I’m Here, I’m Queer, What the Hell Do I Read?: Lee Wind’s awesome book recommendation blog. He reads all kinds of things and shares his thoughts with the rest of us–and there’s always an open comment thread. Seriously excellent resource. Right up there with…

Bibrary Book Lust: Sally Sapphire’s super book recommendation resource. Sally’s open to all sorts of genres, and super interested in keeping the conversation going–she started the Gender Identity and Expression Book Challenge at the beginning of this year. There’s still time to participate, if you like!

Twitter #FeministSF Chat: This happens every Sunday at 2pm EST. Every week there are one or two host/moderators who guide discussions on particular themes. This Sunday, Catherine Lundoff and Kathryn Allen are going to be talking about outsiders and cyberpunk. Sign into Twitter and follow the #FeministSF hastag. Anyone can participate, and it’s a great way to meet other people and get book recs.

In Person in New York This Month: On the 24th, The Center for Fiction is hosting an Outsiders in SF panel with Steve Berman, Samuel Delaney, Andrea Hairston, Carlos Hernandez, Alaya Dawn Johnson, and Ellen Kushner.  And on the 10th (that’s Monday!) Bluestockings is hosting a reading from Milk and Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry. Rose Fox will be a part of that one. Honestly, if you’re ever in New York, it’s worth checking out the Bluestockings events calendar, since they have stuff going on nearly every day.

In Person in Washington DC This Month: Capclave is next weekend, the 14th-16th in Gaithersburg, MD. Catherynne Valente is one of the Guests of Honor.

In Person in San Diego This Month: The World Fantasy Convention is on the last weekend of October. It’s already completely sold out, and has been for some time, but it promises to be full of exciting conversations, which I’m hoping will spill over onto the internet so that people like me, who can’t be there, can join in the fun.

If you know of other places where excellent conversations are happening, please tell us in the comments here or on the google group. And if you’re going to any of these in-person events and want to share your experience with us, we’d love to hear those, too!

Earlier this week over at Genreville, Rose Fox lent her blog to Sherwood Smith and Rachel Manija Brown so that they could share their experience submitting a post-apocalyptic YA novel with a gay point of view character. They wrote about how an agent offered them representation if they’d change that character to make him straight.

Rose asked for honest conversation, and in the days since that post went live, I’ve seen hundreds of responses. Several agents and editors have publicly said they’re open to/actively hoping to see LGBTQIA content in their submissions piles, a representative from the agency in question responded claiming it had all been a misunderstanding, the #YesGayYA hashtag on Twitter took off and was full of recommendations and discussion, and many people have taken this as another prompt to point out their favorite YA books with non-straight characters. So that’s all good and happy and we’re done, right?

Not so fast.

As Sherwood and Rachel pointed out in their first post (in which, I note, they deliberately chose not to name the agent in question so as to focus on the larger problem):

Forcing all major characters in YA novels into a straight white mold is a widespread, systemic problem which requires long-term, consistent action.

In their personal blogs, in response to the agency’s post, they add:

This is why we went public: After the initial exchange a month ago, we spoke in private to a number of other writers, without mentioning the name of the agent or agency. There was an overwhelming response of “Me too!” Many other writers had been asked by agents and editors to alter or remove the minority identity of their characters, sometimes as a condition of representation or sale. Sometimes those identities had been altered by editors without the writers’ knowledge or permission.

…

We urge you all to continue focusing on the bigger picture.

The bigger picture does seem to be something everyone involved professes to care about, so let’s take a look at it.

Not every author has major trouble around this kind of thing. Malinda Lo‘s Ash, a retelling of Cinderella in which the main character happens to be a lesbian (and no one in her world thinks that’s strange or anything!), seems to have had a fairly easy road to publication, for instance. This spring, she wrote a long post about how little homophobia she’s had to deal with in her professional life. In that post, she pointed out the difference between personal homophobia and cold hard marketing numbers crunching. Then, this week, she crunched some numbers and made some colorful graphs and charts. These numbers are encouraging in some ways, and very discouraging in others.

Encouraging:

*All the major publishing houses consistently put out at least one YA book with LGBTQIA main or supporting characters each year.

*The numbers dropped sharply in 2010, but rose again in 2011.

*There has been at least one trans or genderqueer character each year.

Discouraging:

*The number of YA books with LGBTQIA main or major supporting characters comprises less than or about 1% of all the YA books out there. Now, the lowest estimates I usually see about LGBTQIA people tend to say that we make up about 10% of the general population. If that’s correct, 1% is a rather low representation.

*Of the LGBTQIA YA books out there, 50% are about gay males. This means Lesbians, bi people of all genders, genderqueer, trans, questioning, asexual, and intersex people are even more under-represented in YA than gay males.

*Very few of these books feature LGBTQIA characters as the protagonist of the book. Many have LGBTQIA supporting young characters (the gay best friend, etc.), or parent/guardian characters instead.

