Moss and I went out on a leisurely drive today, exploring back roads to see the foliage. We saw several gorgeous cemeteries all ablaze in autumnal glory, but I hadn't my camera with me, so I just gasped in delight at each of them as we passed. There's been talk of a nor'easter, but though we've gotten sleet, snow, and rain in turns, nothing's sticking. It made for beautiful driving, though; the leaves shone through a shimmering curtain of silver and white.

But enough about my obsession with transitional seasons. Let's talk about books! In particular, free books! A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed Maria Lima on the Outer Alliance Spotlight, and I neglected to mention it here. Oops. She's very nice and fun, and writes paranormal/urban fantasies about vampires, etc. And... She's giving books away! Here are the details in case you want to try your luck.

Off to work on altered books now.

Today is the official release date for Justine Larbalestier's Liar, the book most people probably know about because of the whitewashed cover that outraged people earlier this year. The US cover for the book has since been changed to picture a black woman, which is good (since, yay! woman pictured on cover is same race as character in book!) and bad (since she still doesn't seem to look much like what the author had in mind, being lighter skinned and having sleeker, tidier, more feminine hair), but the reason I'm totally excited about today being Liar release day has very little to do with the cover. I've been wanting to read this book for ages.

Here, check out some trailers on YouTube: Trailer one is short and features the US cover. It's more of a teaser, really. Trailer two has the Australian cover and a few minutes of the author talking about the book over a slide show featuring pictures of New York (where Liar is set).

As if that wasn't enough, today is also the paperback release date for Justine's last book, How to Ditch Your Fairy. I've got the hardcover of that one, and it's a lot of fun.

In non-Larbalestier release day news...

M-Brane SF issue #9 is out now, and you can get it for free if you pre-order M-Brane's anthology of queer speculative fiction stories, Things We Are Not. The anthology has a bunch of stories by Outer Alliance members, so naturally, I'm looking forward to reading that.

On top of that, Soulless by Gail Carriger is out. I've been curious about this one because it's billed as a humorous Victorian urban fantasy about vampires and ladies who whack them with parasols. I do love a good parasol whacking...

And everyone in my section of the internet is raving about Cherie Priest's new book Boneshaker, which is (surprise, surprise) also out today. Now I'm curious about that one, too.

So, um what are you reading at the moment?

There's a new group that exists to celebrate and promote LGBTQ friendly speculative fiction, and since I am a bisexual woman who writes speculative fiction, I was all over joining as soon as I heard about it. Today, the 1st of September, 2009, is the first Outer Alliance Pride day. Every member who can is posting about the group, and spreading awareness. If you would like to join in, please do! Just link back to this page, and your post will officially be counted.

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.

Here's a short excerpt from a YA novel in progress. Zemelda is a queer 14-year-old, and she's just setting out to avenge her mother, who died of a broken heart after being betrayed by a man. Queer people are everywhere, and like straight people, we don't constantly think about sex. I wanted my queer character excerpt to reflect that, so Zemelda's sexual orientation is not mentioned in this bit.

( Read more... )

Have you read (or written) any good lgbtq stories lately? If so, please share!

I'm short on cash at the moment, but you may be just sitting around wondering where to throw those piles of golden coins cluttering up your parlor. Here are a few options!

Sleeping Beauty, Indeed is a collection of lesbian fairy tales edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft. Fairy tales! Lesbians! Talented writers! How can you go wrong with those things? You can get it on Amazon in paperback or Kindle edition. If you go with paperback, it's eligible for super saver shipping, so you might want to combine it with...

James Fairfax is a book set in an alternate Regency England in which same sex marriage is all good, and Jane Fairfax of Jane Austen's Emma is a man instead of a woman. Even though I tend to find books that build on Jane Austen worrisome, this premise is intriguing, and it comes recommended by sartorias, whose opinions are generally sound.

