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.

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OA: Retro Spec is your third anthology (the first two being Sporty Spec and Cinema Spec). How did you get into the themed anthology idea in  the first place, and how do you choose the themes?

KR: I published e-zine Raven Electrick for nine years, but started to feel that something was missing. There was a kind of unity there, but not the feeling of having created a WHOLE that I get from editing and publishing anthologies on a theme, where I work hard to achieve cohesion. That feeling is also reinforced by being able to hold the finished products in my hands, something I couldn’t do with the e-zine. (Yes, I’m aware that I moved backwards in terms of current publishing trends.)

As to the themes, I’ve chosen ones of personal interest to me because I think that editorial enthusiasm is important. At the same time, I’d like to sell some books, so I’ve tried to stick to themes that authors will find inspiring and that readers will want to see treated.

With Retro Spec, I called upon my long-ago history major and my continued interest in retro popular culture. The most interesting aspect of submissions was that the most popular decade was the 30s–I’d expected something more recent.

OA:  As an editor, how do you encourage diversity in submissions to your publications? Are there themes or stereotypes you see too much of? What about things you’d like to see more of?

KR: I like to encourage submissions from women, because they’re underrepresented in the sf/f/h field (and in most professions). That’s one of the reasons why I joined Broad Universe.

In general, my submitters tend to be an enlightened group. (I do request in the guidelines that they not submit anything sexist or racist.) My main complaint is that too many horror writers tend to ignore my caveat about “no gore.”

OA: Are there more Spec anthologies in your future? What else can we look forward to from you?

KR: I hope so. I’ve selected the theme for the next one, but I’m keeping that a secret for the time being.

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OA: Your story is set in East Berlin just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Why did you choose to write about that particular time and place?

CDC: The last decade of the Cold War influenced me as a child, but its end and the collapse of the Soviet Union were really the first politics I was *aware* of. I started studying German in fall 1989, when I was in 8th grade, then before Thanksgiving break, Germany had changed. Every year on November 9, I watch the video for the Scorpions’ “Winds of Change” with footage from 1989 and 1990. (I feel like I shouldn’t admit that in public, but there you go.)

My first trip to Berlin was for three days in 1997. I remember taking the train across town and being able to discern where the Wall had been. The style of building changed a bit, and there was a lot more construction, but the difference was palpable.

I went back for a week at Christmas 2007. The division line wasn’t nearly as noticeable, but construction hadn’t stopped. (In Berlin, there’s always construction.) This time, I went on a guided tour, and the tour guide was a student of Cold War history, so we got onto that topic fairly often. He asked if I’d heard of Geisterbahnhöfe, ghost stations, and I said I hadn’t. He directed me to more information, which I picked up gladly.

Brief explanation: The city of Berlin wasn’t divided strictly on a north-south line. The Soviet sector had a slight bulge into the western sectors. Transit lines that had been built thirty or forty years (or more, in the case of the street-level trains) before that connected the northern boroughs with the southern now went from West to West through the East. The ruling party in East Germany couldn’t allow trains to stop, because people would be able to escape easily. So they barricaded these dozen stations on three lines, and made the Friedrichstraße station a border crossing point.

I’ve always been drawn to abandoned places and ruins. I knew there was a story in there, but it took me a while (and a lot of false starts) to find it. I wrote about a pair of guards stationed in the sealed-off U8 track at Alexanderplatz, one of whom keeps seeing trains and passengers who shouldn’t be there.

Since Karen bought my story, I’ve spent a month in Berlin, for a refresher German course. I worked on a translation of it, and my teacher really liked it. She’s lived in Berlin since the 80s, and she remembers the guards stationed in subway stations.

OA: As an Outer Alliance member, you support and celebrate LGBTQI themes in speculative fiction, but that doesn’t always mean writing queer lit. Part of being a supportive ally is simply reading, enjoying, and recommending good stories. Can you recommend a favorite or two to us?

CDC: I’m a fan of (fellow OA member) Lynn Flewelling‘s work. The lack of queer SF on my shelves is kind of embarrassing.

OA: What’s next for you? Are you working on anything new and exciting?

CDC: I just submitted a short story to an anthology of military sf starring women, and I’m working on revisions to my novel. The main character of the short is one of the POV characters in the novel.

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OA:  Your story is an alternate history piece about Alan Turing, an important figure in queer history, and in computing history. What led you to write this particular story?

LR: I was vacationing in England in 2009 when the British government issued its apology to Turing. A genuine apology is a kind of alt-history story: there’s this alternate timeline where I didn’t do this, and things are better in that timeline.  There’s also something alt-history-ish that’s stuck with me from The Enigma, Andrew Hodge’s biography of Turing: how arbitrary his death was, how much flowed from one small action. There seems to be a causal chain from Turing reporting a burglary to the police in 1952, to his outing, his chemical castration, and his suicide in 1954. It’s difficult to imagine the British government of 1952 behaving differently than it did, but it’s not difficult to imagine Turing deciding not to report that burglary.

That’s where I got the jumping-off point. I wanted to explore how the world might have been different if Alan Turing had lived out a normal human lifespan, but also what the effect on him might have been of keeping that secret, keeping it even after it was okay to talk about the wartime secrets, and then wondering when it would be okay to give that last secret up.

OA: As an editor of an anthology yourself, how did you encourage diversity in the submissions you received? Is there anything you learned during the process of reading for Thoughtcrime Experiments that would change the way you solicited submissions if you were to do it again?

LR: I can’t really improve on what Sumana said in your interview of her. For detailed analysis I’d point people to that interview or her blog post on the topic. I’ll second her statement that we didn’t do as much as we could have to recruit nonwhite and queer authors by announcing the anthology in relevant places.

OA: Do you think you will ever put together another anthology? Have you got anything other exciting projects on the horizon?

