Conversations About Bigotry, Literature, and the World Fantasy Award December 16, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : links, news , 3commentsOne of the things I state and re-state to anyone who will listen is that this whole idea of celebrating and supporting QUILTBAG civil rights, and fair representation of QUILTBAG writers and characters in speculative fiction, is not in competition with other rights movements. Yes, I feel so strongly about that that I had to use the emphasis tag. In fact, I’m going to repeat it on its own, in bold:
This whole idea of celebrating and supporting QUILTBAG civil rights, and fair representation of QUILTBAG writers and characters in speculative fiction, is not in competition with other rights movements.
There’s this thing called intersectionality, which basically suggests that all oppressed groups intersect in some way, and if we’re working toward fairness and equality for one group of people, really, we need to be working toward fairness and equality for all people. We’re all in this together. This is one reason why I think the conversation Nnedi Okorafor recently started is really important.
Nnedi is a woman of color, and her World Fantasy Award winning novel, Who Fears Death, is set in a future Africa with a protagonist who is a woman of color. Given that, it’s pretty understandable that Nnedi might feel uncomfortable with the World Fantasy Award’s form: a bust of H.P. Lovecraft. Her post is worth reading in its entirety, but in the interest of continuing the discussion with context, here’s some of the heart of it:
This is something people of color, women, minorities must deal with more than most when striving to be the greatest that they can be in the arts: The fact that many of The Elders we honor and need to learn from hate or hated us.
…
If Lovecraft’s likeness and name are to be used in connection to the World Fantasy Award, I think there should be some discourse about what it means to honor a talented racist.
Now, Lovecraft wasn’t just a racist. He was also a misogynist, and probably a homophobe as well. Sarah Monette talked a little bit about this in the 13th episode of the OA Podcast (on misogyny, around the 17:28 mark, she said, “I mean, Lovecraft has two female characters with names, and one of them is an inbred, passive receptacle for a monster, and the other one is a monster herself.”). And yet, Lovecraft is a giant influence on many modern fantasy and horror writers with much more progressive ideals. His work, his style, and his meshing of things both beautiful and dreadful, have seeped into modern American culture so much that Cthulhu, a tentacled horror, is widely recognized and reinterpreted in text, film, visual art, game, and plush toy forms (to name a few). A quick check on Amazon shows 683 items tagged with Cthulhu, and 515 tagged with Lovecraft. Like Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, the Cthulhu mythos has permeated pop culture enough that there are likely a lot of people who enjoy the references without ever having consumed the original source material, much less considered the author’s politics.
But many of the modern writers who cite Lovecraft as an influence have indeed considered those politics, and their work often engages in dialogue with them. Elizabeth Bear’s 2009 Hugo winning “Shoggoths in Bloom” (with an African American protagonist, who considers Lovecraft’s shoggoths in the context of slavery and the oppression of minority groups) is one example, and Sarah Monette’s The Bone Key (which explores issues of gender and sexuality with several named female characters and a gay male protagonist) is another.
Does any of this change that Lovecraft was a racist, or that his published and celebrated works include a lot of horribly racist content? No. Some argue that he seems to have had a change of heart at the end of his life–there’s a letter from 1936 in which he wrote, “The liberals at whom I used to laugh were the ones who were right—for they were living in the present while I had been living in the past.” Of course, the context of that statement is economics and not racism, but it does imply that he was human, and had the capacity to change and grow, which is somewhat reassuring. It doesn’t undo the horrible things he wrote, though. And while I can’t deny that his work was compelling and remains widely influential, I have to say, I’m not sure why we need a bust of his head commemorating one of the more progressive awards out there (past winners include China Miéville, Ellen Kushner, and Margo Lanagan, among others).
Theodora Goss (another World Fantasy Award winner) has also posted about this, and (in addition to a brilliantly specific example of how she reads Lovecraft with a critical eye, and what she sees in his work despite the unpleasantness) she offers a suggestion for a new award form, which sounds pretty great to me:
I think the award should be different each year, and it should be designed by a contemporary fantasy artist. Imagine winning an award designed by Shaun Tan or Charles Vess or Omar Rayyan! That would also recognize the wonderful work being done in fantasy art, which is such an important part of book publication in this “genre” (a word I use for convenience, since I don’t think fantasy is a genre).