And lastly, an option for all the small press supporters with e-readers. Every Good Thing is an e-book by an awesome person I connected with through last year's Yuletide fanfiction exchange. This is her first full length novel, and it's a romance about a boy from a strict homophobic background who gets sold as a love slave to a male soldier. I know that Jules has awesome writing skillz, so if you're into the m/m stuff, this promises to be an excellent choice for you.

As for me, I'll be clinging to my library card for the next few weeks.

Just what is the Carl Brandon Society?

I'm glad you asked! The Carl Brandon Society is a group devoted to increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the Science Fiction and Fantasy community. To that end, they've set up a wiki to keep track of work by and about people of color, a scholarship fund to help more writers of color attend the Clarion Workshops, and awards (with cash prizes -- woo!) for outstanding work by and about people of color. If those things sound cool to you, you might consider joining for $25 a year.

In addition to all that, they also have a blog, on which they recently posted an open letter to the SF/F community regarding etiquette in discussions about race. It's a very good letter, with clear, sensible guidelines. I urge you to read it even if you are not part of the Science Fiction and Fantasy community.

Readercon panel notes 2009, number 3 of 4. This panel was at 5:00 on Friday. As someone who is very interested in making the world of SF fandom more welcoming and diverse, this was a panel I really wanted to attend.

As usual, these notes are paraphrased and incomplete *very incomplete in this case because it was the end of the day and I was rather tired). I welcome corrections, additions, and discussion in the comments.

The panelists: K. Tempest Bradford, David Anthony Durham (Leader), Eileen Gunn, Anil Menon, Cecilia Tan.

And the official blurb:

[Greatest Hit from Readercon 12.] At various sf conventions, we‘ve been to more than one panel during which the panelists try to figure out why there seem to be so few writers of color in the field. As an alternative, we have invited several panelists to discuss what an sf field more enticing to writers of color might look like.

( Read more... )

All in all, there were some interesting things said, but I felt frustrated at the lack of practical advice for how to make cons, etc. more friendly to a diverse group of people. Mind you, I am still trying to find my own comfort zone at cons, so I'm not coming at this from the standpoint of someone who walked into a con one day and suddenly felt they had found all the high school friends they never had. I hear that as a common description of fandom, but my experiences really don't match it. I can't imagine I'm the only one, and I'm not at all surprised to hear that people of color feel conspicuous and like they're outsiders. While I certainly agree that learning about new cultures is a good thing, and that having a more diverse body of speculative fiction in the mainstream would definitely help, I'm wondering what other steps we can take.

What sorts of things would make cons in general more welcoming? What would make Readercon specifically more welcoming? More panels about work by people of color, or featuring characters of color? It seems like one possibility, but I'd really love to hear more ideas. I know that the only way things will change is if people like me take an active interest and put in the work. Next year, Readercon's programming is going to consist of panels suggested and filled by the con's members (not by a con committee, as it's normally done). This strikes me as an excellent opportunity, but I'm not exactly sure how best to take advantage of it.

Of course there's more than just people of color in the diversity spectrum, too. Cecilia Tan's mention of LGBT presence in speculative fiction is definitely worth remembering, and there's also the question of accessibility for disabled fans (about which Mari Ness made a thought provoking post that I think everyone should read).

So, lots to think about here, and I'd love to hear what you have to say about it.

On Friday at noon, I attended my second panel, The Catharsis of Myth, the Shock of Invention, which was billed as a greatest hit panel topic from Readercon 8. The panelists were Ellen Asher, Theodora Goss (Leader), Elaine Isaak, Laura Miller, and Catherynne M. Valente.

As usual, these notes are paraphrased and not guaranteed to be accurate, or complete. I welcome corrections, additions, and discussion in the comments. Here's the official blurb:

In writing or reading fiction, we place a high value on the degree to which
the plot unfolds in unexpected ways. But much of the power of myth and fairy tale derives
from the way it fulfills our expectations. How do the best works of fantasy reconcile these
seeming opposites?