LR: We don’t have any plans for another anthology, partly because our lives are way too hectic right now. But I think we could do another one, testing some other hypothesis about the market. Like “send in your latest ready-to-submit story” or something.

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Thanks, Karen, CD, and Leonard! Retro Spec is available now through Barnes & Noble and Amazon. There will be an official Retro Spec launch party at the Flintridge Bookstore and Coffee House in La Canada, California on the 25th of Spetember, and CD Covington will be reading from her Retro Spec story next weekend at Dragon*Con.

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.

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OA: The fourth volume of your Myrridian Cycle books, Priestess Awakening, is out now and has some queer content. Can you tell us more about that? And do readers need to have read the previous 3 books in order to understand what’s going on in this one?

DK: Certainly. The queer content in Priestess Awakening involves a lesbian romance storyline as part of the plot. I didn’t realize when I was writing the first book in the series that one character would develop into a lesbian, but she let me know before I’d begun the manuscript for this volume. I knew the other woman was a lesbian from the outset of this volume.

While I would encourage readers to read the previous books in the series, of course, it’s not absolutely necessary for the enjoyment of this one. The plot of this novel stands alone, but the main characters’ back-stories do develop over the series.

OA: Myrridia seems to be heavily influenced by Christianity, but magic works there, and you dovetailed magic and religion in the books. As a pagan yourself, how did you come to that decision, and how do you feel about magic and religion generally?

DK: When I was first developing the initial book in the series, An Unlikely Duke, I knew religion would be playing a role. However, I’d read so many fantasy series back in my high school and college days where religion and magic were in opposition that I started with the premise that the dominant religion in this world at this time, Christianity, would not just condone magical practice, but control it. This decision was independent of my own paganism – heck, I was raised in the Baptist church, but I knew from my teen years that the Baptist church didn’t have all the answers for me. I’ve joked for many years that I would see “God” in nature. It took a little time to figure out exactly what that meant for me, but once I figured out that whole “divine feminine” concept, it was only natural to realize I was pagan.

I have always believed in something that I think of as magic – whether it came from reading fairy tales in my childhood or other influences – and I still believe that there are many things in our world which can’t be explained by science, at least not yet. I find both magic and religion to be fascinating subjects, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the chance to combine the two in this series of novels.

OA: Together with your sister, you designed some Myrridia inspired tarot cards. Are those available for sale (or even just to admire)?

DK: I wish! As of now, I’ve determined which Myrridian characters seem to personify the individual tarot cards. I think what surprised me the most is how little time it took me to figure out most of them! Apparently I’ve got a quite a few characters who are close to archetypes, and I never knew it while I was developing them! My sister is working on some draft text for the accompanying book, but unfortunately the artist who was going to start working on the designs has too many other obligations at this time. However, if there are any artists out there who might be interested in this project – they can feel free to contact me. My publisher is possibly interested in this project as well.

OA: Your four cats made their way into your fiction as well as your real home. How true to life are the cats that appear in the Myrridian books?

DK: Most of the scenes in which the cats take part have come from observing my cats. I’m sorry to say that a couple of the feline inspirations are no longer with me, but they live on in the books. The scene where two of the cats disrupt the wedding banquet in Priestess is based on typical behavior. While they never interrupted a banquet, they had enough feline fights in their time.

OA: What can we look for next from you? Any exciting projects coming up?

DK: More projects are coming, rest assured! The final volume of the Myrridian Cycle, Kingdom in the Balance, will be released sometime early next year. I’m currently revising a manuscript which I hope will be the first novel of a new series, about a twelve-year-old apprentice witch, Morgan, living near Chapel Hill, NC, who encounters a fairy clan living nearby. The fairies are dying and need Morgan’s help to save them. There’s an environmental message.

There’s another series in the Myrridian universe planned as well, with many of the characters going on crusade, about 10-15 years after the close of this series. The original idea came out of my frustration with the Iraq war, and I keep hoping that by the time I get the series written, the war will be over. Maybe just optimism on my part. But there will be more queer content and lots more religion and magic. And probably magic carpets…

Another series, which may end up a collaboration with my sister, is a spin-off of the Myrridian stories, but will be set in our world – paranormal mysteries. I don’t want to give too much away for folks who haven’t read the Myrridian cycle, but a character from Myrridian comes to our world, and will have to adjust to modern life after being born in the 10th century. I’m probably going with young adult in age, so while there won’t be a lot of gruesome murders caused by things natural or supernatural, we do hope to use create some spooky situations and hopefully have some fun, with some of the causes as explainable, but some not.

OA: Most writers are avid readers, too. What are some of your favorite books?

DK: So many excellent choices out there! I’m a big fan of Ray Bradbury and Terry Pratchett, to name two greats. I’ve read all the Harry Potter novels, and thought Rowling did a wonderful thing – getting kids to read who might not have picked up a book. Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers series, John Dickson Carr’s locked-room mysteries, Jeff Smith’s Bone graphic novels, Hellboy, Sandman. (I love graphic novels, too!) I’ve enjoyed the first two installments of Candace Havens’ Carruthers sisters series and I’m about halfway through the Harry Dresden books. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon, which I hope to reread one of these days, Mary Stewart’s Arthurian series, and Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series.

OA: You’re going to be at several cons in the coming year, including NASFiC this weekend. Where can people find you in person this weekend and beyond?

DK: Yes, I’ll be at NASFiC this weekend, and joining you and some other fabulous women authors on the Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading Friday evening at 8pm. I’ve got a few other panels over the weekend and two autograph sessions. I’ll be around and about the con and am always glad to stop and chat with folks, or else I’ll be in the dealers room (uncertain at this point). Later this year I’ll be at DarkoverCon near Baltimore on Thanksgiving weekend.

