Feminist SF Wiki - User contributions [en]

The Clichés from Outer Space

2006-06-22T11:15:12Z

162.83.198.150: making category the same

'''The Clichés from Outer Space''' is a text by [[Joanna Russ]], which first appeared in [[The Witch and the Chameleon]], April 1, 1975, and was expanded in ''Women's Studies Forum International'' 7:2, 1984. It was collected in Russ's ''[[The Hidden Side of the Moon]]''.

The rejected manuscripts for the anthology which the narrator's imaginary friend, Ermintrude, is putting together, place a spell on the narrator, and the narrator's typewriter begins writing trash: the Clichés from Outer Space.

Which are as follow: "The-Weird-Ways-of-Getting-Pregnant Story", "The Talking About It Story", "The Noble Separatist Story", and "THE TURNABOUT STORY, or, I Always Knew What They Wanted to Do to Me Because I've Been Doing It to Them for Years, Especially in the Movies".

''In the same vein: see the [[Annoying Plot Conventions, Devices, Contrivances]] list''

[[category:1984 Publications|Clichés from Outer Space, The]]

Category:Journals

2006-06-22T11:13:47Z

162.83.198.150:

[[category: Works]]

The Witch and the Chameleon

2006-06-22T11:13:02Z

162.83.198.150:

The first feminist fan zine. Published by [[Amanda Bankier]].

[[category:Fan Zines|Witch and the Chameleon]]

The Witch and the Chameleon

2006-06-22T11:12:48Z

162.83.198.150:

The first feminist fan zine. Published by [[Amanda Bankier]].

[[category:Fan Zines]]

Mari Kotani

2006-06-22T11:11:00Z

162.83.198.150:

Mari Kotani is the author of Evangelion as the Immaculate Virgin (Tokyo: Magazine House, 1997), and is also a science fiction critic.

Another critic said that her husband wrote Evangelion, and Kotani won a lawsuit against them for textual harassment. The [http://enjoy.pial.jp/~fdi/FDI.html Association for Defending Female Authorship] was founded to help defend Kotani and other women writers.

Kotani translated [[How To Suppress Women's Writing]] into Japanese, and is one of the founders of the [[Sense of Gender Award]] and [[The Japanese Association of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy]].

Other works by Kotani include:

* Saibogu feminizumu [Cyborg feminism]
* Space, Body, and Aliens in Japanese Women’s Science Fiction (Science Fiction Studies, 2002)
* Joseijou muishiki: techno-gynesis josei SF-ron josetsu. Tokyo: Keiso shobo, 1994.
* "Fantasy no Boken(Adventure of Fantasy)"
* "Otoko-tachi no Shiranai On'na(The Women Men Don't See)", translation of Marleen Barr's "Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond".
* “Across the Multiverse: How Do Aliens Travel from ‘Divisional’ Space to ‘Network’ Space?” Japanese Journal of American Studies (Japanese Association for American Studies) 13 (2002): 157–170.
* "The Alien Vagina." Eye, #9 (Nov. 1991): pp. 65-66.

Mari Kotani

2006-06-22T11:10:27Z

162.83.198.150: fixed formatting

Mari Kotani is the author of Evangelion as the Immaculate Virgin (Tokyo: Magazine House, 1997), and is also a science fiction critic.

Another critic said that her husband wrote Evangelion, and Kotani won a lawsuit against them for textual harassment. The [http://enjoy.pial.jp/~fdi/FDI.html Association for Defending Female Authorship] was founded to help defend Kotani and other women writers.

Kotani translated [[How To Suppress Women's Writing]] into Japanese, and is one of the founders of the [[Sense of Gender Award]] and [[The Japanese Association of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy]].

Other works by Kotani include:

* Saibogu feminizumu [Cyborg feminism]
* Space, Body, and Aliens in Japanese Women’s Science Fiction (Science Fiction Studies, 2002)
* Joseijou muishiki: techno-gynesis josei SF-ron josetsu. Tokyo: Keiso shobo, 1994.
* "Fantasy no Boken(Adventure of Fantasy)"
* "Otoko-tachi no Shiranai On'na(The Women Men Don't See)", translation of Marleen Barr's "Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond".
* “Across the Multiverse: How Do Aliens Travel from ‘Divisional’
Space to ‘Network’ Space?” Japanese Journal of American Studies (Japanese
Association for American Studies) 13 (2002): 157–170.
* "The Alien Vagina." Eye, #9 (Nov. 1991): pp. 65-66.

WisCon 30

2006-06-21T02:04:20Z

162.83.198.150: /* Monday May 29 */

* multiple reports at the [http://community.livejournal.com/wiscon/ WisCon LiveJournal Community] @ http://community.livejournal.com/wiscon/

'''*T*''' -- partial transcript available

==Friday May 26==
* [[Curse Words and Other Ways to Tell It's Not a Children's Book (WisCon 30 Panel)|Curse Words and Other Ways to Tell It's Not a Children's Book]] (#2, 10-1115am)
* [[Books You Bounce Off Of (WisCon 30 Panel)|Books You Bounce Off Of]] (#3, 10-1115am)
* [[Two Different Species? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Two Different Species?]] (#4, 10-1115am)
* [[Does Hard SF Have to Involve Metal? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Does Hard SF Have to Involve Metal?]] (#5, 10-1115am)
* [[Culture Shock! (WisCon 30 Panel)|Culture Shock!]] (#12, 1-215pm)
* [[Feminist SF/F Jeopardy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist SF/F Jeopardy]] (#13, 1-215pm)
* [[Láadan vs tlhIngan Hol (WisCon 30 Panel)|Láadan vs tlhIngan Hol]]: Differential Diffusion of Created Languages (#15, 1-215pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Sex and the Believable Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)|Sex and the Believeable Alien]] (#16, 1-215pm)
* [[More Wisps from Harry's Wake (WisCon 30 Panel)|More Wisps from Harry's Wake, Recent Children's Fantasy]] (#17, 1-215pm)
* [[Dark Fantasy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Dark Fantasy]] (#18, 1-215pm)
* [[Opening Ceremonies (WisCon 30 Event)|Opening Ceremonies]] (#36, 730-830pm)
* [[Women's vs. Men's Magic in Fantasy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Women's vs. Men's Magic in Fantasy]] (#38, 845-10pm)
* [[Pick one! Both/And in an Either/Or World (WisCon 30 Panel)|Pick one! Both/And in an Either/Or World]] (#39, 845-10pm)
* [[Trailer Trash and Unrighteous Rebels (WisCon 30 Panel)|Trailer Trash and Unrighteous Rebels: Human Beings in Space]] (#43, 845-10pm)
* [[Feminist Think Tanks (WisCon 30 Panel)|What Would a Feminist Think Tank Look Like?]] (#44, 845-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Karen Axness Panel (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Karen Axness Panel: Women Authors You Should Be Reading]] (#45, 845-10pm)
* [[Feminist Fairy Tales (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist Fairy Tales]] (#53, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Something About Alice (WisCon 30 Panel)|There's Something About Alice: The Life, Fiction, and Fictional Life of James Tiptree, Jr.]] (#54, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Bad Girls (WisCon 30 Panel)|What does it take to be a bad girl anymore?]] (#55, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Fat, Feminism, and Fandom (WisCon 30 Panel)|Fat, Feminism, and Fandom]] (#57, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Resurrecting the Spanish Influenza (WisCon 30 Panel)|Resurrecting the Spanish Influenza]] (#58, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Gender in Gaming (WisCon 30 Panel)|Gender in Gaming]] (#59, 1015-1130pm) '''*T*'''

==Saturday May 27==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (unscheduled programming, 730-830am)
* [[Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms (WisCon 30 Panel)|Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms]] (#89, 1-215pm)
* [[An Agent's Point of View (WisCon 30 Panel)|An Agent's Point of View]] (#90, 1-215pm)
* [[Myth of Class Mobility? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Myth of Class Mobility?]] (#91, 1-215pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Food in SF/F (WisCon 30 Panel)|Food in SF/F]] (#92, 1-215pm)
* [[Autism, Asperger's, and Fandom (WisCon 30 Panel)|Autism, Asperger's, and Fandom]] (#93, 1-215pm)
* [[Jane Yolen as Editor (WisCon 30 Panel)|Jane Yolen as Editor]] (#95, 1-215pm)
* [[The Borderlands of Science (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Borderlands of Science]] (#96, 1-215pm)
* [[Science, Hard Science Fiction, and Women (WisCon 30 Panel)|Science, Hard Science Fiction, and Women]] (#104, 230-345pm)
* [[Animal, Human, Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)|Animal, Human, Alien]] (#106, 230-345pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago]] (#107, 230-345pm)
* [[Literary History of Women in Science Fiction (WisCon 30 Panels)|Literary History of Women in Science Fiction]] (#108, 230-345pm)
* [[Cultural Appropriation (WisCon 30 Panel)|Cultural Appropriation & Writing Fantasy Outside Western Tradition]] (#132, 9-1015pm)
* [[Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do? (WisCon 30 Panels)|Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do?]] (#134, 9-1015pm) '''*T*'''
* [[The Librarian Hero: Real and Imagined (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Librarian Hero: Real and Imagined]] (#151, 1030-1145pm)

==Sunday May 28==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (7:30am-8:30am in computer lab area)
* [[Cruise, Flirt, Pick-Up and Other Sexual-Social Strategies (WisCon 30 Panel)|Cruise, Flirt, Pick-Up and Other Sexual-Social Strategies]] (#170, 10-1115am)
* [[All About the Benjamins (WisCon 30 Panel)|All About the Benjamins]] (#171, 10-1115am)
* [[Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity?]] (#173, 10-1115am) '''*T*'''
* [[Fundamentals of Feminism (WisCon 30 Panel)|Fundamentals of Feminism]] (#175, 10-1115am)
* [[The Muse Is Never Monogamous]] (#195, 1-215pm)
* [[Pushing the Envelope (WisCon 30 Panel)|Pushing the Envelope]] (#189, 1-215pm)
* [[The Death of the Panel (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Death of the Panel]] (#203, 230-345pm)
* [[Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World (WisCon 30 Panel)|Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World]] (#204, 230-345pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Coming Out (WisCon 30 Panel)|Coming Out]] (#205, 230-345pm)
* [[Joanna Russ Interview with Chip Delany (WisCon 30 Event)|Joanna Russ Interview with Chip Delany]] (#220, 4-515pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Kate Wilhelm Guest of Honor Speech]] (#229, 830-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Jane Yolen Guest of Honor Speech]] (#229, 830-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Carl Brandon Society Awards Ceremony (2006)]] (#229, 830-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Tiptree Awards Ceremony (2006)]] (#229, 830-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[The Wages of Trash (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Wages of Trash]] (10-1115pm)
* [[Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing (WisCon 30 Panel)|Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing]] (#242, 11:30pm-12:45am) '''*T*'''

==Monday May 29==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (7:30am-8:30am in computer lab area)
* [[Military Women: Past, Present, Future (WisCon 30 Panel)|Military Women: Past, Present, Future]] (#245, 830-945am) '''*T*'''
* [[Is the US a dictatorship yet? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Is the US a dictatorship yet?]] (#246, 10-1115am)
* [[Finding the Queers (WisCon 30 Panel)|Finding the Queers]]: A GLBT Book Slam (#255, 10-1115am) '''*T*'''

=categories & tags=

[[category:2006 Events]] [[category:WisCon]] [[category:WisCon 30]]

WisCon 30

2006-06-21T02:03:53Z

162.83.198.150: /* Sunday May 28 */

* multiple reports at the [http://community.livejournal.com/wiscon/ WisCon LiveJournal Community] @ http://community.livejournal.com/wiscon/

'''*T*''' -- partial transcript available

==Friday May 26==
* [[Curse Words and Other Ways to Tell It's Not a Children's Book (WisCon 30 Panel)|Curse Words and Other Ways to Tell It's Not a Children's Book]] (#2, 10-1115am)
* [[Books You Bounce Off Of (WisCon 30 Panel)|Books You Bounce Off Of]] (#3, 10-1115am)
* [[Two Different Species? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Two Different Species?]] (#4, 10-1115am)
* [[Does Hard SF Have to Involve Metal? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Does Hard SF Have to Involve Metal?]] (#5, 10-1115am)
* [[Culture Shock! (WisCon 30 Panel)|Culture Shock!]] (#12, 1-215pm)
* [[Feminist SF/F Jeopardy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist SF/F Jeopardy]] (#13, 1-215pm)
* [[Láadan vs tlhIngan Hol (WisCon 30 Panel)|Láadan vs tlhIngan Hol]]: Differential Diffusion of Created Languages (#15, 1-215pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Sex and the Believable Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)|Sex and the Believeable Alien]] (#16, 1-215pm)
* [[More Wisps from Harry's Wake (WisCon 30 Panel)|More Wisps from Harry's Wake, Recent Children's Fantasy]] (#17, 1-215pm)
* [[Dark Fantasy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Dark Fantasy]] (#18, 1-215pm)
* [[Opening Ceremonies (WisCon 30 Event)|Opening Ceremonies]] (#36, 730-830pm)
* [[Women's vs. Men's Magic in Fantasy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Women's vs. Men's Magic in Fantasy]] (#38, 845-10pm)
* [[Pick one! Both/And in an Either/Or World (WisCon 30 Panel)|Pick one! Both/And in an Either/Or World]] (#39, 845-10pm)
* [[Trailer Trash and Unrighteous Rebels (WisCon 30 Panel)|Trailer Trash and Unrighteous Rebels: Human Beings in Space]] (#43, 845-10pm)
* [[Feminist Think Tanks (WisCon 30 Panel)|What Would a Feminist Think Tank Look Like?]] (#44, 845-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Karen Axness Panel (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Karen Axness Panel: Women Authors You Should Be Reading]] (#45, 845-10pm)
* [[Feminist Fairy Tales (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist Fairy Tales]] (#53, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Something About Alice (WisCon 30 Panel)|There's Something About Alice: The Life, Fiction, and Fictional Life of James Tiptree, Jr.]] (#54, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Bad Girls (WisCon 30 Panel)|What does it take to be a bad girl anymore?]] (#55, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Fat, Feminism, and Fandom (WisCon 30 Panel)|Fat, Feminism, and Fandom]] (#57, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Resurrecting the Spanish Influenza (WisCon 30 Panel)|Resurrecting the Spanish Influenza]] (#58, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Gender in Gaming (WisCon 30 Panel)|Gender in Gaming]] (#59, 1015-1130pm) '''*T*'''

==Saturday May 27==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (unscheduled programming, 730-830am)
* [[Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms (WisCon 30 Panel)|Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms]] (#89, 1-215pm)
* [[An Agent's Point of View (WisCon 30 Panel)|An Agent's Point of View]] (#90, 1-215pm)
* [[Myth of Class Mobility? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Myth of Class Mobility?]] (#91, 1-215pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Food in SF/F (WisCon 30 Panel)|Food in SF/F]] (#92, 1-215pm)
* [[Autism, Asperger's, and Fandom (WisCon 30 Panel)|Autism, Asperger's, and Fandom]] (#93, 1-215pm)
* [[Jane Yolen as Editor (WisCon 30 Panel)|Jane Yolen as Editor]] (#95, 1-215pm)
* [[The Borderlands of Science (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Borderlands of Science]] (#96, 1-215pm)
* [[Science, Hard Science Fiction, and Women (WisCon 30 Panel)|Science, Hard Science Fiction, and Women]] (#104, 230-345pm)
* [[Animal, Human, Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)|Animal, Human, Alien]] (#106, 230-345pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago]] (#107, 230-345pm)
* [[Literary History of Women in Science Fiction (WisCon 30 Panels)|Literary History of Women in Science Fiction]] (#108, 230-345pm)
* [[Cultural Appropriation (WisCon 30 Panel)|Cultural Appropriation & Writing Fantasy Outside Western Tradition]] (#132, 9-1015pm)
* [[Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do? (WisCon 30 Panels)|Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do?]] (#134, 9-1015pm) '''*T*'''
* [[The Librarian Hero: Real and Imagined (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Librarian Hero: Real and Imagined]] (#151, 1030-1145pm)

==Sunday May 28==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (7:30am-8:30am in computer lab area)
* [[Cruise, Flirt, Pick-Up and Other Sexual-Social Strategies (WisCon 30 Panel)|Cruise, Flirt, Pick-Up and Other Sexual-Social Strategies]] (#170, 10-1115am)
* [[All About the Benjamins (WisCon 30 Panel)|All About the Benjamins]] (#171, 10-1115am)
* [[Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity?]] (#173, 10-1115am) '''*T*'''
* [[Fundamentals of Feminism (WisCon 30 Panel)|Fundamentals of Feminism]] (#175, 10-1115am)
* [[The Muse Is Never Monogamous]] (#195, 1-215pm)
* [[Pushing the Envelope (WisCon 30 Panel)|Pushing the Envelope]] (#189, 1-215pm)
* [[The Death of the Panel (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Death of the Panel]] (#203, 230-345pm)
* [[Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World (WisCon 30 Panel)|Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World]] (#204, 230-345pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Coming Out (WisCon 30 Panel)|Coming Out]] (#205, 230-345pm)
* [[Joanna Russ Interview with Chip Delany (WisCon 30 Event)|Joanna Russ Interview with Chip Delany]] (#220, 4-515pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Kate Wilhelm Guest of Honor Speech]] (#229, 830-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Jane Yolen Guest of Honor Speech]] (#229, 830-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Carl Brandon Society Awards Ceremony (2006)]] (#229, 830-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Tiptree Awards Ceremony (2006)]] (#229, 830-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[The Wages of Trash (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Wages of Trash]] (10-1115pm)
* [[Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing (WisCon 30 Panel)|Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing]] (#242, 11:30pm-12:45am) '''*T*'''

==Monday May 29==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (7:30am-8:30am in computer lab area)
* [[Military Women: Past, Present, Future (WisCon 30 Panel)|Military Women: Past, Present, Future]] (#245, 830-945am)
* [[Is the US a dictatorship yet? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Is the US a dictatorship yet?]] (#246, 10-1115am)
* [[Finding the Queers (WisCon 30 Panel)|Finding the Queers]]: A GLBT Book Slam (#255, 10-1115am)

=categories & tags=

[[category:2006 Events]] [[category:WisCon]] [[category:WisCon 30]]

WisCon 30

2006-06-21T02:03:13Z

162.83.198.150: /* Saturday May 27 */

* multiple reports at the [http://community.livejournal.com/wiscon/ WisCon LiveJournal Community] @ http://community.livejournal.com/wiscon/

'''*T*''' -- partial transcript available

==Friday May 26==
* [[Curse Words and Other Ways to Tell It's Not a Children's Book (WisCon 30 Panel)|Curse Words and Other Ways to Tell It's Not a Children's Book]] (#2, 10-1115am)
* [[Books You Bounce Off Of (WisCon 30 Panel)|Books You Bounce Off Of]] (#3, 10-1115am)
* [[Two Different Species? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Two Different Species?]] (#4, 10-1115am)
* [[Does Hard SF Have to Involve Metal? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Does Hard SF Have to Involve Metal?]] (#5, 10-1115am)
* [[Culture Shock! (WisCon 30 Panel)|Culture Shock!]] (#12, 1-215pm)
* [[Feminist SF/F Jeopardy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist SF/F Jeopardy]] (#13, 1-215pm)
* [[Láadan vs tlhIngan Hol (WisCon 30 Panel)|Láadan vs tlhIngan Hol]]: Differential Diffusion of Created Languages (#15, 1-215pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Sex and the Believable Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)|Sex and the Believeable Alien]] (#16, 1-215pm)
* [[More Wisps from Harry's Wake (WisCon 30 Panel)|More Wisps from Harry's Wake, Recent Children's Fantasy]] (#17, 1-215pm)
* [[Dark Fantasy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Dark Fantasy]] (#18, 1-215pm)
* [[Opening Ceremonies (WisCon 30 Event)|Opening Ceremonies]] (#36, 730-830pm)
* [[Women's vs. Men's Magic in Fantasy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Women's vs. Men's Magic in Fantasy]] (#38, 845-10pm)
* [[Pick one! Both/And in an Either/Or World (WisCon 30 Panel)|Pick one! Both/And in an Either/Or World]] (#39, 845-10pm)
* [[Trailer Trash and Unrighteous Rebels (WisCon 30 Panel)|Trailer Trash and Unrighteous Rebels: Human Beings in Space]] (#43, 845-10pm)
* [[Feminist Think Tanks (WisCon 30 Panel)|What Would a Feminist Think Tank Look Like?]] (#44, 845-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Karen Axness Panel (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Karen Axness Panel: Women Authors You Should Be Reading]] (#45, 845-10pm)
* [[Feminist Fairy Tales (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist Fairy Tales]] (#53, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Something About Alice (WisCon 30 Panel)|There's Something About Alice: The Life, Fiction, and Fictional Life of James Tiptree, Jr.]] (#54, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Bad Girls (WisCon 30 Panel)|What does it take to be a bad girl anymore?]] (#55, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Fat, Feminism, and Fandom (WisCon 30 Panel)|Fat, Feminism, and Fandom]] (#57, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Resurrecting the Spanish Influenza (WisCon 30 Panel)|Resurrecting the Spanish Influenza]] (#58, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Gender in Gaming (WisCon 30 Panel)|Gender in Gaming]] (#59, 1015-1130pm) '''*T*'''

==Saturday May 27==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (unscheduled programming, 730-830am)
* [[Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms (WisCon 30 Panel)|Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms]] (#89, 1-215pm)
* [[An Agent's Point of View (WisCon 30 Panel)|An Agent's Point of View]] (#90, 1-215pm)
* [[Myth of Class Mobility? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Myth of Class Mobility?]] (#91, 1-215pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Food in SF/F (WisCon 30 Panel)|Food in SF/F]] (#92, 1-215pm)
* [[Autism, Asperger's, and Fandom (WisCon 30 Panel)|Autism, Asperger's, and Fandom]] (#93, 1-215pm)
* [[Jane Yolen as Editor (WisCon 30 Panel)|Jane Yolen as Editor]] (#95, 1-215pm)
* [[The Borderlands of Science (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Borderlands of Science]] (#96, 1-215pm)
* [[Science, Hard Science Fiction, and Women (WisCon 30 Panel)|Science, Hard Science Fiction, and Women]] (#104, 230-345pm)
* [[Animal, Human, Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)|Animal, Human, Alien]] (#106, 230-345pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago]] (#107, 230-345pm)
* [[Literary History of Women in Science Fiction (WisCon 30 Panels)|Literary History of Women in Science Fiction]] (#108, 230-345pm)
* [[Cultural Appropriation (WisCon 30 Panel)|Cultural Appropriation & Writing Fantasy Outside Western Tradition]] (#132, 9-1015pm)
* [[Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do? (WisCon 30 Panels)|Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do?]] (#134, 9-1015pm) '''*T*'''
* [[The Librarian Hero: Real and Imagined (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Librarian Hero: Real and Imagined]] (#151, 1030-1145pm)

==Sunday May 28==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (7:30am-8:30am in computer lab area)
* [[Cruise, Flirt, Pick-Up and Other Sexual-Social Strategies (WisCon 30 Panel)|Cruise, Flirt, Pick-Up and Other Sexual-Social Strategies]] (#170, 10-1115am)
* [[All About the Benjamins (WisCon 30 Panel)|All About the Benjamins]] (#171, 10-1115am)
* [[Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity?]] (#173, 10-1115am)
* [[Fundamentals of Feminism (WisCon 30 Panel)|Fundamentals of Feminism]] (#175, 10-1115am)
* [[The Muse Is Never Monogamous]] (#195, 1-215pm)
* [[Pushing the Envelope (WisCon 30 Panel)|Pushing the Envelope]] (#189, 1-215pm)
* [[The Death of the Panel (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Death of the Panel]] (#203, 230-345pm)
* [[Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World (WisCon 30 Panel)|Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World]] (#204, 230-345pm)
* [[Coming Out (WisCon 30 Panel)|Coming Out]] (#205, 230-345pm)
* [[Joanna Russ Interview with Chip Delany (WisCon 30 Event)|Joanna Russ Interview with Chip Delany]] (#220, 4-515pm)
* [[Kate Wilhelm Guest of Honor Speech]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[Jane Yolen Guest of Honor Speech]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[Carl Brandon Society Awards Ceremony (2006)]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[Tiptree Awards Ceremony (2006)]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[The Wages of Trash (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Wages of Trash]] (10-1115pm)
* [[Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing (WisCon 30 Panel)|Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing]] (#242, 11:30pm-12:45am)

==Monday May 29==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (7:30am-8:30am in computer lab area)
* [[Military Women: Past, Present, Future (WisCon 30 Panel)|Military Women: Past, Present, Future]] (#245, 830-945am)
* [[Is the US a dictatorship yet? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Is the US a dictatorship yet?]] (#246, 10-1115am)
* [[Finding the Queers (WisCon 30 Panel)|Finding the Queers]]: A GLBT Book Slam (#255, 10-1115am)

=categories & tags=

[[category:2006 Events]] [[category:WisCon]] [[category:WisCon 30]]

WisCon 30

2006-06-21T02:02:02Z

162.83.198.150:

* multiple reports at the [http://community.livejournal.com/wiscon/ WisCon LiveJournal Community] @ http://community.livejournal.com/wiscon/

'''*T*''' -- partial transcript available

==Friday May 26==
* [[Curse Words and Other Ways to Tell It's Not a Children's Book (WisCon 30 Panel)|Curse Words and Other Ways to Tell It's Not a Children's Book]] (#2, 10-1115am)
* [[Books You Bounce Off Of (WisCon 30 Panel)|Books You Bounce Off Of]] (#3, 10-1115am)
* [[Two Different Species? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Two Different Species?]] (#4, 10-1115am)
* [[Does Hard SF Have to Involve Metal? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Does Hard SF Have to Involve Metal?]] (#5, 10-1115am)
* [[Culture Shock! (WisCon 30 Panel)|Culture Shock!]] (#12, 1-215pm)
* [[Feminist SF/F Jeopardy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist SF/F Jeopardy]] (#13, 1-215pm)
* [[Láadan vs tlhIngan Hol (WisCon 30 Panel)|Láadan vs tlhIngan Hol]]: Differential Diffusion of Created Languages (#15, 1-215pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Sex and the Believable Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)|Sex and the Believeable Alien]] (#16, 1-215pm)
* [[More Wisps from Harry's Wake (WisCon 30 Panel)|More Wisps from Harry's Wake, Recent Children's Fantasy]] (#17, 1-215pm)
* [[Dark Fantasy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Dark Fantasy]] (#18, 1-215pm)
* [[Opening Ceremonies (WisCon 30 Event)|Opening Ceremonies]] (#36, 730-830pm)
* [[Women's vs. Men's Magic in Fantasy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Women's vs. Men's Magic in Fantasy]] (#38, 845-10pm)
* [[Pick one! Both/And in an Either/Or World (WisCon 30 Panel)|Pick one! Both/And in an Either/Or World]] (#39, 845-10pm)
* [[Trailer Trash and Unrighteous Rebels (WisCon 30 Panel)|Trailer Trash and Unrighteous Rebels: Human Beings in Space]] (#43, 845-10pm)
* [[Feminist Think Tanks (WisCon 30 Panel)|What Would a Feminist Think Tank Look Like?]] (#44, 845-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Karen Axness Panel (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Karen Axness Panel: Women Authors You Should Be Reading]] (#45, 845-10pm)
* [[Feminist Fairy Tales (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist Fairy Tales]] (#53, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Something About Alice (WisCon 30 Panel)|There's Something About Alice: The Life, Fiction, and Fictional Life of James Tiptree, Jr.]] (#54, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Bad Girls (WisCon 30 Panel)|What does it take to be a bad girl anymore?]] (#55, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Fat, Feminism, and Fandom (WisCon 30 Panel)|Fat, Feminism, and Fandom]] (#57, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Resurrecting the Spanish Influenza (WisCon 30 Panel)|Resurrecting the Spanish Influenza]] (#58, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Gender in Gaming (WisCon 30 Panel)|Gender in Gaming]] (#59, 1015-1130pm) '''*T*'''

==Saturday May 27==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (unscheduled programming, 730-830am)
* [[Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms (WisCon 30 Panel)|Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms]] (#89, 1-215pm)
* [[An Agent's Point of View (WisCon 30 Panel)|An Agent's Point of View]] (#90, 1-215pm)
* [[Myth of Class Mobility? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Myth of Class Mobility?]] (#91, 1-215pm)
* [[Food in SF/F (WisCon 30 Panel)|Food in SF/F]] (#92, 1-215pm)
* [[Autism, Asperger's, and Fandom (WisCon 30 Panel)|Autism, Asperger's, and Fandom]] (#93, 1-215pm)
* [[Jane Yolen as Editor (WisCon 30 Panel)|Jane Yolen as Editor]] (#95, 1-215pm)
* [[The Borderlands of Science (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Borderlands of Science]] (#96, 1-215pm)
* [[Science, Hard Science Fiction, and Women (WisCon 30 Panel)|Science, Hard Science Fiction, and Women]] (#104, 230-345pm)
* [[Animal, Human, Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)|Animal, Human, Alien]] (#106, 230-345pm)
* [[Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago]] (#107, 230-345pm)
* [[Literary History of Women in Science Fiction (WisCon 30 Panels)|Literary History of Women in Science Fiction]] (#108, 230-345pm)
* [[Cultural Appropriation (WisCon 30 Panel)|Cultural Appropriation & Writing Fantasy Outside Western Tradition]] (#132, 9-1015pm)
* [[Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do? (WisCon 30 Panels)|Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do?]] (#134, 9-1015pm)
* [[The Librarian Hero: Real and Imagined (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Librarian Hero: Real and Imagined]] (#151, 1030-1145pm)

==Sunday May 28==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (7:30am-8:30am in computer lab area)
* [[Cruise, Flirt, Pick-Up and Other Sexual-Social Strategies (WisCon 30 Panel)|Cruise, Flirt, Pick-Up and Other Sexual-Social Strategies]] (#170, 10-1115am)
* [[All About the Benjamins (WisCon 30 Panel)|All About the Benjamins]] (#171, 10-1115am)
* [[Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity?]] (#173, 10-1115am)
* [[Fundamentals of Feminism (WisCon 30 Panel)|Fundamentals of Feminism]] (#175, 10-1115am)
* [[The Muse Is Never Monogamous]] (#195, 1-215pm)
* [[Pushing the Envelope (WisCon 30 Panel)|Pushing the Envelope]] (#189, 1-215pm)
* [[The Death of the Panel (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Death of the Panel]] (#203, 230-345pm)
* [[Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World (WisCon 30 Panel)|Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World]] (#204, 230-345pm)
* [[Coming Out (WisCon 30 Panel)|Coming Out]] (#205, 230-345pm)
* [[Joanna Russ Interview with Chip Delany (WisCon 30 Event)|Joanna Russ Interview with Chip Delany]] (#220, 4-515pm)
* [[Kate Wilhelm Guest of Honor Speech]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[Jane Yolen Guest of Honor Speech]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[Carl Brandon Society Awards Ceremony (2006)]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[Tiptree Awards Ceremony (2006)]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[The Wages of Trash (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Wages of Trash]] (10-1115pm)
* [[Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing (WisCon 30 Panel)|Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing]] (#242, 11:30pm-12:45am)