( Read more... )

So why do we like to hear familiar stories? Catherynne Valente contended that we like fairy tales because they reflect our real life disappointments, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and posit that while that might be true for some people (and probably is true for her specifically), it isn't the only draw that fairy tales have.

For me, the wonder is a big part of it. I also like stories about people surviving, getting ahead, etc. I like that Cinderella uses what resources she can find to make her lot in life better. I like this about stories like Fitcher's Bird, too (but I find Bluebeard's wife lacking in agency, which makes that story much less satisfying).

Where does the balance of familiar Vs. new come in? I think there's something to the fashion analogy there. I agree with Catherynne Valente that just telling the exact story from a different point of view is not enough, but I think that one can use that as a starting point. I have to imagine that someone else could retell The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the witch's point of view and end up with an entirely different story than Wicked. What matters is not the point of view, but what the new version makes me think about, feel, enjoy, etc. I know how Beauty and the Beast goes, but I still like the feeling of stepping into Robin McKinley's world when I read Rose Daughter, even though the plot is the same.

What about things other than fairy tales? Fantasy is about more than that, after all. And is Rose Fox's fanfic observation a red herring, or does it relate to all this, too? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I'm slowly recovering from post-Readercon zombie state, but not quite with it enough to start dissecting panels yet. However! In the meantime, I would turn your attention to some fabulous short stories.

A while ago my awesome friends Leonard and Sumana decided to make an anthology. The result, Thoughtcrime Experiments is available free online, or you can buy a print on demand hard copy. I went for the hard copy because I have no e-reader, and don't enjoy recreational reading on the computer when there's a handy alternative.

There are 9 stories and several pieces of artwork in the collection. All of them are worth a look, but the 4 that stick in my mind most prominently months after the fact are "Jump Space" by Mary Ann Mohanraj, "The Last Christmas of Mrs. Claus" by Alex Wilson, "Daisy" by Andrew Willett, and "Friar Garden, Mister Samuel, and the Jilly Jally Butter Mints" by Carole Lanham. If you've read any of these and want to talk about them, please feel free to leave a comment.

Finally, as if this wasn't enough proof of awesomeness, Leonard also has a delightful story up in Strange Horizons this week.

I'll be back tomorrow with some Readercon discussion, but for today, I urge you to go and read.

Readercon 20 was my best con experience to date. I'll post more detailed stuff later, but for now, some stats:

Programming:

--4 panels (notes to be posted later)
--3 single author readings (Laird Barron, Jennifer Pelland, Catherynne Valente)
--3 Kaffeeklatches (Ellen Klages, Jeffrey Carver, Catherynne Valente)
--2 group readings (Goblin Fruit/Mythic Delirium and the Rhysling Poetry Slan, and I read in both of them, woo!)
--1 workshop (Mike Allen's poetry workshop)
--1 solo talk (Caitlin Kiernan's reading Dr. Seuss as weird fiction)

Extracurricular Activities:

--1 party (Goblin Fruit Summer launch)
--1 dinner with friends (cucumberseed and darkpaisley)
--1 coffee with friends (cucumberseed and asakiyume)
--1 dinner with Viable Paradise people

Acquisitions:

--Complete works of JoSelle Vanderhooft (5 volumes)
--Mythic Delirium 19 and 20
--Demon Lovers and Other Difficulties (Goblin Fruit sponsored collection of poems by Nicole Kornher-Stace)
--The Coyote Road (anthology of trickster tales edited by Datlow and Windling)
--Clockwork Phoenix 1 and 2 (anthologies of pretty, strange stories edited by Mike Allen)
--Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

Well Being:

--1 Migraine (ate up most of Saturday, booo!)
--0 meltdowns in the car because of con-induced anxiety (wooo!)

Back from the first evening of Readercon, which was really excellent.

