The Queers Dig Time Lords panel from WisCon! This panel was moderated by Sigrid Ellis, and the other panelists were Michael Damian Thomas, Amal El-Mohtar, Na'amen Tilahun, Brit Mandelo, Mary Anne Mohanraj, and me, Julia Rios. Even though this panel happened at 10am, it still gets the explicit tag (and how!), so consider yourself forewarned!

Congratulations to award winners! The last month saw both the Bisexual Book Awards and the Lambda Literary Awards announced, as well as the Chronos Awards in Australia, and Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint won best Audio Drama at the Audies! Congratulations, all!

If you want to see pictures from WisCon 37, you can check out my photo set on Flickr.

Finally, if you were not able to attend WisCon, and would like to with the OA WisCon Prize Package (signed copies of Queers Dig Time Lords and Amal El-Mohtar's The Honey Month, plus a souvenir Queers Dig Time Lords test tube), e-mail me at julia@juliarios.com any time during the month of June. I'll draw a winner in early July.

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Eight OA members answer the same four questions (about SF awards, what "metrosexual" means, identity politics and the term QUILTBAG, and recommended media from 2013), so we can see a bit of the wide variety of opinions on each topic.

Stuff We Mentioned

Send feedback to julia@juliarios.com, and if you're coming to WisCon, say hello to me at the Queers Dig Time Lords / OA party on Friday night!

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Christopher Barzak joins me to talk about all his latest projects!

Before the interview, a brief correction: last time I failed to mention Kay Holt as co-editor of The Other Half of the Sky. Oops! That anthology of feminist SF stories is co-edited by Athena Andreadis and Kay Holt. In this podcast, I say pick it up if you haven't already. I meant to say check it out! It's forthcoming, so you can't pick it up yet.

Notes:
*Before and Afterlives is Christopher's short story collection out through Lethe Press.
*One for Sorrow, and The Love We Share Without Knowing are his novels.
*Birds and Birthdays is a recent collection of three stories and an essay about surrealist art. You can hear an interview all about that with Shaun Duke over on The Skiffy and Fanty Show.
*Jamie Marks is Dead is the movie (currently in production) based on One for Sorrow.
*Christopher teaches at Youngstown State University, and the literary magazine he helped students start is called Jenny.
*He co-edited Interfictions 2 with Delia Sherman, and is no co-editing the fiction portions of the forthcoming Interfictions Online with Meghan McCarron.
*The first issue of Interfictions Online will launch at WisCon at the end of May.
*Christopher will also be at Readercon in July, and he'll have a reading at the KGB Bar in New York later in 2013.

Send feedback to julia@juliarios.com, comment here, or tweet to @outeralliance.

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Julia Rios is me! I'm a writer, host of the OA Podcast, editor at Strange Horizons.

John Chu is a writer who recently had a story called "The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere" on Tor.com.

Gillian Daniels is a writer of fiction and non-fiction. She does reviews for New England Theatre Geek and Analytical Couch Potato.

Joan Slonczewski is a professor at Kenyon College. She specializes in microbiology, a topic which also appears in her SF novels. She's also going to be one of the guests of honor at WisCon this year. In the podcast we talked specifically about her books, Brain Plague, and The Highest Frontier.

Things we discussed:

• The term "Metrosexual" as either a pop culture word for men who care about appearance, or as a term for men who want to experiment with same sex relationships. We had some confusion/disagreement about what this word means. Please share your thoughts!
• An unfortunately named, but interesting article from Cracked.com: "6 Insane Stereotypes That Movies Can't Seem to Get Over"
• Brokeback Mountain is an example of a popular movie where a QUILTBAG character dies. Silence of the Lambs features a QUILTBAG murderer as the villain.
• Gillian is not a big fan of Captain Jack Harkness. We agree that he seems like a dangerous fellow to spend time with.

Examples of SF with good portrayals of QUILTBAG characters:

• The Highest Frontier and Brain Plague by Joan Slonczewski
• Carnival by Elizabeth Bear
• Scheherazade's Facade, edited by Michael M. Jones
• The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner
• "Recognizing Gabe" by Alberto Yáñez
• Beyond Binary, edited by Brit Mandelo
• Wilde Stories (ongoing Year's Best series), edited by Steve Berman
• The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan (one of this year's Tiptree winners!)
• Machine by Jennifer Pelland
• Don't Bite the Sun and Drinking Sapphire Wine by Tanith Lee
• The Other Half of the Sky, edited by Athena Andreadis and Kay Holt

Audience member points:

• Queer is a reclaimed slur, and only people who have been called it should be able to use it.
• Troubled by SFnal worlds in which only QUILTBAG characters are gay white men.
• Recommendations for Samuel R. Delany and Caitlin R. Kiernan

NEWS!