==Monday May 29==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (7:30am-8:30am in computer lab area)
* [[Military Women: Past, Present, Future (WisCon 30 Panel)|Military Women: Past, Present, Future]] (#245, 830-945am)
* [[Is the US a dictatorship yet? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Is the US a dictatorship yet?]] (#246, 10-1115am)
* [[Finding the Queers (WisCon 30 Panel)|Finding the Queers]]: A GLBT Book Slam (#255, 10-1115am)

=categories & tags=

[[category:2006 Events]] [[category:WisCon]] [[category:WisCon 30]]

WisCon 30

2006-06-21T02:01:45Z

162.83.198.150: /* Friday May 26 */

* multiple reports at the [http://community.livejournal.com/wiscon/ WisCon LiveJournal Community] @ http://community.livejournal.com/wiscon/

==Friday May 26==
* [[Curse Words and Other Ways to Tell It's Not a Children's Book (WisCon 30 Panel)|Curse Words and Other Ways to Tell It's Not a Children's Book]] (#2, 10-1115am)
* [[Books You Bounce Off Of (WisCon 30 Panel)|Books You Bounce Off Of]] (#3, 10-1115am)
* [[Two Different Species? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Two Different Species?]] (#4, 10-1115am)
* [[Does Hard SF Have to Involve Metal? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Does Hard SF Have to Involve Metal?]] (#5, 10-1115am)
* [[Culture Shock! (WisCon 30 Panel)|Culture Shock!]] (#12, 1-215pm)
* [[Feminist SF/F Jeopardy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist SF/F Jeopardy]] (#13, 1-215pm)
* [[Láadan vs tlhIngan Hol (WisCon 30 Panel)|Láadan vs tlhIngan Hol]]: Differential Diffusion of Created Languages (#15, 1-215pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Sex and the Believable Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)|Sex and the Believeable Alien]] (#16, 1-215pm)
* [[More Wisps from Harry's Wake (WisCon 30 Panel)|More Wisps from Harry's Wake, Recent Children's Fantasy]] (#17, 1-215pm)
* [[Dark Fantasy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Dark Fantasy]] (#18, 1-215pm)
* [[Opening Ceremonies (WisCon 30 Event)|Opening Ceremonies]] (#36, 730-830pm)
* [[Women's vs. Men's Magic in Fantasy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Women's vs. Men's Magic in Fantasy]] (#38, 845-10pm)
* [[Pick one! Both/And in an Either/Or World (WisCon 30 Panel)|Pick one! Both/And in an Either/Or World]] (#39, 845-10pm)
* [[Trailer Trash and Unrighteous Rebels (WisCon 30 Panel)|Trailer Trash and Unrighteous Rebels: Human Beings in Space]] (#43, 845-10pm)
* [[Feminist Think Tanks (WisCon 30 Panel)|What Would a Feminist Think Tank Look Like?]] (#44, 845-10pm) '''*T*'''
* [[Karen Axness Panel (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Karen Axness Panel: Women Authors You Should Be Reading]] (#45, 845-10pm)
* [[Feminist Fairy Tales (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist Fairy Tales]] (#53, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Something About Alice (WisCon 30 Panel)|There's Something About Alice: The Life, Fiction, and Fictional Life of James Tiptree, Jr.]] (#54, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Bad Girls (WisCon 30 Panel)|What does it take to be a bad girl anymore?]] (#55, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Fat, Feminism, and Fandom (WisCon 30 Panel)|Fat, Feminism, and Fandom]] (#57, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Resurrecting the Spanish Influenza (WisCon 30 Panel)|Resurrecting the Spanish Influenza]] (#58, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Gender in Gaming (WisCon 30 Panel)|Gender in Gaming]] (#59, 1015-1130pm) '''*T*'''

==Saturday May 27==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (unscheduled programming, 730-830am)
* [[Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms (WisCon 30 Panel)|Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms]] (#89, 1-215pm)
* [[An Agent's Point of View (WisCon 30 Panel)|An Agent's Point of View]] (#90, 1-215pm)
* [[Myth of Class Mobility? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Myth of Class Mobility?]] (#91, 1-215pm)
* [[Food in SF/F (WisCon 30 Panel)|Food in SF/F]] (#92, 1-215pm)
* [[Autism, Asperger's, and Fandom (WisCon 30 Panel)|Autism, Asperger's, and Fandom]] (#93, 1-215pm)
* [[Jane Yolen as Editor (WisCon 30 Panel)|Jane Yolen as Editor]] (#95, 1-215pm)
* [[The Borderlands of Science (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Borderlands of Science]] (#96, 1-215pm)
* [[Science, Hard Science Fiction, and Women (WisCon 30 Panel)|Science, Hard Science Fiction, and Women]] (#104, 230-345pm)
* [[Animal, Human, Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)|Animal, Human, Alien]] (#106, 230-345pm)
* [[Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago]] (#107, 230-345pm)
* [[Literary History of Women in Science Fiction (WisCon 30 Panels)|Literary History of Women in Science Fiction]] (#108, 230-345pm)
* [[Cultural Appropriation (WisCon 30 Panel)|Cultural Appropriation & Writing Fantasy Outside Western Tradition]] (#132, 9-1015pm)
* [[Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do? (WisCon 30 Panels)|Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do?]] (#134, 9-1015pm)
* [[The Librarian Hero: Real and Imagined (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Librarian Hero: Real and Imagined]] (#151, 1030-1145pm)

==Sunday May 28==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (7:30am-8:30am in computer lab area)
* [[Cruise, Flirt, Pick-Up and Other Sexual-Social Strategies (WisCon 30 Panel)|Cruise, Flirt, Pick-Up and Other Sexual-Social Strategies]] (#170, 10-1115am)
* [[All About the Benjamins (WisCon 30 Panel)|All About the Benjamins]] (#171, 10-1115am)
* [[Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity?]] (#173, 10-1115am)
* [[Fundamentals of Feminism (WisCon 30 Panel)|Fundamentals of Feminism]] (#175, 10-1115am)
* [[The Muse Is Never Monogamous]] (#195, 1-215pm)
* [[Pushing the Envelope (WisCon 30 Panel)|Pushing the Envelope]] (#189, 1-215pm)
* [[The Death of the Panel (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Death of the Panel]] (#203, 230-345pm)
* [[Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World (WisCon 30 Panel)|Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World]] (#204, 230-345pm)
* [[Coming Out (WisCon 30 Panel)|Coming Out]] (#205, 230-345pm)
* [[Joanna Russ Interview with Chip Delany (WisCon 30 Event)|Joanna Russ Interview with Chip Delany]] (#220, 4-515pm)
* [[Kate Wilhelm Guest of Honor Speech]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[Jane Yolen Guest of Honor Speech]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[Carl Brandon Society Awards Ceremony (2006)]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[Tiptree Awards Ceremony (2006)]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[The Wages of Trash (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Wages of Trash]] (10-1115pm)
* [[Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing (WisCon 30 Panel)|Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing]] (#242, 11:30pm-12:45am)

==Monday May 29==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (7:30am-8:30am in computer lab area)
* [[Military Women: Past, Present, Future (WisCon 30 Panel)|Military Women: Past, Present, Future]] (#245, 830-945am)
* [[Is the US a dictatorship yet? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Is the US a dictatorship yet?]] (#246, 10-1115am)
* [[Finding the Queers (WisCon 30 Panel)|Finding the Queers]]: A GLBT Book Slam (#255, 10-1115am)

=categories & tags=

[[category:2006 Events]] [[category:WisCon]] [[category:WisCon 30]]

WisCon 30

2006-06-21T02:00:56Z

162.83.198.150: /* Friday May 26 */ adding panels

* multiple reports at the [http://community.livejournal.com/wiscon/ WisCon LiveJournal Community] @ http://community.livejournal.com/wiscon/

==Friday May 26==
* [[Curse Words and Other Ways to Tell It's Not a Children's Book (WisCon 30 Panel)|Curse Words and Other Ways to Tell It's Not a Children's Book]] (#2, 10-1115am)
* [[Books You Bounce Off Of (WisCon 30 Panel)|Books You Bounce Off Of]] (#3, 10-1115am)
* [[Two Different Species? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Two Different Species?]] (#4, 10-1115am)
* [[Does Hard SF Have to Involve Metal? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Does Hard SF Have to Involve Metal?]] (#5, 10-1115am)
* [[Culture Shock! (WisCon 30 Panel)|Culture Shock!]] (#12, 1-215pm)
* [[Feminist SF/F Jeopardy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist SF/F Jeopardy]] (#13, 1-215pm)
* [[Láadan vs tlhIngan Hol (WisCon 30 Panel)|Láadan vs tlhIngan Hol]]: Differential Diffusion of Created Languages (#15, 1-215pm)
* [[Sex and the Believable Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)|Sex and the Believeable Alien]] (#16, 1-215pm)
* [[More Wisps from Harry's Wake (WisCon 30 Panel)|More Wisps from Harry's Wake, Recent Children's Fantasy]] (#17, 1-215pm)
* [[Dark Fantasy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Dark Fantasy]] (#18, 1-215pm)
* [[Opening Ceremonies (WisCon 30 Event)|Opening Ceremonies]] (#36, 730-830pm)
* [[Women's vs. Men's Magic in Fantasy (WisCon 30 Panel)|Women's vs. Men's Magic in Fantasy]] (#38, 845-10pm)
* [[Pick one! Both/And in an Either/Or World (WisCon 30 Panel)|Pick one! Both/And in an Either/Or World]] (#39, 845-10pm)
* [[Trailer Trash and Unrighteous Rebels (WisCon 30 Panel)|Trailer Trash and Unrighteous Rebels: Human Beings in Space]] (#43, 845-10pm)
* [[Feminist Think Tanks (WisCon 30 Panel)|What Would a Feminist Think Tank Look Like?]] (#44, 845-10pm)
* [[Karen Axness Panel (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Karen Axness Panel: Women Authors You Should Be Reading]] (#45, 845-10pm)
* [[Feminist Fairy Tales (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist Fairy Tales]] (#53, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Something About Alice (WisCon 30 Panel)|There's Something About Alice: The Life, Fiction, and Fictional Life of James Tiptree, Jr.]] (#54, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Bad Girls (WisCon 30 Panel)|What does it take to be a bad girl anymore?]] (#55, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Fat, Feminism, and Fandom (WisCon 30 Panel)|Fat, Feminism, and Fandom]] (#57, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Resurrecting the Spanish Influenza (WisCon 30 Panel)|Resurrecting the Spanish Influenza]] (#58, 1015-1130pm)
* [[Gender in Gaming (WisCon 30 Panel)|Gender in Gaming]] (#59, 1015-1130pm)

==Saturday May 27==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (unscheduled programming, 730-830am)
* [[Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms (WisCon 30 Panel)|Conveying the Post-Human in Humanist Terms]] (#89, 1-215pm)
* [[An Agent's Point of View (WisCon 30 Panel)|An Agent's Point of View]] (#90, 1-215pm)
* [[Myth of Class Mobility? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Myth of Class Mobility?]] (#91, 1-215pm)
* [[Food in SF/F (WisCon 30 Panel)|Food in SF/F]] (#92, 1-215pm)
* [[Autism, Asperger's, and Fandom (WisCon 30 Panel)|Autism, Asperger's, and Fandom]] (#93, 1-215pm)
* [[Jane Yolen as Editor (WisCon 30 Panel)|Jane Yolen as Editor]] (#95, 1-215pm)
* [[The Borderlands of Science (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Borderlands of Science]] (#96, 1-215pm)
* [[Science, Hard Science Fiction, and Women (WisCon 30 Panel)|Science, Hard Science Fiction, and Women]] (#104, 230-345pm)
* [[Animal, Human, Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)|Animal, Human, Alien]] (#106, 230-345pm)
* [[Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago (WisCon 30 Panel)|Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago]] (#107, 230-345pm)
* [[Literary History of Women in Science Fiction (WisCon 30 Panels)|Literary History of Women in Science Fiction]] (#108, 230-345pm)
* [[Cultural Appropriation (WisCon 30 Panel)|Cultural Appropriation & Writing Fantasy Outside Western Tradition]] (#132, 9-1015pm)
* [[Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do? (WisCon 30 Panels)|Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do?]] (#134, 9-1015pm)
* [[The Librarian Hero: Real and Imagined (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Librarian Hero: Real and Imagined]] (#151, 1030-1145pm)

==Sunday May 28==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (7:30am-8:30am in computer lab area)
* [[Cruise, Flirt, Pick-Up and Other Sexual-Social Strategies (WisCon 30 Panel)|Cruise, Flirt, Pick-Up and Other Sexual-Social Strategies]] (#170, 10-1115am)
* [[All About the Benjamins (WisCon 30 Panel)|All About the Benjamins]] (#171, 10-1115am)
* [[Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity?]] (#173, 10-1115am)
* [[Fundamentals of Feminism (WisCon 30 Panel)|Fundamentals of Feminism]] (#175, 10-1115am)
* [[The Muse Is Never Monogamous]] (#195, 1-215pm)
* [[Pushing the Envelope (WisCon 30 Panel)|Pushing the Envelope]] (#189, 1-215pm)
* [[The Death of the Panel (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Death of the Panel]] (#203, 230-345pm)
* [[Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World (WisCon 30 Panel)|Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World]] (#204, 230-345pm)
* [[Coming Out (WisCon 30 Panel)|Coming Out]] (#205, 230-345pm)
* [[Joanna Russ Interview with Chip Delany (WisCon 30 Event)|Joanna Russ Interview with Chip Delany]] (#220, 4-515pm)
* [[Kate Wilhelm Guest of Honor Speech]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[Jane Yolen Guest of Honor Speech]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[Carl Brandon Society Awards Ceremony (2006)]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[Tiptree Awards Ceremony (2006)]] (#229, 830-10pm)
* [[The Wages of Trash (WisCon 30 Panel)|The Wages of Trash]] (10-1115pm)
* [[Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing (WisCon 30 Panel)|Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing]] (#242, 11:30pm-12:45am)

==Monday May 29==

* Wiki Workshop @ WisCon (7:30am-8:30am in computer lab area)
* [[Military Women: Past, Present, Future (WisCon 30 Panel)|Military Women: Past, Present, Future]] (#245, 830-945am)
* [[Is the US a dictatorship yet? (WisCon 30 Panel)|Is the US a dictatorship yet?]] (#246, 10-1115am)
* [[Finding the Queers (WisCon 30 Panel)|Finding the Queers]]: A GLBT Book Slam (#255, 10-1115am)

=categories & tags=

[[category:2006 Events]] [[category:WisCon]] [[category:WisCon 30]]

Finding the Queers (WisCon 30 Panel)

2006-06-21T01:46:08Z

162.83.198.150: /* Notes/Transcript */ typos links etc.

==Panel Info==

panel 255 finding the queers

Although books with GLBT characters are now published, they may not be marketed as GLBT books. We'll get together and compare our lists of favorite works with major GLBT characters, focusing on both new works and old.

==Panelists==

[[Ron Serdiuk]] (moderator), [[Lorraine Angela Donaldson]], [[Rob Gates]], [[Diane Silver]]

==Notes/Transcript==

''Original transcription from Laura Quilter ... please add corrections, deletions, commentary, explanations, as needed''

RG: it's like where's waldo

DS: it actually is

RS: books by glbt characters are published they might not be marketed as such

RS: bookseller from australia ... i'm queer ... i beg to differ ... get everyone to introduce themselves

JF: i write lesbian sf fantasy romance a few books in print, next book is coming out in two weeks time. ... bold strokes book ... lesbian book convention in atlanta 2 weeks time ... bel aire distribution ... available thru

LD: my name is lorraine donaldson i'm a long=time sf fan and a transwoman by that i mean i was labeled male at birth but live & identify as a woman now and ... qualifications.

RG: i'm rob gates i'm a fundamentalist christian conservative straight man.

RS: yeah sometimes i can't quite figure out how they organize the panels here. (looking at paperwork)

laughter

RG: i am very involved w/ dc area gay fandom group and i am the organizer poobah of gaylactic specturme awards which recognize gay lesbian glbt content

ds: recommended this panel, a political activist & a nonfiction writer who dabbles in fiction ... having gone to clarion a long time when they fought dinosaurs to get to ... fighting effort to ban same-sex marriage in kansas

rg: do you dabble b/c you write at the same pace i am

ds: i am frustrated to the point of screaming about how books w/ gay characters are marketed

rs: b/c i have a sf/f bookstore sometimes i get really bunred out and go home & try to read books that aren't f/sf and i realize the error of my ways ... pumped up by wiscon ... want to get back home and read all kinds of stuff ... and google just aint cutting it. so who wants to start.

ds: i have a day job as an editor at a university. s oduring my day job i put together my own quirky list of lesbian books. silver's quirky lesbian list.
* ... want to highlight ... anyone who hasn't ready laurie j. marks and wants to read about queers, lesbians gays ... one review complained about fire logic they didn't think there was straight person in it who was a major character ... beautiful books, worthy of anyone's attention and beautiful queer content.
* anyone who doesn't know nicola griffith, run buy books now. ... two sf books and a book from aqueduct
* a few people i will spend money on hardbacks ... hiromi gotoo, laurie marks, kelley eskridge,
* annoyance with people who decide to throw in lesbians, hi i'm a elesbian at the beginning, then go on a quest. ... my personal thing is i have to read about my people. on eother thing quickly - this also has a list of resources. spectrum award.

audience: why not anything from a lesbian press?

DS: i don't know, these are the ones that stuck in my mind.

moderator RS: i have something to say about that in discussion. let's bring up important point early. hold questions till everyone has something to say.

...

JF: there's actually two distinct strands of queer sf that i'm aware of. me, i've been in us for 3 weeks. anybody who met me at party last week. i've only been in US for 3 weeks -0 two book conventions - wiscon and staying for atlanta in 2 weeks time. golden crwon is a lesbian book festival, all the lesbian presses will all be there. and here's there's a science fiction wone and i'm aware of two distinct strands. there are writers, lesbin science fiction writers, total split on the camps and i don't think they're aware of each other ... jean stewart. i read her books. they're romances. two women are going to have sex in there somewhere, it's pure escapist romance fiction and i love it. ... like a bisexual with a foot in each camp ... i'd like to come out here as being bi-genreal.

RS: oh god another initial to add to the acronym

jf: chris anne wolfe, jean stewart, katherine forrest ... her science fiction doesn't quite cut it for me ... and she writes crime and romance for me too. not expanding my world view but i do enjoy it.

RG: first in terms of recommendations - diane has two recos i was going to tell people, spectrumawards.org. we maintain lists of every book or work in the genre recommended to us for consideration. we maintain list of our short list and identify our winners for each year. we're now in our 8th year of giving out the award so we've got quite a history each year. the other thing to look at is lambda sf book. that is recommendations from readers w/ short blurbs about book & why it was recommended. ...

?: this whole dichotomy, these two threads, in many ways i don't see a lot of the gay press material as genre works, speculative fiction works. for me speculative fiction has always meant something that stimulates me intellectually in some way, and i love reading nsome of the gay works w/ sf or fantastical trappings. but i don't feel they're very grounded in the genre at all. perfect example is felice picanos' drylands end which is one of the most awful pieces of pulp crap i've ever read but the press that put it out published it as a this stunning work of great idea.s i was like hello we were working on this 50 years ago; we've moved on; why don't you. this is one of the reasons why i don't see a lot for the gay / lesbian presses. we've had a couple of works sift out for our recommended works. i know onen of jane's works was on our short list. but in many ways it's not good speculative fiction it might be good lesbian or gay but not good pseculative, most of the time, and there's nothing wrong with that.

jf: you can get good gay/lesbian and they may be the same but onot always.

LD i think for me one of the things that came up was what qualifies as a glbt work do you just have to have a character that declares i am gay or tarns , do yo uahve to have someone that represents someone in the community, what about a book that represents a stereotype even if the stereotype is overdone ... i'm here representing the trans voice and i'm not goign to recommend a lot of books b/c almost everything is crap. you have the books wehere the character has been labeled trans and nthen nothing else is ever said; the book where the character has gone straight things out of janice raymond's absolute horrible works the trans empire that was a slam 30 years ago and should have been put down 30 years ago b/c people knew better but ... sigh. you have books where transwomen are portrayed sympathetically but very very badly ... a story in latest chicks in chainmail anthology for example. stories that present a transwoman relatively well and sympathetically but portray us as an absolute victim, merely to be a tchagne mechanism for a charcter to show how they have grown by accepting us, one of these was shortlisted for tiptree in 2003 and made it into anthology ... if it was a woman and a man instead of a transwoman it would have been howled out of convention b/c the character is deciding whether woman is woman enough whether i can deign to accept them ... the thought that they could publish a story that hwile sympathetic is so bad on the politics would be laughed out of room if characters were a woman and a man amazed me. one book i really like that got a lot of things right, not at rans book technically in some senses, a book about a character who is in some senses asexual, but that is - oh that's embarrassing - halfway human by carolyn ives gilman. halfway human is an absolutely wonderful book, brilliantly written. everything i've read by her is brilliantly written and i wish someone would gather her short fiction. ... the character in there she also is a victim, also a protagonist. and she actually has growht and becomes a more fully realized person over course of book. ... i look for things with trans issues ... in particular the x-men. a scene in one of first two movies about mystique who's a shapeshifter and she encounters nightcrawler; both of them have bright blue colored skin ... nightcrawler is always out and he hates it, and mystqiue can change shape ... and nightcrawler asks her why she just doesn't disappear and mystique says i shouldn't have to. ... i coudl have come to this con and not told anybody but i shouldn't have to ... found a lot of acceptance, a couple of people who need a lot of education but a lot of acceptance ... i am a very big fan of social science fiction, i have a bachelor's in sociology, i really lik ethe authors who get social science right, and so much of glbt sf doesn't have any kind of support structure, no nglbt support system. introduce the character and society doesn't exist around them. ... only people in the world as fars you can tell.

aud: but some of us live in that world.

RG: i would disagree that a lot doesn't portray social aspects
... you're obviously not reading the same things i am. even lynn flewelling's nightrunner series. great fun, wonderful time, and at the same time gay romances. marvelous scene in first book, just completely reminscent to me of my first experience going into a gay bar. ... some of the other works are portraying ... the same-sex nature of relationships, the queer nature of relationships pare in a society that doesn't require some sort of support network. ...

aud: but i seek out other communities, geek community. in madison i really didn't have anything in common w/ trans people. not all of us identify with that one aspect of our life ...

mod: that brings up something i want to discuss b/c it strikes me tere are tsesentially two types ... seeking the other ... terrific comment by aaron lichten ... something so inherently satisfying about seeing your own life experiences reflected inv ery good writing. two choices. you can read f/sf where there are secondary characters or there are queer ness going on but it's part of the wlallpaper, good bad or indifferent, or you can seek it out where it's the big thing ...

DS: what i wanted otu of this panel was where queer characters are protagonists BUT it's not all about being queer. slow river is about ... i think in some part nicola figuring out her identity ... fire logidc & earth logic are ... sociopolitical, number one they're great love stories, very complex love stories ... and my personal quirky staste is trashy to literary and laurie is one of the best writers i've ever read, and fire/earth logic are great post-911 stories. you've been invaded and you want to get your freedom again but how do you do that without becoming the enemy, without your abu ghraibs and guantanamos.

reading doris lessing, it's crap science fiction - even tho the sentences are beautiful it's crap science fiction b/c those were ideas we were dealing with 50 years ago

DS: ... put in other things early ... i am helping out tiptree people this year. the one way to bring communities together is to have different books by different publishers and anything printed in 2006 that you think expands or explores gender ... email me. my email i have a blog btw cards in the hallway it's http://hopeandpolitics.blogspot.com email is hopeandpolitics@yahoo.com if you google diane silver or in this moment or hope and politics you'lll find me.

RG: on the topic of awards ... third is golden crown literary ... make sure you read,

DS: locus online, you can get things posted there very easily on their blink section. make sure they know.

RG: one of the reasons gaylactic came into existence is b/c lambda literary awards are offensive. lambda literary awards ignore works that come out from mainstream literary publishers. the blackbox that figures out finalist list in category doesn't read in the material at all; they go by have i heard of the publishing house; have i met the author; have they written anything w/ glbt content before; have they paid the entry fee; have i read a review of this. it is such an exclusionary and -- we are going to ignore quality content in favor of tooting the horns of our friends endeavor that i, say there ... good things show up in lists sometimes ... jane's work was on lambda finalist and our list, that happens all the times. but things they completely ignore. laurie marks' works weren't considered b/c they weren't considered b/c tor wouldn't pay fee.

jf: they were nominated and ...

RG: it's remarkably offensive to glbt award committee

LQ: ala glbt awards

RS; jane, what's it like in ritan, you come from a diff perspective.

JF: actually there is no lesbian pnress in ritain; there used to be diva; they've stopped publishing books. back in the 70s late 70s the onlywomen press; i think they're still going; there's a collective; lots of infighting; just one person left. that's why i'm published in the us. i write in the us but published in US.

RS: but what about reviewing, is there an award. you look at crime wawards there's a category for everything.

JF: we do have best lesbian book festival but there's no awards.

JF: york lesbian book festival is in october - lesbian book festival - much better place to visit, a thousand plus; last year there was ...

JF: not enough sf

RS: can i talk about small lpresses to as a bookseller. often as a bookselelr an indepednent small bookseleler it's hard to order from small presses and self-published things. and it's one of the things where they're all tarred with the same look. they have a distinctive look. you can recognize that they're "other" they don't look mainstream massproduced. a whole passel of expectations and one of them is rigorous proofreading etc. and unfortunately so many osmall presses ahven't had that rigor and w/in a short time you're finding typographical errors etc. ... i don't want to offend anyone, a wonderful young woman australian who wants to selfpublish and i was saying please submit ... so when you talk about small presses ... she's a good writer, but she needs a lot of editorial reining in, but she tells six jokes when only two are needed ... even in mainstream presses editorial rigor is a thing of the past. and someone published three lesbian novels and first one i thought it's a good start but it'll probably get better but second and third were even worse. and everyone's being very polite because we all lvoe the woman and it's just been picked up by an american press, and it's not really being published b/c it's good writing or good sf but b/c it has a gay protagonist. i find that a lot w/ gay press. ...

RS: sheryl & annie you have to talk to us .

aud (sheryl & annie) - i think there are certain small lesbian publishers who do skimp on costs w/ binding andn editorial processes. there are a couple of lesbain small presses out there and i think bold sttorkes out there and bella's another one focused on making sure the quality is there. so as they're getting bigger & better & more successful they're able to channel back into process and making better product.

RS: i think i've only picked up one bold strokes and found one small typing error.

RG: i just found 50 or 60 strange types in AIR and that is not small press.

DS: but it's also brilliant.

aud: and sometimes you can overlook that. if a lesbian writer submits to a lesbian press; they're probably going to accept it. there are other presses that are more rigorous.

RS: so you almost have to press-shop.

we do when buying books

RS: and there must be presses you won't read b/c you've had bad experiences

aud: i'd rather say that bella and bold strokes are good.

? and the other things is there's not many lesbian presses that do sf

? [[Chris Anne Wolfe]], unfortunately she died, did four books

? [[Meisha Merlin Press]], they're terrific, small, not really that small == i call them medium press -t hey've taken great works that are out of print - and they've done that sort of stuff and they find a whole new market for stuff that fans have contacted them about. quite a lot of glb stuff on that press.

RG: well we're talking about steve hegel's press.

RS: yeah but they don't sell themselves as a glb press.

RS: b/c i'm involved w/ glb fandom , we find that it is a lot easier to promote the gay aspects of works w/in the genre community than it is to promote and get acceptance of specultaive fictiona s a valid fiction in the glbt community. bookstroes, press - how often do you go into almbda book report & find reviews of speculative fiction works yet some of the most cutting edge thoughtful works for society, where we could go and get you thinking stuff is happening in speculative fiction - why does the gay press - we get plastered all over genre press, on the front page of scifi.com, on the cover of locus magazine; we're everywhere. we've had over last 8 years two appearances in glbt publications; never in the advocate; one appearance in planetout; and a san francisco newspaper did this tiny thing on page 37 in lower left hand corner. at some point you're like screw you why do we care?

aud: i agree i talk to lesbians who say at our store they will never pick it up

RS: so how do you break genre prejudice. ... cross-genre. b/c suddenly romance is ... suddenly getting sf & fantasy books marketed as romance and they're doing really well.

RG; if you walked up to a group of lesbians said here's laurie marks' book and they didn't know what they were reading and they started to read it they would love this book ... maybe (groups) ... maybe many readers don't want thoughtfulness ... i want books that make me think.

aud: that's what it is with science fiction in general. two friends that read science fiction and most of the other people that i know won't read science fiction.

? people who freak at the thought of reading the future, crossing the line. ... look at lesbian crime & mystery buckets of it, so popular. lesbians read it, men read it.

RG: if you think about it, mystery is essentially a comfort genre, sceince fiction is not.

DS: speculative is not. it's really a marketing question. one of the things that pat murphy & i've been talking about a lot recently. whether a book is good or not has nothing to do with how it sells and a good book can sell and has nothing to do w/ quality of book. has to do w/ marketing problems, publishing industry, all sorts of things w/ nothing to do w/ what's on the page ... look at mayr doria russell's the psarrow ... the issue however is how they marketed it, it was written as a sf story and marketed as a literary story that pushes boundaries, na di f you listen to mary russell do her thing and say but it has a spaceship in it, and nyrob would say oh no it's literary ... until it won the tiptree they did not market it as science fiction. we have a real problem in this genre, nothing to do w/ glbt content, they look at it say it's just star wars.

RS: dirty little secret about how well sf/f sold and was not returned. but itt's not quite, a bit disreputable.

RG: the nancy uncle.

RS: the mary doira russell experience is the connie willis experience. you look at her books bantam and you don't see words science fiction on it. they look at it and say you know what it's better than that it rises above the grubbby little fingers of f/sf. but you know that hurts its sales.

JF: i actually get people who say i bought one of your books by accident and really liked it. ... now she reads everything else by me.

aud: didn't you get someone who won't read your book b/c it has strange characters on it.

LD: one thing i think can help to break genre prejudice is if authors cross-publish. i used to have a strong prejudice against gay press b/c i'd seen so much incredible crap. and then i read a story in collection by robert rhodie and it was absolutely brilliant and i went to look for etoheer things by him and they were all in gay press.