I heard Jennifer Pelland read an amazing story, which will be in the Dark Faith Anthology in 2010. It was a September 11th ghost story, and I have to admit I was skeptical when she announced that was the theme (which she did so people could opt out up front in case the very idea was too upsetting), but it was really brilliant. When she finished I had to leave the room right away because I didn't think I was capable of speaking without a) gibbering, or b) crying. I'd buy the anthology just for that story.

I also attended a panel entitled The Origin of Character in Breakthrough of the Mind, which was interesting (and which I took notes during, but they'll have to wait until I've slept).

And then, the evening's programming being over, Moss and I went to the Goblin Fruit Summer issue launch party, where, as Moss pointed out, everyone really looked like they were at a Goblin Fruit party. There was homemade mead, delicious food, beautiful music, and scads of general merriment. Alas, there was also a lot of heat in that tiny hotel room, so I had to beg off at a quarter past eleven to get some fresh air. My guess is that they're still going strong.

I'll close with a picture of Caitlyn Paxson (who had a truly delightful poem in the Winter 2008 issue of Goblin Fruit) playing the harp. It should give you some small sense of the evening.


Click on the image for the larger version if you so desire.

I've got a busy day ahead of me, but I just wanted to pop in and say that I've got a poem up today on Everyday Weirdness. Also, if you're on LiveJournal, you can subscribe to the daily feed of weirdness by adding everydayweird to your friendslist. I encourage this, as Everyday Weirdness is really cool (and I am not just saying that because they took one of my poems, honest).

I recently read a fun book, so I wanted to post a little review and a video about it. This is my first book trailer, but I think it came out pretty well (especially considering how terrible my drawing skills are).



Okay, so now that you've hopefully watched it, and gotten the basic gist of the story, let's get into details. Probably the first thing to know is that this is the first of a two-book series. The second book, Twice a Prince is out as an e-book, but not as a paper book, and since I have no e-book reader except the computer screen, I haven't yet read it. I definitely plan to when it comes out as a paperback, though, because the first one was a ton of fun. Here are three things that made me really happy:

*I didn't mention in the trailer that Sun, Sasha's mother, also goes back through the magic door. Sun goes because she wants to find Sasha, but she ends up having her own adventure. What's really neat to me is that Sun's adventure is cool while also believable for a middle aged woman who isn't at the peak of her swordfighting prime.

*Sasha is strong, intelligent, independent, and also a lot of fun. When she gets sucked through the door, she doesn't immediately fall in love with the first guy she meets like some fantasy heroines might. Instead, the first thing she does is kick some ass, and keep her guard up. She also has lots of amusing insights about her father's home world.

*There are pirates in this book, and they totally rock. I'm often wary of pirates because I don't love violence and sketchy morals, but in this book, the pirates are awesome. There's all kinds of fun swashbuckling that one can enjoy with a clear conscience.

If this sounds like fun to you, you can get a copy of the e-book, or the paperback, from Samhain Publishing.

This panel was Saturday at 2:00, and all the panelists were in attendance. I couldn't write fast enough to catch everything (this panel was so lively that I really couldn't keep up), so these notes will omit things and paraphrase heavily. Corrections are welcome. Please consider the comments for this entry as an open discussion forum.

Here's the official description:

Its inventor, our Guest of Honor Jo Walton, defines "incluing" as "the process of scattering information seamlessly through the text, as opposed to stopping the story to impart the information." What other tactics do good writers get up to? We'll discuss fresh ways of looking at how working writers do what they do

Greer Gilman, James D. Macdonald, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Mary A. Turzillo, Jo Walton (m)

( Read more... )

This panel was very interesting, and it definitely made a case for the necessity of incluing, but I'm not sure how much practical advice we got apart from Jo Walton's bit about the snurds, and Greer Gilman's aside on foreshadowing. I'm sure I'd love to have a Doyle to set things up for me, but assuming most of us don't, what are some techniques we might try? If you write, how do you handle this? Are you conscious of your incluing, or does it happen naturally?

This panel was Saturday at 12:00, and all the panelists were in attendance. I couldn't write fast enough to catch everything, so these notes will omit things and paraphrase heavily. Corrections are welcome. Please consider the comments for this entry as an open discussion forum.