What does it mean to honor a talented racist? I don’t have a good answer. I think it’s good to recognize and respond to the sources which help shape our work. I think it’s good to remember and examine both their strengths and their flaws so that we can continue improving, evolving, and growing as artists and as humans. But it does trouble me to have this symbol on an award. Partly, I think it’s that when we choose to commemorate someone with a bust like that, we’re implicitly approving of everything about them, whether we intend to or not. And partly, it’s a broader issue for me. The World Fantasy Award is not about one person. It’s not an award for the work most like Lovecraft’s, it’s an award for the best fantasy works of any given year. Fantasy covers a lot of ground, and not all of it is tinged with the Lovecraftian influence. Why narrow the form of the award down to honoring one person? The Hugos and the Nebulas manage to do all right without being busts of anyone’s heads, after all.
What are your thoughts? How do you feel about Lovecraft, the World Fantasy Award, and Nnedi’s call for discourse? Have you seen other posts in this conversation which particularly moved you? Have you written one of your own? I think it’s a very good thing to talk about, and I would really love to hear from others.
Outer Alliance Podcast #13 November 8, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, links, news, Outer Alliance Podcast, queer-friendly publishers , 1 comment so farIt’s the first anniversary of the Outer Alliance Podcast! Because I love ghost stories, I decided to run with that as our Birthday Podcast Theme, and to make the month extra exciting, we’re giving away books!
Our guest this month is Sarah Monette, author of The Bone Key, which is just out in its shiny second edition with an introduction by Lynne M. Thomas (astute listeners may remember her as the guest on last month’s OA podcast). After the interview, Sarah also reads an excerpt from one of the stories in The Bone Key.
Annnnnnd…
She’s graciously donated a signed copy for our birthday giveaway, and we have two other books as well! Signed copies of Vintage by Steve Berman, and Hollowstone by Dennis Upkins are also up for grabs. Three lucky listeners will win one of these haunting tomes. The contest is open until the end of November. I’ll draw winners in December. To enter, send me an e-mail (julia@juliarios.com) with “Podcast Contest” in the subject line. I will ship anywhere in the world, and everyone who is not actually me is eligible. This means you!
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:
News
*Malinda Lo has redesigned her website, and is also giving away books to celebrate!
*The World Fantasy Awards happened last month, and Alisa Krasnostein won in the Special Award Non-Professional category for Twelfth Planet Press. Hurray! If you would like to read some awesome Australian specfic (often with queer content), Twelfth Planet Press is a great place to look!
*The Tiptree Recommended Reading List is full of awesome stories, many of which are by OA members! There is still time to recommend books and stories to the Tiptree jury, so if you’ve read something this year which explores or expands our notions of gender, do go tell them about it!
*Maria Lima‘s Bood Sacrifice has been nominated in the Best Urban Fantasy Protagonist category for the RT Awards! Hurray, and best of luck to you, Maria!
*It’s [Inter]National Novel Writing Month! Bon Courage to all the wrimos in the OA crowd!
*Dennis Upkins will be signing books at The Great Escape in Madison, TN on the 19th of this month
*Sarah Monette will be signing books on that very same day (with Elizabeth Bear) at Pandemonium Books in Cambridge, MA.
Sarah’s Work
*The Bone Key and Somewhere Beneath Those Waves are her two short story collections, available from Prime Books.
*“After the Dragon” and “The Devil in Gaylord’s Creek” are the two stories we talked about that appeared in Fantasy Magazine.
*“Letter From a Teddy Bear on Veteran’s Day” is one of the first stories Sarah successfully wrote (the other is the opening story in The Bone Key, “Bringing Helena Back”).
*Here is Sarah Monette’s Author Page on Amazon, where you can find all of her novels.
Other Works We Mentioned
*The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
*“Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” and “The Wailing Well” by M.R. James
*“The Statement of Randolph Carter” by H.P. Lovecraft (the inspiration for “Bringing Helena Back”)
*“The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” by H.P. Lovecraft (Sarah’s favorite Lovecraft story)
*The Dead Zone by Stephen King (in Sarah’s estimation, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century)
*P.G. Wodehouse (whose work, like Sarah’s Booth stories, features eccentric characters with strong personalities)
*Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner (which Sarah says is a huge influence on her fantasy novels)
That’s it for this episode. If you have feedback for me, please leave a comment here, talk to us on the Google Group, or e-mail me at julia@juliarios.com. And do enter to win one of the three books in our Birthday Ghost Story Giveaway!
Queering Shakespeare: reflections on damaging tropes, and some positive alternatives September 9, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : links, news , 15commentsThis is a hard post to write. I’m pretty sure I’m going to get it wrong, and I’m sorry about that. I want to say going in that I speak for me, not for others, and that every opinion quoted and linked here is the expressed opinion of an individual. The Outer Alliance is not one person. We’re a widely varied group of people with a large range of opinions. We band together with a set of common goals (to support each other and promote speculative fiction with LGBTQI content), but we don’t always agree on how to handle every situation.
