. Additionally, there were those who felt that this rule excluded a subset of high quality literature with LGBT content, which might be directly relevant to LGBT issues and lives, but written by straight people. Others felt that straight writers were not part of the community and should not be included in awards meant to promote and honor LGBT people.
These issues are still very much alive and kicking in the LGBTQI community, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that in the past couple of days, I have seen people express both excitement and discomfort at the LLF’s new awards guidelines. It seems that Lambda Literary is trying to appease everyone with their proposed change (most awards open to anyone regardless of orientation, some awards limited to particular groups), but their exclusive categories are too exclusive for many members of the LGBTQI community.
In particular there are categories meant for debut novel to be awarded to a lesbian and a gay man, and then mid-career awards for a female-identified person and a male-identified person. By these rules, I (an openly bi-identifed person, who is active in the LGBTQI community) would not be eligible in the debut category, and many of my friends would not be eligible in these special categories because their genders are fluid or non-binary. This is troubling because I’m pretty sure we’re all the sorts of people LLF would like to include, not exclude.
But don’t take my word for it! Have some links to ponder!
Rose Fox (a past Lambda judge) posted an open letter, in which she dissects the wording of the special categories and explains why she finds it troubling. Rose also includes the brief response she received from Dr. Judith Markowitz, which, alas, doesn’t clear matters up much.
Cheryl Morgan posted her thoughts on the matter, and received several interesting comments from previous Lambda winners and judges like Rick Bowes, Roz Kaveney, and Cecilia Tan as well. Do read the comments on that post!
Nicola Griffith (who is no longer a member of the LLF board, but still interested in the LLF’s work) posted a call for, “… a full and frank discussion of these issues. The Lambda Literary Foundation needs to address trans and bi visibility, equality, and accessibility. Or it should bill itself not as an LGBT organisation but LG(bt).” Nicola also points to an example of someone who disagrees with the removal of the self-identified LGBT authors only requirement, in case you’re curious to see what people have to say about that.
Shaun Duke also weighs in on the issue, and we’ll end with his last line: “ When an important award which is supposed to celebrate LGBT issues in literature doesn’t get how its policies discriminate against its own target demographic, then something is seriously wrong…”
Have you got thoughts about this issue? Please feel free to share them in the comments here, or on the OA google group. We do love lively and frank discussion.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #89: Pi-Con, ArmadilloCon, Dragon*Con August 26, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : events, news , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #89. 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 an end of summer convention roundup.
Pi-Con is this weekend in Enfield, Connecticut. Hurricane Irene is heading up the East coast, but Pi-Con is still happening. If you’re in New England and feel like venturing out (or in New York and forced to evacuate…), you can come see several OA members like Jennifer Pelland and Shira Lipkin. I’ll be there, too!
If you’re near Austin, Texas this weekend, you might want to check out ArmadilloCon. It’s also got some OA members on the program, including JoSelle Vanderhooft, Lee Thomas, and Elizabeth Bear.
Dragon*Con is next weekend in Atlanta, Georgia. It will be giant as usual, but if you’re there and want to hang out with some awesome LGBTQ people, Outlantacon is hosting a Rainbow Flag Party on Saturday night. You can meet all kinds of excellent queer fans and allies there, and get the chance to purchase a 2012 Outlantacon membership at a discount.
That’s it for this week. See you at Pi-Con if you’re there! And Congratulations to all the Hugo winners! We’re especially pleased to note that Lynne Thomas and Cheryl Morgan snagged shiny new rocket ships this year. Hurray!
Outer Alliance Spotlight #88: Hugos! August 19, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : announcements, events, links, news , 2commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #88. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. This weekend is WorldCon, so we’re focusing on that!
The Hugo Awards ceremony is tomorrow! If, like me, you’re unable to make it to Reno, you can still watch a live video stream at 8pm Pacific Time. Jay Lake and Ken Scholes are hosting the ceremony, and lots of fine people and works are up for consideration. It’s too late to vote if you haven’t already, but it’s not too late to get some some last minute reading in.
Rachel Swirsky’s novella, The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window, may be of particular interest to the OA membership, as it explores gender roles and expectations, and has a queer protagonist.