Next year looks to be fairly busy, with StellarCon, RavenCon, OutlantaCon/GaylaxiCon (a first for me, and looking forward to it!), and ConCarolinas so far. DarkoverCon and CapClave are two more possibilities, and I may see if there’s something promising in Florida, to join my publisher there. And maybe Dragon*Con.

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Thanks, Debra! Join us next week for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out the Myrridian Cycle! And if you’re in Raleigh, come see Debra read tonight along with me and fellow OA member, C.D. Covington!

Cheryl Morgan has been active in SF fandom for many years. She edited the Hugo winning fan magazine, Emerald City, and won the Hugo for the Best Fan Writer category in 2009. Currently she’s the non-fiction editor for Clarkesworld Magazine, and part of the team behind Science Fiction Awards Watch, Convention Reporter, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards.

Her newest project, Wizard’s Tower Press, just went live this month, and aims to publish e-books as well as a non-fiction magazine, and some print anthologies. The magazine, Salon Futura, will launch its first issue in September at WorldCon, and Wizard’s Tower Press’s first anthology, Dark Spires, will be released in November to coincide with BristolCon.

Cheryl mirrors her blog on LiveJournal, and maintains a Twitter feed. She lives near Bath, UK.

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OA: Wizard’s Tower Press just went live a couple of weeks ago, and it looks pretty exciting. Why did you choose to focus on the e-book publishing format, and what is you vision for WTP’s future?

CM: E-books are interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly I have little experience of making physical books. I do, however, know a fair amount about web sites, and an e-book, internally, is pretty much the same. Also e-books allow you to sell easily to people all over the world without having to pay printing and shipping costs. That’s very much how I like to work. And as someone whose library of physical books is scattered in numerous locations on two continents, and whose current home has no room for bookcases, I can see the attractions of the portability of e-books. This doesn’t mean to say that we are e-book fanatics. Everyone at Wizard’s Tower loves physical books too, and we will be publishing some. We just have to be a lot more careful with them, because the economics are much more risky.

As to the future, I’ll be very happy if I can connect lots of good books with eager readers, and avoid bankrupting myself in the process

OA: You’ve mentioned wanting to help out midlist writers with this venture. How do you hope to do that?

CM: The big publishers and bookstores are becoming more and more focused on a small number of best-selling writers, and on looking for the next big name. Midlist writers are getting squeezed out. Many of them have extensive backlists that are out of print. If we can put those books out as e-books then those authors have a potential new stream of income, and readers have a plentiful supply of books that have previously been hard to find.

OA: The first issue of WTP’s non-fiction magazine, Salon Futura will come out in September to coincide with WorldCon. What kinds of things can readers expect from that, and are you open to submissions for later issues?

CM: We are open to submissions now, both for issue #1 and future issues. The plan with Salon Futura is to provide a quality literary review magazine focused on genre literature. Clarkesworld has been very successful paying good rates for really good stories. I want to show that you can do the same with non-fiction. Of course there will be some surprises as well, but you’ll have to wait for issue #1 to see them.

OA: Dark Spires is WTP’s first planned anthology, due out in November. Can you tell us more about it?

CM: I’m part of a group that runs a small convention in the south-west of England, BristolCon. Last year Colin Harvey edited an anthology called Future Bristol that featured SF by local writers. He wanted to do something similar this year, and when I decided to get into publishing I offered to help him. Dark Spires will speculative fiction stories inspired by the locations of Thomas Hardy‘s Wessex, all written by local authors. The cover, as with Future Bristol, is by local artist Andy Bigwood.

OA: You’ve been very active in SF fandom for some time. You’re on the teams responsible for Science Fiction Awards Watch and Con Reporter, and you’re the non-fiction editor at Clarkesworld. You even won the Hugo for Best Fan Writer in 2009. How did you first get into fandom, and how did your involvement in fannish circles get to be so big?

CM: Back in the 1980s I got a job programming microcomputers for use in hotels. I was heavily into role-playing at the time, and my boss, Martin, suggested that I might enjoy science fiction conventions. He introduced me to his best friend, Dave. These people were Dave Langford and Martin Hoare (the guy who collects Dave’s Hugos at Worldcons when Dave can’t afford to attend). I guess I got lucky.

As to why I have got so involved, I guess I’m just hyperactive. If I see something needing doing I tend to try to do it.

OA: Has your involvement in fandom taken you to geographical places you might never have thought to go otherwise? How is fandom similar and different in non-English language locales in your experience?

CM: I have traveled quite a bit with my day job, but it was fandom that took me to Finland. I met a lady called Irma Hirsjärvi at an academic convention in Florida, and she invited me to attend her local con. I have been back every year since. Finland is beautiful in the summer (though I’m not sure I’d like the winters much) and the Finns are wonderfully hospitable. They are also magnificently well organized. The country has a population smaller than that of many US cities, and yet they run conventions that are bigger and better run than most I have seen, and are free to attend because the Finns are so good at getting sponsorship. Also there is sauna.

Fans are pretty much the same all around the world. We like the same sort of books, and the same sort of geek toys. What tends to distinguish local fan cultures is how ambitious and inclusive they are. In some countries fan groups tend to be small and tightly focused on specific areas of fandom; in others fan groups are very diverse and enjoy reaching out the general public through big events.

OA: You’re part of a team of people working to launch the Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards, recognizing translations of foreign language work into English. The first awards ceremony is scheduled to take place at the Eaton Conference in Riverside, California next February. Why is this award important, and how can people submit work for consideration?

CM: In running Science Fiction Awards Watch I noticed that almost every country that has awards for SF&F literature includes an award for work published in translation to the local languages. The only exceptions were English-speaking countries. So I decided to start a set of awards for SF&F translated into English. Fortunately I have some very capable friends who are helping me make it a reality. There are hundreds (possibly thousands) of genre novels and stories published every year in languages other than English. By the law of averages, some of them are going to be brilliant. But without encouragement they will never get translated and most of us English-speakers won’t get to read them. I hope the awards will help change that.