We have yet another controversy rocking the queer specfic community this week. It’s one I have reservations talking about, but I know it’s deeply important to a lot of our membership that the OA addresses it, and I do understand and support that sentiment, so here I am.
Three years ago, Tor published a collection of novellas, which included one by Orson Scott Card. He retold Hamlet. I didn’t hear about it at the time. By then I’d already stopped buying books by Card, or submitting work to his publication, because I knew that our fundamental values were at odds. He’s publicly said many times things that indicate that he doesn’t support LGBTQI rights, and believes a lot of things I find offensive and damaging. Now, my personal response to that has been to ignore him. He has the right to say what he wishes, because we both live in a time and place where freedom of speech is a protected right. I have the right to speak out against him if I choose, but to date I’ve always felt that exercising that right would give his damaging viewpoint more attention, and I didn’t really want to do that.
People talk about honest reviews being good, and I agree. People have said that negative reviews can help boost sales, and I agree with that, too. I’ve bought books before because I read a review that made me sure I’d like them even though the reviewer didn’t. More than anything, reviews give books attention. I wouldn’t have known about this book if it hadn’t been for a review. I’m guessing a lot of other people wouldn’t have either. I worry that the fervor over it will lead to results other than what the protesters would hope. I know that I’m potentially fueling that unwanted attention by adding my voice to the conversation, and that unsettles me.
I’ve said before that it’s important not to attack people personally. I don’t wish to do that, and I won’t be doing that today. I’ve also said that it’s important to speak out against injustice, and important to educate people when we can. It is my hope that I will accomplish these things, and also that this post will serve as a part of an extended open dialogue with the specfic community at large.
Now, the review in question was in response to a reprint of Card’s Hamlet retelling, not the original Tor collection. The standalone novella came out this Spring from Subterranean Press. I was especially dismayed to hear that news, and to hear, in the first cries of outrage, people calling for a boycott of Subterranean. That particular press has often published great books and stories with queer content, and by queer authors. I’ve bought some of them, and always felt good about supporting an open-minded small press with really nice production values. Seriously, if you’ve ever bought a book from them, you’ll know that they use highest quality materials. Their art is usually great, and every time I receive one of their books, I feel a sense of tactile joy, because they understand about texture at Subterranean. Their books are a pleasure to hold.
When this all erupted in a flurry of passionate e-mails on the OA google group, I said that if I boycotted every publisher who ever put out something I found offensive, I’d severely limit my reading choices. Others asked why people hadn’t called for a boycott of Tor. Still others pointed out that this was a troubling reprint because it was specifically chosen by a small press, and we ought to demand to know Bill Schafer’s reasoning. Along with boycotting, demands for various other concessions floated about, but none seemed to unite everyone in agreement.
Then someone pointed out that it was in fact possible that Bill Schafer and others hadn’t realized how and why this story was offensive. People who have the privilege of not being targeted by these damaging tropes are often unaware of them. Indeed, Bill Schafer’s response to the whole thing indicates that this might have been the case for him. He asks for people to share their thoughts, and says that he’s listening. If all of this results in a publisher learning a little more about how and why works he publishes might actively hurt people, then I suppose it’s worth the risk of giving attention to an author I’d rather ignore. Here is a collection of accounts by OA members of their experiences with this particular controversy, followed by some recommendations of queer-positive Shakespeare stories.
Rose Fox summed up the whole sordid saga in a concise and comprehensive manner over on the Genreville blog.
[T]his is the thing about offensiveness grenades: they may look entirely inert for so long that you forget they’re dangerous, but sooner or later, they explode.
On the google group, Rose added the following:
I am really sad and disappointed that Subterranean Press and Tor Books, which publish many books by queer and trans authors and with queer themes, also published a novella that vilifies queer people and equates us with child molesters. I call on those publishers–and on all SF/F publishers, imprints, and magazines both large and small–to refrain from publishing books and stories that vilify any group of people in such a fashion.
Cheryl Morgan said much the same thing to me, and explained why this particular reprint is so upsetting:
There is, I think, a difference between publishing the story as part of a retrospective of Card’s work, which can put it in context, and publishing it has a high-priced collectors’ edition, which suggests it is something special and of extra value.
Elizabeth Schechter posted about her personal reaction on her blog:
To be honest, right now, I’m more at the stage of sputter…sputter… whiskey tango FOXTROT???
And my reaction isn’t because Card wrote this. Anyone who is following along and playing Homophobic Bingo: the Home Game just maxed out their score. This is no surprise.
The surprise is that Subterranean Press published it.