• Nebula nominees are announced, and include lots of awesome people, several of whom are OA members and/or come highly recommended for excellent QUILTBAG conten (N.K. Jemisin, Rachel Swirsky, Brit Mandelo, Catherynne M. Valente, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Jay Lake, Cat Rambo...)
• Tiptree Awards time is here! Caitlin R. Kiernan's The Drowning Girl and Kiini Ibura Salaam's Ancient, Ancient are the winners! The shortlist also has some great stuff including work by OA members Roz Kaveney and Elizabeth Bear.
• The Galactic Suburbia Award for activism and/ or communication that advances the feminist conversation in the field of speculative fiction in 2012 came out last month. I'm extremely honored to be on the shortlist for the second year in a row.
• The Lambda nominees are announced, and again with the OA members out in force! Congratulations to all, including Malinda Lo, Roz Kaveney, Steve Berman, Connie Wilkins, Brit Mandelo, and Sean Eads!
• Hugo nominations are open for a couple more days! If you haven't yet nominated, there's still time, and you could even nominate this very podcast if you wanted to!

Next episode will be an interview with Christopher Barzak. In the meantime, send feedback to julia@juliarios.com, leave a comment here, or tweet to @outeralliance on Twitter. Thanks for listening!

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The Queer SF&F Panel from Arisia, with Julia Rios, Don Sakers, and Connie Wilkins

Don Sakers writes reviews for Analog, and has written several books. His website is Meerkat Meade.

Connie Wilkins writes and edits speculative fiction , and has an erotica alter ego named Sacchi Green. She co-edited Heiresses of Russ 2012 with Steve Berman, edited Time Well Bent: Queer Alternate Histories, and most recently, has a story in The Mystical Cat.

Things we discussed: Lethe Press -- Steve Berman publishes works by a number of authors including Tanith Lee and Melissa Scott.

Queers Dig Time Lords -- a book of essays about Doctor Who by QUILTBAG fans. This book will come out in June.

Examples of good, complex characters: *Lesbian werewolves from Silver Moon (recommended by Connie) *Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who (recommended by Don) *Helen Magnus from Sanctuary (recommended by Don)

Examples of how stereotypes can be used well: *Promises, Promises by L-J Baker (recommended by Julia) *Xena: Warrior Princess (recommended by audience *Not QUILTBAG, but for SFnal/geek stereotypes: Galaxy Quest and The Big Bang Theory (recommended by Don) *Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment (recommended by Connie) *"The Women Men Don't See", "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?", and "The Girl Who was Plugged In" by James Tiptree Jr. (recommended by audience)

General Recs: Connie: Nicola Griffith, Alyx Dellamonica, Malinda Lo, Tamora Pierce

Don: Geonn Cannon's Railroad Spine (MC pansexual female airship captain)

Julia: Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories by Sandra McDonald (read one story free at Strange Horizons), Fly Into Fire by Susan Jane Bigelow, "Recognizing Gabe" by Alberto Yáñez

Audience member recommends: Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Joss Whedon's Characters

Audience recommends Ellen Kushner (Swordspoint and The Privilege of the Sword)

Julie Andrews recommends Beyond Binary, anthology of genderqueer and sexually fluid speculative fiction edited by Brit Mandelo

Connie Recommends Scheherazade's Facade, fantastic tales of Gender Bending, Cross-Dressing, and Transformation edited by Michael M. Jones

Julia Recommends Machine by Jennifer Pelland (trans audience member seconds the rec)

Jennifer Pelland recommends Lyda Morehouse's Archangel Protocol books

Gillian Daniels recommends Kissing the Witch, collection of nested fairy tales by Emma Donoghue

Audience recommends SteamPowered Lesbian Steampunk Stories edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft (Connie seconds the rec)

Connie recs Hellebore and Rue, anthology of lesbian magic users edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff

Audience recommends Laurie Marks and Diane Duane. Same audience member has Problem/Rec for Lois McMaster Bujold because she writes interesting QUILTBAG characters, but they don't read like people audience member knows in real life. Looks at gender in really interesting ways, but, for instance, bisexual characters let audience member down.