There is no formal submission process. The number of works published in translation is quite small and we did not want to put any barriers in the way of considering potential nominees. However, if publishers with eligible works could write to us and let us know about their books (info [at] sfftawards.org) that will make sure we don’t miss anything.

OA: A lot of people would like to see greater diversity in SF, and I get the feeling you’re no exception, but how would you like to see the SF community embrace the diverse? To that end, what advice, if any, would you give to a new fan just entering the scene? What about old and entrenched fans, writers and editors?

CM: If people want to embrace diversity then it is pretty easy to do these days. There is a big Internet out there. My regular blog reading includes writers from Brazil, India, France, Ghana, South Africa, Malaysia, Israel and Indonesia. The biggest problem is finding time for all of the good material out there.

Of course you can’t force people to embrace diversity. If people want to stick to what they know then you have to persuade them of the benefits of stopping doing that. But something that readers, writers and editors all tend to say they are looking for is new ideas; something different. One of the best ways to get that is to read outside of your comfort zone.

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Thanks, Cheryl! Join us next week for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out Wizard’s Tower Press!

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.

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OA: Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories features some gay and transgendered characters in an alternate Earth. How is their world like ours, and how is it different in the ways its societies treat LGBTQI people?

SM: Geography is a fun aspect of the book, and I like the idea that they’re in an alternate Earth or dimension. Another way of looking at it is to treat their world as our own, with an ongoing game of names. Ed McBain did this in his famed 87th precinct novels by using “Isola” instead of “Manhattan.” In fact, he renamed all five boroughs, and critics have argued over whether he meant to make a truly fictional city or a simple copy of New York City. However we treat the places, the people in Diana Comet are exactly like the people here, with a wide variety of orientations, prejudices, hopes and secret desires.

OA: You’re organizing the writing workshops for next year’s Gaylaxicon in Atlanta. What can writers expect to get out of these workshops if they attend?

SM: We’re aiming for that half-day, Milford style experience you see at other cons, with a small group of writers and lots of respectful, honest critiques. The difference with ours is that we will be encouraging positive portrayals of gay, lesbian, transgender and other characters. We’re all really excited about this. I first attended one of these workshops at Boskone, and our group was run by Theodora Goss and David Alexander Smith. It was a great learning experience for a fledgling writer like myself and I want to pay it forward to new writers now.

OA: When did you get the idea to make a periodic table of awesome female SF writers, and how did you decide who to include?

SM: Web surfing one night (as many writers are known to do), I came across Squidspot’s Periodic Table of Typefaces. It’s a very cool chart if you’re into web or page design. That meshed up with some thoughts I had about one of the footnote characters in Diana Comet, a female science fiction writer in the 1940′s. Soon I started fooling around on Macromedia Fireworks. Six weeks and 300 objects later, I had my own chart! The names were drawn from Hugo, Nebula and other awards lists, and I think represent a solid foundation of fabulous women writers. I wish I’d had room for dozens more. At the same time, the chart and the accompanying video point out some areas where we can improve – gaining Nebula nominations for urban fantasy writers, for instance, or seeing more women in leadership at SFWA.

OA: You were in the military for 8 years, and you’ve lived on at least 3 different islands in your lifetime. How has occupation and habitat influenced your writing?

SM: Being in the Navy was a great experience and definitely exposed me to a lot of different cultures and customs. At the same time, it opened my eyes to the hypocrisy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and how great sailors were being discharged only because of their sexuality. Being on islands helped me appreciate small communities and how people function when they’re not part of the “the norm.” I still love the military- Navy jets fly over my house several times a week – and still love islands, especially Key West.

OA: Writers have cats like planets have moons (they’re not a given, but it’s hardly surprising to find a few hanging around). Will you tell us about yours?

SM: I love that analogy. Right now I have three official cats and one unofficial stray, plus another on extended vacation with grandma. I never intended to be the cat lady of my neighborhood, but all animals deserve good homes and I’m happy to do what I can. The only time I regret having adorable small furry animals around is when one decides to plop down on the keyboard while I’m typing.

OA: Are you working on anything new? What might we hope to see from you in the future?

SM: I’m working on lots of new things, but also very excited about my stories being published this year. Over at Futurismic, I had a great time with “Tupac Shakur and the End of the World”. It’s my tribute to disaster movies. Clarkesworld just published “Beach Blanket Spaceship”, which is an homage to all those Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello movies I used to watch as a kid. And soon Strange Horizons will publish “Seven Sexy Cowboy Robots”, which was inspired by a great video called Brokeback Skaters. Really, check it out. Lots of fun!

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Thanks, Sandra! Join us next week for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories.

And the exciting thing: we’re having an Outer Alliance meetup on Sunday at 12:30. Come to the Marriott lobby and meet some of your fellow allies!

Jarla Tangh – Proud of Pride in June

Chris Fletcher – Father’s Day

If you’ve written a pride-related post, and you’d like us to link from here, please just let us know in the comments. We’ll be happy to add you!

John is a gay artist and writer based in Manchester, UK. He designs and illustrates books and comics as well as creating CD and DVD cover art, and original visual art. His Psychedelic Wonderland 2010 calendar was featured on Boing Boing, and inspired his cover art for Alan Moore’s Dodgem Logic #4. He has work on display as part of the A Love Craft exhibition at Observatory in Brooklyn, New York, which will be open until the 23rd of this month.

Though he doesn’t read as much science fiction as he used to, John feels indebted to the genre for giving him queer characters he could identinfy with as a teen. He’s an Outer Alliance member because of that, and because he believes LGBTQI visibility is important. John maintains a Twitter feed and blogs on his personal site.