In tangentially-related-if-we-stretch-pretty-hard news, Lynne M. Thomas (a nominee in the Best Related Work category for Chicks Dig Time Lords) is stepping up as editor of Apex Magazine. She’ll be taking over where Cat Valente left off, and will undoubtedly continue to welcome submissions with queer content. Hurray!
Do you want to talk about the Hugos on Twitter? The women of Galactic Suburbia will be live tweeting as they watch the stream with their @galacticsuburbs account, Mur Lafferty and Kevin Standlee will be doing official text coverage, incorporating Hugo-specific hashtags like #hugos and #hugoawards, and I’ll be around, too. Do say hello if you join the fun. I’m @omgjulia, and I love hearing from people.
Best of luck to OA members who’ve been nominated this year!
Outer Alliance Spotilight #87: Travel Funds August 5, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : events, links, news , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #87. 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 lots of news and notes, with a special focus on funds that get people to faraway events.
The World SF Travel Fund is something Lavie Tidhar is overseeing, and it’s an awesome idea. Its goal is to send one person to an international event every year. This year the person is Charles Tan, who does all sorts of excellent internet promotion and review and discussion of SF and fandom from his home in the Philippines. The SF Travel Fund wants to send him to San Diego, CA for the World Fantasy Convention this October. So far they’ve reached 70% of their fundraising goal (which will be enough to send Charles to World Fantasy and to seed the fun for next year so that it can be sure to continue). The board for this project is a fantastic group of diverse people, who I’m hopeful will choose candidates to further diversity at major SF events in the future, so I’d love to see them reach their goal. They’re offering donors e-books as a thank you for donating, too! Go check it out!
Con or Bust is an ongoing project which aims to get people of color to conventions. Kate Nepveu oversees this one, which runs on an auction system, and takes requests for help from individuals. It’s a pretty fantastic thing! If you ‘re a person of color who wants to attend a convention in October or November, you can request help between the 15th and 25th of this month. Darkovercon has donated a membership for someone, which is totally awesome because their GOH lineup is full of queertastic goodness.
Shveta Thakrar is taking matters into her own hands. Shveta is one of the contributors to Steam Powered II, and she’s written a paper about women and monsters in South Asian folklore and sacred myth, which she’d like to present at the Sirens conference in October. She’s not far from her goal, and is busily thinking up ways to thank people who donate. It would be excellent if we could all make this happen for her.
Okay, so that’s it for travel funds. We have a bunch of other stuff to share this week, too! Yay, we’re rich in LGBTQI news!
Cheryl Morgan recorded a panel about gender in SF at Eurocon in June, and put it up as a podcast this week. You can download it free and hear Elizabeth Bear, Johan Jönsson, Kristina Knaving, Ian McDonald, and Cheryl Morgan talking about Gender with Kari Sperring as the moderator. Charles Stross also participates from the audience. They cover all sorts of interesting territory in the 50 minutes of panel time.
Galactic Suburbia’s Joanna Russ discussion episode happened a few weeks ago, but I was so busy preparing for Readercon that I forgot to mention it was up! You can get that here, and I highly recommend it. They cover How to Suppress Women’s Writing, “When it Changed”, and The Female Man, and they explore both the awesome things and the not so awesome things about Russ’s work. In the following episode, they also present some thoughtful listener feedback.
Jessica Verday’s queer YA story is now available! Back in March, Jessica Verday pulled a story from a YA anthology after the editor asked her to change her gay protagonists to straight ones. That story is now available as an e-book on Amazon.
The Outwrite LGBT Book Fair is happening this weekend in Washington, DC. Lethe Press will be there along with a bunch of other awesome queer publishers. Details here. Do let us know if you attend!
Apex is hosting a Twitter chat tomorrow with Jennifer Pelland at 3pm EST. Jennifer is an OA member with lots of great queer short fiction out there (and a novel with a bi protagonist forthcoming). Apex has all the details on how you can ask her questions.
Okay, that wraps up this week’s news. If you’ve got anything to share, please let us know here in the comments, on the google group, or by e-mailing me personally at julia@juliarios.com.