Connie recommends "The Thick Night" by Sunny Moraine (also of note: Sunny's queer space opera novel co-written with Lisa Soem, Line and Orbit is now out)

Don recommends Shadow Man by Melissa Scott, and the works of Marion Zimmer Bradley

Audience member recommends Roz Kaveney's Rhapsody of Blood, and Nalo Hopkison's The Salt Roads

Connie recs Bordertown

Don recs Tiptree Award and Gaylactic Spectrum Award

Audience recommends S.M. Stirling's Nantucket series and Dies the Fire

Julie Andrews recommends TV series Lost Girl, and Australian TV series Outland, which is, alas, only available in Australia

Audience asks for YA QUILTBAG non-issue books. Recs for Malinda Lo, and Radiant Days by Elizabeth Hand.

Resource lists for YA: Rachel Manija Brown's list Yes Gay YA, and Lee Wind's I'm Here, I'm Queer, What the Hell Do I Read?

Don's Act Well Your Part and Lucky in Love, not genre, but gay YA romance in a setting where being gay is not an issue.

General recs for Circlet Press and Crossed Genres

News (after the panel)

Panel Notes from three other Arisia Panels (Trans* and gender variant SF, Asexuality in SF, and Beyond Binary)

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ALA Rainbow and Over the Rainbow lists of QUILTBAG Books

YALSA lists of books (includes Radiant Days) and graphic novels (includes A + E 4ever) for teens.

Crossed Genres submissions call fro QUILTBAG anthology, Fierce Family.

Call for papers for special Feminist SF issue of ADA journal.

House of Commons passed first vote for same sex marriage in the UK. Not done yet, but an encouraging sign.

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JoSelle Vanderhooft talks to me about her new novel, Ebenezer. The book is a retelling of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, but with a lesbian protagonist.

One of JoSelle's inspirations was Transforming Scrooge by Joseph D. Cusumano.

JoSelle and I will both be at Arisia at the Westin Waterfront in Boston the week after next (the 18th-21st of January, 2013). There will also be an Outer Alliance snack time hosted by Connie Wilkins on Saturday the 19th from 2pm-4pm in room 1167. Please do say hello!

I talked with Sofia Samatar about her story, "Selkie Stories Are For Losers" back in OA Podcast #24. That story is now online at Strange Horizons. You can read it, or listen to the brand new Strange Horizons Podcast, which is hosted by Anaea Lay.

The Interstitial Arts Foundation is starting an online magazine soon! Christopher Barzak (one of the magazine's fiction editors) has the details on his blog.

Lots of OA-friendly cons coming up! Joan Slonczewski is a guest of honor at WisCon from the Nicola Griffith and Kelley Eskridge are Guests of Honor at this year's Westercon in Sacramento from the 4th to the 7th of July, and Catherine Lundoff is a special guest at Diversicon in Minneapolis from the 2nd to the 4th of August.

Please send feedback to julia@juliarios.com or mention @outeralliance on twitter.

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Michael M. Jones joins me at the World Fantasy Convention to talk about Scheherazade's Facade. After the interview we have a small OA member showcase and a little bit of news. For full show notes visit http://blog.outeralliance.org/archives/994.

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Gaylaxicon was the 5th-7th of October, and we had a smashing live podcast panel with Lyda Morehouse, Jeff Eddy, Kyell Gold,  Gary Russell, Zan Christensen, and Barbara Schulz! This podcast gets the explicit tag for some talk about sex (but it's probably no worse than PG-13). For complete show notes, visit http://blog.outeralliance.org/archives/984.

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Nnedi Okorafor, Anyaugo Okorafor, Jim Hines, and Sofia Samatar joined me at WorldCon to talk about how we can change the conversation to help make our community more inclusive. After the interviews, we have an OA member showcase of favorite WorldCon moments. For complete show notes, visit http://blog.outeralliance.org/archives/977.

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Bart Leib and Kay Holt joined me this month to talk about what kinds of stories they like, how they work as a team, and their future plans for Crossed Genres. For complete show notes, visit http://blog.outeralliance.org/archives/972.

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