Guest Post: Nora Olsen on the Golden Crown Literary Society Conference June 17, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : events, news , add a commentI just got back from the Golden Crown Literary Society (GCLS) annual conference. GCLS is a volunteer-run literary society devoted to lesbian fiction. Although the focus is on “lesbian,” from what I observed GCLS is very welcoming to bisexual women and transgender folk, which makes me happy. It’s a long con; it ran from Wednesday night to Sunday afternoon. GCLS has pretty much everything you expect in a con: panels, a dealer room, readings, a dance, karaoke, and book signing. No cos play though! It’s not a sf con, and the favored genre is romance. The focus of the panels is writer education and the chance to see your favorite writers, and the quality of the panels is what you’d get at Philcon or Lunacon. Just like every con, it’s more about hanging out with your friends than it is about the panels.
My girlfriend and I technically attended GCLS last year. But it was held in Orlando, Florida, and neither of us had been to Disney before. Basically we ended up seeing a lot more of Mickey Mouse than Karin Kallmaker. So this was the first year that we were really present at GCLS. (Next year GCLS will be in Minneapolis, and Portland, Oregon the year after.)
One of the most fun parts of GCLS was their awards ceremony. It’s like the Oscars if everyone was a lesbian. GCLS runs their awards the same way Lambda and Publishing Triangle do: publishers (or authors) nominate books by paying a fee and providing copies, and then judges winnow the nominations down to a list of finalists. The awards are known as the Goldies. What’s amazing is that there can have more than one winner per category, depending on how many finalists there are.
The Outer Alliance’s own Sacchi Green won a Goldie in the category of lesbian erotica, for Lesbian Lust, although she wasn’t present at the ceremony. Winners in the speculative fiction category were Bourn’s Edge by Barbara Davies, More Than An Echo by Linda Kay Silva, and Nigredo by Alex Mykals. I read one of the finalists, Lesser Prophets by Kelly Sinclair, which follows a group of women through a flu epidemic that decimates the earth’s population but mysteriously spares gays and lesbians, and I thought it was excellent. Outer Alliance member Andi Marquette had a finalist as well, A Matter of Blood. Although I haven’t read that one, I did read the first book in the same series, Friends In High Places, and it had great world-building, intrigue, and romance. OA peeps would also enjoy Shadow Point by Amy Briant, a winner in the debut novel category, which is about a woman who goes to a haunted naval base when her brother dies there and must fight a malevolent ghost. The winners of the paranormal category also sounded intriguing: Rip Van Dyke by Kate McLachlan, a time travel story, and Riverwalker by Cate Culpepper, about a vengeful spirit. I loved learning about the pioneers of lesbian fiction, like Katherine V. Forrest and Ann Bannon. Apparently in the 1950s and early 1960s under the Comstock laws postal inspectors censored pulp fiction for vocabulary and plot, so that all gay books had to end in suicide or a straight marriage to be acceptable. Those early writers had a tough battle. They paved the way for all of us today, and we are truly standing on their shoulders.
The GCLS attendees were hardcore fans. It was bittersweet to hear so many women in the vendor room saying things like, “I lost my job and don’t have much money but I have to buy these books.” They knew classic lesbian books like Curious Wine by Katherine V. Forrest backwards and forwards. I’m afraid I have never read a single word by her or any of those trailblazing writers, although now I feel like I should. Attending GCLS showed me that there is a huge generation gap in lesbian fandom. I have to say that I was outside of my comfort zone at this con. Of course there were a variety of different kinds of people there, but the majority were white lesbians age 45 and up, many of whom live in isolated communities where they don’t meet a lot of other LGBTQ people. It seemed that a lot of women had come to GCLS by way of Xena, and I’m sorry to say I’ve never watched Xena either. What we did have in common was that we were all bookworms who admire lesfic writers at the top of their game like Karin Kallmaker, KG MacGregor, Georgia Beers, and Lee Lynch.