Here's the official description:

From Circe to the beautiful wicked stepmother in Snow White, and from Grendel's (movie) mom to the Baroness Ceaucescu, she fixes us in her fascinating gaze. She is a (ahem...."wicked") powerful image! Why does she resonate through the ages? Is the evil temptress fun to write? Does she represent female villainy or female power? Can there be such a thing as a good temptress? Give some further examples of this archetype in the modern sf/f genre.

Mary Kay Kare, Rosemary Kirstein, Elise Matthesen (m), Paul Park, Jane Yolen

( Read more... )

I was very interested in the idea of a good temptress, and I thought Scheherezade was a great example of that. When Jane Yolen described her as someone using temptation to prevent evil, I thought of Jo Walton's Sarah Kahn story. Surely Hypothetical time-traveling Sarah Kahn counts as a good temptress!

Can you think of other good temptresses? Have you worked out what defines an evil temptress? I'm not sure anyone fully came to an agreement on that last one in the panel.

The second panel I attended. This was at 8:00 on Friday night. Unfortunately Sharyn November and Suzy McKee Charnas were unable to make it for this panel, but the other four panelists had a lot of interesting things to say. I wasn't able to write fast enough to catch everything, so these notes will omit things and paraphrase heavily. Corrections are welcome. Open discussion encouraged in the comments. Feel free to invite anyone to join in.

Here's the official description:

Expanding on a remark by Cory Doctorow, Scott Westerfeld recently said: "The teen years are a time of irrevocable first experiences. Not just your first drink or sexual experience, but the first time you tell a significant lie, stand up to a bully, or betray a friend. The consequences of our actions are huge in those years—or at least feel that way—so it's not surprising that YA lit reflects that intensity. A fantasy where a protagonist has to save the world is fundamentally more believable to a teen. Adults don't think they can save the world anymore, and they rarely feel their setbacks as acutely." Discuss, with feeling.

Ellen Asher, Suzy McKee Charnas, Bruce Coville (m), Ann Downer, Christopher Golden, Sharyn November

( Read more... )

Moss and I are busy packing for two weeks in Canada, so no Readercon notes, explorations of greatness, or other in depth posts today. We'll be in Newfoundland for the next week and Toronto the week after that. I don't know how much internet access we'll have, so consider this your official warning. I may not post or comment much.

To temper your Julia withdrawals, I encourage you to check out at Ekaterina Sedia's awesome short story, "Amber Ships" over on Voyages Extraordinaires.

I've taken a while to write about it, I know. Mostly I've been recovering. Large events where I don't know anyone and have no idea what to do with myself are super stressful for me. It was really great to meet asakiyume and cucumberseed, and to attend a couple of panels and so forth, but I think the next time I attempt a con, I need to volunteer so I have some direction. Since I had no specific assignment, I spent large portions of Sunday at the edges of rooms, trembling, nauseated, worried that people were staring at me, and feeling incredibly stupid about all of the above. I had a major meltdown in the car during our lunchbreak, complete with tears and protestations of, "See, this is why I knew I should wait until I had a better plan before going to a con!"* Is this rational? No. But that doesn't change my feelings. I'm throwing this out there so that if you meet me at a future con and I seem unbearably awkward, or reserved to the point of rudeness, you'll understand that it's not you, it's me and my panic!brain.

And now, the first panel I attended:

( Trolls Got Rhythm? )

It seemed like everyone was a afraid to step too hard on this topic for fear of seeming racist. I would have liked more exploration of ways to communicate that the terrorist was a lesbian, or of how not to make your aliens seem like cheap knockoffs of Japanese businessmen, but as it was the panel seemed mostly to acknowledge that racism is touchy and tricky, and that writing diverse characters is hard. Please feel free to explore the topic further in the comments here. I welcome discussion.

I'll try to get my other panel notes up soonish.