RS: are these flukes? are we missing things b/c of marketing?

RG: sturgeon's law applies; 90% of everything is crap ... we wade thru for gems. ...

DS: i will guarantee that any work you send me will be considered

RS: aurealis awards for glb sf in australia ... actually taken self-published books ... they've been tainted in my mind but they can be good

RG: putting on diff hat ... i review books ... i have to say that there's definitely as a reviewer a sense of being burned sometimes both in temrs of responses to reviews if you review something and in fact in the srots of things people expect you to read and say something good about. as a gay person i essentially have been told by at least one publication that i used to write reviewsw for that you are not allowed to say anything negative about a book by a gay author b/c that's homophboic. ... the washington blade. i don't write reviews for them any more. i have had a gaty author whose book did not make it on the shortlist for gaylactric spectrum awards publicly accuse the awards of being homophboic b/c they didn't put his book on the shortlist. and we were homophbic b/c i'm a ga y author, and if they're not gay authors, they're crap. there's this real attitude problemsw/ some in the gay literary community about the validity of their experience over somebody else's experience

RS: but it doesn't amek for good writing nec and this is where we have the cdicothomy going on.

RG: when you have to wade thru as a reviewer 90% or more of crap to find something that's even readable never mind good you really stop even opening the packages that come.

RS: but this is ther eviewer's burden ... and i'm saying that tthe 1% ... tough job but somebody's gotta do it.

RG: good works from small presses have really been tarnished by less reputable small presses and self-publishers disguising themselves as small presses. there's no real way to tell them apart any more.

RS: what are thinking about trends. what have you noticed. you're going to golden crown thing, kyou're writing ...s o are we going to see some of the small presses start to expand to include sf/f or start to include romance ... or what

JF: i don't see much in way of trends. the POD has really stirred things up. you can actually do small volumes. if you're aiming nat a gay audience ... as opposed to a straight audience ... in sf genre is open to alternate sexualities, sf book sare aimed at the hwole thing, and there are sf books just aimed at gay community for various reasons. off-topoic slightly ... for me, talking about seeing your own life validated in the fiction ... for me actually reading lesbian romance is very important. the reason i'm a elsbian is not b/c i have sex w/ women, not a lifestyle statement, it's b/c i fall in love w/ women...i could ignore desire but falling in love forces me to make lifestyle decisions. and romance gets looked down on. but if you're straight the whole world validates your chocies, parties, gifts, rings ... heterosexuals falling in love. if you're gay this enormous emotion you feel, it's the last one the straight world is going ... straight friends don't actually accept that when i fall in love it's just as insane, powerful etc. ... so i do read lesbian romance b/c it's very important and the only place i can get that is thru fiction. they don't need to read lesbian fiction the way i need to ... have i lost the point totally?

RS: no i think you've maade a n important point.

jF: if you put the two [fsf/romance] together i'm in heaven. the mainstream presses ... gay press that's where you're going to get lesbian/gay romance. i don't see that aspect ever really stropping over to mainstream b/c girl reads girl ...

RS: sum up of trends 10 minutes left ... let's all name gems / favorites

LD: hope - one of authors written brilliant work ... rachel pollack is coming out w/ a collection about future of transgender w/ a short story by her. i'm hopeful b/c trans is becoming more visible in alrger culture. and something in theory ...

RS: can i ask if you write? we need more people who are trans who write and their family and friends.

JF: only trans writer i know is -- but she writes straight lesbian mystery

LD: a trans writer doesn't have to write trans and the lesbian stuff i think sells much better

RG: onen of the trends i've seen b/c i've had the luxury of being able to watch thru short fiction ... a lot of new writers, particularly thru outlets like strange horizons, which is wonderfully glbt accepting ... these writers are now at point in their careers where being published by main genre publishers & their work is just infused w/ sensibility that of course any world that's outt here any society that's out there is going to have queerness in it. i have not seen a signle book by any of these people who came out of the group of newer writers who are not having at least a couple of characters who are queer ... just out there, more and more of it. strangehorizons.com professional short fiction magazine, online. free. rigorously edited.

DS: i've been so busy w/ politics in last year really notn reading a lot. point of view of a writer. not a trend a thought. if you are published in lesbian press then publishers don't really know how to market to genre community. if you're published in genre press they so do not know don't even conceive of marketing to lesbian/gay glbt community. so it's really up to writer to do the crossover in some way. i would suggest that if you're a woman writer get involved in broaduniverse.org ; hopefully hold a marketing seminar next year; writer shave to pick up the ball. publishing industry has so many problems not enough time to pick them up.

audiences lists -
* mary shannon / sword of the guardian -
* any of jane fletcher's books
* snowcrash
* diane duane - allegedly fourth book was going to come out thru meisha merlin. she hasn't finished writing it yet.
* lois mcmaster bujold has a lot of lesbian/gay/bi characters and does really wonderful stuff w/ gender. miles vorkosigan but alos fantasy series.
* stuff from 30s 40s 50s - the ship who sang
* women of wonder
* friends of library groups places for authors to contact b/c guest as meeting
* ya / kind of afntasy would be francesca lia block / weetzie bat books
* storm constantine
* the shadowman / melissa scott
* amy thompson storyteller
* joanna russ / female man
* marge piercy
* kirith kirin / jim grimsley
* jewelle gomez
* wen spencer
* sylvia townsend warner / lolly willowes - 1926

lots of slip-streamy, "magical realism" kind of stuff that is often not marketed as sf as well as small press:
* ellen galford / dyke & the dybbuk, fires of bride, queendom come
* carol guess / switch
* jonathan lerner / caught in a still place
* mark merliss / an arrow's flight
* shani mootoo / cereus blooms at night
* susan stinson / martha moody

RS: i enjoyed this panel and a wonderful audience ... when i did this ... in 70s. .. holy cow it was hard. uranian worlds ... lyn paleo & eric garber had co-edited. and it was really really hard to come up with books. We are so spoiled ...

[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]]

Military Women: Past, Present, Future (WisCon 30 Panel)

2006-06-21T01:43:26Z

162.83.198.150: /* Notes/Transcript */

==Panel Description==

==Panelists==

==Notes/Transcript==

''transcript notes by Laura Quilter ... please fill in, correct, add commentary as needed''

... women in military

... notes starting at 9:19am; panel started at 8:30!!! big gap.

Nancy Jane Moore: there's still a bias for reproduction - we have lots of kids

Delany: issues of women in the military & status of people gay of both genders are basically contoured by population probelm ... and for humanity to survive we have to stop having so many children, by a major factor - there have to be several generations where birthrate is not brought down by 5, 7%, but by 40% - and when that happens maybe we'll get back to a sensible way to live. but in 2000 years we've gone from a species with maybe 500 million to 6 billion - that's insane.

NJM: in your lifetime we've more than doubled - i knew it had grown a lot - somebody born in 1960 - the population doubled and we already knew about it. shift ... expanded roles for women can be a positive part of making that shift. you don't have to have children to be a real woman, you don't have to kill to be a real man.

audience: maybe if we have fewer people we won't need wars

delany: war is very effective for bringing down population

Victoria Gaydosik - disease is even more effective

delany: why do you thinkw e have a world aids epidemic

VG: ... go out and fight diesease. part of that fight might be exposing yourself to it to build antibiotics. that would be a form of service, in warfare, you would be risking your life, in say a hot zone ... what are the diseases so deadly, say ... build a resistance to spread thru population ... how do we know we're not already at war with some other species sending not bombs but microbes

jane susan fletcher - science fiction trivia question - ... enemy spacecraft crashes and pilot is a pregnant woman who was put in there b/c she has faster reflexes ...

njm: chip has done that

jsf: you're thinking of heinlein in starship troopers pointed out women have faster reflexes

njm: don't you do that (chip?) in -- ?

delany: i don't remember ... laughter

aud: ... combat, what does that say about genetic mixing

vict: would pull it back

david haseman

aud: i don't think the joint chiefs say jeepers we don't have enough of gany gene in our mix and go and invade. seriously i'm tryin gto figure out if there are background genetic issues that drive us how do they bubble up thru the chain of command

dh: talking about two diff things - authors who are fantasy writers who are dealing w/ genetic imperatrive (having children) and also writers who are near future, far future & alt history, who do not have to do that, two diff discussions in same room 7 i can see your confusion.

njm: i think the genetic mixing sort of thing is something we don't understand biologically, but there are certain things we do b/c ... life will out. we do things that will preserve life that have nothing to do w/ our conscious decisionmaking but that go back alon g the way one celled creatures become two cells ... there must be a biologist in the room; don't call me on it ... i don't think anyone ever thought of genetic mixing, which is usually considered a bad thing culturally, socially, but is a good thing genetically. ... biology was outing pushing us out there to do it. i don't know if it's true but i think it's one theory in terms of survival making as much diversity in the human race.

VG: talking about human race but we have also have national interests and nations have economic interests

JF: ... oil ... control

aud: not a part of modern warfare but ancient warfare, women considered a prize - sexual gratification and happened to get pregnant ... genetic mixing may have been a byproduct

aud: no doub tthat some of the genetic cleansing nthat's gone on has been driven by this

aud: so consequences may not have been a goal, just a side-effect

aud: just to add to comment about interbreeding, one of the recent articles in last month's new scientist was looking at ... two attempts, two periods in which humans diverged from apes but seemed to go back together again ... so genetic variety with interbreeding

JSF: wart is usually about controlling land. what war does is assert control of land, that's what armies tare there for. and one thing about ... future ... democracies tend to be far less warlike than any other form of govt. ... b/w end of ww2 and outbreak of fighting in fighting in yugoslavia ... can't think of war b/w two democracies

aud: germany & france

- they had the forms but not the actual democracy

JSF: a future of democracies where war gets less & less common ... b/c democracies tend to not have war b/c it's high risk so unless they're certain it's going to win they're more likely to talk their way around it.

NJM: but there is a panel called [[Is the US a dictatorship yet? (WisCon 30 Panel)|are we living in a dictatorship yet]] - and the fragility of a democracy - the sheer fact that we're ... democracy is a fragile thing; germany was technically a democracy but had already lost most of what made it democracy. a good argument in favor of participatory govts of various kinds ... but i'm not sure we can count on it.

VG: sometimes my probably most cynical thought about the military is the reason we keep having conflicts break out is that we have to have training grounds fo rnext generation of military leaders.

JF: ... brotherinlaw fighting in ireland ... does confer an advatnage. but northern ireland actual fatalities of england were very small but did mean that every british soldier had done a tour and had had an experience of commanding ... war games but actually experience

DH: as i said my dad was a grad and i'm a grad, and if you wantn to find a bunch of pacifists who do not want to get shot at, go to the military and say hey what do you think of this. ... i can promise you that the men & women in the armed forces are not saying oh yeah i really want to do this. there's the 2% psychopaths but those people are also running around in ny & dc shooting people, and they're in the military, and also in the officer corps and i can tell you that ... [incident about officer finding someone to shoot mayor]

aud: economic issues of recruiting ... in 70s women went into law enforcement etc so they could afford family. two different levels in which people are making experience.

DH: people who were in reserve & national guard are expecting to do it for their state & country ... they're expecting to be deployed to california in time of earthquake, not to iraq

aud (LQ): race/minority recruiting ... service

NJM: so many women ... this is a job. for women, you can work at mcdonald's or to got military. military doesnt pay a lot better but has a lot of benefits. ... people thinking service, but after sept 11th they're thinking i'll be available, but they're thinking how am i going to protect my neighbors ...

JF: armies were pretty much invented by romans ... in advance ... armiest in historic times were very different. romans invented professional army. ... idea of brniging in the young and disinfecting. ... send them somewhere else.

VG: the military is something of a throwback to an aristocratic system.

aud (LQ): spanish civil war

aud: israeli army moved ... original army moved from very informal and moved to command and control. changed that there is a professional army structure.

aud: ... dutch army is unionized ... but they don't have a lot of combat experience

aud: maybe that's saying something right there ...

aud: they haven't been invaded by germany that way

aud: i'd like to see more sf experiments about moving to a society where they don't have war any more. i'm thinking of experiments about women as booty, i don't know about women as booty, but women are still dying, rape & murder in war, women are still involved w/ war very much, and ndavid i'm just wondering what would happen if not nec w/ what david s talking about re: women on front lines, let's not even go there ... military will evolve, why not train women in combat not to go fight, but when you get invaded, men are protecting women but what about women back home ... they're vulnerable. why not train women to protect themselves so that rape & pillage element is taken out. and what if your booty can fight back. would that dissipate ... i know countries that everyone requires a gun at home

aud: switzerland

NJM: yeah they have a high percentage of women murders too

DH: why do schools have a higher percentage of ... army navy have done research on physical qualities of trained men & women and show that they're the same and folks who say that women are smaller & weaker haven't studied women who are trained

aud: women are let off the hook too easily

DH: not that they're let off the hook but they're crippled

aud: i'm a pacifist, i don't like th eidea of training herslef, but nancy trains herself

dh: you can learn martial arts and be a pacifist. if you exercsercise pain on someone else as part of martial arts you've both lost. ... training yourself to establish a limit, you can come thi sfar and no farther, and you train everyone, men and women alike -

aud: do you think that would be a deterrent hundreds of years from now

njm/dh: yes!

njm; i think if you train that, eliminate that victimization, i think that maybe the step you take toward getting a society without war.

nobody ever talks about it ...

aud (LQ): i agree w/ what you're saying but can you distinguish it b/w heinlein's mantra that an armed society is a polite one.

njm: heinlein's view, that's a primitive one

dh: i would say that rather an armed society is a civil onee, i would say rather that a prepared society is a ... i draw the line at arms ... offering and protecting space is civility ... i still have cards if anybody is interested in contacting that professor at west point

aud: i would say an armed society in israel - they're rude but don't try to rob a bank

last comments

DH: thank you for one diff b/w theis panel this year & last year. last year we were saying could women be in the military. thank you for letting us be able to take past that.

==category/tags==

[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]]

Uncomfortable Politics in Feminist Writing (WisCon 30 Panel)

2006-06-21T01:42:18Z

162.83.198.150:

==Panel Description==

An exploration of the feminist politics of making the reader uncomfortable. We'll use obscenity, violence, violation of the body's boundaries, and dystopia as tools to explore feminist thought. Examples of books are the [[Kushiel series]], ''[[Walk to the End of the World]]'', ''[[Touched by Venom]]'', and ''[[Air]]''. (Or [[Monique Wittig]]'s ''[[The Lesbian Body]]'' in which she describes mutual anatomical dissection.) For example, mainstream non-feminist movies and books often have rape scenes that are highly eroticized from the perpetrator's point of view. When these violations of body-boundaries are described from the point of view of the violated, it's obscene, it makes readers uncomfortable, and that's worth discussing.

==Panelists==

[[Cassandra Elinor Amesley]] (moderator), [[Paula L. Fleming]], [[Liz Henry]], [[Tea Hvala]] (not present), [[Geoff Ryman]]

aud = unidentified speaker from the audience. (If you were the "aud" who spoke, please add a name wherever appropriate!)

==Works Discussed==

* Frodo & Sam's relationship
* mommy bloggers
* "[[28 Days Later (film)|28 Days Later]]"
* "[[The A-Team (TV series)|The A-Team]]"
* [[Gregg Araki]]'s "[[Mysterious Skin (film)|Mysterious Skin]]"
* "[[Silence of the Lambs (film)|Silence of the Lambs]]"
* [[Octavia Butler]]'s [[Xenogenesis Trilogy]]
* [[Jacqueline Carey]]'s [[Kushiel's Dart]], [[Banewreaker]] and [[Godslayer]]
* [[Samuel R. Delany]]'s [[Dhalgren]]
* [[L. Timmel Duchamp]] [[Alanya to Alanya]] and [[Renegade]] and [[The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding)]]
* [[Mary Gentle]]'s [[Golden Witchbreed]] and [[Ancient Light]]
* [[Nicola Griffith]]'s [[Slow River]]
* [[Joe Haldeman]]'s [[Camouflage (novel)|Camouflage]]
* [[Robert A. Heinlein]] [[The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress]]
* [[Elizabeth A. Lynn]]'s [[The Sardonnyx Net]]
* [[Maureen McHugh]] [[Mission Child]]
* [[Tricia Sullivan]] ''[[Maul]]''

==Transcript/Notes==

''Original transcript by Laura Quilter ... please add in, fill in, correct, add comments as needed''

Geoff Ryman - (... initial comments missed ... ) when characters are weak - that's the kind of discomfort that's really useful

GR: a few things that push my button - I personally as a writer not a reader have a real strong need for autonomy, independence, so when I'm reading about a character particularly a female char who still lets herself be dependent on others ... particularly [[Maureen McHugh]]'s ''[[Mission Child]]'' b/c you have a woman who comes from a culture where everyone depends on everyone else & she's taken from that culture and put in an urban environment and she keeps depending on this person and that person and everyone keeps letting her down and ooh I wanted to smack her - perfectly understandable where she was coming from - so that's one thing as a feminist, how do I deal with characters who aren't standing on their own two feet.

GR: another thing that interested me on this panel - the issue of victimization - horribly shitty things can happen even to very strong people -and even very strong people can make mistakes and how do we make that work in a way - example in program book was rape but I think any number of things can happen to make someone a victim w/out losing sympathy for them. ... just like juries in rape cases tend to pull back, you don't want to identify w/ victim ... how to do victim and still portray as a strong sympathetic person.

mod Cassandra Elinor Amesley: I hate it, get most uncomfortable when people I know about are invisible. Obviously I don't get uncomfortable where I have a blind spot. I get uncomfortable if class/economic background is not foregrounded or is misrepresented. Certainly gender things like that. Like most writers I write b/c I have stories to tell and I want to tell them but I also feel hopeful that some of the info motivates someone someday to be as angry as I am. So those are my motives for making people uncomfortable & for writing general

mod: Now if we can talk about maybe what got you interested in this panel or what thoughts triggered - what made people uncomfortable.

GR: the awards last year for the year before, [[Tricia Sullivan]]'s book, a book called ''[[Maul]]'', set in a shopping mall but spelled maul, and it's an extremely violent book, and very very uncomfortable, starts out with a young, one wants to say totally consumer-oriented, girl masturbating w/ her gun, ... an incredibly violent book and made me feel incredibly uncomfortable because I didn't know the extent to which I was invited to take it seriously & the extent to which I was invited to enjoy it b/c it was unenjoyable ... women shooting women and lots of innocent bystanders and I just didn't get it ... then cuts to a formally ... book ... brilliant ...a man in a cage ... then the two stories converge in a completely ... but the first third of the book ... thought if I can stick with it I will understand it ...

GR: stuck with it

GR: first of all I as a clarke judge ... you don't get many real science fiction novels ... had fantastic written power

mod: would you have been as uncomfortable if it was men shooting men

GR: yeah. ... I was more uncomfortable b/c it was a woman writer and I sensed there was some kind of critique going on ... if it were a man writer I would have said it was just shit ... someone who said that ... it was shit ...

[[Liz Henry]] enters - sorry... late... "I blame the [[patriarchy]]"

mod: we started already; first question is what's dear to your heart in terms of changing things ... answer would be useful especially as you're probably still thinking

LH: You mean why it might be useful to make people uncomfortable?

mod: No, what do you want to change? Why do you care?

mod: As a writer

LH: I want everybody to have a voice and to not be afraid of making mistakes and to speak up and see what happens and for everybody to speak up and change what they say... I want people to step down from expertise and authority and to speak individually and to arrive at collaborative conclusions ...

mod: Very good for someone just getting off an elevator! second question is what did the name of the panel trigger for you in terms of thoughts that made you uncomfortable

[[Paula Fleming]] I probably answered this a little in the first go-round ... as far as what I'd like to change: one of the things again as a feminist writer i feel i guess rather impishly or perversely inspired to do in my work is to try to question what i think of as conventional liberal politics or conventional liberal thinking as much as i am part of that myself. and that means sometimes making a litlte bit of fun particularly of liberal white middle class do-gooders who wantn to help minorities and that kind of thing and i do turn the tables and poke fun ... particularly liberal white middle class people who have never met the people they want to do good about ... b/c that's my real life ... interview people who want nto work in a natural foods coop ... a lot of them are great people but i also meet a lot of people who are really liberal and want to save the world but have probably never really spoken w/ a homeless person b/c that would be icky

lh: i never know what to do ... start engaging ... that woudl be do-gooding on them ... example, the PTA, the middleclass / upper middle class people have in their mission to make the poor people AKA the latinos eat healthier in their home b/c they have bad cholesterol and their children will be fat ...and they have bad body images ... and it's certainly noble to want to eat well but the juries out on what that means ...

fem: of all the things that people have to worry about, pizza on the lunch menu has to be right up there

mod: ... asking liz about what you've done to make people uncomforrtable ... deferred till later

geoff: story set in a concentration camp ... deliberate attempt to break up .. very prevalent in the 80s, so definitely that one ...

mod: and how did you know they were uncomfortable.

GR: the strange thing is that actually nobody was. it was timed well enough that everyone just said yeah ... you're so down on violence ... having to be black or brown, it was that kind of thing, very nightmare image, slightly surrealistic, and seemed to pull together and not offend anybody ... which is if one is congenitally ... ? blight? is one's fate ...

mod: sad. I am not published in fiction yet, I'm a poet, but I have been writing for a couple of years a particular story that I have taken to workshops. It's what I would call a very straightforward issue -- a story written from a first person point of view with two protagonists reporting what happened. One of them is someone named Miro (Miram?); the other is from a culture which does not distinguish by gender. So for the first couple of chapters you do not know what gender Miram is b/c a lot of people assume Miram is a female name b/c of its background ... The people who read were all upset: they wanted to know what gender Miram was and they wanted to know now. They were very clear that story wouldn't sell -- they wanted to known did he have balls or could he have children ... referred to as he so one character Miram is attracted to is refererrred to as a brother by his alassi friend ... definitely a woman by Miram ... whether she/he is romantically available is an issue. And again a lot of confusion from readers about - you've got to pick something that fits whatever gender this person is. Something I don't feel is necessary and something that puzzles me.

aud: are the people making these suggestions in the publishing world.

mod: some of them yes but hang on to the questions.

PF: i find that if i'm writing from male point of view b/c i have a female name and my name is on byline if i start as "i" people will assume female unless i give them a clue very quickly ... now it sounds like you're talking about point of view from someone who doesn't distinguish. that's a different issue. unless it's critical to story i will relieve reader's discomfort. quickly so i can tell the story i want to tell. ... other ways i've made people uncomfortable ... feedback i've gotten on stories. i've had one editor tell me a story was sexist b/c the man in the story boughth the woman a piece of clothing so she could go out to a nice restaurant w/ him b/c he was a very successful person and she didn't make a lot of money ... i've been in relationships where [money differentials], i didn't see it as a sexist thing but i guess it pushed someone's button ... what was the question again?

mod: i guess you just answered it. go back to liz

liz: yeah i thought of something to say. i guess i'd say i nblogging especially but even maybe before that crossing lines of public/private ticks people off, fuzzing or blurring boundaries makes people flip out b/c boundaries exist for good things so crossing them makes people perturbed. public/private is revealing too much information, exposing anything messy, violating someone else's privacy ... people are always concerned that by violating my own privacy i'm violating someone else's privacy. not respecting their boundaries. so if i talk about my feelings about my life, my preganncy that i'm violating my son's boundaries or my mom's etc. that just sme saying these things is ... dialog happening very heavily in [[mommy blogger]] community ... a lot of very intense feminist c-r is happening in that field. people are very concerned to protect you from revealing too much about yourself - they want to protect you ... and obsecenity is the other big thing. violence can be obscdene, sex can be obscene - what is obscene ... i think other things can be obscene, like wealth. like my 401(k) can be obscene.

mod: so the question for the panel is it good to make someone uncomfortable

GR: you can't have a good story without making someonen uncomfortable. pornography makes people very comfortable they don't have to think ... otherwise ... stories that will have to make them think make them more resonsible

mod: so you would have been disappointed when story you wrote did not make anyone uncomfortable

gr: it did provoke conversation ... for a very limited time, it's av ery dated story, but it did have a specific function for at ime

PF - yeah absolutely i want to make people uncomfortable unless i'm writing bedtime stories to help people fall asleep. yeah if i'm not - otherwise for me at least it's like what' the point. we have available to us so much media between the media & 200 channels of mostly shit on tv and all the rest of it there's so much info there there's no reason for me to add anything to it by writing a story unless i've got something to say that will take our thinking beyond that ... another thing that makes me really uncomfortable is financial insecurity. reading air right now, this character keeps losing her way of making a living ... and god that's making me nervous. one way to do it. way too often in our genre we assume that our characters have way too unlimited iresources...certainly our prince who goes off on adventures has no real problem ... may go hungry for a night but not really a problem ... horse in armor ... maybe one way in our highly material saturated culture

LH: who is it making people uncomfortable b/c maybe people who have something to lose are uncomfortable ... people who are poor maybe aren't uncomfortable

Paula Fleming: in our society if you took away somebody's tv that could get really edgy, you know

gr: in england the average wage is 25 thousand pounds a year but a lot of people are making 10 or 11 - the net result is lots of debt and the number of people making less with a huge person ... so maybe rich person reading would be uncomfortabe but if i'm reading it it's making me uncomfortable b/c that's a situation i'm in

lh: so maybe being out of control is ...

mod: if making people uncomfortable is making your story less easy to sell there's going to be a lot of writer angst there, in the slash sense of angst.

lh: on the other hand i'm not going out and watching movvies where women get raped and scream b/c that makes me uncomfortable but i'm not challenging myself there ...

mod: noticed that people who go to class panels think class is an issue, people who go to motherhood panels ... we don't go very far out of our way ... b/c first you have to sneak up on them

PF: liz raised a really good point b/c there are different kinds of discomfort b/c sometimes something can just be really sick or icky

mod: like homosexuality?

pf: for some people it would be. ... maybe this is not a way people don't want to grow ... i can't sit here and tell people how to grow ...

GR: hororr movies. i stopped reviewing movies b/c you really do get sick of movies w/ a 17yo girl being tied up w/ barbed wire and a cigarette ground out on her back ... and you can't find any purpose ... i don't think the people doing it are identifying with the victims; who are they identifying with ... and then you get [[Silence of the Lambs]] which is billed as a feminist horror movie but it's a slash titty movie ... i think they did track the problem of a trained competent person terrified out of her wits, they tracked that well, but all they did was dress up a slash film.

[discussion of film vs. book. ]

GR: but they did get competent female fear, they got that.

pf: yeah that's hard

mod: it's tempting to go into female gaze / male gaze but i'm going to push that to production. i picked homosexuality ... because it's one close to my ehart and i have had various students where i showed movies like my beautiful alundrette because in this case they can't deal with male on male romance. ... male on female romance earlier they felt apparently quite comfortable watching. so it becomes unsatisfactory to make them too uncomfortable because they'll shut down. and i'm wondering if you see a place where you negotiate choices between not too uncomfortable but beyond the boundaries of the comfort zone so they start noticing that in fact they have a comfort zone which is the first step.

pf: i think that is so hard because i think you face that ethical dilemma - you see it when people try to make war movies - i see it when i try to portray any kind of act ov violence sexual or other in a story - on the one hand if i sanitize it i'm not doing it justice, like [[The A-Team (TV series)|The A-Team]] -- bullets flying everywhere they don't fall down or they fall down but you don't see blood. I hate that fake violence, that's wrong, there needs to be real violence, it needs to be awful, it needs to have real consequences. But if you go too far into it it runs the risk of being gratuitous or runs the risk of being the 17 year old ... barbed wire ... cigarettes ground ... and that's not right either. and i think every scene like that, use your own best ethics to try to get the telling points across ... really hard ... you may never get it right for every reader.

GR: ... when i'm writing stuff, i'm ... am i being prurient, because i'm a human being too ... pretty warped... so all i can do is test-drive: "is this prurient", if i think there is, that's when i think this is the wrong kind of discomfort. so similarly i can only police my own reactions. If i think i'm really getting off on the violence then i think that's the wrong kind of discomfor then I shut down. The embarrassment I feel with the 17 year old - then I feel being asked to identify - that's prurient.

mod: the thing i've published slash, definitely erotic element, deliberate; one worries ... wanted to deal w/ class issues; found erotica was a great way to make people focus on class issues b/c they would read it for the sex and this way stay to think about in this case [[Frodo]] & [[Sam Gamgee|Sam]]'s inherent subordinate relationship. So would that fit in with your definition of prurient?

GR: slash fiction i've read is anything but prurient ... asked ... completely closeted ... asked to come to a room read about this much (gestures with hands spread about two feet apart) slash and as a gay man say whether it was realistic ... never imagined that people would want to slash ... but forutnately one of their little boys was in the room so nobody would say anything and then it took ages, just like gay lib, none of them would come out as writing this stuff. .... but they got the physical stuff completely right, on anal sex, but they did over-romanticize male-on-male relations.

mod: male-on-male slash is for women to have fantasy men who are useful for women's sexuality ... wondered a little bit. at this point i'm going to open it to questions from the audience in whichever question you want to the question in.

aud: Think of a sf/fantasy text that's made you uncomfortagble, and whether it still makes you uncomfortable.

mod: [[Robert A. Heinlein|Heinlein]]'s [[The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress|Moon Is a Harsh Mistress]] which I read in high school and I'd never thought of world in a political way before Heinlein and he makes some arguments which are shocking like individuals should have same right to execute as governments ... even though I now recognize it as more fascist than anarchist.

pf: trying to narrow it down to one example. one of the things i love about this genre is it so often makes me uncomfortable at least temporarily until i readjust my parameters ... i'll raise an example, mentioned in the program ... [[Kushiel's Dart]] series a little bit at least to start off with. and then you get used to it, the point of view of this particular character ... and then my parameter is shifted a little bit.

lh: of course i have a list like i'm sure everyone ... but i would mention actually speaking of [[Jacqueline Carey]] the [[Godslayer]] and [[Banewreaker]] boooks made me a little uncomfortable because i had thought of Tolkien and the race etc and i thought ooh why was i not aware of this and made me uncomfortable with my own lifetime of being blind about this. Another book would be [[L. Timmel Duchamp|Timmi Duchamp]]'s [[Alanya to Alanya]] and [[Renegade]] coming out soon which was fantastically uncomfortable in a really great way. imprisonment and i read a lot of prison literature ... and the imprisonment that also happened in [[The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding)]] is bleeding and the interrogation prison scenes b/w women and the women analystic torturer captive were so intense and a really really good read makes you think about a lot of things. but difficult to keep reading. made me think a lot of things about my own life and ... seeing the depth to which i'm subject to patriarchy is almost unbearable ... the pressure of double consciousness ... it's almost difficult to bear and makes you go a little bit crazy until you cn integrate.

aud: a book to add to list .. .[[Dhalgren]] by [[Samuel R. Delany|Delany]]. it's so beautifully written but it's gritty in a way i'm not used to reading. i'm not used to reading a book about conscious of fact that this character hasn't written a book in a long time.

katie: I'm sorry there's a couple of people who had hands up before you.