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OA: The cover for Dodgem Logic #4 is a beautiful and striking Art Nouveau image. How did you come up with that design concept, and what was the process like?

JC: Alan Moore enjoyed the Alice in Wonderland calendar which I produced last year and which had a psychedelic theme. Issue 4 of Dodgem Logic is a kind of psychedelic special so he asked if I could supply a suitable cover image. Many of the psychedelic artists of the 1960s borrowed styles and motifs from the Art Nouveau era and I’m very familiar with the culture of both periods so it seemed natural to bring them together.

Since I had carte blanche I wanted to be a little provocative. I’d discovered the work of Yannis Tsarouchis a month or so before; he was a Greek painter, very well-regarded in his native country, who produced a lot of homoerotic work including a number of pictures of men with butterfly wings. So the idea was to throw a lot of butterfly and peacock motifs together and see what worked. Having two guys kissing gave it an edge which takes the cover away from being just a pretty picture. If you had two women kissing I doubt anyone would notice. A picture of two men kissing is still a great provocation for some people so the idea was to make that an unavoidable focus of the design. Alan Moore was fine with this, he’s always been a big supporter of gay rights. The magazine is called Dodgem Logic because it’s “colliding ideas to see what happens” so that was the approach I tried to take.

I found a suitable photograph of two guys and did a large outline drawing based on that. If you’re working with vector graphics you need strong, clear outlines so I often draw things first at large size then scan them and convert them to vector shapes. After that it’s a case of colouring things and shuffling them around in Illustrator as you might do with cut-out pieces of paper. The butterfly woman on the back cover was also a drawn outline, based on Frank X Leyendecker’s “Flapper” cover for Life magazine. The logo which I based on Roger Dean‘s lettering styles of the 1970s was done half on paper and half in the computer at a very large size to ensure all the curves were perfectly smooth. I was obsessed with Roger Dean’s album cover art when I was 14 but this was the first time I’ve ever imitated his lettering designs.

OA: You designed the Thackeray T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, and you also contributed a piece of short fiction to it. Have you written any other fiction?

JC: Well, since you asked…yes, I have, rather a lot of it but this is the first time I’ve owned up to it in public. The Lambshead piece was just a throwaway idea but I began writing fiction when I was 16 and was doing so more-or-less constantly up until the age of about 24. I started out writing fantasy then lost interest in that and produced a lot of very dense and reader-unfriendly prose influenced by Modernist experiment and speculative fiction of the sort found in New Worlds and the Dangerous Visions anthologies. When I’d left school in 1979 I actually had more of an ambition to be a writer than an illustrator since writing fiction is personally creative whereas illustration is always subordinate to the work of another. I’d also decided to avoid art school and was told by everyone that I’d never have an artistic career because of this. In 1985 I was halfway through a very condensed surrealist novel heavily influenced by J. G. Ballard when I realised no one would ever want to publish it and I’d be better off concentrating more on the art side of things. So I abandoned the novel and started work on what became my series of H. P. Lovecraft adaptations. If I’d not had an aptitude for drawing or painting I definitely would have persevered with the writing. It’s just at that point I’d lost interest in writing stories but didn’t have a strong enough idea for a longer work.

That was then. By 1999 I’d produced 270 pages of the Reverbstorm comic series with David Britton and also put together the book of my Lovecraft work for Oneiros Press. I was in the mood to start something fresh and I wanted the new project to be completely my own, not an adaptation or a collaboration. I’d had a half-formed novel idea in mind for some time so in 2001 I started writing again, this time creating a very dark, urban fantasy which, in atmosphere at least, owes something to the Reverbstorm comics. I spent six years working on one novel and I’ve spent another four years working on the follow-up which is now halfway through. I have a UK agent who’s currently trying to sell the first book; not anyone I’d known previously, her interest came through a blind submission.

I’ve been quite resolute in not mentioning this recent work at all until now for a couple of reasons. The first is that it seems insufferably presumptuous to have a career going in one area and blithely announce to the world that you’re branching out into new territory with no indication of having done anything before in this direction. People are understandably sceptical about such moves. The other reason was that I was only going to make an announcement when I had something concrete to announce, rather than telling the world that its surplus of unpublished books had increased by one. As it turns out the agent has had difficulty selling the book, not because it’s necessarily bad or uncommercial–we’ve received praise from editors–but on account of the sex content. This has happened three times now and I’ve been rather surprised by the reaction, especially since I didn’t set out to create something that was wildly transgressive. I should emphasise that it’s not gay sex which is being rejected–there’s a minimum of gay stuff in the first one–and I haven’t tried to write Naked Lunch 2 or anything. It seems to be that my imagination is too weird and nasty for publishers. Or something. You’d have to ask them.

So that’s where things stand at the moment. This isn’t a dilettantish endeavour, I’m as serious about this new work as I am about anything I’ve ever done. Probably more so, since it took me twenty years to reach a point where I could create something which felt wholly my own. Congratulations, you’ve outed me as a writer!

OA: A Love Craft is an exhibition of artwork inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s writing. What is your relationship with Lovecraft’s work? Do you have a favorite piece? How did you decide what to contribute to this show?

JC: As mentioned above, I spent ten years on and off producing the comic strip adaptations and illustrations of Lovecraft which became The Haunter of the Dark and Other Grotesque Visions. The impetus was a desire to see Lovecraft treated seriously in illustration form. Many of the comic strips based on his work at that point were either jokey or rather inept and didn’t give any conception of the cosmic nature of his stories. I tried to create the kind of book I’d want to read myself.

I’m not sure which is my favourite piece. I can tell you the three which people seem to like the most. The colour pictures of Cthulhu and R’lyeh have been very popular, and both have been used on reprints of Lovecraft’s own fiction. And many people seem to appreciate my depiction of poor Wilbur Whateley’s demise from “The Dunwich Horror”.

