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Celebrating LGBTQI Speculative Fiction
Episodes
Friday Mar 28, 2014
Friday Mar 28, 2014
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.
Wednesday Feb 12, 2014
Wednesday Feb 12, 2014
Christian Baines joins me to talk about The Beast Without, a paranormal novel. 
We also briefly discuss his erotic paranormal short, The Prince and the Practitioner.
You can find Christian on twitter as @xtianbaines, or visit his blog at christianbaines.blogspot.com.
Christian will be at the Saints and Sinners book festival in New Orleans in May.
Finally, I end with a recommendation for Red Caps, a short story collection by Steve Berman. That comes out for Valentines Day, and it's a solid collection of stories. Check out Brit Mandelo's review of it at Tor.com, and then check out the book for yourself.
Friday Jan 24, 2014
Friday Jan 24, 2014
Gillian Daniels, Emily Wagner, Adam Lipkin, Victor Raymond join Julia Rios talk about QUILTBAG YA in this panel from Arisia.
Gillian blogs for New England Theatre Geek and the Analytical Couch Potato and eatyourbooks.blogspot.com.
Emily is a YA Librarian and the programming chair for Readercon.
Adam reviews YA books for Publishers Weekly.
Victor is a professor of sociology, activist, and founding member of the Carl Brandon Society. Victor Jason Raymond on Facebook. Material For Class Tumblr is coming soon.
Julia is the host of this podcast, and is co-editing an anthology of diverse YA SF and fantasy called Kaleidoscope.
Things mentioned in the panel:
*Flying Higher: an anthology of superhero poetry--all the panelists have poems in this, and it is free.
*Malnda Lo's books (Lesbian characters without being problem novels)
*Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (good trans character, bi character who is also disabled, complex relationships, very good audiobook version)
*If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan (two girls in love in Iran)
*The Weetzie Bat series by Francesca Lia Block
*Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (as an example of a classic YA book where diversity--in this case race--is played down, so the character reads as white to a lot of people)
*The Shattering by Karen Healey (and a blanket recommendation for Karen Healey in general, and Guardian of the Dead has a good asexual character)
*The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black (trans character)
*AO3 (Archive Of Our Own--a fanfiction website where Emily sees teens going to write their own fix it fics. If they like a story and are disappointed about the representation, they will transform it themselves.)
*Cassandra Clare, Sara Rees Brennan, Naomi Novik, Lois McMaster Bujold (authors who got their start in fanfic and/or still write fanfic after being professionally published)
*Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (as an example of something where the issue of othernerss--in this case race--is so highlighted that the person portrayed as other must be presented as perfect)
*The Nightrunner Series by Lynn Flewelling
*The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (Teen #1 in audience read and liked it for the adventure)
*The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Teen #2 read and loved this because it didn't try to romanticize death, but was blunt and direct)
*Fanfiction! (Teen #3 is following over 150 fanfics right now and loves Once Upon a Time fanfic because, "The show is so terrible, but the fanfic is so good!")
*The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson (SF in future Brazil with a polyamorous relationship with QUILTBAG characters and characters of color)
*Marco Impossible by Hannah Moscowitz (mainstream gay book for middle school age readers)
*My Most Excellent Year A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park by Steve Kluger (another mainstream book with 9th grade protagonists, one of whom is gay)
*The Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce (to start with one character has two moms, and later one of the main characters is bi. These are good because they start young and get older, so goo books to grow with)
*Ultraviolet by R. J. Anderson (Audience recommended, but then did not want to spoil it, so I'm unsure why exactly it was recommended)
Thursday Nov 21, 2013
Thursday Nov 21, 2013
J. A. Pitts joins me to talk about his work and all sorts of other things.
J. A. Pitts is on Twitter as @JAPittsWriter. He's also got a Facebook page.
Bravado's House of Blues is his new collection.
We talked a bit about the LadyLike Book Club review of Black Blade Blues.
He also told me all about OryCon, and Portland's specialty doughnut shop, Voodoo Doughnut.
If he could cast the Sarah Beauhall movies, he'd pick Katee Sackhoff to play Sarah.
If you are a neo-pro level writer and interested in learning from John, he'll be teaching at Paradise Lost in 2014.
Thanks for listening! If you have feedback, please send me an e-mail at julia@juliarios.com, tweet to @outeralliance, or join the OA google group.
Tuesday Oct 22, 2013
Tuesday Oct 22, 2013
Traci Castleberry, Elka Cloke, Jeff Mann, and Bill Coleman talk to me about their stories in Suffered from the Night: Queering Bram Stoker's Dracula. At the end of the podcast, I also have a conversation with Alisa Krasnostein about the project we're crowdfunding right now, Kaleidoscope!
