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 #60: OA Podcast #2 December 17, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, links, news, Outer Alliance Podcast, publications , 4commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #60. 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 second Outer Alliance Podcast episode for you!
In this episode, Natania Barron talks about her work and how she started the Outer Alliance, Lynn Flewelling talks about writing sex scenes and teaching a writing workshop on a cruise ship, and we have an excerpt of Georgina Bruce’s story from Aether Age: Helios.
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:
Gender Playful Marketplace is collecting startup funds over here.
Elisa Rolle hosted the 2010 Rainbow Awards, which recognized works by several Outer Alliance members. Congratulations, winners!
Hayden Thorne’s historical fantasy comedy (not a problem novel!) Desmond and Garrick Book One is available now at Prizm books.
Natania Barron’s website has all kinds of info about her fiction and non-fiction. Go there to find out all about stories available now and coming soon.
Lynn Flewelling has links to signups for the cruise workshop and place to buy her work (including the sexy Nightrunner short story collection that flustered prim and proper me in the interview) over on her website.
Aether Age: Helios is out now. You can find out more at Aether-Age.com. Author Georgina Bruce maintains a blog at thebeardedlady.wordpress.com, and you can learn more about narrator T.C. Parmalee at Aural Spice.
Thanks for listening, and please do feel free to leave feedback here, on the google group, or by e-mailing me at julia@juliarios.com. I’d love to hear from you.
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 #53: Kathe Koja October 22, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : interviews, publications , 4commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #53. 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 Kathe Koja, author of Under the Poppy.
Kathe is a straight ally whose short stories and novels feature a diverse range of characters in a variety of genres including fantasy, horror, historical, and young adult. She began seriously writing after she attended the Clarion workshop, and her first novel, The Cipher won the Bram Stoker and Locus Awards. Following that success, she went on to write several more novels for adults before turning a short story for younger readers into her first YA novel, straydog. Several YA novels followed straydog, including Talk, a story about a closeted teenager, which was named a YALSA Best Book for Young Adults in 2006.
Most recently, Kathe has returned to writing for adults with her new novel, Under the Poppy, which will be released on the 26th through Small Beer Press. This romp through war-torn nineteenth century Europe is a story of love, betrayal, fidelity, and some very naughty puppets. Kathe has also adapted the story into an immersive stage show, which will debut in Detroit in 2011.
Kathe lives in Michigan with her husband, son, and three cats. She keeps her main journal on her website, and also has a Facebook page and a website specifically for news and notes about Under the Poppy. She’ll be appearing in person in Ohio next weekend at the World Fantasy Convention, in Michigan on the 10th and 11th of November at the Common Language Bookstore in Ann Arbor and Five 15 in Royal Oak, and in New York on the 17th of November at KGB Bar.
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 #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.
Outer Alliance Spotlight #42: Sandra McDonald July 23, 2010
Posted by juliarios in : interviews , 3commentsWelcome to Outer Alliance Spotlight #42. 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 Sandra McDonald, author of Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories.
Sandra McDonald has written several short stories and novels, including “The Ghost Girls of Rumney Mill”, which was shortlisted for the Tiptree award in 2003, and the science fiction series, The Outback Stars, The Stars Down Under, and The Stars Blue Yonder. Her latest book, Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories follows the coverging paths of three people including an openly gay character and a genderqueer character.
Sandra has an MFA from the University of Southern Maine, and spent 8 years traveling the world as a Naval Officer. In addition to her personal site, she keeps a LiveJournal where she posts about writing.