*Many of the books with LGBTQIA characters as the protagonist are Issue Books. That is to say, they’re about the struggles associated with accepting one’s gender identity and/or sexual orientation. While these kinds of books are good to have around, by being the overwhelming majority of this tiny subset of YA books, they’re also contributing to a general sense that LGBTQIA people are not normal. If all queer stories feature people trying to accept their LGBTQIA identities, then what we’re saying as a society, is that having an LGBTQIA identity is something that isn’t easily acceptable. Do we really want to be telling ourselves that? What I hear over and over from members of the community is that we’d love to see more books where people are queer as a matter of course and not as an issue which requires great personal struggles. I think many of us would love to see more books like Ash, in which the protagonist’s orientation is not an issue, and her journey is about more than coming out or learning to accept her identity.

*Out of the eleven LGBTQIA YA books on Malinda’s list, which were published in 2010, only one was a specfic book.  YA is a major market for specfic. In almost every bookstore I’ve gone into in the last two years, there’ve been separate sections for non-specfic YA and specfic YA, because there was just so much YA specfic out there. So the fact that only one book on that 2010 list is a specfic book? Is really sad to me. I haven’t counted the other years. Maybe they’re better. But I’m betting the numbers are still pretty low.

Below are a few collected responses to this debate:

Seanan McGuire (AKA Mira Grant) wrote a great post about what she wants to see in fiction.

When I talk about wanting diversity in my YA, I’m not asking for more specifically “queer YA.” I love it, I want to see it keep getting published, I think it’s important, and I think it’s not the point of this particular sword. What I want is paranormal romance where the lead is in love with the head cheerleader, not the head jock. What I want is heist books and con men where it’s Mike and Dan, not Mike and Dawn.

Nicola Griffith wrote a post and included a video of her telling the story of her struggles getting attention for her book, Slow River.

I think just about every queer author has been through this. I imagine people of colour go through it, too. We all choose whether or not to walk away. I dealt with this in 1994–instantly, satisfyingly (though it was a jaw-dropping shock).

Dennis Upkins wrote a post, which supported Nicola’s musing about people of color facing under-representation.

Do you honestly think this was an isolated incident or these kind of attitudes are happening in a vacuum?

This is most pervasive of the industry as a whole.

Ask yourself how many novels there are out there in mainstream speculative fiction that feature LGBTQs, particularly gay males, as the primary protagonists? For that matter ask yourselves how many mainstream speculative novels feature POCs, or better yet how many feature queer POCs.

Corinne Duyvis posted a roundup of arguments and counter arguments about this issue (well worth reading all of them if you have the time).

One point I did want to make–and something I’ve seen most people echo, thankfully–is that the agent’s reasons for requesting these changes don’t matter. whatever her personal biases or lack thereof, requesting a change like this contributes to the marginalization of an already underrepresented group.

Scott Tracey posted about his experience getting his book with a gay protagonist, Witch Eyes, published.

I don’t like to talk about it, because I still feel like someone’s going to come and rap my knuckles with a ruler, but WITCH EYES had it’s moments.  I had agents who said there wasn’t a market for a paranormal with a gay character who had a romance.  I had editors suggest they would reconsider the book if Braden and Trey became Brenda and Trey.  Or if I removed the romance and made it a straight girl/gay guy buddy comedy.

Scott asks us to buy more LGBTQIA YA if we want to see more published. I think that’s a really important thing to do, but it only works if we have LGBTQIA YA books available to buy.Which brings us to our ending point for today.

Rick Lipman wrote a post about his experiences being a young queer reader and writer. His ending words bring us straight to the heart of this issue:

Listen. I am not that old. When I was growing up, there were no gay characters. And then, when there were, it was Will & Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I did not get to see people like me in books, or on television, or as superheroes. We were not mainstream. We were not acceptable or appropriate for public consumption.

I’m 24 years old. Times have changed a lot in recent years, but to act like there isn’t still a long road of progress ahead is arrogance, plain and simple. I didn’t grow up with role models or stories of my own.

It is unconscionable to me that teens today may still be in the same position.

I’m going to leave it there for today, but I welcome further discussion. I’m not particularly interested in attacks on or defenses of Sherwood, Rachel, or the agency in question, though. I’d rather we keep this discussion to the larger issue, because this isn’t about three people; it’s about all of us.

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.

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.

Rose has been reviewing books for Publishers Weekly since 2002, and became the speculative fiction reviews editor in 2007. She has reviewed books in several other venues including Strange Horizons, Lambda Book Report, and ChiZine. She is also the Dissociative Editor for The Annals of Improbable Research.

Josh is the director of marketing for Fantasy Magazine. He’s been active in the speculative fiction fandom community since 1990, and has been formally contributing to Genreville since September 1, 2009. One of his first posts explored different portrayals of queerness in speculative fiction in honor of Outer Alliance Pride Day.

Rose and Josh live in New York. They keep personal blogs at rosefox.livejournal.com and sinboy.livejournal.com, and also maintain a twitter feed for Genreville at twitter.com/genreville.

***

How and when did Genreville come into being, and how did Josh end up on board?