GR: I responded to paul a lot more uncomfortable about mainstream novels because they tend to pin me down much more horribly in here and now. terribly engineered choice in real world. ... [[Maul]] really disturbed me partly because i couldn't account for it.

lh: lori selke told me to read it so you should talk to her b/c she loved it passionately.

pf: a novel that disturbed me greatly was [[Nicola Griffith]]'s [[Slow River]]. Absolutely very disturbing exploration of power dynamics on various levels.

aud: speaking of things that make people uncomfortable i remember being in movie theater watching ''[[28 Days Later (film)|28 Days Later]]'' a fully naked man in hospital with full frontal nudity ... audience with nervous titters & palpable unrest. i wondered about it - obviously - just grow up people are uncomfortable about this but listening to panel i'm trying to unpack who and why and obviously elements about het women being homophobic but also i wonder about het women in movie theater being forced to confront male sexual organs. but another dimension i also wonder about in our society the nude male body, the male penis can make people nervous.

lh: the female penis can make people nervous too

aud: nudity too can just make people nervous

GR: i think there's a certain vulnerability when people are naked in front of the camera and can't move. that vulnerability is highlighted when it's a male because we're not used to seeing it.

aud: working on a story for a while. definitely make most people uncomfortable because written from alien point of view not human but doesn't have a gender but can take on either gender when it interacts with other races. curious if you've seen others

last year's tiptree winner [[Camouflage (novel)]] ... [[Octavia Butler]]'s [[Xenogenesis Trilogy]].

pf: taboos around male nudity female nudity ... I also write erotica as sf/f ... When I was at [[Clarion]] one of my instructors was [[Samuel R. Delany]] ... He gave a reading as was traditional; he read some of his highly erotic work. One of the students asked him why do you write about sex so much. He said I guess I see sex portrayed a whole lot in ways that are really unrealistic so I want to talk about the way it really is. So even when I'm writing erotica I describe bodies like real bodies not idealized bodies because I think they're sexier ... women have dimples in their butts and little potbellies.

lh: zits

pf: i don't know about zits that might break the mood. and i portray sex the way it really is because i think that's much more interesting ... in tv we see it over & over that two people their eyes meet boom they get horizontal and have perfect sex. excuse me? i don't think so! so all the awkwardness 7 clumsiness that can go into encounters i find interesting & revealing.

lh: i have a question - liked question about think about what you found uncomfortable ... productive discomfort vs. what you found yukky and uncomfortable.

aud: film [[Mysterious Skin (film)]] i don't remember ...film by [[Gregg Araki]]. male homosexuality and child abuse difficult movie to watch but also really wonderful. a productive kind of discomfort. so i would recommend it highly.

aud: a very interesting sort of productive discomfort that i've found when i'm readina a text and it doesn't work. and it keeps needling back in tyour heart. 15 years ago reading a female gothic - normally sorts out in the end ... got to the end of this one and the ghost didn't work ... ghost wasn't ... eventually it was so productive i got half a phd out of it ... it took that long to explain why it didn't work ... it wasn't that it was bad ... it didn't work ... not badly written ... "passive many shadows" ?

aud [[Sylvia Kelso]]: as a reader i'm making an agreement with author that i'm here to learn or just be entertained. a book that made me horribly uncomfortable in a way that i've never gotten over because i think it broke the compact i don't know if you remember an english author called [[Mary Gentle]] who wrote [[Golden Witchbreed]] - the ending of [[Ancient Light]] took the entire two books and just took your legs out from under you, i don't want to spoil it too bad if you've never read it, basically she killed her world off; years later it's physically upsetting to me that the characters that i came to love and the planet ... and it broke the compact but as i get older and ... ultimately out on the limb can you trust me ...

aud: [[Ancient Light]] is one of those amazing books ... the thing that was so traumatic about is that it was a [[post-colonial]] novel ... destruction is brought on by outsiders who come into this world. at the end of it all the people on the world you've come to love just get killed ...

GW phenomenally well-written

aud [[Sylvia Kelso]]: novel extraordinarily well written satisfying in its denouement but character ... made me uncomfortable in ways i did not find productive - is that the term we've been using? - [[The Sardonnyx Net]] by [[Elizabeth A. Lynn|Elizabeth Lynn]] - there's a character in there who is a sadist; he derives great pleasure from causing pain to people for political purposes; he's foiled in part by his sister who's also in a power regime. the novel is well constructed. she has i think accurately captured the psychology of the guy. but i don't know that i would want to read that novel again and experience through his eyes the pleasure he got from the actions he took.

mod: reminds me of - i was influenced by [[John Gardner]] on moral fiction. i was academically trained writer - in all these writers' workshops. most of the people in these workshops were outraged at the concept that you're accountable for your production. the idea was pure text. art and artist sinteract and produce an ideal work and it has nothing to do with expect - audience should not be involved except afterwords - result is that some people seem to me to write into the universe really negative things - not what you're describing about not getting it in the [[Maul]] - you might be able to trust them and

mod: see what they're doing

mod: but for many people the only reason is pleasure or spectacle - i was wondering for writers here if you feel you're accountable to a community & if so what

GR; i think i'm accountable in the sense that as soon as i use fiction to try to recruit or sell them my vision or whatever agenda for good or ill i'm probably breaking compact with reader. i don't know about community but i think reader comes to work - so as actual experience there - it either ratifies experience they've had or they're coming to a book because it's a way of life they haven't had and they want to be free to trust the narrative to form their own narrative. i also police my work to see if i'm trying to use my fiction to show them.
... i think it would be wrong to set things right ... the bargain is you're going to love this, be totally unchanged ... that's entertainment and there' snothing wrong with it ... the other is literature. the compact is (literature) that i'm working as hard as i can to create a complex interesting picture of reality to work through issues or things in the world ... it's a platform for them to imagine their way through a set of issues & problems. anything else i should be writing an essay, a critical - and i probably should be

lh: thinking vague thoughts again about blogging & diaries. nothing to do with science fiction.

GR: online community

LH: with online communities people start to have expectations of you. i do feel intense pressure to "keep it real" a weird line that people will be offended not by political opinions but by details of my personal life and if i don't feel them then i feel i'm betraying truth.

GR: ... one to one ... absolutely implicit ...

LH: but i actually think about that, i don't want to be entertainment. question. that's part of what makes blogging, can be literary.

GR: but what's interesting about blogging is that it is an online community, audience is online producer

LH: ... as far as fiction i'm still thinking about online fiction, [[Renegade]]. like [[Mary Gentle]], your mind is blown.

pf: whole discussion aside - i have to think when i'm writing my only responsibility is to my characters - and being a true voice for them - and if i'm in a right place i won't betray the standards & values & ethics of any community whose issues or point of view i may be trying to respresent in a work of fiction. but that's not something i can force thru technique or craft; it has to arise from my stance as a human being before i sit down at the computer. my heart & gut have to be in right place & then it has to be about the characters.

mod: killing off a character is hard ... you are creating a living breathing person in a way and you should feel responsibility, even if you kill them for the betterment of the plot ... one character i was happy to kill because she was a bureaucrat ... but once you understand them it's hard to not feel for them. ... once i've created a reality, that reality exists in its odd fictional way, and if you create a fiction that says there is no hope, there is no possibility of change, you are doing something extremely immoral, and i wouldn't do it, and i wouldn't do the thing that makes me feel that way.

pf: i agree - if something is a big long downer and says that life sucks etc. - i can read the newspaper for that.

mod: and it's not true - with exception of entropy which will get us all one day

aud: i've been distrurbed ever since panel about [[Why Women Write About Gay Men (WisCon 30 Panel)|women writing about gay men]]. rape is eroticized. we've come so far since [[Susan Brownmiller]]. i didn't know what [[slash]] was or [[yaoi|japanese thing]] was ...

mod: come [[Kissing Harry Potter (WisCon 30 Panel)|tomorrow at 10]] when i actually talk about slash. it's not that all slash is ritual rape or bondage and other eroticization of volence. serious bondage and rape and murder as part of the process. but there is a significant body of work that does that.

lh: very interesting that slash that fanfic labels its stories thusly so that you're warned. so this story is noncon (nonconsensual), romance, chan, etc. darkfic. people labeling because they know it might be wrong ...

mod: they kill off women too.

... mod to bring it back to discomfort liz's point is really good to lessen the discomfort they put it all out there but they warn you in advance. the belief is that your accountability is just to warn somebody ... no accountability for creating a universe where rape is a first step on the way to a relationship.

lh: that's what fanfic community was basically [[Arcana (fanwankery)|accusing me]] of, something akin to rape, that by longlisting [[Arcana (fanfic)]] i did something horrible to [[E. Brunson]]; by labeling, people were very concerned right from the get-go ... the first question that came up was, "did you warn her that you were longlisting?" that would never come up with another title. It's a different community ethic that has developed...

mod: .... fanfic discussion.

GR: so they're writing something about noncon sex and then they're upset that somebody didn't ask their permission for longlisting it

mod: that's a really good example.

==Categories/Tags==
[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]]

Tiptree Awards Ceremony (2006)

2006-06-21T01:41:27Z

162.83.198.150: categories

''Original transcript by Laura Quilter -- please fill in, correct, amend as needed''

==Introduction==
[[Jeanne Gomoll]]: for final event bring up tiptree motherboard ...

==Tiptree Jurors==
[[Liz Henry]]: i had a wonderful time on the tiptree jury ... matt ruff, hiromi goto until hse had to drop out ... death in the family ... so we were extremely pleased to put several books on the shortlist and i think that our shortlist and longlist represent the diversity of our opinions. and i loved all of these books and i loved talking about them for a year ... which was really really fun. matt and i just remailed each other about how we kinda of miss it.

[[Matt Ruff]]: that's sort of what we said.

on the short list is ... "[[Little Faces (short story)|Little Faces]]" ... ''[[Remains (novel|Remains]]'', ''[[A Brother's Price (novel)|A Brother's Price]]''

we were ...

we all loved AIR, and we settled on it with wild enthusiasm as the winner for the tiptree...we were very pleased to talk about and what i thought was interesting that wae all loved it for different reasons, different intersecting reasons ... i loved it personally for its beautiful writing and its complicated and gripping story. but those things ndon't make it win the tiptree. what makes it win the tiptree is that it expands and explores gender. ... it complciated what it means to be a woman ... the main character may umm had many roeles she was a mtoher, wife, entrepreneur. her -- inf act she was a mother of children who had recently left the house and her role was very much in transition. then w/ the advent of new technology she was plunged into a world of double consciousness, madness, dealing very deeply w/ theaging, changing ... cross-cultural, relationships w/ women, politics, local, national ... very interesting...so many levels to this book ... the ending gave me chills na d made me pace around the house insanely talking nto myself and pacing around the house in the middle of the night. i love that kind of ending. my husband hates that kind of ending b/c i'm apcing around the house in the middle of the night ... controversial ending and i can't say what it is b/c it's a spoiler. but it and many other things right int he middel fo the book are a beautiful disruption of science fiction ... comfortable for us ... world of science ficiotnn we understand what's going on ... the disruption puts us into a different place, magical realism, which we're going to kill after the panel today ... a different ... that's difficult to swallow ... [laughter] yes. makes us as a reader feel outsider to the story that we're in ... make us understand gender ... women's role ... a way to explore women's role as something of a prdouction. so that's what i leave you with b/c a lot of people have approached me to ask what is this weird thing about ...

matt - it was a privilege to serve w/ all members of of the jury & especially liz ... final list much better ... let's do it again some time ...

by september last year the tiptree judges had begun to grow concerned. more than half our time was gone. ... interesting submissions particularly in the area of harry potter / csi fanfic ... but nothing that screamed give me the itara. it was at this point ... email ... a novel called air left over from the previous year's deliberations that we might want to take a look at .. in hindsight ... clear a maneuver performed on behalf oa the secret feminist cabal ... air turned out to be the story of residents in a village in a country that ends in -stan. ... what impressed me about geoff ryman was not just what ihe did but what he didn't. could have been humorless polemic ... could have romanticized third world poverty ... what i took away from air is that technological progress is a wonderful thing ... also painful ...b urden does not fall evenly ... someone gets the scutwork ... in air she is the hero fo the story.

six chapters in when i turned to my wife and said ... in a year when the tiptree judges sometimes despaired of agreeing nabout anything ... short list, long list ... but when we talke dabout what should win the decision was swift and it was unanimous. and so mr. ryman sir i believe this belongs to you ...

==Award==
tiara is placed on geoff ryman's head.

... check.

tiara ... award ... a beautiful work of art representing air .

a work of silk art

==Geoff Ryman==
[[Geoff Ryman]]: thank you. we should probably have a round of applsause ... queen for a day or something ... only not just for a day ... ... this jacket, it says, love and happiness, ... which kind of describes wiscon. if i want to rwrite a novel set in heaven i think heaven is going to look something like wiscon. i can't figure out whether the extraordinary well-=done organization allows everyone to be so kind or whether the kindness allows ... probably chicken and eggs .. no other convention like it ... with check by jowl conversation about all the things we care about ... i feel strange being up here ... the one thing that will stop you writing fatster than anything else is arrogance ... and all this stuff ... thank you so much. air was a difficult sell, it was a difficult write. i assumed nothing would happen to it whatsoever. i assumed it would come out & disappear. i knew that in my bones. and it's very strange to discover your bones can be that wrong. i now actually believe it oculd be a good book. i don't know who tot hank,. there seems to be so many people to thank ... the lovely lady ... the wondoerful people who left a basket of fruit on my bed. i came in , there was a basket of fruit it was terrific ... you have no idea .. how kind it is to let someone know BEFORE they set in this room ... b/c normally what happens, ... you sit in a room, and john clute comes up to you and says you know how these things go ... and someone else comes up and says i voted for you ... they're telling me i didn't win. smile and keep smiling. and you lean over and shake each other's hands and sometimes they really are your best friend. a... and you seit there and think why am i so nervousl. we know all these books are .. certainly true of all these marvelous books ... the people who came here b /c of the long list ... they deserve a round of applause ... and so i came up with a spirit of joy , my first time at a wiscon, i will certainly be back. applause. and again i'm trying to think of all the people i should thank, the people who organized the award, artshow, convention, the people who chased me around and around this room, but seriously i cannot think of another convention i would be so happy to be chased around a room.

==Tips==
[[Ellen Klages]]: We will sing to you now.

[[Pat Murphy]]: [[The Tips]] change with each [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award|Tiptree Award]]. Some remain the same and I will get Delia and Ellen to actually lead because I can't sing.

Those of you in the audience please join in.

(sung to the tune of "The Man on the Flying Trapeeze")

:He wrote the book ''Air'' with the greatest of ease,
:Geoff Ryman is here, and he's eager to please.
:The means of production
:His characters seize,
:And now he has won an award.
:
:In a faraway village, high fashion was born,
:But for new technology, people had scorn.
:A tiara is something
:Chung Mae would have worn,
:But Geoff gets to wear one today!
:
:''repeat''

[[category:WisCon 30 Events]] [[category:Tiptree]] [[category:Awards Ceremonies]]

Tiptree Awards Ceremony (2006)

2006-06-21T01:40:07Z

162.83.198.150:

''Original transcript by Laura Quilter -- please fill in, correct, amend as needed''

[[Jeanne Gomoll]]: for final event bring up tiptree motherboard ...

[[Liz Henry]]: i had a wonderful time on the tiptree jury ... matt ruff, hiromi goto until hse had to drop out ... death in the family ... so we were extremely pleased to put several books on the shortlist and i think that our shortlist and longlist represent the diversity of our opinions. and i loved all of these books and i loved talking about them for a year ... which was really really fun. matt and i just remailed each other about how we kinda of miss it.

[[Matt Ruff]]: that's sort of what we said.

on the short list is ... "[[Little Faces (short story)|Little Faces]]" ... ''[[Remains (novel|Remains]]'', ''[[A Brother's Price (novel)|A Brother's Price]]''

we were ...

we all loved AIR, and we settled on it with wild enthusiasm as the winner for the tiptree...we were very pleased to talk about and what i thought was interesting that wae all loved it for different reasons, different intersecting reasons ... i loved it personally for its beautiful writing and its complicated and gripping story. but those things ndon't make it win the tiptree. what makes it win the tiptree is that it expands and explores gender. ... it complciated what it means to be a woman ... the main character may umm had many roeles she was a mtoher, wife, entrepreneur. her -- inf act she was a mother of children who had recently left the house and her role was very much in transition. then w/ the advent of new technology she was plunged into a world of double consciousness, madness, dealing very deeply w/ theaging, changing ... cross-cultural, relationships w/ women, politics, local, national ... very interesting...so many levels to this book ... the ending gave me chills na d made me pace around the house insanely talking nto myself and pacing around the house in the middle of the night. i love that kind of ending. my husband hates that kind of ending b/c i'm apcing around the house in the middle of the night ... controversial ending and i can't say what it is b/c it's a spoiler. but it and many other things right int he middel fo the book are a beautiful disruption of science fiction ... comfortable for us ... world of science ficiotnn we understand what's going on ... the disruption puts us into a different place, magical realism, which we're going to kill after the panel today ... a different ... that's difficult to swallow ... [laughter] yes. makes us as a reader feel outsider to the story that we're in ... make us understand gender ... women's role ... a way to explore women's role as something of a prdouction. so that's what i leave you with b/c a lot of people have approached me to ask what is this weird thing about ...

matt - it was a privilege to serve w/ all members of of the jury & especially liz ... final list much better ... let's do it again some time ...

by september last year the tiptree judges had begun to grow concerned. more than half our time was gone. ... interesting submissions particularly in the area of harry potter / csi fanfic ... but nothing that screamed give me the itara. it was at this point ... email ... a novel called air left over from the previous year's deliberations that we might want to take a look at .. in hindsight ... clear a maneuver performed on behalf oa the secret feminist cabal ... air turned out to be the story of residents in a village in a country that ends in -stan. ... what impressed me about geoff ryman was not just what ihe did but what he didn't. could have been humorless polemic ... could have romanticized third world poverty ... what i took away from air is that technological progress is a wonderful thing ... also painful ...b urden does not fall evenly ... someone gets the scutwork ... in air she is the hero fo the story.

six chapters in when i turned to my wife and said ... in a year when the tiptree judges sometimes despaired of agreeing nabout anything ... short list, long list ... but when we talke dabout what should win the decision was swift and it was unanimous. and so mr. ryman sir i believe this belongs to you ...

tiara is placed on geoff ryman's head.

... check.

tiara ... award ... a beautiful work of art representing air .

a work of silk art

[[Geoff Ryman]]: thank you. we should probably have a round of applsause ... queen for a day or something ... only not just for a day ... ... this jacket, it says, love and happiness, ... which kind of describes wiscon. if i want to rwrite a novel set in heaven i think heaven is going to look something like wiscon. i can't figure out whether the extraordinary well-=done organization allows everyone to be so kind or whether the kindness allows ... probably chicken and eggs .. no other convention like it ... with check by jowl conversation about all the things we care about ... i feel strange being up here ... the one thing that will stop you writing fatster than anything else is arrogance ... and all this stuff ... thank you so much. air was a difficult sell, it was a difficult write. i assumed nothing would happen to it whatsoever. i assumed it would come out & disappear. i knew that in my bones. and it's very strange to discover your bones can be that wrong. i now actually believe it oculd be a good book. i don't know who tot hank,. there seems to be so many people to thank ... the lovely lady ... the wondoerful people who left a basket of fruit on my bed. i came in , there was a basket of fruit it was terrific ... you have no idea .. how kind it is to let someone know BEFORE they set in this room ... b/c normally what happens, ... you sit in a room, and john clute comes up to you and says you know how these things go ... and someone else comes up and says i voted for you ... they're telling me i didn't win. smile and keep smiling. and you lean over and shake each other's hands and sometimes they really are your best friend. a... and you seit there and think why am i so nervousl. we know all these books are .. certainly true of all these marvelous books ... the people who came here b /c of the long list ... they deserve a round of applause ... and so i came up with a spirit of joy , my first time at a wiscon, i will certainly be back. applause. and again i'm trying to think of all the people i should thank, the people who organized the award, artshow, convention, the people who chased me around and around this room, but seriously i cannot think of another convention i would be so happy to be chased around a room.

[[Ellen Klages]]: We will sing to you now.

[[Pat Murphy]]: [[The Tips]] change with each [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award|Tiptree Award]]. Some remain the same and I will get Delia and Ellen to actually lead because I can't sing.

Those of you in the audience please join in.

(sung to the tune of "The Man on the Flying Trapeeze")

:He wrote the book ''Air'' with the greatest of ease,
:Geoff Ryman is here, and he's eager to please.
:The means of production
:His characters seize,
:And now he has won an award.
:
:In a faraway village, high fashion was born,
:But for new technology, people had scoren.
:A tiara is something
:Chung Mae would have worn,
:But Geoff gets to wear one today!
:
:''repeat''

[[category:WisCon 30 Events]] [[category:Tiptree]] [[category:Awards Ceremonies]]

Tiptree Awards Ceremony (2006)

2006-06-21T01:39:19Z

162.83.198.150: added links

''Original transcript by Laura Quilter -- please fill in, correct, amend as needed''

[[Jeanne Gomoll]]: for final event bring up tiptree motherboard ...

[[Liz Henry]]: i had a wonderful time on the tiptree jury ... matt ruff, hiromi goto until hse had to drop out ... death in the family ... so we were extremely pleased to put several books on the shortlist and i think that our shortlist and longlist represent the diversity of our opinions. and i loved all of these books and i loved talking about them for a year ... which was really really fun. matt and i just remailed each other about how we kinda of miss it.

[[Matt Ruff]]: that's sort of what we said.

on the short list is ... "[[Little Faces (short story)|Little Faces]]" ... ''[[Remains (novel|Remains]]'', ''[[A Brother's Price (novel)|A Brother's Price]]''

we were ...

we all loved AIR, and we settled on it with wild enthusiasm as the winner for the tiptree...we were very pleased to talk about and what i thought was interesting that wae all loved it for different reasons, different intersecting reasons ... i loved it personally for its beautiful writing and its complicated and gripping story. but those things ndon't make it win the tiptree. what makes it win the tiptree is that it expands and explores gender. ... it complciated what it means to be a woman ... the main character may umm had many roeles she was a mtoher, wife, entrepreneur. her -- inf act she was a mother of children who had recently left the house and her role was very much in transition. then w/ the advent of new technology she was plunged into a world of double consciousness, madness, dealing very deeply w/ theaging, changing ... cross-cultural, relationships w/ women, politics, local, national ... very interesting...so many levels to this book ... the ending gave me chills na d made me pace around the house insanely talking nto myself and pacing around the house in the middle of the night. i love that kind of ending. my husband hates that kind of ending b/c i'm apcing around the house in the middle of the night ... controversial ending and i can't say what it is b/c it's a spoiler. but it and many other things right int he middel fo the book are a beautiful disruption of science fiction ... comfortable for us ... world of science ficiotnn we understand what's going on ... the disruption puts us into a different place, magical realism, which we're going to kill after the panel today ... a different ... that's difficult to swallow ... [laughter] yes. makes us as a reader feel outsider to the story that we're in ... make us understand gender ... women's role ... a way to explore women's role as something of a prdouction. so that's what i leave you with b/c a lot of people have approached me to ask what is this weird thing about ...

matt - it was a privilege to serve w/ all members of of the jury & especially liz ... final list much better ... let's do it again some time ...

by september last year the tiptree judges had begun to grow concerned. more than half our time was gone. ... interesting submissions particularly in the area of harry potter / csi fanfic ... but nothing that screamed give me the itara. it was at this point ... email ... a novel called air left over from the previous year's deliberations that we might want to take a look at .. in hindsight ... clear a maneuver performed on behalf oa the secret feminist cabal ... air turned out to be the story of residents in a village in a country that ends in -stan. ... what impressed me about geoff ryman was not just what ihe did but what he didn't. could have been humorless polemic ... could have romanticized third world poverty ... what i took away from air is that technological progress is a wonderful thing ... also painful ...b urden does not fall evenly ... someone gets the scutwork ... in air she is the hero fo the story.

six chapters in when i turned to my wife and said ... in a year when the tiptree judges sometimes despaired of agreeing nabout anything ... short list, long list ... but when we talke dabout what should win the decision was swift and it was unanimous. and so mr. ryman sir i believe this belongs to you ...

tiara is placed on geoff ryman's head.

... check.

tiara ... award ... a beautiful work of art representing air .

a work of silk art

[[Geoff Ryman]]: thank you. we should probably have a round of applsause ... queen for a day or something ... only not just for a day ... ... this jacket, it says, love and happiness, ... which kind of describes wiscon. if i want to rwrite a novel set in heaven i think heaven is going to look something like wiscon. i can't figure out whether the extraordinary well-=done organization allows everyone to be so kind or whether the kindness allows ... probably chicken and eggs .. no other convention like it ... with check by jowl conversation about all the things we care about ... i feel strange being up here ... the one thing that will stop you writing fatster than anything else is arrogance ... and all this stuff ... thank you so much. air was a difficult sell, it was a difficult write. i assumed nothing would happen to it whatsoever. i assumed it would come out & disappear. i knew that in my bones. and it's very strange to discover your bones can be that wrong. i now actually believe it oculd be a good book. i don't know who tot hank,. there seems to be so many people to thank ... the lovely lady ... the wondoerful people who left a basket of fruit on my bed. i came in , there was a basket of fruit it was terrific ... you have no idea .. how kind it is to let someone know BEFORE they set in this room ... b/c normally what happens, ... you sit in a room, and john clute comes up to you and says you know how these things go ... and someone else comes up and says i voted for you ... they're telling me i didn't win. smile and keep smiling. and you lean over and shake each other's hands and sometimes they really are your best friend. a... and you seit there and think why am i so nervousl. we know all these books are .. certainly true of all these marvelous books ... the people who came here b /c of the long list ... they deserve a round of applause ... and so i came up with a spirit of joy , my first time at a wiscon, i will certainly be back. applause. and again i'm trying to think of all the people i should thank, the people who organized the award, artshow, convention, the people who chased me around and around this room, but seriously i cannot think of another convention i would be so happy to be chased around a room.

[[Ellen Klages]]: We will sing to you now.

[[Pat Murphy]]: [[The Tips]] change with each [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award|Tiptree Award]]. Some remain the same and I will get Delia and Ellen to actually lead because I can't sing.

Those of you in the audience please join in.

(sung to the tune of "The Man on the Flying Trapeeze")

He wrote the book Air with the greatest of ease,
Geoff Ryman is here, and he's eager to please.
The means of production
His characters seize,
And now he has won an award.

In a faraway village, high fashion was born,
But for new technology, people had scoren.
A tiara is something
Chung Mae would have worn,
But Geoff gets to wear one today!

''repeat''

[[category:WisCon 30 Events]] [[category:Tiptree]] [[category:Awards Ceremonies]]

Carl Brandon Society Awards Ceremony (2006)

2006-06-21T01:36:34Z

162.83.198.150: fixed a few typos

''Original transcript by Laura Quilter -- please fill in, correct, amend as needed''

... [[Samuel R. Delany]] ... owe to him... for increasing representation of ... con/com responded and has been an ally ever since ... visit our web page at [http://carlbrandon.org carlbrandon.org] or talk to any of the people you see standing on the stage right now.

the people standing on thes tage. we could tell you our names but we'd rather invite you all of you to become the carl brandon society. pariticipation is not limited to people of color. you can nominate ... we'll do them again next year. ... make a donation to carl brandon ... or octavia butler memorial scholarship ...

membership forms are on program leaflet we've handed out to you

tonight we're here to society the first carl brandon society literary awards ... parallax ... recipient of each award receives a check for a thousand dollars and an award.

victor: of course we couldn't let this occasion go by w/out mentioning octavia e. butler who left us so unexpectedly this february. she was a friend to the cbs and we miss her terribly. when we decided to name the cb kindred award we were of course inspired in part by miss butler's life and work. we also saw how the word kindred spoke to the fact that we are all related as human beings aside from consideraitons of race and ethnicity. in that spirit the cb kindred award is open to everyone regardless or race or background.

i'm going to name members of each jury. some of those people are here w/ us today and i'll ask those people to identify thsemvels when i call their name.

[jury list ... steven barnes ... jennifer stevenson ...]

the jurors for the cbs kindred award were jewelle gomez, ian k. hageman, ursula k. le guin, debbie notkin, and --

many young adult novels were nominated ... and i would like to read you now the hosrtlist for the parallax award.

...

[[Ian Hageman]]: not that i'm shy really the kindred award had a shorter short list and a longer long list. which didn't surprise me b/c the lack of sf about race is part of why we need the award. so i'm going to read the shortlist for this award. many were also on shortlist for parallax.

... invite juror chairs up to stage ...

selected walter moseley's 47 as this year's winner
nalo reading award ... i really appreciate this award, especially for 47 which is a work that means a lot to me ... thank everyone for me ...

[[Debbie Notkin]]: it is 1969 and ruba has moved from mississippi to haiti to live w/ her grandmother jones ... grandmother jones wants her to go to church, quit using those french words, wear starched white dresses ... if she doesn't obey, eula faces simmering disapproval from her grandmother ... when the biggest hurricane in memory barrels toward the mississippi coast ... must use her power ... the jury of the 2005 cbs kindred award for spec fiction which examines issues of race & ethnicity has selected the novel stormwatch by susan vaught as this year's winner.

we're extremely fortunate that susan turned her life around on a dime to be here tonight to accept this award. susan.

(? purty ?). pretty and beautiful. i'm going to put it back in the box before i drop it.

i've been fortunate in that stormwitch was nominated for several awards this year and of all the awards ... this one means ... basically i had a very difficult part of my childhood, and a librarian stuck some books in my hand ... the tripods ... i can honestly tell you from that point forward that science fiction and fantasy saved my flife ... writing fantasy & science fiction saved my life again ... allowed me to do something nthat i couldn't otherwise do which is to honor some of the gods of my childhood who died ... andre norton and octavia butler ... f&sf can save lives ... ... great pleasure to sign this check ... back to octavia butler scholarship

ian: umm. laughter. pause. i hate to follow something like that. pause. but i'm sure if [[Octavia E. Butler|Octavia]], if she could hear us would be deeply moved by that.

we in the cbs would like to especially take this time to thank pam noles who took on the dual role of awards adminsitrator and jury wrangler for both of the juries and did an amazing thorough & patient job with both of those roles. applause. we'd also like to thank we'd also like to especially thank all of the jrurors for all of the hard work it took to go thru & come up with and give this award out especially on the timeline we were walking on. and also like to thank wiscon nfor hosting our first awards ceremony. we were born at wiscon and are especially glad to be back her efor first awards. especially like to thank tiptree motherboard ... naming award, short list, long list, having fun along the way ... party tonight. cohosted w/ speculative literature foundation and carl brandon society. invite you ... anyone interested in being a volunteer or joining cbs will find all of us there to help you get on board. thank you.