I didn’t have to make a choice for the show, fortunately, Dylan Thuras of Observatory approached me with suggestions of the works they’d like to feature.

OA: You and Alan Moore are planning a new graphic project called The Soul. Can you tell us anything more about that? Or about any other new projects we might look forward to?

JC: This is one of those unrealised projects which haunts the CV. The idea was originally to do a comic strip for the books Alan was producing for ABC in 2000. The Soul would have been an occult detective, a kind of Belle Epoque female equivalent of Carnacki the Ghostfinder, John Silence and others. Alan was pretty overworked at that time so it never got off the ground but the idea has recently transmuted to being an illustrated story for the magical primer he’s been writing with Steve Moore. That’s also stalled at the moment, partly because of Dodgem Logic.

I have two more books I’d like to see in print. The novel is one, of course, the other is the complete edition of the Reverbstorm comic series. Savoy Books are still planning to publish the latter although given their sluggish schedule I can’t say when it might appear. People will wonder why someone else couldn’t publish it but it’s a controversial and frequently experimental series and we’ve been assured in the past by other companies that they’re not keen. It’s frustrating since I don’t really want to do anything more with comics and that work is the best thing I’ve produced in the medium.

Aside from that I’m still designing things for Tachyon and there’s more titles due from them which I’ve worked on, mostly doing interior designs although I’ve done a cover for a forthcoming Joe Lansdale collection. One of the new books is Steampunk Reloaded, the sequel to the Steampunk anthology edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer which will have quite a lavish interior.

OA: As a teenager, you read a lot of science fiction because it wasn’t afraid to explore queer themes, gender-swapping, etc. Were there any stories you found particularly important or influential?

JC: Yes, many stories. The subversive quality of sf throughout the 1960s and 1970s is rarely mentioned but for a decade or so it was a very potent thing. I think Michael Moorcock‘s work was the first to catch my attention. Many of the characters in the Jerry Cornelius stories are bisexual, Karl Glogauer in Breakfast in the Ruins has an homosexual encounter, and so on. The impressive thing in the work of Moorcock and other writers such as Samuel Delany was the way the sexuality of the characters was taken completely for granted. There was never the slightest trace of hand-wringing or angst of the kind which was common in feature films and TV dramas. That seemed to be one of the great values which sf had as a genre, it could turn social mores upside down or inside out and have everyone behave as though things were fine.

As far as turning things upside down goes, one story which really made an impression was a story by Rachel Pollack called “The Second Generation” which appeared in a short-lived sf mag in 1978. It’s quite a simple piece, almost a fable, about a teenage couple who regularly use pills to change their sex. This happens immediately so it’s almost a magical process. The story isn’t concerned with the technology, it’s more about the couple’s relationship and how they cope when the gender swap goes wrong. A friend at school pronounced this “disgusting”; I said nothing because I was secretly fascinated by these characters who were our age. I was rather thrilled at the idea of being able to change sex at will, and by the matter-of-fact same sex description. I’ve never had a great urge to be female at all, I think it was the idea of sexual fluidity which fascinated, and being able to step out of rigid gender roles. There was also description of imaginary sex organs which was quite unprecedented. Eventually the pair in the story decide to remain the boys they were born as so it comes out gay in the end.

A year or so after reading that, the editorials in New Worlds anthologies pushed me to find William Burroughs’ work. I fell in at the deep end with The Ticket that Exploded which just happens to contain some of his more overt sf scenarios, he even swipes an idea (which he credits) from Henry Kuttner. I was fascinated again, as well as rather appalled and it took some time to admit why these books and stories were so attractive and what they were stating for me that I couldn’t fully articulate for myself. (I was a late developer; can you tell?) In Alan Bennett‘s TV play about Marcel Proust, the author has a discussion with his housekeeper about books. Alan Bates plays Proust and at one point he says the following:

“Every reader while he’s reading is a reader of his own self. A book is merely an optical instrument, a lens, which the author offers the reader to enable him or her to discern what, without the book, they would never have perceived in themselves.”

That’s what I’d discovered by reading sf. And Proust’s words are a perfect description of the value of writing as art, even when that art is being presented as merely another form of entertainment.

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Thanks, John! Join us next Friday for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out John’s website and Dodgem Logic #4!

Press Pride – Do you have a favorite press that consistently wows you with queer content? Highlight the presses that have made a difference in your life, and link to some of the books that have been particularly inspiring. Don’t forget to let your readers know how to support the press and purchase those publications. You can do a review, an interview, or just a note of thanks.

Personal Pride – Have you experienced something amazing during the process of writing or reading? Did a particular character teach you a lesson? Have you come to any personal realizations through characterization or in the process of writing a novel? Tell us about your experiences with queer fiction; provide an excerpt or a personal story.

Pride in the Process – Write a few lines of queer flash fiction. Post it on your blog as a living acknowledgment of your pride in the genre.

Whatever you choose to do, when you post, let us know by tracking back here or linking on our Google Group. At the end of the week we’ll link back to all the posts!

Keep in mind the Mission Statement of the Outer Alliance, too:

As a member of the Outer Alliance, I advocate for queer speculative fiction and those who create, publish and support it, whatever their sexual orientation and gender identity. I make sure this is reflected in my actions and my work.

Happy Pride Month, everyone!

Sacchi Green is the erotica writing pseudonym for Connie Wilkins, and she’s got a list of publishing credits that’s about a mile long. She identifies as a lifetime bisexual person with strong lesbian leanings, and a definitely lesbian writing muse. Most recently, she won the 2010 Lambda Award in the Lesbian Erotica category for co-editing Lesbian Cowboys with Rakelle Valencia. She also edited Girl Crazy, and the forthcoming Lesbian Lust (due out in August), and is currently taking submissions for Lesbian Cops.