River Willow Fagan posted an extremely brave and heartfelt open letter to Bill Schafer, explaining how and why this kind of thing damages people:
One of the most painful aspects of being a queer survivor has been the doubts: what if all those hateful voices were right? What if I am attracted to men because my father abused me? What if I really am sick, what if my soul really is twisted and broken like all those conservative Christians say?
Sunny Moraine called for people to demand better stories, and posited that small-mindedness leads to bad writing:
I think that it’s important to recognize that art can be really offensive and still have a huge amount of value. But I also think that believing stupid, hateful things – more often than not – makes you a bad artist. As it cripples and stunts your mind and heart and spirit, it cripples and stunts the things that your mind and heart and spirit produce.
Brandon Bell, talking of the demands for more good queer stories, noted:
I’m certainly happy to see queer-themed Shakespearean works at Fantastique Unfettered.
Angela Korra’ti expressed a hope that people would not buy the book now that it has received more attention, and offfered a few alternatives for people who want good queer retellings of old stories:
So to all of you who never knew about this work, I’m a bit sorry to have brought it to your attention, and can only hope you will continue to not only not buy it, but will specifically not buy it because bigotry is not okay. To those of you who already knew about it and elected not to buy it on that basis, I thank you.
To counter its existence, I’d like to commend to your attention the Lethe Press anthology Time Well Bent, in which Catherine Lundoff has a story in which Shakespeare isn’t queer, but his sister Judith is–and so is his friend Kit Marlowe. Hayden Thorne has Arabesque, a dark m/m adaptation of Snow White. And I’ve mentioned this one already, but it’s worth mentioning again in a post whose theme is “adaptations of classic stories”: i.e., Ash by Malinda Lo.
Several people recommended Elizabeth Bear’s Spectrum Award winning Stratford Man duology. Warren Rochelle, one of the judges for the award, shared his thoughts about the books alongside some quotes from the official Spectrum Award writeup:
Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth, the two volumes in Elizabeth Bear’s duology, “were far and away the work most deserving of our award for the year.” I was quite taken by this universe in which Shakespeare and his rival and teacher and sometime lover, Marlowe, move back and forth between the worlds of Elizabethan England and Faerie and even Hell, a universe in which “the worlds of a great writer can shape the world as a form of magic … {Y]ou’ll find yourself believing that this magic of words is more than a fantasy story.” All three worlds are masterfully done and I was more than willing to suspend disbelief. I was caught up in the ongoing crises, crises “that only a handful of individuals, including Shakespeare, can overcome . . . Both Shakespeare and Marlowe . . . must face their own demons, their own mortality, and their own desires if they are find immortality for their own work, and the two kingdoms they come to love.”
And, finally, Hal Duncan offered his own playfully modernized screenplay retelling of As You Like it, free of charge. You can read his explanation of how it came to be, and the first scene in this blog entry, and you can download the whole thing at this site.
That wraps things up for this harrowing monster of a blog post. As I said earlier, I hope that it will be a part of an extended open dialogue. I’d love to hear more from anyone who wants to share their thoughts about this, and I’m especially interested in ideas about how we can use this situation to make our community better and stronger. Please leave a comment here, talk to us on the google group, or email me directly at julia@juliarios.com.
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 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.
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 #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!
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 #22: Elizabeth Bear February 19, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : interviews , 3commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #22. Each Friday, the Spotlight features an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is Campbell, Hugo, and Spectrum Award winning author, Elizabeth Bear.
Elizabeth Bear won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2005, and has since written several award winning novels and stories. Bear’s novels often include queer content, and her long trail of award nominations reflects this. Carnival was nominated for the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Lambda Literary Award in 2006 and shortlisted for the Gaylactic Spectrum Award in 2007. New Ansterdam, Dust, and Whiskey and Water were shortlisted for the Spectrum in 2008, while A Companion to Wolves (co-written with Sarah Monette) also received Spectrum and Lambda nominations that year. In 2009, All the Windwracked Stars, Ink and Steel, and Hell and Earth received Spectrum nominations, and the latter two (treated as two volumes of a long novel, The Stratford Man) won.
Bear’s success is not limited to novels, though. She’s had stories reprinted in several Year’s Best anthologies, and two of her shorter pieces have won Hugo Awards: “Tideline” for Best Short Story in 2008, and “Shoggoths in Bloom” for Best Novelette in 2009. She also writes for a fictional television show called Shadow Unit with a team of other authors including Emma Bull, Sarah Monette, and Amanda Downum.
In addition to her website, Bear maintains a LiveJournal and a Twitter feed. Her new novel, Chill, is coming out on the 23rd, and a novella, Bone and Jewel Creatures will be available in March.