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Nora Olsen, a proud member of the Outer Alliance, writes LGBTQ-themed science fiction. The End: Five Queer Kids Save The World is her debut novel, and her short fiction has appeared in Collective Fallout. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her girlfriend, writer Aine Ni Cheallaigh, and two cats.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #66: Warren Rochelle February 25, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : interviews , 4commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #66. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is Warren Rochelle, author of The Called.
Warren is a professor of English at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. His interest in mythology and archetypal journeys manifests itself in his fiction, which also incorporates LGBTQ themes and explorations of oppression and struggles for civil rights. His first novel, The Wild Boy came out in 2001 through Golden Gryphon Press, and he has since published two more novels. Harvest of Changelings came out in 2007, and its sequel, The Called, came out in 2010. Warren’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in many places including Icarus: the Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #64: Mark Allan Gunnells January 28, 2011
Posted by juliarios in : interviews , 4commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #64. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is Mark Allan Gunnells, author of Asylum.
Mark is a gay horror writer who enjoys putting incidentally queer characters into stories which aren’t about sexuality and orientation. His novellas, Whisonant, and Creatures of the Light, are collected in one volume by Sideshow Press, and his short story collection, Tales from the Midnight Shift, Vol. I is forthcoming from Sideshow as well. His newest book, Asylum, is the first product of Apex Book Company’s new zombie imprint, The Zombie Feed. Asylum departs form Mark’s usual style to take issues of sexual identity head-on–in the context of a zombie attack on a gay dance club.
Mark lives in South Carolina with his partner, Joel. If you’d like to learn more about him, check out his Facebook page or his LiveJournal.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #61: Gender Identity & Expression Book Challenge December 31, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : announcements, interviews , 6commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #61. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. This week our guest is Sally Sapphire, host of Bibrary.com and the 2011 Gender Identity & Expression Book Challenge.
Before we get started, I’d like to take a moment to recognize Sandra McDonald‘s Rainbow Award for Best Bisexual, Transgender and Lesbian Fantasy. I had this prickly sensation I was forgetting something important when I congratulated OA members on their wins in the second podcast episode, but I didn’t realize why that was until a few days after the podcast went live. So, congratulations, Sandra! Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories would be an excellent reading choice for the Gender Identity & Expression Book Challenge.
Sally Sapphire is a bisexual transgender gurl, who has spent 5 years maintaining the Bibrary, an index of LGBTQI books in a variety of genres. She also reviews LGBTQI books at the Bibrary Bookslut blog, and blogs about her personal experiences with gender identity at TGirl Revelations. When Sally isn’t busy reading or writing, she likes to go on long, solitary hikes, preferably in really cute hiking outfits.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #55: Sarah Ettritch November 12, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : interviews , 4commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #55. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guest this week is Sarah Ettritch, author of The Salbine Sisters.
Sarah writes science fiction and fantasy stories featuring lesbian protagonists. Her Rymellan stories (about space pilots on a distant planet) are available online at the Rymellan Stories website, and she started Norn Publishing earlier this year in order to also put her books out in print and e-book format. The Salbine Sisters, her fantasy novel about lesbian magic users, came out in October.
In addition to writing, Sarah enjoys reading and playing computer games. She’s also the Web Maven for Broad Universe, an organization which exists to promote and support women who write speculative fiction. Sarah lives in Toronto with her partner and four cats.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #50: It Gets Better October 1, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : links, news, publications , 3commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #50. The Spotlight features news about (and sometimes interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction.
This week:
Dan Savage’s It Gets Better Project took off on YouTube. The It Gets Better Project is a quest to collect videos from LGBTQI adults who want to let high schoolers know that life does really get better after high school. There are, unfortunately, a lot of queer teen suicides, and this project exists to give teens who might be thinking about that a tangible reason to hope for a better future. Dan and his partner Terry made the first video for the project. They talk about their high school experiences, how they met, and how great their life is now. If you want to participate, there are instructions on the It Gets Better Project YouTube Channel. Please also tell us if you make a video for this, and we’ll link to it in a future Spotlight!