As Connie Wilkins, she edited Time Well Bent, an anthology of queer alternate history stories. Her personal fiction contribution to that volume is reprinted in Bedazzled Ink’s Year’s Best Lesbian Fiction 2009 and (with slightly more erotic content) Circlet Press’s Best Fantastic Erotica. She also has a story coming out in Hellebore and Rue, an anthology of stories about lesbian magic users due otu from Drollerie Press later this year.

Sacchi blogs on LiveJournal, maintains a Facebook profile, and is active on the Lesbian Fiction Forum. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, and will be reading in various East Coast cities this fall.

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OA: You’re a big proponent of erotica with high standards of plot and craftmanship, as evidenced by the Lambda award you recently won for co-editing Lesbian Cowboys. What are some common mistakes you see in the submissions pile?

SG: There are some mistakes that all editors see, such as stories that have nothing to do with the required theme (or have been stretched to the breaking point to try to make them fit.) Then there are the erotica-specific blunders, using words that don’t mean what the writer thinks they mean, or metaphors that are worn-out clichés or downright ridiculous if you stop to think about them. Anatomical improbabilities are troublesome, too; if a reader has to pause and wonder how part one can be in contact with part two without someone being a contortionist or breaking in half, the mood and suspension of disbelief have been destroyed, and in erotic scenes, more than in most others, that sort of interruption can be (metaphorically) fatal. And don’t try to write BDSM scenes unless you know what you’re talking about, because those who do know will catch any mistakes. I won’t go into grammatical misadventures, since those can usually be fixed, but like every editor, I do have my pet peeves.

OA: You write erotica as Sacchi Green and speculative fiction as Connie Wilkins. What’s the story behind your two names?

SG: When I started writing for publication, rather later in life than most, I focused on science fiction and fantasy. I managed to sell enough short stories to qualify as an active member of SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America), and planned to keep on that way, especially after I sold a couple of pieces to Bruce Coville’s series of anthologies for kids. Those paid better than anything else I’d written, and I hoped to do more along those lines. When I sold my first erotica story (to Best Lesbian Erotica 1999) I figured that was a one-time thing, and if I were going to be writing extensively for children, it might be wise to use a pseudonym for my erotic work. Things didn’t work out that way; I was seduced by the erotic side of the force, and never wrote for children again (although I haven’t given up on the idea,) and by the time I noticed that my alter-ego Sacchi Green had racked up a lot more credits than Connie Wilkins, it felt too late too undo the damage. I do sometimes use my given name for speculative fiction, even when it’s erotica, but it’s all become somewhat muddled. My advice to anyone considering using a pseudonym is to consider how you’ll feel if your alter-ego becomes more successful than “you” do.

OA: Lesbian Cops is open for submissions until the first of August. The title is pretty self explanatory, but are there any kinds of stories you’re particularly hoping to see for that one? Any tropes you’re sick of?

SG: I always hope to see stories that are so original that I didn’t know I wanted them until I saw them. And I try to have a wide variety of themes, styles, settings, etc. As to tropes, in theory I believe that any idea, however overworked, can be done creatively by the right writer, but at this point I really don’t want to see any more traffic cops stopping drivers and demanding sex. A major problem with this kind of book (and with most erotica, though even more so here) is in meeting the varying hopes and expectations of the readers. I know people, personal friends, who have deeply-felt cop fetishes that involve officers doing things that would make others see them as villains. For that matter, I know people who have villain-fetishes. I also know women who are cops, real people with complex lives, and I don’t want stories that make them into caricatures. No single reader is going to like every story in a book, and many readers will find at least one story offensive; I need to find a balance. The best advice I can give is to pick a setting and characters that interest you, and take it from there.

OA: Time Well Bent is an anthology of queer alternative history stories you edited, and you contributed a story as well. What is it about history that draws you? Do you have any favorite time periods?

SG: I’ve always loved to read stories set in different eras. History itself, as we perceive it, is a form of story. I could pontificate about needing to understand our history in order to understand the present that grows out of it, but really, I enjoy reading and researching and writing about historical periods in the same way that I like to know about other cultures and parts of the world. Why limit yourself to one point in time, any more than to one point on the surface of the earth? As to favorite time periods, as a kid I was interested in the Medieval period because so much fantasy literature was set there, and as a young teen I was wrapped up in Jane Austen and Regency romances, but the older I get, the more history there is, and recently I’ve been working with the WWII period and on to the Vietnam War, which was my “present” not all that long ago, it seems.

OA: You’re arranging readings for the fall. What new projects are on the horizon, and where can people find your tour schedule?

SG: I’ll be posting readings and events on Face Book and Live Journal. Definitely one during Women’s Week in Provincetown (October 8-17), featuring several Cleis Press books including Best Lesbian Erotica and Best Lesbian Romance and my Lesbian Lust (because we can’t get enough readers together for any single book,) probably one in Philadelphia in mid- to late September, and possibly one in NYC in November. Boston is possible, too, if enough readers are available. I don’t “tour” much out of the Northeast, since I can’t afford the time or expense, but occasionally I’ll have a few writers close enough to each other to organize readings of my books in other parts of the country.

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Thanks, Sacchi! Join us next Friday for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out Lesbian Cowboys and Time Well Bent.

Rose grew up with a jumble of native and semi native languages including Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew. She began writing poetry and fiction in English as an adult after pursuing a Ph.D. in Linguistics at UC Berkeley. Her poetry has appeared in many places including Abyss & Apex (which published last year’s Rhysling nominated “Odysseus on the War Train”) and Goblin Fruit (which published this year’s Rhysling nominated “Godfather Death”), and her short fiction has appeared in G.U.D., Strange Horizons, and Fantasy Magazine.

Stone Telling is Rose’s newest project, an online magazine devoted to literary speculative poetry. The title is the name of a character from a story by Ursula K. Le Guin, and the first issue will feature a previously unpublished poem by Le Guin. The first reading period opened on the 14th of June, and will close on the 14th of August.