Traci Castleberry also writes as Nica Berry and Evey Brett. You can find out all about her work on her website.
Elka Cloke is active on both Tumblr and Twitter.
Jeff Mann has a website with lots of info about his work.
Bill Coleman also has a website with lots of info.
Bill and Elka both had stories in A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes.
Kaleidoscope is fundraising until the end of the month. Click here to back the project! When we hit the $7,000 mark, we'll post our submissions guidelines on the Kaleidoscope Blog.
Monday Sep 30, 2013
Monday Sep 30, 2013
Lee Martindale moderates the Gay SF panel at WorldCon. I (Julia Rios) am on it along with Scott Bobo, Matthew Johnson, Paul J. Salamoff, and Paige Ewing.
After the panel there's a mini interview with Kyell Gold, who talks about the audiobook version of Green Fairy.
We also had a great OA lunch meetup at WorldCon, and here's a picture of the group (minus a couple of people who had to dash before we could get our picture taken):
Recommended in the panel:
*Discord
*Outlantacon
*Gaylaxicon
*The Ladies of Trade Town
*Cecilia Tan
*Catherine Lundoff
*Elizabeth Bear
*Circlet Press
*Lethe Press
*Wilde Stories
*Heiresses of Russ
*Melissa Scott
*Lee Thomas
*Clive Barker
*Charles Stross
*Selina Rosen
*Yard Dog Press
*Doctor Who
*Green Lantern
*Milestone Comics
*J.A. Pitts
*Malinda Lo
*Mercedes Lackey
*Lost Girl
*Ann McCaffrey (Pern)
*Marion Zimmer Bradley
*Richard Morgan
*Perry Moore
*Mark Shepherd
*Aqueduct Press
*Kiini Ibura Salaam
*Lamda Sci-Fi
*Lambda Literary Awards
*Gaylactic Spectrum Awards
*Tiptree Awards
*Bibrary
*Modern Family
*Breaking Bad (for disability, not QUILTBAG content)
*Kyell Gold
*Geoff Ryman
Other Podcast recommendations:
*The Skiffy and Fanty Show
*LadyLike Boock Club
Friday Aug 16, 2013
Friday Aug 16, 2013
Michael Damian Thomas and Shira Lipkin join me to talk about Flying Higher, an anthology of superhero poetry, which you can get for free on Smashwords. Michael is @michaeldthomas on Twitter and Shira is @shadesong. Shira has also recently had a poem in Apex Magazine and a story in Clockwork Phoenix 4. Michael is also the co-editor of Queers Dig Time Lords and Glitter and Mayhem.
Recent conventions with awesome looking program items included Diversicon and Nine Worlds. Catherine Lundoff has two different Diversicon posts! I don't have any Nine Worlds posts to share, but if you were there and want to write in about your experience, I'd love to hear all about it.
I also wanted to say congratulations to all the World Fantasy Award nominees! Awesome to see N.K. Jemisin, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Karin Tidbeck, Charles Tan, Kaaron Warren, Meghan McCarron, and L. Timmel Duchamp on the ballot.
Finally, Circlet Press is having a Summer Reading Sale!
Send feedback to julia@juliarios.com, mention @outeralliance on Twitter, or say hello in person at WorldCon!
Wednesday Jul 17, 2013
Wednesday Jul 17, 2013
The Untragic Trans* Panel from WisCon 37! Moderated by Rhea Ewing, with Autumn Nicole Bradley, Rose Hayes, Brit Mandelo, and Elliott Mason. The panel runs an hour and fifteen minutes, and then I give a little Readercon report after it's over.
Things the panelists recommended:
*We Happy Trans* is a website specifically for sharing positive trans* experiences.
*What Makes a Baby is a book that talks about how babies are made in very inclusive terms for all kinds of families.
*Choir Boy by Charlie Anders is a novel about a trans* teen.
*Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman is a book about exploring gender in multiple ways.
*Being Emily by Rachel Gold is another trans* teen novel, and one which Autumn recommends as really speaking to her experience.
*FINE is Rhea's comic about gender.
Readercon was great! Big thanks to he concom for working hard to make the space as safe and inclusive as possible. I loved getting to catch up with so many OA members, though I utterly failed to get a lot pictures. I do have two, though! Both from the From Page to Stage workshop run by C.S.E. Cooney and Caitlyn Paxson. At the end, all the participants read from their work, and I caught Kyell Gold and Brad Parks in the act!
Here's Kyell:
And Brad:
Thanks to everyone who made Readercon weekend great!
Monday Jun 10, 2013
Monday Jun 10, 2013
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.
Monday May 13, 2013
Monday May 13, 2013
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.