[[category:WisCon 30 Events]] [[category:Awards Ceremonies]]

Jane Yolen Guest of Honor Speech

2006-06-21T01:34:31Z

162.83.198.150:

''Original transcript by Laura Quilter -- please fill in, correct, amend as needed''

[[Jane Yolen]]

as you can see she's great at winging things, but not me ...

i want to begin by telling you all how honored & delighted i am to be here as your guest of honor ... alongside culture hereo ... and speaking of culture heroes, the name of the past guests of honors, made me faint with delight, like some victorian gentlewoman whose stays are too tight, orwho had to go around with an instrument that her very proper victorian doctor ... something we now call vibrator.

but for some of us history is only an excuse to read; for others it's an excuse to write.

you may have heard that wiscon is the only conference i didn't cancel this year when my beloved husband [[david stempel]] of 44 years was dying ... we were playing a kind of game of hope, of praying that a miracle would happen. but alas it did not and david died on march 22nd, with such grace and such dignity, surrounded by music and love, that i insisted i come to wiscon ... because david would have wanted it; after all he was always the most ardent feminist in our family ...

when david & i were first together, and soon after we were first married ... i was a good girl in the late 1950s and he had read too much european philosophy, he was a great believer in my talent before i was ... he encouraged me to take chances, and cursed the early editors who rejected early efforts as fools, but looking back at early mss i see that he was speaking out of love and not out of critical acuity.

every artist is either nurtured or a nurturer, only a rare few are both.

men artists tend to be nurtured.

women writers with a few great exceptions like virginia woolf tend to do the... fetching themselves ... typical is holly ... she used to get up at 430 in the morning ... i think women writers know this better than men that there is no such thing as a time fairy ... how lucky i was. i had a husband hwo was a professor at university of mass. ... eager to take the children off on little three hour tripschance diapers etc, and long before such house husbandry was chic. you have talent he said. such genius is not to be ignored.

he may have been right on talent stuff, he was wrong on genius stuff, but he loved me ...

full of tradeoffs

a bleventh means one and a half units in a one-unit container. i give you that word with a great deal of love. there have been times in my love when ...david & i had 3 babies in rapid succession after we decided to have children ... or rather ... vw bug ... heidi, adam, jason ... and sometimes i saw my children as wonderful muses, other times, incredible distractions, and still other times as brilliant anarchic people of their own, and now ... i know them as colleagues and friends ... so david was there at the very beginning, and i'm truly and horribly sorry that he will not be with me for the next years of my life. because he was myvery best reader ... taskmaster ... and sometime muse.

now i'm going to tell you about muses, just in case ... the writer's muse wears sensible shoes ... birkenstock sandals b/c of all the nasty muddy places she has to go to find ideas ... never acknowledged or given a book dedication ... she'd love a bit of chocolate but is loath to ask ...

on the other hand there is imagination and he is an untamable creature ... sits down on his haunches .. defecates on carpet ... sharpens his sidearm on chippendale sideboard. he farts before the queen. but as feral as he is everyone praises him. ...

and the time fairy. the time fairy does not exist. how could you believe otherwise. if there was soch a creature as the time fairy wouldn't we all have discrete packets beside our pillows ... editors would have loads of time to return our phone calls. we ALL want such creatures, they would make the writers life easy. ... however ... imagination to lay his head with its knot of dark elfknots on her breast ... be my guest.

i on the other hand am a professional writer. someone who makes a livingn writing. so i do what professional writesr always do. i don't wait for inspiration but run right into perspiration mode. i sit down with my fingers on the keybaord and i write b/c writers writ,e it's definitioanl. if it sounds too simple, i'm sorry , there it is, writers write. and the punchline is that once a writer writes who do you suppose takes up residence, the birkenstock muse and that bad boy. and the time fairy too? i told you. there is no such thing. if there were such a creature, people like me would be writing hundreds of books in a lifetime. [wild applause]

i knew that would happen, i wrote it down right here, "now you life" ... and then you wonder, slightly giggly, if i remember all those things i wrote ... so i'll tell you, no i could not list all books without a major cribsheet and thank god for all websites ... but i could tell you something about the books and in fact at my website i've done just that, www.janeyolen.com ... don't trust computers completely so i have notes pasted ... poems are green, stories are gravel, writing is an adventure. and don't we all remember ... with a certain dollop of exaggeration. but i suspect that the last ... is a writer. never ask what it means. i get letters and email sfrom people every day asking what does it mean. damned if i know.

i mean to say is not the same as ... what i mean. ... when it is my turn to read i could no more explain to them or to you what i meant when iw rote it. it's there. it means what you need it to mean. ... i go back ...

david was a greater reader ... and eventually a great critic as well. i remember when he read ... he read the whole thing, wept, and then said the ending is wrong. ... he read it a second time, he re-read, wept, and said the ending is still wrong. i rewrote again, he reread, wept, and said NOW the ending is right.

... i don't ... keep up with the new york times. i can't even keep up with my local newspaper the daily hampshire ... which seems to breed in my mailbox. ... research to do. children find that odd. can't you just make it up they ask? even fantasy has to be grounded in the real world ... not a clone of course but a wonderland mirror.

for example ... working on clearances ... an homage to robert louis stevenson's kidnapped. it takes place in scotland ... when lairds simply through kinsmen off their land to replace them with sheep because sheep would pay them more. ... only the adventure is made up.

also working on a book of poems ... son jason ... looking at a variety of shapes

daughter heidi ... bad girls

... just finished sea queens ... women pirates

... reading wildly folklore and dance books ... calling for now "big ugly guy" or BUG which is a novel about a klezmer garage band. i have a jewish kid who makes a golem in his father's pottery workshop. and we are also doing a proposal about a noir gargoyle detective in edinburgh. and that's just for the proposal. also i have just finished a picture book biography about j. m. barrie called lost boy so i have read all of his fiction, much of it is smarmy & sentimental ... so when would i have time to read for fun ... any reading i've been doing lately has been bathtub ...

teacherman by frank mccourt ... or books i've read on train to new york ... but i have to tell you that the last great book i read, the really great book, was pride and prejducie which i was deeply into two summers ago, ... suddenly the man in front of me keeled over ... he was pronounced dead. and that so successfully shattered the mood that i haven't been able to go back to austen since ... (scattered possibly surprised laughter)

so if you're thinking ... bonbons champagne lyingn on chaise lounges and making things up... i wait with fingers on keyboard and wait as eager as any reader to see what comes up ...

writing as exercise ... flabby

wrote through childbirth

when david ill wrote a sonnet a day and that exercise kept her together

with his blessing wrote it as the radiation sonnets. algonquin brought it out.

started ... new cancers hit and he was dying ... i wrote before poems and after poems. so please indulge me.

single malt.

across the field we went whiskey in hand to pour it on your grave
a libation to you and the gods you did not believe in
...

of course at the same time that i'm working on these poems and you're going to think i'm schizophrenic i wrote a silly pirate picture book with my daughter and we call it ... we subtitle it in our mind pirates of the caribbean. [laughter] it's about a pirate who hates parrots. ... but he has read the waterways ... lands on pirate island, and parrots think he's just a very large big ugly parrot. and so forth ... a writer writes.

well i'm a storyteller poet and writer. that's all i know how to do. i've been called a hans christian anderson of america but i keep telling people that really it should be the hans JEWISH anderson of america.

... another word david told me and it is a scottish word. the word is tegerm ... it means to prophesy in a bull of skin while behind a waterfall. i believe a vast story is hidden there because i haven't found time to write b/c that pesky time fairy is never there when you need her. but i'm thinking of building a time fairy trap, part honey and npart [mechanical] and i'll let you know if it works, and if it does locus will have a story on it and ellen will sell a prototype next year's auction.

one final poem for all of us

listen to your body
it is made up of verbs
...
listen to your body
talk back

[applause]

[[category:WisCon 30 Events]]

Kate Wilhelm Guest of Honor Speech

2006-06-21T01:34:13Z

162.83.198.150:

''Original transcript by Laura Quilter -- please fill in, correct, amend as needed''

[[Kate Wilhelm]]

I really want to thank Scott and Kathy for having me and a wonderful time. And I've never seen so much food. I will go home -- I refuse to say fatter - but with more reserves.

I don't have a prepared speech. I thought I'd address a question I get all the time: why do you write what you write. It's a good question and ...

I've been touched by magic. ... That was a magic moment. And all the talk about the magic moments that resulted in who I am today. [is it not working? laughing. technical problems.]

The first magic happened when I was a small child, many when I was a teenager. ... So formative. ... nothing superficial about it, the kind of magic I'm talking about. I was born with a speech defect--nobody could understand a word i said. And we were a reading family--this was before tv, computers -- so I read.

... one of the great [?] was when my mother went to the library and when one of us went with her. i was the 4th of 6 children so my turn didn't come up too often but when it came i was ecstatic.

so my turn ... we went ... cleveland ... So she left me in the children's department and went about doing what parents do. And after a while I decided I wanted to go home and I couldn't find my mother. ... nobody bothered me. I decided to go home. I knew I could get there, all I had to do was follow streetcar tracks. It didn't occur to me that this was 70-something, and we lived [a long way away]. I went outside and didn't recognize anything. ... taken to police. ... lots of ice cream. ... My brothers were extremely jealous when they learned of my adventures.

But that was magic. ...

But I learned that a library of books, magic, words can touch you and change your world.

The next incident, still when I was quite young, when I had a ruptured appendix, and i was desperately ill, and in those days we had oxygen tents. ... in hospital for a long time. One night i woke up and the tent was gone and I was surrounded by fire. And I was burning up with fever. I thought I'd died and gone to hell. I was seven. Late that night I was caught almost to an outside door and captured and taken back to bed and put in restraints. But I learned something else. That was another magic moment. I learned: you don't give in; you escape if you can.

[audience applause] I was on my way out of there.

I learned later -- my mother was a strict southern baptist. her best friend was an equally strict catholic. and because the baptists don't baptize until age of reason ... her best friend ... i'm not sure if i was baptized or given last rites ....learned that night, you don't give in, you don't surrender, you escape.

So in these years, not communicating with anybody, being isolated, being ignored. little child you are ignored. and i was most invisible because i couldn't talk. i learned to read. i don't remember learning to read. but my earliest memories are hiding behind a chair and reading. and that was satisfying. i told myself stories -- that started when i was 3 or 4. i told myself elaborate stories. but i couldn't share them.

they found that my problem was what they called clatter; all my words ran together. and it was very easy to correct because i could read. they made me pro-nounce-e-ver-y-single word and things ngot a little easier. but i had already learned what it is to be alone, not communicating, and i learned what it is to fight back.

.... later my mother insisted that i was the age of reason and i was baptized again. i was saved twice. but for whatever reason i objected to this big man ducking me under water. and i objected strenuously and i fought him. i fought him like a devil. he got as wet as i was. he complained to my mother; my mother was humiliated. i did not want to be drowned and i resisted. a year after that at the age of 12 - which in my case was the age of religion - i turned my back on all organized religion. i thought any religion which fills a child with terror and makes me think that i had died and gone to hell is not for me. (applause) of course that's -- ? ... and if anybody -- (applause) -- of course we have an administration that relies on fear ...

so moving on ... my father read zane grey and so did i. my mother read pearl buck and faith baldwin and so did i. i read my brother's tarzan books and a little later all of his thorne smith books. and of course i didn't understand them but i read them all. and i read my sister's hollywood magazines and romances. i read everything. so i got pretty b ored with children's section pretty quickly.

i remember getting my adult library card. we lived in the woods ... kentucky? -- so i walked into the adult section of the library, the proud possessor of a library card, and i was overwhelmed. and it wasn't anything except the thought: i have to read every book in here. and i began. i devised this system. two novels, two nonfiction books, and the other four divided by biography, poetry, plays and anthologies. and once a week i hit the library and took all my eight books and i read them. and this continued for many years. in high school i was chastised when the teacher caught me reading a robert benchley book. he was a very funny man. but i didn't tell her at home i was also reading dostoyevsky. and dostoyevsky led me to the other russian writers tolstoy and golgo ... i read by association but mostly by alphabet.

and nothing in our library was segregated by genre. i read wells and jules verne and they were in general ... a few things had their own and agatha christie had her own section ... i loved them all. most undiscriminating writer god invented.

all through school ... you're a writer, you're a writer, you should be a writer. and i always told stories. i told my little brothers stories. the only way i could think of taking charge of two little brothers was by telling stories. and i reinvented the serial. i have left more people danglingn off cliffs [laughter] andn facing fearsome monsters - and they loved it - ... so i was making 'em up as fast as i could.

one of my brothers i visited him 3 years ago in florida, and he's a deacon in the baptist church byu the way. he assures me that i've been well saved. he tells me he still remembers some of the stories i told, and i have no recollection.

... in high school they told me i was a writer. i wanted to be a chemist. i was good in science and good in math. i thought it was so exciting to find what was in a rock, what were its parts, what was it made of. and then the dean took me aside and she said no, if you ... chemistry, you will be a teacher, or a man's lab assistant ... i had four brothers and i'd learned to fight real young and i knew i would tangle with any man who was my boss. that was not going to work. so i dropped chemistry and got married right after high school instead. but i kept reading.

then ten years after graduating high school -- i didn't go to college, i had a scholarship, but if i couldn't be what i wanted to be, i didn't want to go at all -- 10 years after college i was reading an anthology ... i said to myself this is really bad, and i said "i could do that" and that day i gave myself permission to write a bad story. and it was calle d 'the ..?ridealong?. station' and john campbell bought it. i wrote it in longhand ...

and i got a letter from john campbell a few weeks after i sent him the story. i had to notarize a document sasying that i was the writer of this story. and i've asked other writers did they have to do that? and they all said no. but ... got check for $17 and bought a typewriter. [applause] and i've been writing ever since.

... and second story sold. so i knew i could tell stories and sell them. ... when they told me all through school that i should be a writer, i didn't see any way on earth that a girl from a working class family, i had never met an editor, ... i didn't see how anybody could bridge that gap from where i was to publishing stories; i just couldn't see it. ...

sold two stories, just kept writing ... still had no mentor, and nobody to tell me how to do it, what i was doing right or wrong ... just selling ... There weren't in those days as many sources of information as you hguys have. and i didn't come across any. ... i never saw a science fiction magazine in those days. i saw the anthologies, and that was all. i learned later there was one story in louisville that sold -- ? magazine. and ... bookie. of course louisville is home of kentucky derby ... and this bookstore had a sign that said no women allowed. i couldln't believe it. so i never came across a magazine. and in those days ... writing everything ... i wrote a mystery story. and the only ones that sold were science fiction. so i became a science fiction writer of sorts. and it wasn't really by choice. ... i was telling stories; that was all i've ever done. i was telling stories. and i've never put a word on paper until i've told the entire story to myself. i tell the story to myself first so that when i write it it goes very fast. ... then can take a long time because i have to rethink and rethink ... it doesn't matter how long, i tell myself first and then i write it.

and i've always written those kind of stories ... and i've always buried them because i make no distinction between this kind and that kind, because that was how i learned to read, reading everything, and that seemed normal to me ... and that's been my mode ever since. in the early days some of the criticism i got, some of the reviews, would say things like another strong wilhelm woman and another weak man. i never saw it that way. i was writing about the kind of women i either knew or admired or wanted to know. i was writing about normal women. and normal men. [applause & laughter] but that criticism persisted quite a while. and you might think it's over & done with now. but one of my novels - this was in the 80s, i was bpublishing at harper & row, this was a novel that i submitted called the clewiston test, and ... the other ? turned it down, and he told me, a man cannot rape his wife ... and that was a pivotal part of the novel, that was the novel, that was what it was going from word one. so i couldn't rewrite it to suit him, i wouldn't have any way. so my agent took it back, i took it back, farrar straus published it. but then farrar straus wrote of a novel of mine called faultlines about a 70-year old woman who has an illegitimate son who is rebelling against his mother b/c she won't conform ... and the son was very unhappy and so was the editor. he said no, this old woman is mistreating her son. i think he had a mother issue. we took it back ... harper & row. so i've been bounced around a lot and it's all been something like this, wehre the editors said, well i don't know or i don't understand or can you change this and i've always said no and i've always found somewhere else.

i've learned to define myself instead of letting them define me ... i write what i want, i won't use a pseudonym. that was advice i got, separate it out ... i said no, i'm the author, and i won't hide, no matter what it is. so i've had a checkered career, i've had a very fulfilling career. the best kind of editor for me is one who doesn't get in the way [laughter] who lets me have my head, who lets me do what i want, without complaint, and they're hard to find. [laughter] gordon ben hill was the first one, and bless gordon ben hill, he took everything i did, i wrote a novel called The Good children ...

good novel, i like it; they didn'tn want to take it. i said if they don't want to take it i'm out of there. ... i do what i do ... and somebody else would have taken it; ... i always win.

... it's been like that; it hasn't been easy; there's been one struggle after another; and if you define yourself and what you're going to do and persevere ... i think what i did is the best way ... i don't let them tell me what i'm going to do b/c they're driven by the market, and i'm not.

the most recent bit of magic that happened to me was with my granddaughter. when she was about 2, she and her father, my son, and his wife ... and every night we took turns, we all read to her, and her parents did ... and one night she brought me one of those hideous supermarket books that used to sell for a quarter or something ... garish ... and i knew she had good books because i'd given her good books ... and it was the same kind of book ... and she pouted. what will you read. and i said i'll read my hands. and i opened my hands and i told her a story ... about a dragon ... the baby dragon who eats the fox and hen. she loved it. so the next night when it was my turn, i said what shall it be, and she said read your hands! [applause] so i read my hands, and for two years, every night, "read your hands" and i made up a story every night for two years at least. so one night ... she was about four ... i cut one of the stories off very short. always at the end i said "the end" and closed my hands and that was it. never any fuss about it until that night and she opened my hands and said "no" and opened my hands and put her hands and told me a decent ending for the story. [applause]

in her ending a magic mermaid came out of the ocean and grabbed that mean old fox and flew back over the ocean and dropped him in and then just to be sure she flew back and got mrs. fox and dropped her in too, and then she closed her hands and said the end.

and i realized i had witnessed real magic - ... storytelling technique ... adult struggle. and she grasped it. she has storytelling technique down pat. and she is now a 15year old and she is a wonderful writer. so i saw magic. but it hasn't been easy. i have to admit ... i worked hard ... i find joy in my work. ... i'm never happier than when i'm writing ... i'll never retired. all of you young people waiting for us old people to get out of the way ... [applause] some of us aren't going away soon. and thank you all. [applause]

[[category:WisCon 30 Events]]

Joanna Russ Interview with Samuel Delany (WisCon 30 event)

2006-06-21T01:33:48Z

162.83.198.150: /* Participants */

==Set-Up==

Chip Delany was in a chair at the front of the room with a microphone. Joanna Russ was on a phone, connected to house sound system. On the screen was slowly flashing covers of Russ's novels.

==Participants==

[[Joanna Russ]] and [[Samuel R. Delany]]. Sponsored by [[Broad Universe]]

==Transcript/Notes==

''Original transcript by Laura Quilter -- please fill in, correct, amend as needed''

[[Joanna Russ]]: I'm as close to phone as I can get

on screen: Joanna Russ & Samuel Delany - brought to you by Broad Universe

[[Samuel R. Delany]]: In my humble opinion Joanna Russ is simply one of the most important writers who has written in the United States in the last 50 years. she [applause] this is a writer who has produced works on the level of --

JR: hello? hello! (laughter in audience)

SD: produced works on level of [[Willa Cather]], James Joyce - Davenport, William Gass ...

JR: Samuel, I can barely hear you

SD: well you & I may have difficulty hearing one another but the audience can

SD: ... and she writes, among other things, sentences that are absolutely spectacular. a description of a spaceship which I quote endlessly to my writing students at Temple University where she's describing a star the big one was the platonic idea of a pebble carried inside out born of a computer and aspiring to the condition of mechanical opera. that is such a luscious sentence I don't think I will ever be the same. also there's a range & intensity of concern for the problems of women. feminism is to Joanna Russ the way marxism was to the great german writer Bertold Brecht. it is something innate to the concerns, not something that can be dismissed. not something - she makes - it already is of course incredibly important aspect of the world possibly one of THE most important aspects of the world -- but she foregrounds that importance, makes us understand it, in terms of the social portraits that she creates in her work. her first story, 'custom stale- appeared in m of f&sf in 1959 i believe that was - and went on to produce many many other wonderful stories, life for Emily, and then a series of stories that the barbarian; i thought she was afeared till she stroked my beard such a wonderful title that it had to be changed to ... stroke my cherry ... adventures of Alyx, which Joanna calls pre-feminist and I call spectacular story, ... We Who Are About To (one of my personal favorites) The Two of Them, On Strike Against God, ... etc. ... really brilliant study. so Joanna what are some of the things you've been thinking about lately.

JR: I don't know if I can tell you I'm still basking in all your praise.

SD: You deserve to bask. tell us a little bit about where you're living. what is Tucson like?

JR: Tucson is getting to a be a rather sprawling small city. desert. very hot in the summer. ... I just love it.

SD: do you like, do you enjoy Tucson?

JR: yes - not the city so much but the location and the skies, oh the skies. my friend: "yes Tucson specializes in that" [the skies]

SD: double bind situation

JR: yes that's awful. it's not the writers' fault. it's the economics of publishing now. what i've seen again and again is that a writer will do very fine early stuff really good stuff. and say okay I can make a living writing. but they then find themselves having to work too fast. words should not only be thought they should be felt thru and there just isn't enough time. people in that bind never do great stuff again. and if you don't do that, if you say okay i will keep my day job as they used to say in the theater, and i will just write what i damn well please, you end up working too hard.

SD: yes I can remember my first 5 books in 3 years and i ended up in a mental hospital. yeah it is a double bind and it is to easy to, you end up blaming yourself for it. any thoughts on changing it?

JR: no i don't know, I think it is an industrial capitalist problem. (applause) ... niche markets. didn't used to be true. 85 different little magazines all doing something different. A young man wrote to me and said that he had read Alyx and he liked it and he read another book of mine and he was shocked & horrified to discover that it wasn't the same thing. I know that's funny but it's like gor of gor the 56th book of the series and people will buy these things because they're familiar. but it used to be that you had to write what was being written a and it was crummy but it was a different kind of crummy.

SD: now authors are production points for a product rather than an adventure you get interested in following, which is what i always thought authors should be, adventures you follow to see where they go. what are some of the authors you find yourself returning to and reading whether fantasy/sf or other journals?

JR: mixed bag. in sf when I was younger I loved [[Robert A. Heinlein|Heinlein]] b/c he was always doing something different, and the SF didn't disappear after the beginning of the book, it was being carried thru all the way. like the young man saying 'i did divorce my parents' - remember that?

SD: yes I will never forget it

JR: I go back to ... and some of Clarke's short stories and Chaucer frankly.

SD: yes you've always talked about Chaucer he comes up again & again. what interests you about a classical writer like Geoffrey Chaucer

JR: he has written some of the most perfect short stories in english if you can think of middle english as english. the 3 men who go out to kill death is absolutely a smashing thing, the shape of the story is perfect. ... the pardoner's tale.

SD: I'll go back and take a look at that one. Any other writers you find yourself returning to do give you solace or what have you.

JR: well some of the feminists.

SD: Like who

JR: The chalice and the blade which has marvelous early christian writing in it. i can't really think of it. actually i don't read nearly as much as i used to. it's very annoying to have to get up every 20 minutes. and -- wait a minute -- there's a punch line -- i found that after having a vcr for several years you can treat it just as a book. it makes a vhs just like a book. and now i have a dvd player . i have been going mad about [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Buffy]].

wild applause.

SD: you have a lot of friends.

JR: i'm glad of that ... even tho it was created by a guy, it was one of those tv shows aimed directly at women, and it is NOT domestic, adventurous, and horror fiction, and comedy, and it's very well written i'll say. a feminist friend of mine wrote me from philadelphia and said you have to write this and you must - and i did and i loved it - i collected them on vhs tapes and i loved them and now i've bought them on dvd. and some of the things they talk about are extremely funny. there is a male character named spike who is a vampire - he is a sex object. he was doing an interview - telling about going to cons - and a whole bunch of girls who tried to tear his clothes off.

sd: 'vampires i have known.'

jr: i won't do it - very carefully done to make him a glamorous sexpot.

sd: anything else you want to remind us of?

jr: in buffy

sd: yes in buffy

jr: oh my gosh i don't know where to start. it's present-day setting. it has -- as i said it's a woman's thing, or female thing. there're these 3 women with one guy who's a friend and they give actresses wonderful things to do. like Anya the ex-vengeance demon who's trying to learn to be human and doesn't do it quite well. she has recently found out that not only is she human & american but also a capitalist. and these are all on the same level. very funny at times b/c trying to be a shopkeeper, she knows nothing about any of this, and has to learn.

SD: you make me want to go back & rewatch some episodes. when we were talking about things to talk about, you mentioned general problems of growing older as something we all do.

JR: that struck me among other things b/c i have arthritis and chronic fatigue syndrome. and i have begun to understand the kind of writers who write about limitations and mortality. i don't have the books with me i forgot to bring them into the bedroom. but there are sort of two possibilities at least two for writers. one of them was [[Sarah Orne Jewett]].

sd: country of the pointed firs

jr: she has this sense of characters, she does not condescend to them, which i love. just when you think you can look down on them they are smarter than you are. she wrote one story called the ?hellmouth holiday? which is almost heartbreaking b/c it's such a perfect day and it will never be repeated. i can't tell you the story b/c i will gobble if i do. the other one - good lord - i can't remember her name.

sd: are these writers, are you particularly interested in jewett, b/c of how she deals w/ age

jr: not just age, she deals w/ limitations of all kinds .. . mortality in particular.

sd: how do you experience limitations of old age - i'm 64 and can't do what i did before.

jr: i'm 69 and can't do what i sued to do before. thought i would put up signs around the house that said 'you are 70. stop it!'

laughter

jr: learn things you can't do

sd: or things you used to do 2-4 days now take 4-6 days

jr: things i don't dare to do. .... turning bionic part by part. just had surgery. don't go up a ladder; if you fall down you don't have muscles to cushion your body.

sd: odd thing to get used to that things are not there.

JR: by the way i should say that i love this kind of writing but it's not better than other kinds, it's just different. woman who wrote The Story of Avis / [[Elizabeth Stuart Phelps]]. i'm going to bring her up as another layer of the 19th century - and she writes about heroism; incredibly heroic achievements. not big things b/c she's writing about new englanders too, and these people are in a backwater, and the women are especially having a tough time of it b/c they have to marry and becomes wives and what gets them is finances.

sd: there is that way about how good fiction has always been about money aspects of money having it or not and what that does to you something yr own fiction has always been very much aware of. any thoughts about money and storytelling.

jr: no i don't think so. not at the moment.

sd: what about some of the fantasy stories that you have, you mentioned terri Windling who is here today, you mentioned [[Terri Windling]]'s best fantasy collection and some thoughts you had about that.

jr: i think there's a lot of very fine fantasy being written. i don't mean unicorns & warlocks, but fantasy that comes into ordinary life. several of them live in toronto - a kind of vitality there that i don't know is in science fiction. see i have been out of the loop for a long time but i know that some of these fantasy stories are just thrilling.

sd: yeah there is a feeling that some of the energy that was in sf for a long time may have moved over to fantasy. it makes it a very interesting field for in my case to be rubbing up against the ages of

jr: yes thinking about your tales of Neveryon / boy does that resemble tolkien much more

jr: [[Esther Friesner]] is the queen of parody / deathswatch - this was your dark lord fairy princess, oh it was hysterical, it was just luscious. that was swatch as in a swatch of fabric. it was a pun.

sd: yes i see.

jr: so if you see any parodies by Friesner read them.

sd: we have been told. what else has been going on in your life of interests occupying your mind for past days weeks months

jr: mostly i have to keep about taking care of my body & keeping it functional & so forth. something i didn't used to have to do. ... i do exercise it. trunk exercises in morning and hip exercises in afternoon. ahh. very boring. they really are but they work they do good things so i keep doing them. there gets to be a point in your social life is much more with doctors than anyone else.

sd: i gather you're not doing much writing.

jr: not doing any - haven't been doing any for 10 years.

sd: talk about transition from someone doing writing to not

jr: i found out once i got CFS that writing takes an enormous amount of energy, it takes concentration, and this is a physical thing. i always used to wonder why when i finished writing i was so tired; i was only sitting down and writing. but now i can't concentrate long enough to do this. and i can't keep a whole thing in my head at the same time. and i f you're writing a novel you're keeping stuff in the back of your head for a year or two. and it's very difficult to find suddenly you can't do that. it took about oh let's see 8 or 9 years for me to kind of live with that comfortably.

sd: it's something that one way or another every writer will eventually have to go thru

jr: i find that the real solution is to be very self-indulgent. really. go to thrift shops, read books, watch tv, talk to your friends.

sd: do all those fun things that you weren't doing

jr: yeah when you were too busy

sd: at one point you said sf was a religious literature. can you comment on that?

jr: well there's the old phrase i don't know if it's still current, sense of wonder. the sesense of wonder of awe of the hugeness of the universe, it comes up in all sorts of places. the million names of god/arthur clarke. or 2001. it's -- writer's heroes, the protagonists tended to turn into the new messiah in the last page

sd: yes that's a fairly common trope i think we call it in sf

jr: yes it was a feeling of awe and wonder and gorgeousness and complexity

JR: i've just been rereading Asimov's tales of the black widowers - someone presents a problem to a bunch of science fiction guys. and the one who always solves it is the ... ... absolute stunner. it's too complicated to go into here but he did something like that in the singing veisl if you know the story. well it hinges on someone who goes to the moon for a month ... air and water and food and warmth with him. but there's one thing he can't take with him - the earth's gravitational field - and that is how the whole story is solved suddenly at the end and it just gives you chills when he does it right.

sd: there's something about solving anything that makes you closer to the universe. when you suddenly understanding something that you were butting your head up against you're suddenly closer to the way things work. in philosophical Heideggerian terms you remember being the way

sd: many moments in your own fiction when this kind of thing happens, certainly spectacularly presented in language toward end of we who are about to when protagonist is starving herself to death and she has vision of agape, hears music of spheres, she's never experienced them at that intensity.

jr: hold on a moment i'll be right back.

... JR: i'm coming back. [applause]

SD: okay joanna.