Rose: My boss wanted an SF/F/H blog; I offered to write one. It became too much for me and I let it trail off. When Brian Kenney took over as editorial director of PW, he asked me about reviving it and I said Josh and I could do it together if he would pay us as freelancers. It’s worked out very well.

Josh was always my not-very-secret co-author, of course. I think half my posts made reference to him before we formally got him his own login.

Has it ever been awkward reviewing books by personal acquaintances?

R: Occasionally, but I’ve never lost a friend over it or anything like that. They understand that I’m a critic, my job and reputation depend on my impartiality, and I’m going to be honest about their work regardless of my personal feelings about them. I think this is such a small, incestuous industry that we all cut one another a little slack; they know that anyone reviewing their work is likely to be an acquaintance or a friend, so they’re braced for it, while I get a good reminder to review the work rather than the author.

Josh: It can be awkward to review a book by a friend, but mostly I’ve been in control of what books I review.  It’s possible one will come up in our book club, and I won’t like it.  But if that’s the case, I’d have to expect that anyone worth being a friend to can handle it if they’re friends with a reviewer who didn’t like a book they wrote.  If they’re not able to maintain that level of distance, I’m probably better off not being close friends.

What are some of your favorite and least favorite tropes? Are there any types of stories that will keep you reading longer just because of a specific plot point or character type? What about dealbreakers that make you put a book down?

R: I love a good detective story. I love shocks that are shocking the second or third time through, when I go in knowing whodunit or what terrible fate lies in wait and I still find myself holding my breath as the story unfolds. I love believable romance and believable sex. I am, as so many of us are, a sucker for queer characters whose lives or personalities are anything like my own; I’ll even settle for lousy representation over no representation.

I have no patience for stories that use abuse, torture, or rape solely as a means of creating atmosphere or developing character. I have no patience for plots that are advanced by people being repeatedly, preventably foolish or unethical, though really good character development or horror atmosphere can make this barely tolerable. As Marissa Lingen recently pointed out about “Button, Button”, most of us would have responded to the “get lots of money by killing a stranger” set-up with “Uh, no thanks, and I’m calling the cops now”.

I find most happy endings boring, and I especially dislike them in horror stories. Cliffhangers make me growl. I care a lot about endings, really. I have invested my time into the book or story, and the ending is a big part of the payoff. If I don’t feel that it was worth the investment, I will be grumpy.

I despise the notion of love being enough to bring someone back from the dead; I have dealt with the deaths of many people I love, and I will not stand for the implication that it was my fault for not loving them enough to keep them alive or resurrect them. That one is a flee-the-theater/throw-the-book dealbreaker for me.

J: I’m partial to both the deeply philosophical book, and the rock-em-sock-em action book.  I like the traditional underdog hero, and sometimes get bored by traditional gender roles like square jawed manly men or women who need men to complete them.

I’ll put a book down first and foremost if it bores me, and if I have no real concern for or interest in anyone major in the book.  I don’t have to like a character, but I should care what happens to them one way or another.  Like Rose, I think a plot that’s moved along by people being catastrophically stupid is uninteresting.

Tell us about the Genreville book club. How does it work, and who can join in?

R: Anyone can join! Every month, we put up a poll listing all the books coming out the following month that have been reviewed in PW‘s SF/F/H section, and we ask people to vote on the ones they want to discuss. The poll is open for a week, and anyone can vote who’s interested in discussing the book. Then people have a month to read the book, and we spend a week discussing different aspects of it. It’s really not a “club” at all, at least in the sense of restricted membership, and we get different readers participating every month.

J: I’m  enjoying what we did with Rosemary and Rue.  I got off track with Boneshaker trying to read through a [different] particularly boring book that took me four days to decide it just wasn’t worth it.  I’m certain our next choice will be one I’ll plow through, and we’ll get to collaborate again.  Rose sees things I don’t, and vice versa, so the different points of view are fun.

Do you have any queer speculative fiction recommendations for us?

R: Wholeheartedly recommended: Chris Moriarty‘s Spin State and Spin Control (hard SF). Lee Thomas’s The Dust of Wonderland (horror). Nicole Kimberling‘s Turnskin (humorous fantasy).

Recommended with caveats: Jo Walton’s Small Change alternate histories (Farthing, Ha’penny, Half a Crown) have a lovely gay protagonist, but his story is pretty tragic. One of the heroines of Jim Hines‘s kick-ass princess series (The Stepsister Scheme, The Mermaid’s Madness, more forthcoming) is a lesbian, and the first book kind of sucks for her but I hear the later ones are/will be better about that. Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette’s A Companion to Wolves is fun if you’re into slashy quasi-consensual gay orgies orchestrated by telepathic animal companions.

J: Other than Rose‘s recommendations, I’m partial to Cat Valente’s Palimpsest, which has a lot of bisexuality, including male bisexuality something that’s ignored in a lot of queer F/SF.

R: Ooh, yes, seconded.

***
Thanks, Rose and Josh! Join us next friday for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out Genreville!