Sandra McDonald‘s novel, The Stars Blue Yonder, came out in paperback this week. To celebrate, Sandra made an amusing video tribute to Australia (where the book is set).
And, Bart Leib announced that the queer issue of Crossed Genres is going away at the end of this month. It’s been up for eleven months now, and expires after twelve. If you haven’t read it, now’s the time!
That’s all for this time. Join us again next week, and please share any news you might have (or links to your It Gets Better videos!) here in the comments, on the Outer Alliance google group, or via Twitter (mention either @omgjulia, or @outeralliance).
Outer Alliance Spotlight #48: Bill Tucker September 17, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : events, interviews, queer-friendly publishers, submissions , 1 comment so farWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #48. The Spotlight features news about (and interviews with) allies who are active in supporting and celebrating LGBTQI speculative fiction. This week, our interview guest is Bill Tucker, editor of Rockets, Swords, and Rainbows.
News & Notes
*This week marks the inaugural issue of Stone Telling, the magazine of boundary-crossing speculative poetry. Rose Lemberg has done a great job of seeking diverse voices for this issue. It’s full of excellent work, including some queer content.
*Tomorrow, the 18th, Connie Wilkins (AKA Sacchi Green) will be reading at the Strange Horizons fundraiser reading event at Pandemonium Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I’ll also be there as a member of the audience. Do say hello if you see me (I’ve got blue hair, so I’m hard to miss). If you’re on the other side of the country, there’s another Strange Horizons reading with some West Coast authors in Portland, Oregon on Sunday the 19th.
*Bookview Cafe has just released a charity anthology to benefit Gulf Coast oil spill relief efforts. Breaking Waves is available as an e-book for $4.99, and includes a story by Sandra McDonald.
Interview with Bill Tucker
Bill Tucker works as a civil servant with law enforcement officials by day, and writes and edits speculative fiction by night. He grew up in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, but now lives in Boston, Massachusetts. He’s currently seeking stories for an anthology of LGBTQI science fiction and fantasy. Rockets, Swords, and Rainbows is open to submissions until the 21st of November, and will be published by The Library of Fantasy and Science Fiction (an imprint of The Library of the Living Dead).
Outer Alliance Spotlight #46: AussieCon 4 and Dragon*Con September 3, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : events, links, news , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #46. Each week the Spotlight features an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. This week, with so many people at two big conventions on different continents, we’re highlighting LGBTQI supportive people and events at both Dragon*Con and AussieCon 4 (this year’s WorldCon).
At AussieCon 4, you might catch up with Sumana Harihareswara, Cheryl Morgan, and Catherynne M. Valente (and there are several other LGBTQI friendly people there, too!).
Sumana offers the following suggestions of panels which may be of interest to Outer Alliance members:
Academic Panel: Fantastic females: reworking feminism in women’s fantasy — Saturday 1630 Room 203
Delia Sherman (mod), Catherynne M Valente, Gail Carriger, Alaya Johnson, Glenda Larke, Tansy Rayner Roberts
Is fantasy the new vanguard of feminist politics in specfic? Fantasy authors discuss the role of gender issues in their work.
The case for a female doctor — Sunday 1200 Room 204
Tansy Rayner Roberts, Carolina Gomez, Kerrie Dougherty, Catherynne M. Valente, Paul Cornell
He’s transformed from an old man into a young one, so why not from a man into a woman? Doctor Who remains one of the most imaginative and open-ended science fiction programmes ever produced, but can the format extend to include a female Doctor? What other elements of the series are necessary? Does he/she have to have a TARDIS? Does there need to be a companion? Must the series be British? An examination of how far you can stretch the world’s most stretchable science fiction series.
