Outer Alliance Podcast #40

The Unheard Voices of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror panel from Arisia. Catherine Lundoff moderated this panel, with K. Tempest Bradford (standing in for Nisi Shawl), Julia Rios, Trisha Wooldridge, Andrea Hairston, and Victor Raymond.

Listening to this doesn't give you the visual cues that people in the room had, so a note up front: Nisi was in the audience, but wasn't up for sitting on the panel. There was an ongoing joke about Tempest being Nisi, and about Nisi being Nalo Hopkinson, who was not at the convention.

Awards season!
*Lambda finalists include lots of OA members like Nicola Griffith, Sacchi Green, Mary Ann Mohanraj, Alex Jeffers, Alaya Dawn Johnson, The editors and contributors to Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam Gay City: Volume 5, Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold, Richard Bowes, Lee Thomas, and more. Full list here: http://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/news/03/06/26th-annual-lambda-literary-award-finalists-announced/

*The Nebula nominee list is also out, and lots of OA types are there too, including Sofia Samatar, Nicola Griffith, Ellen Klages and Andy Duncan, Vylar Kaftan, Catherynne Valente, Christopher Barzak, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Sarah Pinsker, Rachel Swirsky, Karen Healey, and Nalo Hopkinson. Full nominee list here: http://www.sfwa.org/2014/02/2013-nebula-nominees-announced/

The Galactic Suburbia Award and Honor List is out now, and the joint winners are N.K. Jemisin and Elise Matthesen. Full Honor List here: http://galactisuburbia.podbean.com/2014/03/23/episode-96-19-march-2014/


*Carl Brandon Society is a group for fans and writers of color. They give out the Kindred and Parallax Awards for fiction by and/or about people of colors, and also administer scholarships for students of color to attend Clarion.

*Broad Universe is a group for women who write and publish science fiction and fantasy. They have a website, a podcast, and many promotional and support networking opportunities for members, including organizing group readings and book sale tables at conventions.

*WisCon is a feminist science fiction convention held each year at the end of May in Madison, Wisconsin. The Carl Brandon Society and Broad Universe both have strong presences there.

*Con or Bust is an organization that raises money to send fans of color to conventions. The Carl Brandon Society administers the funds.

*Gaylaxicon and Outlantacon are conventions specifically for the QUILTBAG SF fandom community. Gaylaxicon is a roving con (like WorldCon), and Outlantacon happens each year in May in Atlanta. This year's Gaylaxicon will be hosted by Outlantacon.


Work by people on the panel:
*Filter House is Nisi Shawl's Tiptree Award Winning short story collection (Tempest joked that her collection would be called Filter House 2).
*Redwood and Wildfire is Andrea Hairston's Tiptree Award Winning novel (for which she had also just received a Carl Brandon Award on the day of this panel).
*Silver Moon is Catherine Lundoff's novel about menopausal werewolves
*Catherine writes a series about LGBT SFF for SF Signal.
*Julia is an editor for Strange Horizons, which is always interested in publishing diverse voices.
*Kaleidoscope is an anthology of diverse YA SF and Fantasy stories Julia is co-editing with Alisa Krasnostein, which is scheduled to launch in August of 2014.
*In Other Words is an anthology of poetry and flash by writers of color Julia is co-editing with Saira Ali, which is scheduled to launch at WisCon in May, and which will benefit Con or Bust.

Other things mentioned:
*Lorraine Hansberry was an African American lesbian playwright, best known for Raisin in the Sun, but Andrea pointed out that she also wrote a lot of science fiction plays.
*The SFWA Bulletin incited a lot of pushback in 2013. Here is a timeline: http://www.slhuang.com/blog/2013/07/02/a-timeline-of-the-2013-sfwa-controversies/. It has since changed editorial staff and has just put out the first of the new team's issues, which seems to be a lot more favorably received, as evidenced here: http://www.jasonsanford.com/jason/2014/03/the-new-sfwa-bulletin-is-blowing-my-mind.html.
*"The Serial Killer's Astronaut Daughter" by Damien Angelica Walters was written partly in response to the SFWA bulletin's sexism.
*A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar came up as an example of a novel by a person of color put out through an independent (not one of the big New York houses--Andrea argued for calling these sorts of publishers independent rather than small) publisher, Small Beer Press. Since the panel, A Stranger in Olondria has won the Crawford Award and been nominated for the Nebula.
*Crossed Genres, Twelfth Planet Press, and Papaveria Press are independent presses that publish diverse voices.
*Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Apex are magazines Tempest sees publishing diverse stories. Tor.com is also publishing more diverse stories now, like "The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere" by John Chu.
*The Tiptree Award celebrates work that expands our notions of gender.
*Dark Matter is an anthology exploring a century of SF by black writers.
*Blood Children was an anthology put out by the Carl Brandon Society in 213 to benefit the Octavia Butler Scholarship, which sends students of color to Clarion.
*Bending the Landscape, Kindred Spirits, and Worlds Apart were brought up as examples of QUILTBAG anthologies from more than just a few years back. All of these were mentioned as early examples, but the panel agreed we need more.
*Daughters of Earth is a collection of stories by women from the early 1900s to 2000 with accompanying critical essays. This collection is edited by Justine Larbalestier. Andrea wrote a critical essay about an Octavia Butler story in this book.
*The Cascadia Subduction Zone has a feature where an established writer recommends and reviews an older work that might be obscure. Andrea and Nisi have both done this.
*Lethe Press publishes best gay SF stories each year in Wilde Stories, and best lesbian SF stories each year in Heiresses of Russ. Nisi and Julia are both in Heiresses of Russ 2013.
*From the audience, Saira Ali recommends Goblin Fruit and Stone Telling as diverse poetry magazines, and Aliens: Recent Encounters (edited by Alex Dally MacFarlane) as a good anthology.