JR: I found the other book. the other writer is [[Mary Wilkins Freeman]]. she's the one who writes about heroism. anyway - Whoof! [JR may have been sitting down]- where were we.

sd: we were talking about sf your comment about sf as a religious literature. and i'd mentioned your ending to we who are about to

jr: it's interesting to me that one of the best editors in the field [[David Hartwel]]l has a PhD in medieval studies.

sd: green knight

jr: kind of like something else i'd love to point out - people who seem to understand evolution of human society the best are evolutionary biologists like Stephen jay Gould - jared diamond / guns diamdons & germans -- they go right to the root of things without even having to read Marx. he says why was the first place where civilization developed first - wild crops that could be domesticated - animals useful that way. that's why. let's go on - this is going off on a digression.

sd: thinking of comments from your writing that stuck with me, one of them, related to this, [[Souls]] - that extraordinary novella about a medieval convent in which is run by the abbess radagunda which is besieged by norse vikings and basically she saves the place more or less or makes several attempts to save the people, and the abbess some of whom may not know the story - the abbess is an alien getting in touch with her inner alien - one night she's musing in her inner monologue, the people want religion that gives and gives but the true god is gods who take and take until there is nothing left but god. this was very powerful when i first read it and it remains powerful for me even today. i think in terms of the ending of we who are about to - phrase particularly resonant to you?

jr: temperamentally atheistic, no religion. one of the things i loved when i found it in college was information about taoism. they are mystics. when i was in my 30s and i was teaching at univ of seattle one summer the science fiction course you know the writing course i got to talking to one of the students who was also very much into this kind of thing and we drove several people nuts b/c we were saying things that were paradoxes, contradictions, and one of them said that A cannot be ... and got in a corner and pulled his hair.

sd: sometimes you have to do that

jr: but mystics have always talked in contradictions. a man asiatic who wanted to be shooter of golden arrows went to see greater of these who went to top of mountain. told first you must look at very very big things until they seem small and then you must look at very very small things until they seem big. and coming back to the guy's hut, the guy who wanted to be a great bowman or whatever, had left his arrows leaning against the hut, and the old man looks at this and says, oh one of those

laughter

JR: always gives me chills. it's the part where you know something so well and so completely but in an odd way you can't even talk about it. teehee this is what was driving him nuts. science fiction does this so well - end of childhood's end. mystics do so well - whole earth becomes light in the end.

sd: i think it was [[Willa Cather]] who said sometime that most literary writers get all the material that they're going to write about by the time they are 8 years old. and i've always thought that this is one of those things that alternate b/w seeming absurd and seeming insanely true. do you have any thoughts about that do you think the same age range applies to science fiction

jr: no. you learn a great deal by 8 or 9 but you're always putting other things in as you get older. i don't know if this happens in other literature but it does happen in sf.

SD: if all literature is in a sense the literature of childhood then i think that sf is the literature of adolescence.

jr: yes i've heard that from you before

sd: yes i'm not saying anything here i haven't said before. you were a Westinghouse winner in high school. can you tell us about the project?

jr: my dad built a long box for me w/ lights at the top and i grew a fungus in each compartment. and each compartment light had a different gel with colors red, blue, white, and completely dark. fungus produced different kinds of spores and produced them in different patterns depending on light. aspergillis janus, janus being two-faced, ancient roman god of beginning of year, two faces, one of future and one of past. different patterns - pie shaped,

sd: did you ever use that sort of thing in stories?

jr: i didn't. by the time i finished i thought it was terribly boring.

sd: story of yours i've always been very fond of a story called leapsite. basically a large winged creature hovers outside a window, it's made of, do we learn what leapside actually is in the story?

jr: no it's not in the story it's the title of the story. and it's an imaginary material made up by a Cornell architect. and whenever you had a problem you couldn't solve we said make it a leapside and change whatever variable you had. ... the story is in a way about fantasy in which fantasy becomes real.

SD: leapside is a great story and a great title.

SD: any of yours you find yourself still particularly fond of.

JR: hard to say - things change as time goes by. i will say this, i read most of them and i think they were pretty good.

applause.

JR: i have a few of those and think did i wrote that i have a few of those but not very many most are pretty good

SD: i think they're pretty good too b/c you're one of the writers i go back to read. can we talk about your novels, you don't talk about and chaos died much.

jr: yes. embarrassed. ... lots of stereotyped ideas about gay men. that didn't come to me until later. and marge Piercy put her finger on it when she said if you think of gay man as a woman it makes sense.

sd: those things don't bother me personally nearly as much as they do when the book came out

jr: yeah b/c the whole social surround has changed so much, you have changed, you can say the hell with them, whatever

sd: the result is that there are just spectacular passages, just pellmell, one after another thru the book, despite anything you might raise an eyebrow at, all sorts of wonderful things, like the passage i quoted. you say it embarrassed you; any parts you like?

jr: yes. i think the protagonist and one of the woman - evnuh - are walking thru the countryside - and i think the description of the countryside is very good

sd: yes some of the transition scenes i read them and my jaw drops even if i'm not in agreement w/ what he's transitioning from and to, it's great writing.

sd: it's also a poignant sympathy for the young that manifests itself in many stories

jr; oh yes

sd: but in particular the second inquisition, the story of the young lesbian girl in female man. just wring your heart out; they certainly wring my heart out. any special relationship in terms of your own life.

jr: yes i think so. i was discovering maybe a little later than that but also in that time discovering what they call the child within. and i discovered that i have one. i think everybody does. and this is not a separate personality, it's a kind of different personality, and she insists that she is the empress of the universe. then if she gets in trouble she comes and hides behind me and i have to take care of it. heh heh.

sd: your descriptions of the young woman in the second inquisition, and i'm trying to remember the epigraph in that story

jr: there is no second inquisition it starts, there damn well is

sd: something like if you can survive the opinions of the people in the small town in which you live you can survive anything. is what i took away from it. there is no second inquisition.

jr: i put a lot of autobiographical detail in that story. the town, the backyard, the little sort of couch or swing they sit on, stuff like that, the dance. all comes from stuff i've seen or lived thru.

sd: and stuff that feels incredibly real and has that ring of truth or as once i described it in critical writing it's not the ring of truth it's a whole gong of truth

jr: i felt very bad about not writing when i got sick and couldn't. the only thing i could do was finish the book what are we fighting for that i'd started much earlier.

sd: you did a great job

jr: well i'm beginning to be self-indulgent as i said. i like it. for example for someone like me who's lactose intolerant they are making the most wonderful imitation ice creams. and i find that if i eat too much of sugar especially chocolate i get a hangover. cartoon that expresses that - raven sitting over edgar allen poe and the raven says "sometimes"

laughter

SD: i don't know why i found myself repeating of all people Plato recently. and discovering that his idea of what education was for was to make your own world interesting to you.

JR: the more education you get the more interesting everything becomes

sd: do you still correspond with any of your old friends. i have been a very bad correspondent of late i know. i admit in public in front of all these people. are you on email at all?

jr: no. that's too much input. that's sensory overload for me. i'd probably become addicted or something like that. long-distance phone charges have really gone down. for something like $20 a month i can get unlimited long distance calling. so instead of writing i call people.

sd: do you have a good set of support in Tucson

jr: yes a small one. i have neighbors, one of whom is a children's book writer who has ms and uses a wheelchair. let's see, oh my goodness. i haven't really gone out to do this b/c i have been so easily tired that it's difficult.

sd: one of the things where i teach at temple university one of the things that's becoming, occupying a lot of very smart & interesting young scholars is disability studies. it's becoming something that's well worth one's time to follow. have you been looking at any of the work that people are doing with that?

jr: ... i have a lot of the early books about it. feminist disabilities mostly. i've been too busy doing it to write about it. having taught in academy for 25 years, i feel the way bell hooks does about it, when she says that universities and colleges are full of not very interesting very bright people.

sd: often that can be the case but sometimes i think they can be full of interesting bright people as well. interesting people are attracted to universities.

jr: yes that's true

sd: can you think of any particular local plans you've got over the next couple of weeks or months.

jr: not particularly. i'm trying to solve the old medical problems. ... solution ... the big one just being tired. if that's so life could be a lot better.

sd: sleeping can be fun. i say that as someone who's enjoying sleeping more and more every month. are there any other - you mentioned terri windling fantasy, are there any particular stories that struck you in there as interesting?

jr: yes but i can't remember titles and authors b/c i don't have it with me. one of the things that does seem to happen as you get older. memory just goes poof. story they tell about chronic fatigue syndrome. she's talking to doctor & trying to explain to him how strange. she says it took her four days to find watch. and he says people do misplace things and she says in the microwave?

sd: changes in memory are bizarre. i'm speaking from experience. i've often wondered whether the vaunted wisdom of old age is only speaking in generalizations b/c you can't remember the specifics.

jr: i don't know how long it took me or you to decide that the double bind in science fiction was economic, but i didn't know that in my 20s, i hadn't had that experience.

sd: but there is the one you did go thru - maybe you can give me some advice b/c i haven't figured it out - how do you write and teach at the same time

jr: you write & teach at same time by getting very tired. ... in a way i did do it and in a way i didn't. in my 20s i was a junior teacher, i was an instructor, and that meant that i didn't go to meetings and didn't have any voice in the dept but it was great b/c i had lots of time and energy. but as i got older and my rank increased i had less time. in my 50s if i got an idea for a story or a novel i'd say oh god not again i can't. ... not coming to meetings, not having enough honor students or advisees, i would just look sort of pathetic and say oh yes i'm trying but i wouldn't do it.

sd: that's probably what you have to do you have to break down and take the time for yourself which is hard to do if you're a labile friendly genial sort of person

jr: which i was not. i think what i did very self-consciously was teach the same kinds of classes all the time, creative writing classes all the time, so i didn't have to develop from scratch

sd: my greatest failing is that i do want to teach new things all the time - hmm. now i just want to think.

... questions from the audience.

Q - as someone who's 63 and in a mobile chair - i really appreciate your honesty about what you can and can't do.

Q - i was just wondering, i know you mentioned that your opinions of gay men used to very different & traditional, i was wondering if your opinions of transsexual women have changed since you wrote the female man.

JR: oh yes. oh yes it's almost as if my life as arranged itself to disabuse me of one prejudice after another. and all of these have gone b/c none of them were real really.

SD: do you want to say anything more about that or move on

JR: let's move on

aud: would you comment on the state of feminism today

JR: i don't really know enough about it to comment. i've been out of the loop. except for buffy. so about 10 years at least now so i probably shouldn't say anything.

steve: i've been pushing your book sat various people for many years. which book would you like me to push first, how would you like your works to be introduced to people.

JR: i think he would have to decide what kind of people they are and sort of what would not repel people but would pull them in

SD: i think that's what any writer would say. may i offer my own prejudices as someone who teaches joanna's work again and again. i'd say younger & less sophisticated readers really enjoy the adventures of alyx; more sophisticated readers like more sophisticated books like we who are about to, the female man, and two of them. and don't forget about on strike against god which is just as god.

JR: something about academics

SD: would she appreciate any correspondence and if so how do we contact you.

JR: well i don't really know what to say about that. sleeping 10 hours a night, i don't have really have much time to do it and i can't spend much time as i like. why don't you try and if i can write back i will and if i can't i'll write back and say i can't. see this is what happens when you get older, you stop giving really satisfying answers to questions. it all depends.

nnesi: i just wanted to ask if one of your indulgences includes music and if so what sort

JR: no it doesn't. i'm not sure why - i remember saying that the music you love is pretty much set by the time you're 30. i love baroque music, really love it, Rococo, all the way up to Mozart, and then Beethoven, and then i stopped dead. i think i discovered baroque music when everyone else was discovering -- ? -- i don't play particular music ... love tv, don't have much time. not one of those people who heard something and said it changed my life.

aud: what do you think of progression of situation you described in How to Suppress Women's Writing and do you think it's getting better.

JR: oh boy. again i really have been out of touch. i have the impression that yes it's getting better. i remember asking one of my classes at univ of washington about this and one of the young men said oh it's only okay to be a writer if you are like stephen king and make a lot of money. don't know what to believe.

SD: let me offer my two cents as someone in academy. what seems to be happening is that to make room for women writers is that notion of great writer itself is dismantled.

JR: well that's a great thing

SD: yes but i miss it. people now read volette or Middlemarch which i think have always been spectacularly good novels and think of them as if they're not particularly brilliant and i'm not sure that's good

JR: Molly Ivins & Barbara Ehrenreich are always saying that the attention span of americans is only 15 minutes

SD: at most

JR: it takes at least two generations to make an artist, in my case, maybe 3

SD: we've all appreciated what you've said, and all you've done, and thanks very very much for talking with us it's been stimulating and wonderful

anything --

aud: tell her we love her. wild applause.

[[category:WisCon 30 Events]]

Science Fiction from the (so-called) Third World (WisCon 30 Panel)

2006-06-21T01:32:47Z

162.83.198.150: /* Transcript Notes */

==Panelists==
[[Nalo Hopkinson]] (moderator), [[Nnedi Nkemdili Okorafor-Mbachu]], [[Sheree Renée Thomas]], [[Andrea Hairston]]

==Works Cited==
* [[Sheree Renée Thomas]], ''[[Dark Matter anthology series]]''
* [[Pearl Cleage]]
* [[Ben Okri]] ([[The Famished Road]] (Nigerian))
* [[Toni Morrison]]
* [[Alice Walker]]
* [[Amos Tutuola]] ([[The Palm Wine Drinkard]] (Nigerian)
* [[Ngugi wa Thiong'o]] [[Wizard of the Crow]] (Kenyan)
* [[Helen Oyeyemi]] ([[The Icarus Girl]] (Nigerian/UK)
* [[Cosmos Latinos]] edited by [[Sandra L. Bell]] and [[Yolanda Molina-Gavilán]]
* [[Mack Reynolds]]
* [[Angelica Gorodischer]]
* "[[Incubus]]" (William Shatner movie with Esperanto)
* "[[Code 46]]" (Tim Robbins movie with polyglot language)
* "[[Bedouin Hacker]]" by filmmaker [[Nadia el Fani]] (Tunisian film; finished 2002?)

==Other Works (SRT/NNOM)==
* [[Cosmos Latinos]] edited by [[Sandra L. Bell]] and [[Yolanda Molina-Gavilán]]
* [[Moses Isegawa]] (Abyssinian Chronicles / Uganda )
* [[Véronique Tadjo]] (uncollected short stories / Ivory Coast)
* [[Alejo Carpentier]] (Kingdom of This World / Cuban/Swiss), coined the term 'the marvelous real' that appears to have been mistranslated to 'magical realism'
* [[Salman Rushdie]] (Midnight's Children, The Moor's Last Sigh / Indian/UK)
* [[Iwan Jooste]] (Isobel Stellar & the Ubuntu Song / South Africa)
* [[Zakes Mda]] (The Heart of Redness / South African playwright now living in Ohio)
* [[SABLE magazine]] edited by Kadija George (Kadija Sesay / UK publication)
* [[Nega Mezlekia]] (The God Who Begat a Jackal, Ethiopia)

==Transcript Notes==

''Original transcript by Laura Quilter ... please correct, fill in, add comments''

{{FillerNeeded}}

... (FIRST 3O MINUTES OF THIS PANEL MISSING!!!) - panelists introduced themselves, discussed some writers, discussed Alejo Carpentier's 'the marvelous real', Walter Mosley's recent comments at the National Black Writers Conference @ Medgar Evers College on conservative readers, 'literature' vs. 'genre' snobbery, etc...

SRT:
* not enough translation in the US
* editing 3rd volume of dark matter on Africa
* let's put in this in perspective. places like Africa and India - HUGE. It's not like what it appears on the map. You spend two months in India and you've only seen three cities! Massive cultures and languages
* have to find work. some of it is not in native languages but written in other languages; e.g., malagasy in madagascar, some written in german, french. story about james bond kind of saviour set in a pan-african future where economy is very different; some of this sf/f is not in english; in french. challenge of finding these works, getting them translated, and then seeing what they have to say about the world. 2 things going on - finding works in english, finding works in other languages. communications with other authors in other languages. conversations with contemporary writers and scholars who, once you explain what you mean by 'science fiction and fantasy,' may introduce you to their contemporaries and colleagues

NH: translation is not word for word. look at me i'm a big black man; in french that translates to 'fat black man' which he was but the meaning is quite different.

audience: problem in india, people don't want to write in english the language of colonizers, but they have 11 languages of their own. views?

NNOM: complex thing. would it be better for them to write in english as opposed to their native tongue. it's a complex thing. i wish there was a language other than the language of their colonizer.

AH: if that's a problem you can find a language - or again i think we need to become multilingual. not so readership can be all in one language - but we need to have more translators so that this problem is not so great. there are 11 languages, 11 different ways of seeing the world, that's bountiful, not a problem. wow we need to have communities without us all speaking the same language

NNOM: but if they had all these 11 different people - if they had to do an anthology in one year what would they do.

SRT: that's the thing, you don't do it in a year. if you really care, you give it the time it deserves, you honor it. that's the process.

AH: find another language, the one you want, it doesn't have to be the language of the colonizer, it's what you pick and what you learn. in europe everybody speaks english.

audience: india has a language -- sanskrit

audience - it's labeled as fantasy if it's not judeo-christian belief system
why is da vinci code not marketed as fantasy - it's fantasy. why not marketed that way

nalo: some would disagree with you

audience: late mack reynolds did a series of novels in which members of african diaspora doing development work for english/french excolonials told all their respective lords & masters, drop dead; everybody use esperanto as the pan-african language; and developed a pan-african revolution. did five or six or eight - ? based on these premises. esperanto with its flaws is not the language of any of the former colonizers. didn't have political burdens that swahili had and so on.
audience: fascinated with alejo carpentier's original meaning of 'the marvelous real' later mistranslated to 'magical realism.' as a non-academic my understanding of the term as used in western literature is i'm going to write a piece of fiction, stick a non-scientific miraculous event in it, explain it, and if it's explained it's fantasy or sf and if it's not explained it's magic realism, a miracle.
*SRT: why do i have to explain it if it's part of the original culture, why should i have to turn around and have an 'as you know bob' when it's part of the culture?
*aud: but to me that's fantasy
*SRT: to me that's real

audience: speaking of translation / africa. angelica gorodischer also on a panel and listed many writers. cosmos latinos - a lot of those writers she mentions are translated in that volume.

SRT: translators are very organized - free-lancers waiting for work. i know one in san francisco alone who works w/ random house & other places but he's looking for work. he's fluent in spanish, translates well-known writers. i had one international residency experience, only american there, what is the south african book that won the nobel prize a couple of years ago - john coetzee - i met his translator; he was excited because he got the news that his translation from dutch to english won; and the whole conversation was that there was so many people who have great work and would love to have their work translated, but it's not a reciprocity; and that's a specific publishing issue in the market that affects how we as readers get access to these works.

AH- in the academy there are lots of people who love to do this but don't know of the work and then have to worry about whether it would look good on resume.

audience: i'm hearing question that science fiction is valued - term third world - i question it - when i look at india i look for reasons why i see eleemnts in language et cand i know in my heart that's not full reason why they are living ... language when it changes, when people migrated and how far they moved before language changed, and what i learned from is language changes when there's something in common b/w those people that is not there with others. 11 languages - i hear that there are riches and wealth that i don't have access to. so still the question of science fiction what is it what does it mean and does it have a meaning in those languages and communities that have their own languages and meanings. magic realism is just a marketing niche term. so what does science fiction mean across the 12 languages of india in the communities where they're writing it b/c that's where it will have a value to others. so where is the piece common to us all that i will be motivated to absorb.

jeanine - i came across magical realism before i knew the term - it didn't strike me as fantasatic - strikes me as a presumption for degree of rationalism - in all these stories of history, things that people don't offer explanation for like elves fairies etc b/c you're supposed to know what they are. readers are now expecting authors to write to their cultural lives instead of inviting readrs to step out of their experience into another. that's supposed to be at the heart of speculative fiction.

nalo: third one and then - yes

audience: try to keep it simple & not convoluted b/c a lot of things evolved that i want to ask about. mainly that we're talking about dominant culture and first world and a lot of these things are euphemisms for one another and -- the way the northern hemisphere is being developed right now. and the way it isn't in southern hemisphere - aforegone conclusion taht southern hemisphere is going to fall apart. i don't see enough hope / imagination to that other than screaming enclaves of progressive people trying to think about things differently but when there's no money difficult to see how that could be. so i worry that survival of people fm anywhere in southern hemiphsere or poor folks in northern hemisphere becomes dependent on idea that only thru diaspora can survival happen and only shooting an arrow thru culture can connection e made and we're talking about translation & what can be made available thru that or not. life or death ... existing diversity, b/c diversity keeps shifting and moving forward further. i want to know from all of you as you prepared for this panel & this give & take question of how can 3rd world writers impact sf and how can sf make a difference in 3rd world countries or members of people who consider themselves part of 3rd world cultures / countries / identities what do you guys think what is the role of sf in terms of social justice/action. is it that the literary community is for all its great things inherently, the deep stuff of racism is so thick that breaking past that - is it possible; if it were possible, how; what's the call to arms & is there one.

SRT: i'm going to be perfectly honest that i don't know what you just said but will try to answer two of the things I thought I heard from you. 1) what can sf or 'marvelous realism' do for the 3rd world. one it can contribute to our recordkeeping and help us understand the world better. not all 3rd world writers may be interested in that project. some don't want to educate you but some want to tell their own story. but it can enrich all of us, lift all our art & understanding & thinking about the world. 2) their work just contributes to the sense of wonder. i personally am bored w/ certain tropes. you can tell the same story 50 times and a new writer brings their essence to the story & makes you feel it all differently. but it will contribute to the whole sense of wonder. why we are here and love science fiction it's not all just about social justice. people i know who read it are looking for that hit. they are contributing just we're not necessarily plugged into that process. they don't need our permission to create it. i'm not saying that's what you're saying that's what i wanted to get out there.

AH: imagine agency. Silas Siakor. he's a liberian activist who works for rainforests helped to topple charles taylor - we can imagine agency from people we didn't imagine it from before. people having amazing experiences being full human beings.

nnedi: problem of label of magical realism - it's a load of [crowd laughter] it's got to go. i don't believe magical realism is any different from fantasy, i don't. i've read plenty and they're all fantasy to me and i don'tn see anything wrong with it and it doesn't take anything away from authors. in terms of sales and marketing categories - but the problem w/ label of magical realism for me as writer & my own experience is for epopele who aren't automatic readers of f/sf it turns us away from writing that. and when i started writing i was naturally inclined to writing things w/ weird things going on; it's just how iw as inclined. and my profs would veer me away from that; it's bad fiction to write things like fantasy & sf so i ended up turning to magical realism and they were fine with that.

AH: i'm sorry shoot those professors.

nnedi: category is a problem in that area. eventually i ended up just saying 'f it' and writing fantasy . i eventually found and started reading f/sf and this is waht i want to do. but that label of magical realism at least w/ the african writers i know it keeps them from even thinking of writing fantasy & science fiction b/c they know all the authors who write magical realism stuff and they're given lots of respect etc. and get residencies etc.

audience cynthia - writing about experience of being colonized from perspective of the colonized people

commentator - magical realism; it seems that what would make magical realism different from fantasy is that it's realism, pretty classic realism, but it employs elements that don't fit w/in ... a bunch of authors from czeck and former soviet union etc. who also have had similar elements - just bizarre w/ a bizarre sense of humor. one more thing, speaking of third world. i think it's a bit too simplistic to speak of it in terms of continents - b/c each state no matter where it ranges in economic scale of who's the most rich and most poor ... lots of pressure to produce social realism. the dullest possible literature.

cheryl - thing about labels is it's all about controlling languages. first world is europe, 2d world is america,

aud: taking romance, magical realism -

AH: pearl cleage, toni morrison ... in terms of cultural appropriation i think you just need to have more writers, writing these stories so their stories are known as well as the others. i hear the same tropes all the time ... suspicious and hostile rather than open. lots of wonderful playwrights. wonderful movie 'bedouin hacker'.

aud: i speak out of pure simple greed. i have seen really good fiction out of the third world written by american writers. some of it has problems especially old stuff. but lately i've seen american writers doing really good stuff. my thing is that there is a crapload of really good stuff out there and i want to see it. i attended a panel like this at worldcon in boston a couple of years ago and [[? she mentioned that #1 short fiction sf magazine int he world is in chinese. i want to read this. my comment is pure greed. somebody, somebody,

aud: we've been talking about reading & writing. i'm doing work now around a place in latin america. the literacy rate is only about 25%. this is of course very much class-based, if you're upper-class 95% of people read and middle class it goes down. and of course the country's changed. there's a rich 7 vibrant culture that comes mostly out of middle class. it's not a culture of - singers, improvisers on the street. it's a culture, music and of sculpture, and i'm wondering if multiculturalism of this sort is or ought to be multimediasm.

AH - that's a really good topic or issue. it may think about something that Ngugi wa Thiong'o is coming out a - book published in kenya in installments - 900 pages - each book eh sold, and it sold really well there in kenya; each book eh sold is performed to multiple people - so each book gets to at least 20 people. there's a whole performance tradition so his books - it's a storytelling tradition and he's from an oral culture - and it's translated - so i perform it in my language and you perform it in your language etc. - he was jailed for doing plays like that and was run out of the country for doing plays like that. ... strong set of people going off & doing that in nigeria, also in south africa. ... two actors, performed it all over, literally, came to amherst mass - they performed it, and then everyone knew about it. so it got beyond literacy, beyond the cultural barriers of language.

nnedi - one of his characters was so popular and well-known that government put out a warrant.

janice - really quick comments i hope. first as someone who wants to read chinese magazines, i'm also interested in this too. there' putting together a conference in chungdu just before worldcon 2007 b/c we could combine those 2 things so talk to me. 2d thing - i get disturbted when i hear people ask what do you want us to do b/c it's not their problem it's our problem. i like to remember bell hooks, we have our own brains, we should start figuring out what we want from these fascinating rich cultures and doing it in a way that accepts the beauty of it and enriches us. b/c i don't know about you but i'm tired of trying to make western culture work. thank you. hope that was short enough.

SRT: would you mind if i just bullet things that came up & give you a list?
# only about 5 or 6 years ago Haiti annnounced Kreyol as its national language; after 200 yrs...
# who knows name of william shatner movie w/ esperanto? / incubus
# recently saw film called code 46 w/ tim robbins also imagined future w/ polyglot int'l language so i don't know what it was; very interesting; very common; world was diverse but divided into areas based on genetics
# music is the intl language; i know how cheesy that sounds but really a lot of things, a lot of problems we have on the text, somehow they're not communciated thru the music - and - music i just wanted to say that; exmaple hiphop; you can introduce different ideas, science fictional ideas in music that don't get the same critique; i've seen diff artists intro very sf ideals into their music & its being listened to in 3rd world & who knows what effect is
# join carl brandon society & list, we share info on that on the regular
# i'm trying to connect w/ more academics & address issue that nnedi mentioned about labeling; if i say i'm looking for sf works by african writers, they look at you oddly, they don't know any; but then if you say, i'm looking for works that do this that and the other - and then they say ohhhh - you mean.....semantics
# finally, read a book, read a goddamn book

AH: read a book, read a book, read a motherfucking book

[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]] [[category:linguistics]]

Is Reading Feminist SF a Theory Building Activity? (WisCon 30 Panel)

2006-06-21T01:31:36Z

162.83.198.150: /* Transcript Notes */

==Panelists==

[[Karen Joy Fowler]] (moderator), [[Margaret McBride]], [[Lori A. Selke]], [[Joan Haran]], [[Cheryl Morgan]]

==Transcript Notes==

{{FillerNeeded}}

''Original transcript notes by Laura Quilter - please correct or fill in or add commentary''

mod KJF: What brought you to sf & feminism

MM: Subscription to science fiction book club as an adult.

LS: Learned both sf & feminism at mother's knee; getting Ph.D. In chemical engineering while she was growing up. Collision came when I read "When It Changed" ... I was 18, 19, 20; an adult but not by much. That was the first Joanna Russ I ever read.

JH: I also read sf & fantasy and all kinds of fantastic literatures as a child but once I went to college a sense of shame about that crept ... I continued to read fantasy. That makes no sense to me now. In early 90s I did a master's in gender studies. They gave us this very extensive reading list. This was my first encounter with feminism, was doing a master's in gender studies. One of the books was Shulamith Firestone's Dialectic of Sex. her thesis about taking reproduction outside the body seemed to me at that point incredibly attractive. The other thing she said was there was no utopian literature for women and I found that hard to believe. I thought that A) she was writing science fiction and B) there was other science fiction.

Piercy & Firestone, Piercy & Donna Haraway

CM: introduction.

KJF: Watching [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award|Tiptree Award]] process several years & something has repeated itself several times. Fresh jury begins discussing the kind of book they want, settles on the kind of book, the kind of experience they want. generally turns out they want to be reading [[The Left Hand of Darkness]] and want to be 19 years old. That's what they're trying to create. Many many months and books later they begin to scale down their expectations and look for changes that are more subtle & have a less profound change in their thinking. I've seen this so many times that i've wondered -- at our age, and with our reading histories, is it in fact possible to have that experience again?

KJF: When was the last time a book really profoundly rocked you? how long ago was that? and what sorts of impacts do you find when you read now?

JH: Sometimes reading a book doesn't have its impact on the first thing. I did work on Starhawk. Finally struck me that there was a male POV ... 1992, 93. The other text was Shadow Man - thinking about gender & sexuality, the way that Melissa Scott wrote about that, [thrtu], embodying relationships made sense to me. That queer theory for example you can slip off the page when you read about something ... The bodily experience of those characters has done as well as it is in Shadow Man. That helped me to imagine myself and to imagine other others in a way that makes a lot more sense. So again roughly the same time. and there have been texts that approach that since then but I think that for me but part of it is having the time to go over and over a text, because I read fast, I'm plot-driven to start with, I have to know how the story turned out, and then I go back and read parts again that occur to me; I can't do that the first time because I read to fast. Texts need to bear second, third, fourth, fifth readings to get rushes from them, to do theory-building. IMHO reading superficially one reading doesn't do that for me.

KJF: You said you came to these texts having been taught to read for gender issues - would you say you've been trained to do that or is it a more natural way for you to approach a text.

JH: No it's definitely training. my first degree was English history and the teaching was looking at a text in that context, and it was all class, come the revolution all will be solved, and gender was not an issue. Like that point of my life like many women of a certain privilege I hadn't come across gender as a disadvantage, but then once I went into the workplace I realized oooohhh - things are different for girl. Something about my social reality made it possible for me to realize reading differently - training - the other thing, in terms of theory building, it's not just about me reading the text, but about talking to other people about text, so it's not just about the text but about texts that can create conversations, and talking to other people who read differently, illuminates other stuff for me that I missed because of my own reading blinkers.