*Moss, it should be noted, was very good about the whole thing, and took me to a drive through so I didn't have to go in a restaurant with my splotchy meltdown face.

I'm not a terribly handy person. Sure, I can put together IKEA furniture, but I never acquired basic home maintenance skills when I was growing up. I know some people who have Mr. Fixit dads and Ms. Fixit moms, and it seems they all either learned how to fix things when they were still in diapers, or never learned and never mind since the knowledgeable parent will take care of things for them. Not so with me.

My father was not at all the handy type. True, I did spend a fair amount of my youth in grimy hangars reading books while he fussed around with airplanes, but he didn't really pass on a lot of mundane skills (possibly because he grew up with servants and never lost the "it's someone else's job to worry about this" attitude). And although my mother was a single parent and a homeowner, I don't think she knew how to fix things anymore than I do. I remember her renting a wet vac to clean up a flooded laundry room when I was ten or eleven, but other than that my memories of pesky household problems correlate pretty keenly with my memories of family friends or (if we had no other option) professional repairmen coming to take a look.

Now I'm an adult, and more importantly, an adult who suffers from social anxiety. I know it sounds silly (especially when you consider that I have worked in call centers on multiple occasions, and that my customer service skills are quite good), but I hate calling people. And even more than that, I intensely loathe the idea that strange people (or the landlord!) might come into my house and ... See it? See me? Here the fear gets a little hazy. I never said it was rational. In any case, this drives me to be the best, most self-reliant renter I can be. If there is a problem, you can bet I want to fix it fast, and on my own.

Surely I can't be the only person with this desire. I mean, okay, most of the others probably want to for less dorky reasons, but still. So why isn't there an obvious, universally read manual out there; The Joy of Basic Home Maintenance or some such? Maybe there is and I am just ignorant. Please tell me if that's the case! I'd really love to correct my error. As it is, whenever there's a problem, I run to the internet (thank humanity for having invented such a beautiful series of tubes) and spend hours trying to find any relevant information.

What I really want is a magic book.*

In the ridiculous (but fantastic) Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Melissa Joan Hart was constantly consulting a giant old book (with inexplicable rhinestones on the cover, as if someone in the late 20th century had decided that plain brown leather was not showy enough, and rectified the dullness with a [warning: link talks] BeDazzler), and it occurred to me this morning as I was fretting over our lack of hot water that a book like this would be extremely useful. Yes, Sabrina's book was all about magic, but it talked, it was arranged by topic, and it was full of helpful information and instructions. Now imagine that kind of resource applied to home maintenance, with sections for the water heater, circuit breakers, sink and toilet repair, how to change a lightbulb, care and maintenance of all types of floors, how to get stains or bad smells out of things, and so on. This book would be huge (but portable!), and everything would be cross-referenced and explained in simple language. Wouldn't it be glorious?

I did fix the water problem, by the way. It was as simple as flipping a switch in our circuit breaker panel. Still, I'd love to know where your fixit knowledge comes from, and any reading recommendations you might have in that area.

*I'd also take a primer like the ones in The Diamond Age. Same basic concept, really.

I have a poem called "Rusalka" in the Spring 2008 issue of Goblin Fruit. In case you're unfamiliar with it, Goblin Fruit is a lovely quarterly webzine devoted to fantasy poetry (and they've got beautiful illustrations, too). I urge you to go and check it out.

The eighth and last of the stories I wrote for the book I made when I was nine. Original spelling, grammar, etc.

( Have you noticed that the shorter the stories, the longer the explanatory notes? I have. )

Also, Moss likes to imagine the survivors of this story reminiscing about old times over a beer or something.
"Hey, Jim, remember that year that all the holidays got mixed up?"
"Oh, yeah! When Santa came at Easter and St. Patrick came at Christmas?"
"Yeah. Man, that was a weird year, huh?"
"Weird year, Bob. I'll drink to that."

( And now FOUR images. What I lack in substance I make up in jpegs, eh? )