Rose is on LiveJournal and Twitter, and also maintains a Stone Telling LiveJournal community. She is currently a professor at a large research University in the Midwest.

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OA: Stone Telling is open for submissions until the 14th of August. What sorts of poems are you hoping to receive?

RL: I am looking for literary speculative poems with an emotional core. I’d like to receive poems that blow my mind, bend my brain, make me fly, make me cry, and hopefully don’t make me throw up or throw the laptop against the wall. As you can see from the guidelines, I am pretty open genre-wise, style-wise and length-wise. I am a very open-minded reader, but also a very picky one.

Ideally I’d like to regularly showcase poetry that illuminates the experience of being Other, or encountering Others. Speculative poetry, I feel, is a perfect vehicle to deal with othering; real life also offers us plenty of othering experiences, some incredibly painful and some less so. I want to read poems that consider what it means to feel alienated or lonely or different or changing or belonging to a community that’s different from other communities; I want to read about what it means to grow up in a different place, to speak a different language, to think about the world in different colors. However, I am not going to reject poems simply because they do not deal with the issues I list. I will consider all poetry I receive.

OA: Are you actively interested in poetry with LGBTQI themes?

RL: Yes, I very much hope to receive poetry with LGBTQI themes. Please send them to me!

There are some very fine poets already in the genre who are active in the LGBTQI community, whether or not they choose to explore LGBTQI issues in their work. And you don’t have to be a member of the LGBTQI community in order to write poems that explore these themes. One of my first published poems, “Two Births of a Bird Shaman” (in Mythic Delirium 19) dealt with gender change.

OA: What other themes interest you?

RL: Simply put, I am most interested in speculative poems that explore diversity. To give one example not at random, I would very much like to publish poetry that deals with race, and I’d like to see poetry by people of color (whether or not they are writing about race) in my magazine and elsewhere. I am also very much into disability issues.

OA: Why did you decide to start a poetry magazine in the first place?

RL: I first got this idea last year, when Lone Star Stories folded. Journal of Mythic Arts, another beloved market, folded in 2008. I sorely missed both venues, and asked myself what I’d do if I had a chance to launch my own zine. The answer was clear – I would consider a broad range of speculative (and occasionally, outstanding non-speculative) poems, and I would work hard to promote diversity in speculative poetry. But 2009 was such a disastrous year for me, I had to shelve the idea for a better time – and now I feel that the time has come. I was immensely encouraged by the positive responses from the community, and I feel that together we can create something worthwhile.

OA: Like Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Conrad, your first language was not English. Do you think this makes you more mindful of the words you choose when you write in English? Does it influence your writing in other ways?

RL: Absolutely. The multilingual experience is at once very enriching, and very humbling. As a poet, I have been shaped by the multilingual poetry I read, and I learned some of my languages through poetry. The humbling part comes from never quite knowing the right words – so have to I use wrong words, odd words, triangular words, words that smell like linden flowers, words that smell like tar. I can make embarrassing mistakes, so I have to check every word, and that makes me mindful. My imagery and rhythms and associations are an amalgamation of everything I’ve experienced so far, and that experience is foreign everywhere. It’s not a very comfortable personal place, but it is also a place of strength.

OA: “Godfather Death” is a Rhysling nominee in the long form category this year. What drew you to revisit that fairy tale in modern poetry?

RL: That’s quite a story. In December 2008, I banded with Deirdre S. Moen and Josh Moore to run a charity fundraiser, HelpVera, in order to help the speculative author and publisher Vera Nazarian save her home from foreclosure. The fundraiser was nothing short of amazing – there was such an unforgettable outpouring of love and community spirit. As a part of the fundraiser we ran a charity auction, and I auctioned a custom poem there, which was bought by one of my favorite speculative poets, JoSelle Vanderhooft. When I received JoSelle’s prompt, “Godfather Death”, I had a sinking feeling, since I had never before (or since!) written a poem about death. But I knew this was an important theme for JoSelle, so I dutifully sat down to reread the Brothers’ Grimm fairytale. And then the poem just bled itself from my fingers. I had nothing to do with it.

OA: On the Stone Telling website, you list three examples of literary speculative poetry: “The Seven Devils of Central California” by Catherynne Valente, “The Bone Harp Sings Nine Moods” by Shweta Narayan, and “Hungry: Some Ghost Stories” by Samantha Henderson. Who are some of your other favorite poets?

RL: Non-speculative or speculative? I read a lot of poetry and I read poetry in many languages. Some of my favorite poets composed epic poetry, and are anonymous. I love Old Norse and early Icelandic poetry, and my favorite poet in that language is Egill Skallagrímsson, who lived in 10th century Iceland. As an undergraduate, I spent a lot of time translating various Taliesin poems from Welsh for my own entertainment, and I love those. Russian poetry is amazing. I grew up reading Anna Akhmatova and Valeriy Briusov and Mikhail Lomonosov, who was born a poor peasant and became a 18-century polymath – a scientist and a poet and an artist and a linguist, among other things. My favorite Russian poet is Vladimir Mayakovsky. In English… there are too many to list. I love Ted Hughes and Winfred Owen and Elizabeth Bishop. Speculative poets, in addition to those already mentioned? Ursula Le Guin has been an inspiration for everything I do since my early teens, when I first read a Le Guin novel. It was Rocannon’s World and it changed my world. And Ursula Le Guin is a wonderful poet. Jane Yolen, I think that’s a given. And I was just telling a friend how much I love Delia Sherman’s “Snow White to the Prince”, a poem that is true and heartbreaking. And last but not least, Amal El-Mohtar.

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Thanks, Rose! Join us next Friday for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out Rose’s work, and consider submitting something to Stone Telling.