CM: One of the things that first struck me when I read the title is that sure reading is a feminist theory building activity but coming to wiscon is a really serious feminist theory building activity. In terms of recent books & things it's getting hard, this comes back to a panel we had yesterday: is feminist sf so five years ago. and to a certain extent we decided it was because things have changed. Back when I was a teenager it was great to imagine a world with female pilots and presidents and fighter pilots and now all those things have happened. We haven't won the war but we're now fighting in the trenches not doing easy things like advancing across the land. but the type of book people can write now is different than the type of book people could write back in the 60s. Plus when you're 19 it's easier to impress you with the big ideas & when you get older you get more sophisticated & ask more from a book. Most of the books that have blown me away over past few years are literary style rather than content. Probably River of Gods by Ian Mcdonald because he introduces in that a character who has had a sex-change operation to become neuter; someone who elected to get out of the gender game altogether; and if you look at the book, it's all based on what actual transsexuals go thru, but rather than what someone goes thru mtf or ftm it's what somebody would go thru to have no gender at all.

LS: took a course in feminist theory in college taught by someone who was really really rigorous and I don't think then I've had that reaction to a story; because I'm hyper-critical, it's really hard to blow me away with a story; which is why I think we do it with a narrative to begin with rather than writing Shulamith Firestone - that's science fiction. Narrative is to slip the ideas in and make you think wow and have it come up later but that doesn't work any more. John Kessel / Stories for Men. I read it as a book before it won the tiptree. For me it really did make me - it was the first sophisticated treatment of what it would be like for boys; the other side of a feminist utopia. It wasn't oh this would be horrible; it was hmm there are some sophisticated subtle effects. Things I look for now yeah the big idea is great but what are some of the unintended consequences. and I can still be brought up short by that kind of book or story.

KJF: But less of a wow and more of a hmm.

LS: Yeah but that's okay, I'm really suspicious of a wow; I'm really suspicious of things that are supposed to blow my mind or things that really did blow my mind because I tend to think I'm being propagandized rather than really changing my thinking because I'm not being critical

MM: I teach freshmen in college; I'm still involved w/ the 19-year-olds. I'm teaching a class this time of juniors & seniors of all Tiptree winners & shortlisted so getting a lot of that this time. But for my own personal reading it is a little more of the "well that's an interesting question, hmm, where is that going to go and what would that do". So even if it's fairly subtle -- Troll did some interesting things. I was on that jury. And Troll did some interesting things for me as did Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer. Which is a YA and I hadn't read a YA which was doing -- it was very subtle yet still some interesting things. ... TROLL what made it work for me - a gay man in Finland who finds a troll and for various reasons falls in lust with the troll. How much is your sexuality affected by what you don't want to do, how much of it is a dark thing going on, and what really made Troll work for me is the Philippino mail order bride, and mail order brides, even though most of us would totally cringe, they're an accepted part of our society, and how do we juxtapose that with the fact that everyone is so concerned that he fell in love with a troll. ... as long as it's doing the Theordore Sturgeon thing, at least making me ask some questions, I'm willing ...

KJF: Joan talked about a kind of text that leaves room for the reader, a participatory sort of reading as opposed to a text that walks you thru it; I want to discuss & add to it something that Lori just said -- I wonder if part of being a feminist sf reader is a kind of innately confrontational reading, a sort of -- instead of slipping right into a book and being willing to go wherever the writer takes you, is part of the way we read is a kind of prove it, show me, let me think about it first sort of reading? Speak at will.

CM: I picked up on it when Lori mentioned it as well and was wondering whether being less trusting of "gosh wow" was actually an artifact of changes in society as much of changes in us becoming more suspicious and things. Back when I was a teenager there was only one source of news in the UK; the BBC; so actually having science fiction novels that said things that the BBC would never say was interesting & important. Now these days we have a lot of media, different versions of the news; possibly that's making us more suspicious in our reading & less willing to accept gosh wow.

KJF: Will point out there is no feminist news channel.

JH: One of the things I was thinking about when I mentioned that point was I think for me some of it is about narrative strategies in terms of leaving a space. It's not necessarily that you are engaged in a one-to-one conversation with the narrator. I personally love narratives with multiple POVs where in the interstices the gaps and the kind of disruptions b/w different narrative POV characters where you can see the stuff that doesn't fit - example - just because i've been working with it, Gwyneth Jones' LIFE, the narrative works backwards & forwards b/w these two different women; one a passive-aggressive scientist and this sort of Camille Paglia type cypher. Jones is using them to look at different aspects of feminism, so sometimes they work as real characters, and sometimes they are much more advancing a politics. but because she is giving you those different perspectives, and ... She's giving you as the reader multiple points of identification and also the opportunity to have either one and follow the narrative one way or the opportunity to move b/w those points of view & have a much more complicated way first time thru which I'm generally too stupid to do.

CM: Everyone's too stupid to read Gwyneth's books.

JH: No this is why I have to read books over again because I do suspend my disbelief and I do get fully embodied, embedded in one of the characters, and it needs me to read it again to get those kinds of differences. In Starhawk novel I was talking about there are two main female POV characters and those were the only ones I could read the first several times I read the book; it was when I finally read it several times and heard the voice of that other character. Sorry I'm not just kind of rambling.

KJF: Life is a really complicated and interesting book and my first time thru it I had - there's a rape and another great injustice of another sort as well and I was so focused on expecting that to be resolved in some way, the perpetrator to be exposed, the woman to come to some sort of action, and just waited for that - so to me one of the interesting things about it was to think, okay, that's not a necessary part of the plotline any more. It seemed to me - I'm not saying this very clearly - it seemed to me in the end much more real & interesting that it didn't resolve in the ways I longed for it and waited for it too and left me with much more to think about because it didn't

MM: When I was thinking ... Of what I did with my students, that's what happens when they move from fiction to theory when they start to ask themselves what does this has to do with my life? Where do I see the fiction playing out in the things that have to do with me. again I'm working with fairly young people who often have read no theory so how do we move from the fiction to theory and I guess what I'm thinking is that the two work together - theory gives you language & a way to approach a particular issue and the fiction can also give you language & metaphor and a way to approach a particular issue.

KJF: this raises something i've been thinking about in terms of this panel & my life. When I had that early experiecne that your students are still enjoying, the books were very useful to me in terms of my own life. It's been hard. The kind of sexuality issues in particular about an aging woman which are for obvious reasons the kinds of things I'm interested in now it's very hard to find books about those kinds of things to find what I'm experiencing now. So along the same lines as when was the last time a book changed something for you i've also added when was a book really useful to me. When I was first married and reading all that feminist science fiction it was would change me so completely that I was utterly unfit to live in the real world, my husband would tiptoe around and say let me know when you've finished that book, and there would be a very painful process of readjusting. But maybe I just don't let it happen any more, maybe it was too painful.

LS: Some people use books for escapist purposes. finding something that speaks your language and lets you go somewhere else is a good thing. I don't get that experience reading but I'm also a writer and I do get it writing and that's why I do it.

MM: These were painful. I'm thinking of [[Kate Wilhelm]]'s [[The Funeral]] - one of [[Harlan Ellison|Ellison]]'s anthologies, [[Dangerous Visions]], and it was just PAINFUL to read because it felt uncomfortably true. And some of the other ones too where, they were very important for me, but also so discouraging of what I thought was going on in my life and what I thought was going on around me - I don't want hopeful books exactly but I want to feel what can I do with this book or this story that somehow changes the way that I'm thinking, changes the world around me, or sees a potentail way -- LIFE did some of that for me, made me think about things in a different way; it's not exactly a hopeful book, but at least it's not totally a funeral of all is lost, all is gloom, and funeral was that way for me.

JH: can I say something

KJF: please do

JH: One of the reasons I liked [[Life]] and it brings me back to other books - one of gold coast books / pacific edge - thinking about utopia as something fully formed and complete is wrong thing to do; utopia is about struggle forever; and that seems to me the best description of utopia that I can imagine; and I think for me that's useful because it is about process & struggle & movement. It's not perfect by any manner or means but it's - some of the things that she's doing with that are really useful, and that idea, struggle forever - so I think hope, hope is about, I think, being able to take action; you don't know how it's going to turn out but you think you can do. novels or any kinds of texts that help you believe you can do things are really useful. books aren't just useful to me to think about stuff, they're to help me hold myself together; that's one of the reasons I read to hold myself together because sometimes the struggle forever is about too hard. It doesn't always have to be theory; it can be about speaking to you or parts of you in ways that other parts of the world don't.

CM: maybe I'm just old & cynical but i've gotten to the stage where nobody else is going to hold myself together but me and I read books for other reasons the style or whatever. They occasionally say interesting political things but I no longer expect solutions from them.

MM: but even if it's a light little touch that makes me go this story couldn't have been written 10 years ago - there's a very light-hearted story, kissing frogs, and it's a story where a person who is transgendering puts a want ad to meet somebody, and the story couldn't have been written, couldn't have been published, I think 20 years ago, and the fact that it can and even be listed for a tiptree makes me feel hopeful about the world.

KJF: what about it makes you think it couldn't have been published then?

MM: I don't think a character treated very lightly, very humorously, that's in the midst of transgendering -- could that have been published 20 or 25 years ago? a story that treats the whole concept of transgendering and going thru that so commonplacely that it's treated humorously, I don't think that could have been done.

CM: certainly there have been characters for a long time, angela carter, I think the point you're making is that the character is treated sympathetically.

MM: the author didn't have to do a lot of work; because audience accepted it; and I think that's a hopeful.

KJF: I think a theory is that perhaps I'm too cynical

LS: cynical

KJF: easy for me to forget how much progress really has been made since I was growing up then and now because in some ways the vision that I got from these books was a sort of all or nothing, either we win or we lose, and i've been very surprised in some ways by the focus on masculinity - something i've begun to hear a lot about. because in the 70s when I was first encountering this stuff & hearing about it it was very clear to me it was for both sexes; partly because I had children; very clear that the male role was oign to have to change for feminism to succeed the way I wanted it to. The shock of feminism that women would work outside the home & come home & do all the work there as well was not what I was envisioning. What I longed for was such a deep & profound change that it's hard for me to take the pleasure in things that perhaps I ought to take in the things we have accomplsiehd.

MM: at that point I needed to have my consciousness raised. I was a very young woman who had been raised in a very stereotypical world and I needed painful and needed the rug pulled out from under me. I actually had a young woman write to me who was 20 who had never thought much about gender. Student who wrote to her @ 20 had never thought of gender. I was probably there at 20 as well. problems int he world. I'm willing to read the painful works occasionally but I want them to raise questions for me. fantasy & sf for me are to disrupt reality but not to break it down so much that it can't be built back up.

CM: a couple of things in this clearly as you get older there's a lack of willingness to change, you have more to lose, the job the family all that kind of stuff. I like to think I'm not like that possibly because I don't have much to lose, no job, not much social status ... but I think after you've thrown yourself enthusiastically in something for 30 or more years everything involves people and everything involves people involves politics & is struggle & won't work the way you thought it would.

JH: don't know if it was what I said about masculinity you were thinking nabout. When I was reading WOTEOT and firestone it wasn't that men had to change, but it was that they had to change the way way I thought they had to change.

KJF: and so they should

JH: but I want them to change how I want them, not the way you - I don't care about you - and fiction reminds me of other POVs that are useful. but I'm a bit suspicious of linear progress models of history but also of subjectivity identity or whatever. but I have to keep learning and forgetting the same lessons over and over again. and maybe this is one of my kind of things about re-reading. a lot of the talk on the panel has been about fiction as a progression and I think you're making interesting and real and valid points about things being made possible that weren't possible before but going back to stuff written in another period of time is still useful now is one of the ways that I do theory. Stuff doesn't have to be novel to be useful. I'm going to stop there.

KJF: the always amazing UKL. The last time I read TLHOD a couple of years ago I had a different kind of thinking about it. part of which was to some extent it is literally true, and I can't defend this very well, and I would have to defend male and female in ways I am incapable of doing, but her aliens become male or become female depending on the outer stimulus that's provided at the time, and that's something that we fit ourselves in as well - something that I was taking purely as grounded & a thought experiment I can now take in a different way

MM: we need to keep this in print because there are still people coming up who are 20 who have never thought about gender & need the painful works.

vonda: MM said a little while ago that you weren't looking for hopeful books ; is it impossible for a hopeful book to pull the rug out for under you. (confusion about hearing im/possible)

LS & MM: oh yeah it's possible

VM: I get pages with 300 of abuse of women and with blurbs that say you'll love this book and I don't think people needed to write that book after suzy mckee charnas walk to the end of the world.

KJF: there's your blurb right there: "didn't need to be written; go read some suzy mckee charnas"

VM: 300 pages of wallowing in the abuse of women to prove that abuse of women is bad, which, duh. he kept pestering me; publisher said but you don't understand vonda the way you can tell the bad guys is that they're abusing women.

MM: I agree with you but there are people who haven't read suzy charnas but they might read something new. So I think there are still some reason for those books to be written.

VM: but shouldn't sf go beyond that and have some attention paid to it beyond that's a hopeful book & I'm too cynical to read it

CM: I think there are plenty of good books around; that's not an issue. but at the same time I think there are people who need to be shocked out of their complacency, realize they aren't as well off as I am.

LS: hope is great it's the actual -- rearrange my thinking doesn't happen, and if it were to happen I would have to realize that someone was snowing me, but hope -- pandora experience here are tons of things being thrown at you

KJF: I would turn that around and ask you suzy mckee charnas' book aside, is there a book without hope that could still be a valuable book or would that not be a helpful experience.

VM: a book without hope (stuttering)

KJF: I'm thinking that would be a great title

VM: you can write it

KJF: I can write it, I can read it, I can publish it

VM: i've had the experience of writing what I thought were hopeful books nad being told I'm not a feminist. "You're a feminist?" not serious ... maybe the light at the end of the tunnel, light shining on us for last 30 years, is having an effect

gavin: thinking of [[Laurie Marks]]' fantasy series, bad things happening to men and women, yet hope that people will live together - trying to get beyond the cynical thing.

VM: not trying to say there shouldn't be bad things happening or even drama or melodrama in a book, but the assumption taht bad things happen because you're female or a kid, I just with my own work I want to get beyond that.

CM: laurie's book are an excellent example - in them, people working hard on politics, trying to learn from each other; that's particularly helpful because someone learning what needs to be done.

aud: add to that short story series of matter of seggri; I found that to be very powerful & very hopeful

aud: theory-building - lots of different aspects. One of them is 19yo experience, getting in touch w/ inner 3yo and make you say "why" - book sthat get inside me and shake of my theoretical base are books that see something that i've never seen even tho it's right in front of me - for me gwyneth jones WHITE QUEEN & north ... did that for me

LS: troll did that for me. I can't articulate my response to troll in any meaningful way whatsoever but it did make me go hmm.

MM: I'm not sure I can say why but the first thing that came to my mind were the stories that retell fairy stories and that made me go hhhh-- why was that particular trope always there in the fairy tale and what happens when we come at it from another point of view

KJF: it's not a text so I don't know if it's a fair responsen to your question or not but I have been of course as many of us have been living in the US for the last several years and i've become very conscious of the whole war narrative, we're going to war, we've been attacked, and the tremendous power of that storyline, and my reaction has been very much, what an unnecessary part of the world war seems to me to be but how much the people who aren't actually going toff to do the fighting seems to thrill to that storyline. not so much of the war itself but over the power of that narrative.

CM: I think a lot of the really interesting stuff i've read of late has to do with state of world, gender politicds. Thinking of short story that --? wrote about iraq war; about bulldozing iraqi soldiers alive in trenches.

aud: in terms of where is tarted as a feminist sf reader to do and where I look for and what I look for -- id idn't know vonda was there -- but I started with dreamsnake, and it struck me as a very humane, and it was incredibly helpful, and it was a young woman character taking action in her universe for change, in a very loving & assertive way, and that was earthshattering for me at the time. and here I am 25, 30 years later, and having studied women's studies in college, the world around me today has become a place where the % of things that I thought were movable issues compared with the % of things I thought were intractable and things I thought were given have completely changed. I used to believe early on, that everything was movable and changable, and some intractable and I didn't have a bead on them and then they'd be movable. and I sit here today and look at the world - touched by venom did a lot of controversy - and part of the story is that women are horribly treated, and is this news, and I don't think it's news, but the reality is you don't need a book to find it, it goes on in places of war, poverty, etc. So now I find myself not just a place of movable intracdtable etc but hopelessness because maybe given is a bigger % than i'd ever considered based on biology & nature of universe and that's what has me reading now for things like joan said holding myself together as a person, as opposed to wows, because I'm getting wows for the world, and I'm all for a hopeful telling, and I think laurie marks' is a very hopeful view of the universe, but that given is scary.

matt austern: congentical agenesis of gender ideation - a story I recently read that said something about gender i'd never seen before. The first story i'd seen that asked what kind of mind you'd have to have to not see gender beofre.

KJF: impact on me, because how had I not noticed the gradations, 2 sexes, 3, four, and then I read that book and think oh right it's 25 or 30. also thinking about flexibility of sexuality in that book/story

gavin: read john varley short stories i'd never erad before, amazed to find, closest person to have written kissing frog story in 1976 if tiptree wasn't doing things like that. john varley now seems to write heinleinian space opera for kids with some gender stuff but ...

CM: I haven't read JV's stories myself but 2-3 years ago we had a panel w/ transgender issues and the message I got was it was superficial

gavin: and yet you can't change the gender of the charadcter even superficially without changing expectations of reader etc because you don't know waht author intended

gavin: another thing is there much of gender stuff in new or old space opera

CM: character in -- ? cass? city by Al Reynolds (alastair) - character mentioned having changed sex a long time ago

JH: justina robson's occasionally on edges of that & I think she's really interesting but I don't have time to read enough fiction in the way I want to. I've started reading her and am interested. I don't want to get into progress models but I do think different generations do things in different ways - different generational models. Want to say something about feminism, not just about gender; sexuality ,race, class, and multiple other hierarchies of oppression, and so it doesn't have to be about - that doesn't have to be the lens to consider feminist theory-building to be organized about it necessarily

LS: gavin are you suggesting that space babe is a feminist building

CM: "living next door to the god of love" character who is a god

KJF: eleanor arnason's ring of swords is one of the texts I reaturn to a lot

MM: "light" which won the tiptree has elements. Sometimes space opera that has so much going on if I were to look @ gender I would have to read again there's too much. but to go back to the point about gender not being main aspect of feminism; I sat down before this panel 7 said what have I read about in theory; and I made a list and I think you will be able to come up w/ sf that does something with every single one of those
bodies - technology - nature environment & assoc w/ feminism - language - race & colonialism - boundary & borde rblurring - power issues categorizing & universalizing -

KJF: is it possible to love a book which is absolutely offensive on its sexual politics. can you give me an example of a book that you love despite every moral fiber of your being.

MM: I find them useful & use them in my classes ... eg: 1972 a sentence that is not a character, a male writer wrote this, very well-known sf writer, the universal voice, "she handled the car skillfully, ofr a woman, particuarlyly for a beautiful woman."

aud: the fmeale man / Joanna Russ - does wonderful things for politics in terms of women's state of being, but also nasty things to say about transwomen that come straight out of janice raymond ...

LS: the first earthsea book. I actually have that more these days with movies.

KJF: my family is completely looking at me these days, 'are you crying?' of course not! nonsense

JH: sheri tepper's gate to women's country which I do love, but her feminism a deeply troubling feminism, eugenic, totalizing, that's scary, but there are aspects that are very seductive because of the parts I think she gets right, but I think she gets it right based on a completely dodgy & biologist premise that I wouldn't want to indulge for a minute. but when people represent it as a utopia I want to (slap myself on forehead); have you read it? some books that areally fucked but are also really satisfying to my feminist totalitarian, but I want other books that make me

MM: I will be trapped, because yes I have great problems w/ GTWC, but from stylistic, with the play, it works for me, and it also works as a teaching tool

CM: I do tend to react particularly badly to books that I disagree w/ the obvious politics of it but if the politics are bad I tend to hate the book but I have this awful feeling that there all these books that I really enjoy that if I sat down to think about the politics & gender assumptions I would hate them.

KJF: well we will go from here and work on our level of outrage and hopefully on our level of hopefulness.

(the end)

==External Links==

* [http://www.emcit.com/wordpress/?p=2591 Thoughts from Cheryl Morgan]

[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]]

Who Wants a Revolution? Will a Reform Do? (WisCon 30 Panels)

2006-06-21T01:30:34Z

162.83.198.150: /* Transcript Notes */

==Panelists==

* [[Laura Quilter]] (moderator), [[Susan Karen Kinast-Porter]], [[Patrick Nielsen Hayden]], [[Lenny Bailes]], [[Ian K. Hagemann]]

==Works Cited==

* [[Kim Stanley Robinson]]'s Mars trilogy [[Red Mars]], [[Green Mars]], [[Blue Mars]]
* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]
* [[Alice A. Nunn]]'s [[Illicit Passage]]
* [[Ursula K. Le Guin]]'s "[[The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas]]"
* Dan Froomkin's column in ''The Washington Post''
* [[Upton Sinclair]]

==Transcript Notes==

''Original transcript notes by Liz Henry - please correct or fill in or add commentary''

laura: [...]

ian: for me to be here as a black man... it's something we can't go back from. i don't think. not so easily as we seem to have gone back in feminism

joe: wto in seattle started out protesting etc thinking no big deal really but after 4 days of being gassed and clubbed my perspective changed completely. i think when revolution happens you can't predict your response to it. you get caught up in it.

ian: ... something about seattle wto etc

laura: have not learned a lot about revolutioin from sf. but maybe from Kim Stanley Robinson's mars trilogy. when they destroyed the shoot to the moon i'm curious if there is more about revolution in sf

patrick : not really very much... sf tends to... [] revolutionary in much more simple way but to expand our consciousness... what we can get to. not good at actual process. sf does not have actual procedural recommendations we'd be in a different world.

woman from audience: .... []

susan: sf is in a way our religion and keeps us from exploding. that's true for me. makiing it very very clear for me that i don't want to be in a revolution or a catastrophic scale of change.

[i think that's b/c she has something to lose]

joe: martha ward. gw bush. same char. they antagonize people from looking around,

guy wth pink hair and beard... contingent focus point, circumstance develop and things happen. revolution and sustained change. it would not do any good if a bunch of folks took out the white house and executed the ruling elite. b/c in a few weeks a new set would be ushered into place. culturally the us is not prepared, not ready, to have a society different from what it has now. if we got the revolution, it would not last.

laura: i agree but don't agree at all b/c I heard the SAME words from people about apartheid and about black people in SA not being "ready" or "capable" to run htings. and there are problems in SA but they have a very progressive constitution, etc

lenny: the underlying conditions that allowed that to take palce would not be removed. we have to remove the infection but also change the underlying conditions. we have let these people take power.

laura: question... yes, a paradigm shift but that may not work if they steal the ballots, if they maintain control in every conceivable way. i am not confident whether at this point we CAN...

lenny: getting the media to do their job

patrick : i think the media is the problem there has always been a thuggish business class the present media is morally feckless and corrupt. Decadent, meretricious, "human beings"...

[audience cheer!]

susan: well they kept saying how liberal the media was

patrick: this was a great piece of mau mauing. i popped my cork recently.. over this thing on slate... vic weissberg, editor... hilary clinton... interview of what's on her ipod. his entire article was about how her beatles and rolling stones are evidence that she is weaselly... wtf somenoe who went to college in 1972 likes the beatles and aretha franklin? big surprise!

audience: guy with grey hair and beart and glasses in front row: the problem with the media is like everyone else in this world we have ruules and conventions by which we operate. most businesses are part of a larger structure...

patrick: and how did we get to the ...

bearded guy: let me finish. the problem is... the repulicans hav learned to subvert them. i'll tell you exactly what it is . The talking point.

[jesus.. the testosterone in here...]

patrick: can I finish,

bearded due: Let me finish. [something about reporters and their talking points]. you almost have to view them like the soviets. you knew that everyone in the soviet power structure ...

other guy: the republicans haven't ... [something]

patrick: well i wan't thinking of wisconsin public television as the ...

guy: I'll tell you exactly what i think the problem is is, at one time in our country you have ... obviously partisan presses... but at some point we started getting into the idea of this one quote unquote objective voice.

laura tries to put a lid on it... guy keeps talking right over her. oh man .. i might as well be teleported into the comments thread of daily kos. hello did we forget the "feminist" as well as the "sf" partof this panel? overbearing dudes need to shut up a bit

woman in audience with feathered hat: revolution...

ian: most revolutions happen when things start getting a little bit better after a long slow downturn,. ideas... what it is they're fighting for. for example responsible nonmonogamy as a lifestyle, mostly started by sf fans. who read about it in sf. and then it moved out into the larger culture. it was something people did but not that they talked about or thought carefully about. whether they were so well written... or treated women very well... *laughter*

quilter: you are talking about heinlein?

*laughter

woman with ponytail in back: revolution in us now: gay marriage. knocking on doors... passionate about it.. in wisconisn. that's not where the real battle is. it's not the physical battle it's aesthetic.

patrick: .... people consider the dmo party... 50 state strategy. raising and spending money

another guy in audience: I'll tell you exactly what the problem is . the media keeps exacerbating divisions and turns us into mobs against each other.

[what? some other dude just said the opposite, that everyone says the same thing... and everyone agreed with that and now everyone is agreeing with this new guys]

patrick : We have to make a point of telling them what a fossilized pieces of shit they are, has a point to appeal to any last withered vestige of human decency they have.

laura: wait, wait, wait.. what is the solution? revolution? if the problem is the media, then what is the solution? what is revolution look like ? we must own the media.
so, let's have a quick round from the audience and then more panel discussion.

john, in audience: moderates vs. extremes. do we play to moderates or extremes?

pink hair guy: in many mentions of revolution there are assumptins it is violent revolution or physical overthrow. a cultural revolution that's slower than taking up arms and burning down centers of power... you can reach out to people you know, talk to them. call your coworkers on their shit. challenge people in everyday life.

[hmm sounds like 'reform' to me]

guy in back: 30 years ago we brought them down [what??] 20 years ago we said yessuh massa [wtf] and... to what happened at el mozote. as in that richard vigory article that patrick linked to... no longer come up with talking point. [...]

laura: i'd like to hear from some of the women.

guy in front: what about blogging, what do we see the media enacting? does the stuff hapening in blogging need to happen in the mainstream?

patrick: what would moving to the mainstream MEAN?

guy in front: there's a large number of people online... and the largest people are white collar workers.. how do you get blogs to everyone... blue collar workers...

laura: radio.

womn in front: pornography.

laura: radio is something people who work with their hands can listen to. media and commercialization.

woman in black velvet hat in back: maybe this is obvious but hasn't been said. The way things are not, is VIOLENT. children don't have health care... people's livelihood taken away from them... that's violence.

guy about the el mozote: But, people don't see that as violence.

me: but it is.

cynthia white: well... this is a strategizing question...

susan: how to make people see. "[[The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas]]"

el mozote guy: can you make people see that the poor are us, rather than, they are the poor.

laura: tv showed the images about vietnam and people hurt and dying. and yet a huge amount of people voted bush after seeing abu ghraib.

susan: well,

lenny: well the problem is, I'll tell you,

laura: i want to hear susan.

susan: people don't seem to see it or know it. 14 million...

lenny: how many people in this room write letters to newspapers and tv stations. we need to let them know there's things we don't like. because they care about that.

laura: it's a little bit more efffective in my opinon than voting.

patrick. you can shame people who have been toadies a little bit. and even a little bit is a plus.

woman in pirate hat: american mindset is that your primary motive is self-interest. (is that anna from italy/london?) you need to change that so their motivation; is moral.

laura: that's so true it's shaping the vision of what's going on.

larra clark: i'm a librarian.... we see fox and cnn... letters to the editor is effective... it has a voice. but people have to engage the media in a very active way. just like with politics we need to engage in a very active way. rather than giving up and calling it crap. i don't watch tv, it's not for me and i don't care about it.

laura: creating media i totally see, but what would engaging mean?

larra: avenue and outlets for it. community radio station, look for ways to talk to other people, media as a way to talk to people. chicago, ney, la than if you're in another community we have an obligation to engage. it's a struggle. if we don't our voices will never be heard.

patrick you're exactly right and i don't want to overstate...and you've been very polite,.... and blogging is effective. political blogging makes them defensive. they read it. they pay attention to it:

michael, in front row: child death. problem isn't i see it is that people dont know... they don't care. it's what anna said about self-interest. Reagan made the poor into the enemy.

woman in middle: people at work... no sense of shame. no sense of public property. i've talked to people who didn't know that libraries belong to the public.

avedon : national health service... people here think it's bad.. but it's not... what's bad is losing your health b/c you can't afford it

laura: there's been a structured attempt to degrade the quality of public media and the spread of public information.

ian: revolutions... quote from goebbels, if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth. pick a revolution. civil rights movement. mlk didn't create the bus boycott. rosa parks not an individual, community efforts... figurehead to be sacrificed in case it went badly... hundreds of hours of people volunteering... to make that bus boycott work. when i look at what made seattle effective, was new tactics. decentralization. they weren't able to stop the activists b/c there wasn't a top. it was affinity groups.

laura: that's how we took over the streets in san francisco... we had affinity groups. i had friends [post-panel accuracy check: "friends with family"] in iraq who said that they didn't think america cared but when they saw that san francisco was shut down they had some hope:

ian: quote from [[Upton Sinclair]]

lenny: take the time to call the media

arthur (bearded guy in front)

john: to bring this over to sf. who do you direct your political sf to? and what do you pick to try to change their minds. central vs. radical? we have to speak to red states in the same way that... we have to have ... i don't like the term moderate b/c your way is still there but you have to speak in a way that is understandable...

laura: susan take that.

susan: i'm a democratic organizer in addition to a doctor and sf fan. people who live there should speak to their neighbors and friends. i don't want south dakota to have banned abortion. if you don't want things to get worse... we can't have a one party system. it's important we work to get back one or two of the four institutions so there is some difference. even if you don't see the dems and repubs as very diff

lenny: how many people read atrios/ eschaton... in 10 most important congressional lists. buttons where you can donate. we have to start doing things like that.

arthur: everyone should read dan froomkins's column in the wash post. blog, nytimes, all on equal footing there. based upon the significance of it... they all get equal weight. all sorts of diff voices

cynthia white: in terms of media forums. you can put pressure on your local tv stations. if they don't show a production that's broadcast nationally... tyou can organize write-ins to tv stations. i have conflicted feelings about oprah. she's been doing stuff around poverty in the us... she focuses on individual solutions. but she does talk about health care, minimum wage... i wish she were more collective. i wish i could push her a little bit more to the left. and she goes into the red states.

woman in back: i'm frustrated b/c we keep focusing on media, government. what about the dollars. what about business. sf, and relationship btwn who we see as bad guys based on reading sf.

more...

quilter recomends good book by [[Illicit Passage]] by [[Alice Nunn]], Australian writer: turnkey girl, ... and anna... very good...

girl in white frilly outfit; civli rights movement, xtian church acted in significant way. when most of us think of xtian churches we hardly think of anything positive. hijacking of symbols. it's not a charismatic leader, it's... license plate for wildlife was eagle with flag. but now that looks like a gun-owner-rights right wing thing.

ian: left has to do a better job at dealing with strategic alliances. right wing pulled those feminist out of their fucking minds to coopt them for anti-pornography movement. that gave them power b/c they have formed an alliance.

patrick: are you suggesting that if we have an anti-iraq war demonstration, that we shut the fuck up about mumia:

ian: yes, but. BUT.

lenny: write letters to the paper.

avedon: let's not foget what republican did -- think tanks. not even think tanks they are propaganda strategy machines. throwing money at them. at building

patrick: youth thing — you can get an easy career in being a professional conservative as long as you are wiilling to spend your life spouting right wing talking points

avedon: where is the left wing equivalent

patrick there is no money in being a left wing activist/pundit... [or was that avedon?]

laura: how do we know if what we're doing is the right thning and when it's time to focus on small local elections... and...

me: how do we know when it's time for revolution?

laura: yeah how do we know when it's time for revolution?

woman in middle: people on left have missed the boat in villifying business. small business in particular. what is number one issue.

avedon: you think it's us who missed the boat, you're wrong. it's them. we've been saying it. they missed the boat. they need to help us.

patrick: small businesses... worst bunch of pampered sissies...!!! every politician pandering to them...

woman in black velvet hat: it's people getting together and acting together that will make that change. to stop that violence that's been happening. i operate by the ethic of least harm.

kathleen: i dont know where you live but where i live hundreds of thousands of people ... took to streets, left jobs and school... immigration.

allen baum: i'm not hearing the long term strategizing... the left has money.l..

laura: summary

* strategic long term thinking
* contribute to media, write, respond to things wrong right away.
* elections, where will make difference
* blogging and creating own media
* general strike
* build coalitions
* win culture wars on the moderates, not focus on the extremes and individual red state races
* universal health care, will make real difference in people's lives
* calling people on their bullshit
* convincing middle class doing to its employees what GM has done will continue happening
* celebrate success when we get it
* health care again. keeps people from taking risks. protecting themselves.
* read, stay informed, think about what you're reading so you can recognize a good colaition where you see one
* talk. get the radios back
* vote with dollars . like really.
* put your money into businesses that have political
* sense of humor rather than getting angry
* try and show and help peole to do critical thinking.
* if you have a 401 k, check and make sure you're not investing in something horrible
* support long attention spans....

laura: we have a right to health care, we do not have a right to health insurance.