The future of gender and sexuality — Sunday 1600 Room 219
Cristina Lasaitis, David D. Levine, Erika Lacey
What does the future hold for our ideas of gender and sexuality? How will we understand these concepts in 10, 50 or even 500 years? How have science fiction texts already predicted our understanding of gender and sexuality in the future – and how accurate do we find those predictions?
AussieCon 4 also marks the launch of Cheryl’s new magazine, Salon Futura! The first issue has just launched, and you can get it here.
On the other side of the world, in Atlanta, Georgia, there’s a bunch more LGBTQI friendly stuff going on at Dragon*Con. If you’re there, you might catch Outer Alliance founder Natania Barron, who just launched the new Geek Mom blog. Look out for Lee Martindale, C.D, Covington and Racheline Maltese, among others.
C.D. and Racheline will both be reading as part of Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading on Saturday at 11:30.
Lee will be on the Beyond Binaries 101 panel on Saturday, and Racheline will be on the Beyond Binaries 201 panel on Sunday (both exploring alternatives to m/f gender pairings in spec fic).
There are several other LGBTQI themed panels on the Dragon*Con program, and Outlantacon is hosting a Rainbow Flag party on Saturday night in the Sheraton Ballroom.
Happy Con Weekend to everyone in Melbourne and Atlanta! And for those of you playing the home game, don’t forget to check out Salon Futura #1!
Outer Alliance Spotlight #45: Retro Spec August 27, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, publications, queer-friendly publishers , 4commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #45. Each week the Spotlight features an ally who writes, reviews, publishes, or is in some other way involved with LGBTQI speculative fiction. Our guests this week are Karen Romanko, CD Covington, and Leonard Richardson, the editor and two of the contributors to Retro Spec: Tales of Fantasy and Nostalgia from the 20th Century.
Karen Romanko is a poet and fantasy writer, who loves the sun of Los Angeles and Malibu. She edited the speculative fiction webzine, Raven Electrick for several years, and has edited two previous anthologies, Sporty Spec and Cinema Spec. Her poetry and fiction and have appeared in many places including Strange Horizons and Ideomancer.
CD Covington is a fantasy and science fiction writer who also enjoys tai chi, crochet, and European football (she is particularly interested in the German Bundesliga). She maintains a twitter feed in addition to her blog. “U* Alexanderplatz (1989)” is her first publication.
Leonard Richardson is a writer and computer programmer. His programming books, RESTful Web Services and The Ruby Cookbook were published by O’Reilly, and his story, “Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs” appeared in Strange Horizons. Together with his wife, Sumana Harihareswara, he edited the anthology Thoughtcrime Experiments in 2009.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #44: Debra Killeen August 6, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : events, interviews , add a commentWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #44. Each week 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 Debra Killeen, author of the Myrridian Cycle series.
Debra Killeen turned to writing only as an adult. In her non-writing life she works in the pharmceutical industry, but her fiction remains firmly in high fantasy territory, not science fiction. The first book in her Myrridian Cycle, An Unlikely Duke, came out in 2007, and was followed by three more volumes: A Prince in Need, Legacy of the Archbishop, and Priestess Awakening. The fifth and final volume is scheduled to come out in 2011.
Debra is a straight ally, who believes that people should take love where they find it. She counts among her friends and relatives people from all across the spectrum of sexual and gender identity, and supports LGBTQI acceptance in her life and in her fiction.
If you are in Raleigh this weekend, you can find Debra at NASFiC, where she will be reading this evening at 8:00 with the Broad Universe group, as well as sitting on a few panels, and signing autographs. If you’re not near Raleigh, you might be able to catch Debra later this year or next at Darkover, OutlantaCon, StellarCon, RavenCon, or ConCarolinas.
Debra lives in North Carolina with her sister, who is also a writer. They share their home with several cats, who are all very helpful with the writing. In addition to her personal site, Debra maintains a Twitter feed.