Outer Alliance Spotlight #8: Bart Leib and K.T. Holt November 6, 2009
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, publications, queer-friendly publishers , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #8. Each Friday the Spotlight features an ally (or two!) who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. This week we’re celebrating November’s special LGBTQ themed anniversary issue of Crossed Genres with the editors, Bart Leib and K.T. Holt.
K.T. (Kay) and Bart are married, and both of them are bisexual. They started Crossed Genres together in 2008, and decided in the first couple of months that they wanted to do an extra large LGBTQ themed issue for the magazine’s first anniversary. The idea for Crossed Genres, which features stories that combine SF/F and another genre, grew out of Bart’s Genre Challenge community. Genre Challenge (which prompts members to write in a new genre each month) is still going, but has a new moderator now that Crossed Genres has taken off.
Kay’s love of speculative fiction runs deep. She wrote her first story (about a talking dolphin and his pet boy) at the age of six, and later got into college because of an essay on worldbuilding. Bart started writing poetry when he was in 8th grade, and took up prose fiction the next year. His non-fiction piece, “The Successful Hero’s List”, appeared in the April 2009 issue of Fantasy Magazine.
Bart and Kay live in Somerville, Massachusetts with their 3-year-old son, Bastian, and two cats named Romeo and Scout. In addition to writing and editing, both Kay and Bart take a keen interest in science. Kay works a day job in medical research administration, and is appalled at how little money brilliant researchers make. Bart’s particular scientific area of interest is sustainability, and people who use minimal resources to do amazing things. Kay and Bart encourage anyone with an interest in the future to blog about their favorite science news stories, and to fund research if possible.
Linkdump #5 – a smorgasbord of good news November 2, 2009
Posted by zeborah in : Uncategorized, links , add a commentLast few days: The Vote No on 1 website lists a whole lot of ways anyone in the US can help defend the marriage equality law in Maine.
President Obama has added gay, lesbian, transgender and disabled people to those protected by US hate crimes law; other promises about gay rights remain in progress or outstanding.
Religious settler comes to aid of gay Palestinian: a young Palestinian man who lives with his partner in Israel visited his parents in West Bank and was subsequently not allowed back into Israel. For fear of his life he couldn’t return to his own village, but a religious Jewish settler agreed to shelter him in his settlement.
Crash director Paul Haggis quits Church of Scientology after 35 years as a member, in protest against its opposition to gay marriage.
Crossed Genres has released their LGBTQ issue (Issue #12)
If you come across any links to share for next week’s linkdump, please post them to the Outer Alliance forum or bookmark them on delicious or diigo with tag “outeralliancelinks“.
Submissions: Crossed Genres Calls for LGBTQ Spec Fic September 2, 2009
Posted by Natania in : publications, queer-friendly publishers, submissions , 1 comment so farOuter Alliance member Bart Leib tells us of an exciting call for submissions at Crossed Genres:
To complete our first year of publication, Crossed Genres is producing an oversized issue of speculative fiction wth LGBTQ themes.
Submissions will be open through the end of September. We’re looking for short stories (1000-8000 words), artwork (black-and-white) and related articles and essays (500-3000 words). We’ll also consider other formats we don’t usually consider for publication: b&w cartoons, book reviews, personal stories, etc., so long as they relate to the LGBTQ theme. We may also consider some related online-only content such as video or music (please query).
The issue will be released on November 1, and throughout the month of November we’ll be featuring a number of LGBTQ-friendly organizations on our website in our “Website Spotlight” section (Outer Alliance is featured right now). We’ll also be linking to articles of relevance in the “Headlines” section. If you know a website or blog you think should be included as a Spotlight or Headline, email us a link and tell us about it!
We’re very excited about this issue, and are working hard to make it our best one yet. Our purpose in deciding to use this theme in an issue is to help develop and encourage the conversation around queer speculative fiction, and to present some excellent queer spec fic for everyone to enjoy. Please help make it even better by spreading the word!
LINKS:
More about the theme: http://crossedgenres.com/current-genre
Submission Guidelines: http://crossedgenres.com/submissions/magazine
Submission Form: http://crossedgenres.com/submissions/
Email us a website or blog to be featured: feedback@crossedgenres.com
Questions: questions@crossedgenres.com