[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]]

Animal, Human, Alien (WisCon 30 Panel)

2006-06-21T01:29:54Z

162.83.198.150: /* Transcript Notes */

==Panelists==

[[Elizabeth Bear]] (moderator), [[Liz Henry]], [[Tom La Farge]], [[Ursula K. Le Guin]], [[David D. Levine]], [[Lisa Tuttle]]

==Panel Description==
Let's talk about books which explore animal/human boundaries as a way to explore gender and, often, race. Books where women become animals, or animals take on a narratively feminine gender role. Examples would be Carmen Dog, Troll, Mister Boots, books like that. What roles do we project on animals? The trope of the telepathic companion animal as perfect Wife, or as the externalization of the heroine's object position and disempowerment. What are the boundaries of sentience? In fact, animals, aliens, and AIs all explore this idea.

==Transcript Notes==

''Original transcript notes by Laura Quilter - please correct or fill in or add commentary''

EB: animals as allegory

UKL: the farther back you go in history the more stories are about animals

LH: ??

DL: farmkids seeing animals having sex

TLF: animals - different kinds of animals have different kinds of expressive gestures. they're very clera - and that makes them suited for allegory. ... like puppets; they signify clearly & thru a particular gesture. ...

EB: ties back into david's earlier point; you think about animals carrying something out. ... gendering: Do animals carry out a narratively feminine role as it says in the panel?

? I mentioned david brin w/ cordwainer smith.

DL: the animals are the servants, the permanent lower class ... also in dr. moreau

UKL:

DL: women are just shaped kind of like men but never really will be. if you read critical work around cordwainer smith there might have been a unification of people & underpeople, and some kind of religious climax perhaps. the underpeople may represent or serve same role as feminine underclass of women, the servant, the provider, the ones who keep everything going even tho they're not acknowledged. most of the fun stuff that happens in cordwainer smith stories is interaction b/w people & underpeople;

EB: hold that thought b/c lisa's looking thoughtful

LT: hard to say b/c you seem to be discussing this as animals about a place to talk about gender. but what i'm thinking is, no they're not, no they're not. now i know they've been done. cordwainer smith, certainly carmen dog, a lot of about male/female relationship. but i think is maybe that's useful in the past, but what's going on in the moment is a different look @ relations; not about men/women , but adults/children, or just about one individual vs. another individual. reading temple grandon's book animals in translation. autistic / working w/ animals for years; designed more humane methods for slaughterhouses b/c she's figured out how animals respond to thing. she calls it the cow's eye view. so she sees what pigs see from their perspective, why do pigs balk. so she feels she has a special affinity for animal consciousness b/c of her autism. i have a problem with some of her comments that autistic people are more like animals or their brains are. she obviously doesn't see that as a negative thing, but the autistic spectrum ... but what seems most interesting to me anyway is less a fairly simplistic look @ gender relations and more a way of understanding other people. b/c for one thing she is a human being but she feels very different from most other human beings. however i think MOST human beings have this feeling; most people don't feel 'i'm a part of the group; i'm just like everyone else.' because if you look at a group, my broyfriend years ago, stoned at the time, said "doesn't it seem strange to you that coolidge union is the only one not talking?" you live with them but they're very obviously not seeing the world the way you are.

audience: temple grandon talks a lot about not feeling the same way other people do. she feels pain when plate glass windows break. she may really feel quite different b/c she has to come up w/ elaborate metaphors to get in the headspace of non-autistic people.

TLF: about connection b/w animals & gender, and children and those who hacve been subject to other people's power - what animals bring forward & i think it's by their evident mortality is a radical innocence - i'm talking in social terms. there's a social innocence - not necessarily to women - but something projected upon women as a residue of victorian attitudes, but in a more general way children & animals are not culpable in the same way the powerful feel they are. and therefore animals like women or children or possibly mammalians of the ET sort can serve to bring forward that idea of innocence and maybe also of mortality that goes along with it.

UKL: i think you're absolutely right but a curious counterexample is watership down. where he took famous study of rabbit society and reversed the gender. it's perfectly well known that in rabbits that the does run everything and the bucks just run around and, you know what rabbits do. the women run rabbit society. in watership down it's all guy rabbits, they're all men, they're all very macho except this one that's less so, and they go off to found a new colony and it doesn't even occur to them until about page 300 that they forgot something and what did they do, they went & stole them from somebody. i had to re-read that book which i hated the first time and hated even more the second time, but that came out about the same time as feminism, and he turned all these macho guys into rabbits and got away with it, and all these people said what a dear sweet fantasy. eeeuuuuh.

DL: bringing animals onto stage to represent things. rabbits represent cowardice. you can use a tiger or a horse or a lion to represent part of masculinnity or to represent the masculine in some way.

LH: one of the reasons you might want to argue w/ the panel description is b/c i wrote it and i was thinking about gender specifically but i think maybe what was going on when i outlined the panel description is that i was reading the tiptree award and seeing the way that tiptree was being used to create pwoer relationships. ... turning to TLF: it's not necessarily feminized but it often is. ...

TLF: to be feminized is to be oppressed

LH: i like what you said about people trying to establish power over ...

LH - the word for world is forest the people treating the little green people like animals. but i was specifically thinking about companion animals and what you expressed about othering ... and the thing sthat heroines of the book don't necessarily want to have.

EB: the other thing i've noticed is that if you have an animal character in the book people get very protective of it - people get very protective of animal characters. i've gotten mail -- there's a cat in hammered - and i've gotten mail from people who say i won't read the second two books unless you tell me the cat survives. locus felt it necessarily to spoiler the cat's fate in the review.

LH: can i talk about companion animal b/c it is what i was thinking about. i was thinking about andre norton ... giant telepathic weasels ... or stoats or something. bonds with horses, tamora pierce and alanna w/ purple-eyed kitten. yes -- the companion animal fantasy. your dragon is like your wife, or your abused child that you're rescvuing 7 caring for. so it's important in these books that the heroine engages in daily care of the animal, so you're always oiling your animals, etc. so women's role is to talk about relationship w/ animal.

LT: maybe it's important that idea of having a companion nanimal is that that is not going to be the relationship w/ another human being. maybe that was what men would have expected from a wife in the past ... but

EB: they may have their own ideas about your relationship

LT: but i wonder isn't this sort of fantasy the sort of fulfillment of a relationship we can't possibly have, not even with an animal; that's why it's fantasy; a telepathic dragon, or an external soul, or a little lady creature that comes & lives in your house. something we'd all like to have but we can't get it in this world.

LH: male wish fulfillment fantasies have the same thing. so it's like having a vehicle and a weapon, so like a gun and ca car.

audience: octavia butler's trilogy, people & animals mating, but so hard to believe that aliens are smart etc. b/c they're so animals. UKL: you think of those aliens as animals? audience: no but alien is in the title of this panel. it was a very sexual thing

EB: exploitative relationship & there is a critique of exploitative relationships

audience: mention shamanistic tradition of shaman becomes an animal and takes on those panels ... not being subjective, not lesser than, but taking on additional panels. that's what i remember from 40 years ago from reading andre norton that that was a powerful thing - particularly women becoming animals and not just to express the dangerous parts of themselves -

EB: octaiva butler's wild seed

UKL: i don't understand but dragons in earthsea books are on that line, some part of us that we have lost or don't know how to access.

audience/warblogger in front row: i just want to mention a whole bunch of different variants on human/animal in different fiction. sirius by olaf stapledon told by a hyper-intelligent dog having a love affairs w/ human woman he was raised with and gwen the crazy-making bitch he was raised with ... and love of his life he grew up with and he is a human, too stmart for dogs, not human; a fascinating book. clifford simak in city; when humans leave earth & have to completely re-adapt themselves ; they take their dogs with them who also get adapted. another human animal interrelationsh that really freaked me out was supergirl's superhorse; in ancient greece a centaur and a woman who fell in love with him ... and ties into john varley's centaurs in titan trilogy.

audience: suggestion (EB shut them down, said not on point, different panel)

...

audience: subject of animals in grief. one reason it's so often resented when an author kills off a character is that animals are ... if we've grown up with animals it's often our first experience with bereavement and grownups may not take it that seriously. ... testing out what's bearable

DL: sometimes a companion animal can be used ... threatening companion animal can be used as way to threaten character or as part of escalation

LH: i think that also relates to what lisa was saying about love & that maybe animal is a way to explore something about love that it's inappropriate to love a human being while depriving them of their agency

UKL: something about grief & love ... on to something very essential about why we write and read about animals and can't bear reading about killing pet in book and why author chickens out of rwriting it. we allow ourselves to feel our emotions about animals in a more honest & childlike manner.

DL: more mindful

UKL: not sure i accept that; it's simply more direct. ...
unselfconscious

audience/charlie: since we're talking about animals & alien & gender what does it mean when a character in a book is half human and half something else. ... mentioning tehanu, all dragon, and all girl at the same time ... a gendered othering, failure to fit into gender rooles b/c you're not quite human. mr. spock. maybe animal part is your alien part.

UKL: whole thing about half-breeds.

DL: spock, belanna, worf, are all half-and-half

audience: wasn't dorothy chasing after toto - wondering if you would care to speak to that, the role of the animal leading the human, somehow the other world or adventure -

UKL: animal guide. jung talked about that a lot.

DL: just in terms of plot purposes that ties into unselfconscious. putting animal into danger forces author to force character to do something stupid

TLF: extremely interesting, probably has to do w/ fact that we feel animals are more fully in world than we are. d.h. lawrence , snake, really good poem. it describes snake coming out of a hole to drink, and his chasing it, and it goes back into hole

EB: specifically a venomous snake

TLF: he feels a deep sense of shame that he didn't welcome it to the world but its world is the earth. one thing we know about animals is that they have to adapt or survive. we have to do that too.

EB: anyone care to speak of animals as earth, ties into age-old feminism as earth

TLF: you just said it

UKL: men feel that women are more in tongue with "EARTH" mother nature and so on. men feel that. i'm not sure women feel that.

LH: we've been talking about some examples where animals are non-civilized where they're the opposite of civilization but actually many works maybe increasingly so acknowledge that animals or aliens or AIs have a different c ivilization one that we don't understand. we don't understand its rules but it has its own logic.

audience: animal guide into the earth - gender-related thing. there were tribes in central america who used to kill if someone died they would kill the family dog b/c the dog was a spirit guide. question which has to do with recent research on animal consciousness and how much we're beginning to learn about how conscious animals really are.

EB: my research is all about that

audience: makes me want to write a book about animal economics

audience: i think it was chimpanzees that introduced prostitution

audience: animals telepathic often used as foil for main character, someone you can talk to all the time - so how does gender of character affect relationship

DL: green dragon riders

...

EB: what about jennifer roberson's shapeshifter ... are they always the same gender. no they're not i don't think they are but i can't remember how that's handled. is it a total nonissue.

audience: horses & suzy mckee charnas.

audience: c j cherryh uses same-gender horse & rider pairings

aud: mercedes lackey.

? philip pullman's daemons are not really animals but they are usually not always the opposite gender

TLF: telepathic focuses on wish to be seen and loved. ... typical breakdown in this situation.

LH: telepathy is also important b/c usually probably there are a million excpetions but there is a pattern that only bonded person could hear it speak. unless you're married or Very Special. animal is silenced on a societal level.

EB: lady in green then Ben

aud/lady in green: slightly different direction but talking about all these things makes me think back to [[Tea With the Black Dragon]]; there we have an entity a dragon w/ ancient wisdom linked to the earth assumes a gender, an idealized male, who is a better companion for a female protagonist of novel than any male could be.

DL: whole gay boyfriend thing.

? ... animals as fear. fairy tales: kissing the frog, kind of horrible.

UKL:

DL: i've never been able to read that story without thinking that we tell little girls they should kiss the ugly frog and it will turn into a handsome prince

DL: you show a character is evil by having dog or cat react badly.

LH: tribbles.

DL: horses are nervous ... they're all more sensitive to us

EB: what about aslan & two girls' relationship ... anything other than xtian allegory?

audience: no

LH: slash porn.

audience: animals are people they are brothers & sisters & we need to respect them as such. therefore we do not have use the animal as toolk use it as foil.

EB: talking about literature

LH: from a specific culture

audience: the other worldview is not expressed much in literature. we talk about companion animals but think about relationship b/w lone ranger tonto & silver.

aud 2: what about david weber honor harrington & her treecat.

aud 3: telepathic treecat.

aud/[[Diantha Day Sprouse]]: in whole long ranger thing silver & tonto are both companion animals to lone ranger.

DL: who is closer to roy rogers, dale or trigger?

EB: legal problems w/ having dale stuffed & mounted

aud: after narnia, another book on everyone's hate list, watership down.

...

aud/[[Hal Duncan]]: Gilgamesh & Enkidu

==External Links==

* [http://truepenny.livejournal.com/439183.html Sarah Monette's notes]

[[category:WisCon 30 Panels]]

Gender in Gaming (WisCon 30 panel)

2006-06-21T01:28:22Z

162.83.198.150: /* Transcript (Incomplete) */ added credits

==Original Topic Description==

" ''Gender dynamics in-character and out of character in role playing games and LARPs can be pretty complex. This panel will discuss gender perceptions and how they affect plotting, characterization and game play; delving into experiences of play and into theory.'' "

==Moderator Comments==

This was a wide-ranging discussion of issues of gender within gaming, including many comments from the audience. As moderator, I felt self-conscious that we only had one woman on the panel. However, we drew out many comments and anecdotes from the audience on this. There was discussion on several levels, including how gender issues can be raised within the context of game fiction on the one hand, and female players within male-dominated games on the other. I had come to the panel intending to concentrate on the feminist and gender-explorative games -- since my impression of the WisCon general trend was to talk more about feminist writing rather than criticize non-feminist writing. However, there were a lot of good points which came up about the latter.

==Overview==

'''Friday 10:15-11:30 p.m, Gender in Gaming. John H. Kim (moderator), Bill Humphries, Heather Kinast Porter, Victor Jason Raymond, and Gregory G. Rihn.

Discussion began with questions to the panelists about the history of gender issues in gaming. I started by asking panelists to introduce themselves.

* Gregory Rihn described himself as a long-time gamer (since the 70's), and ....
* Victor Raymond was also a long-time gamer, and
* Bill Humphries was a lapsed gamer, who had not played for a long time, and brought feminist
* Heather Kinast Porter was a second-generation gamer, who had
* John Kim described himself as a "gaming slut" who had played

Original transcript notes by Liz Henry - please correct or fill in or add commentary

==Transcript (Incomplete) ==

The panel began with the moderator asking everyone about their history of dealing with gender issues within gaming.

Gregory R. discussed how awareness of gender issues came up early on in gaming from cross-gender play and romances within an all-male group, such as playing a female spy within a campaign of the James Bond 007 RPG, whose James-Bond-like exploits.

Victor R. mentioned ...

Bill H: Discussed a long-time Buffy the Vampire Slayer campaign that included mix-up of genders as well as gender-relevent issues. Asked how much was our community, and how much game? He said it was partly the game since if you want to kick vampire butt they you play a slayer -- and the source material in the Buffy series included plenty of feminist material. Also mentioned German board-games, and mixed gender play in general. He disliked rules-heavy games -- i.e. simulationist divisional level of the eastern front -- and that the more sophisticated play is going in the direction of simpler rules.

heather kinast porter - Mentioned her two gaming groups. First a gaming club, 1/3 female and 2/3 male, where almost everyone plays gender bent characters. Some people even played 90% gender bent characters...

Liz H.: Gender bent? or other gender than they are?

John K.: Presumably opposite gender from the player rather than transsexual ...

Lee A.: or other genders than male or female

Heather: yes.

Heather: females better at playing male chars than males are at playing female chars. although i know some.

John K.: I want to get thru my end and then one more round of questions. For myself, for most of my history I don't think gender has been an overt issue for groups that i was in. Some exceptions but that was the generality. Where i got interested in it was, a period when i was away overseas for a few weeks and got involved with MUDding.

Bill H.: define MUDding

John K.: Multi User Dungeons. There, when gender switching, you really don't know the actual gender of the person playing. That was fascinating . people would have .. they would assume that you were female in real life if you had a fem char. You could see all sorts of gender dynamics there. That's actually a really big issue for online games. people don't ... they know about dont' realize the impact.

Liz H.: Was the impact that you felt the impact for the first time of being treated like a girl? In a sexist way?

John K.: I guess maybe... More importantly, you could log off and come on again as a male char and hang out with the same people. People who log into chat rooms pretending to be 13 year old girls are usually...

Audience: ...Policemen. *laughter*

John K.: Yes... hahaha... But role-playing gives an excuse to try this out. In a campaign of mine (the Vinland game), a girl character dressed as man to get revenge. Most of other players did not know her character was really a woman. The player was a woman. We went through a quarter of the campaign with people not knowing. so gender was an issue. and more in the buffy game.

Lee: what are you takling about... give us examples of gender issues in the buffy game

John K.: The slayer and her witch girlfriend had a baby.

Lee: how do you deal with a pregnant slayer?

John K.: The process of birth itself was super easy, like pulling off a band-aid to a Slayer...

Cynthia G.: the child care issues were the big thing.

John K.: She asked: how do i take care of the baby and fight evil? She convinced her partner Max to split her with a duplication spell. so she could be split into her fighting self and her mommy self.

Audience: that makes t hings easier.

Cynthia: not really.

John K.: She had issues with having a split personality of duplication.

Cynthia: Playing in that Buffy campaign, I didn't switch. i played the same age and gender as myself -- a middle aged woman i can do. It was my first role-playing game.

Bill H.: Magic item that caused people's souls to become deeply "intertwingled". *laughter* This was a side effect of a spell that... the PCs of the group switched bodies.

Jennifer: in later d&d... i play a warforged.

Audience : whats a warforged?

- Several guys try to answer what a construct is. - liz yells at them to let her answer -

Jennifer: a construct without a gender... and...

Victor R.: When gaming first began in the mid 70s... some of this stuff got explored almost instantaneously. Lee Gold... and people would write about their campaigns right from the very start. dealing with isues of gender. because the rules themselves were not very explicit about any of this stuff. over time this led to... this is not reflected in the official rules till much later. in early issues of dragon. what to do about having female characters. also what if you want to do something else. from very first issues of alarums and excursions and the wild hunt. these discussions taking place below the official level.

John K.: Lee Gold had an article about self-censorship and homosexuality. She had a norse game and a japanese setting game, and researched and had a bunch of material on homosexuality which she left out by herself. Though she found out by talking to the publisher much later that they would have taken it out anyway. I want to bring out one more thing. There are much greater possibilities for gender in gaming. When I went to the scandinavian conventions there are much more gender pushing articles out there in scandinavia. Melan Himmel Och Hav ("Between Heaven and Sea") was a live action game run in Sweden. Everyone was recast as morning people and evening people, rather than male or female. They had different social mores and stereotypes. They could have sex, but they had sex with their hands. There was a code where you could have.. within the game, you could have sex by touching up to the point of the shoulders. The game was 72 hours long, a lot of alienation in it. Within the fiction, it was 4 days since the days were 18 hours. By the accounts, it was very powerful. for everyone to go into this.. they all went to sleep and woke up and were in character for 4 days with all their interactions and then left. everyon it described it as a

Victor R.: that gets back to... idea of psychodrama.

Phredd: i was playing queer characters and switching gender 20 years ago. what i find more intersting is that there are systems coming out that you solve problems not by the end of the sword.

Audience: it depends on the group

Phredd: It's not just the roup, it depends ont he rule system and game culture

Victor R.: formalizing non-violent interactions

John K.: It has a lot to do with the internet. niche game's , gamers bringing their ideas directly out to people rather than having to go through trraditional gamem publishing companies. which have very narrow views about what's going to sella dn how they're going to sell it and who to

Victor R.: Jonathan Tweet (author of third edition D&D) wanted to use "she" as a pronoun in writing it...

John K.: and I did a textual study of how female characters were rpresneted in d and d and they did not come out so well

Michael Menard: i helped write the three little brown books.

*applause*

Bill H.: thank you for ruining my childhood.

Michael: i was in a math class in 7th grade with rob kuntz who wrote grayhawk ... one thing that astounds me is that people want or expect rules for things that , back when we did the three brown books was, how can we convey t he important parts in the fewest possible words:? adn there, hi my name's michael and i'm a star wars geek. i've gotten invovled in a star wars game. it wants me to do the ... it's the most overbown turgid complicated piece of shit i've seen.. which ... *rumble in room* with gender, people wnat to write rules for stuff that .... you want to use your fast talk? well let's hear it.

*general rumble of objection*

Liz H.: there are gender problems with that

someone: you might not be good at t he thing...

Michael: well then practice it.

*rumble*

Greg Rihn: amber. diceless. never sold a lot of supplements... you don't need a whole lot... well rule bloat, one of the oldest jokes in

Heather: for people who aren't good at fast talking, we can have a mix of dice rolling and actual fast talking. if you aren't good at it, you can try, and if you do well you might get extra experience for it.

Audience: i'm married to the guy who wrote the little brown books. and i misunderstood the title of the panel because i thought it woudl be about women gamers and guy gamers. and at Gen Con... we were sitting htere.. we were the bait. people would walk in and go !!!!!!!!! girls!!!!! there was thiscrowd aroudn our table.

Heather: some surveys.. percentages

Paige:: i've played every kind of char. and the thing i've found interestign, no one really cares. except during sex scene... maybe homophobia.. theyr'e interacting with me not t he character.

John K.: um. actually they are interacting with you.

*various* discussion of sex and violence, why okay to kill your friends pretend but not have sx with t hem pretend.. violence is clean and sex is dirty

Greg R.: ...

Bill H.: no matter how you look at it, I'm flirting with Jim.

Victor R.: as a sociologist there needs to be some comment on that that it's more complex than that.

[I so much want to talk about female characters being defined by their rapability. when i play a female char... -- Liz H.]

Victor: permission to play something other than what we are.

John K.: um

Victor: I'm not done... i'm not done. frame of interactions. between our chars and between ourselves as individuals and we don't have mechanisms for dealing with that collision of frames , EXCEPT for the social mores we've developed within our own social group. that having been said, one coudl argue that with the frame of giving yourself permission to play something different that eventually that ferame collision will fade because you're starting from a deeply held impression that you are different. It's similar to what an actor has to do to take on a role. does that help?

Paige: yes. because if i'm a chauvinistic black man who's straight.

Liz H.: arrrgh i keep busting in. but it does matter because you're playing your concept of what you think a chauvinistic black man is and you're not one and that does matter...

Woman in Audience: i've worked in miniatures and gaming industry for years and tabletop war gaming and by extension strategy wargaming. i was probably the only girl i knew who had any interest in playing war games unless they were attached at the hip to a boy who was playing. i've noticed from the manufacturing end that there seems tobe a growing interest in miniature gaming among women. i'm not re because of the painting end of it has been dominated by women very laguely at GenCon in the last few years. and women are thinking, oo, painting, i can do that, ooo i could build a whole army of little naked catwomen! *laughter*

Audience: That's psychological warfare!

Wargamer in Audience: ...and my groups were half men and half women.

Man in Audience: there are a lot of women in gaming now, it is increasing.

John K.: in the surveys there is a perception that women do roleplay and don't wargame, but the numbers are equally low... about the same at 15-20%.

Wargamer in Audience: My guy friends are more surprised that I like wargaming but not roleplaying.

John K.: maybe once there's a foothold there's a lot of 50-50 groups and a lot of all male groups.

Woman in green shirt: your surveys may not reach the female role-playing gamers because they aren't in the same communities.

John K.: Well, I agree about that, but most write-in surveys find less than 10% women. The 1999 Wizards survey, which used random polling to avoid that bias, found 19%.

''I had to leave the room a few times b/c of phone calls so this is v. incomplete. - Liz H.''

Cabell: Something about online MMORPGs is that the anonymity can be very normative. Since people don't know the gender of who is really playing, they can dismiss the actions of female players who do not act according to their preconceptions. (i.e. ''If you don't act girly, then you aren't really a girl.'')

Myth of Class Mobility? (WisCon 30 Panel)

2006-06-21T01:27:10Z

162.83.198.150: /* Introductions */

==Panelists==

[[Avedon Carol]] (moderator), [[Matt Austern]], [[David Levine]], [[Victor Raymond]], [[Samuel R. Delany]],

==Transcript Notes==

original transcript notes by Laura Quilter - please correct or fill in or add commentary

===Introductions===
[[Avedon Carol]]: There's so many good things going on right now I know SOMEONE on this panel must be a rock-star. (looking at Chip Delany)

[[David Levine]]: Crack-whore, moved to Bellaire.

AC: Fan since 1974. ... Now all I really do is write a blog where I rant and rave about the criminals taking over this country. It's called Sideshow [http://sideshow.me.uk]. ... pink

?: Which makes it easy to find on the web.

laughter

[[Victor Raymond]]. Right now I'm living in Iowa. Is this thing on? Much better. On switch. Doctoral candidate in sociology. I think I'm the token demographer to tell you how bad things are getting and it is.

[[Samuel R. Delany]]. Still a writer; also a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia where I teach English and creative writing. That's all you really need to know.

[[Matt Austern]]

===Discussion===

AC: I assume each of you has some data point that moved you on this subject. Dave?

DL: I have to wonder how true it ever was. I mean we've had -- I started out wondering how true the American story of class mobility. We've had Horatio Alger. But I wonder whether it was ever as true as the mythmakers wanted us to think.

MA: I will leave it to Victor to explain that class mobility is declining; I'll make the assertion & let someone else back it up. But I'm mostly interested in the myth aspect. I don't think it was ever true that class mobility was much more here than in other countries. But we have had a robust myth about it. I'll probably get into this a little bit later, but I think it has an interesting effect in this country. The myth of class mobility is a conservative one, and I think it plays a part about why we don't have things that other countries do.

SD: One of the things we have to remember is that class mobility is what fiction is about. Almost all fiction is one way or another about what happens when someone in one class confronts someone in another class. The rise thru society is what the traditional 19th century novel was all about. And it's what makes fiction interesting. Fiction becomes interesting the moment the middle-class kid is thrown among soldiers, and we can't Captain Courageous. Whoopie -- ? throwin in the middle class. One of the things Jack London had to say is that it's not pleasant, and Martin ends up killing himself; London was out to show that class mobility is an illusion. Martin wants to be a working-class artist and then realizes that everyone is shafting him one way or another. Very much like Flaubert's --? the good-hearted worker otherwise befriended by all these well-meaning people who were shafting him.

Writers have always tried to show one way or another is what class encounters are, should be, are in reality. I think we're still writing about that and when we do we come up with interesting stories and when we don't we fuck it up.

AC: All right, before we get to the expert, I want to interject: a lot of this belief in the whole class mobility thing, really goes -- sometimes it's individual extreme cases; people break the rules; but it's also society-wide catastrophe event that can alter circumstances. My family -- children during the depression, their parents were immigrants; to them, class mobility is actual experience -- GI Bill, WW2, making it possible to get that house -- to become what we call the middle class. We call the middle class and it really is the working class but we a fancy name for it. Fandom -- most of us are working class but we've managed to get a nicer spot in the working-class hierarchy but we're not traveling that far out of the working class hierarchy. ... My parents, perceived themselves as having made a significant change. When we talk about class mobility we're talking about improving circumstances w/in the working class. ... And it's absolutely true that it's getting harder. Becuase of people at the top. That's what we call class mobility. I'm in favor of it -- I like the idea that anybody working class who has class aspiratoins can get a better TV, send their kid to college, become an intellectual, become a coal miner, if they want to. ... But ultimate evil is to essentially enslave people even if we don't call it slavery.

AC: and now Victor.

VR: That's a hard act to follow. A few observations. ... Class mobility undergirds fiction. Made me think metaphorically that opportunity to leave one class & enter another is not unlike metaphorically entering new world; a first contact. ... And to that extent should be believed in as much. ... To get back to Avedon, the tension b/w reality ... one can observe that there are a relatively small # of people & institutions that have an inordinate amt of control over others; part of hegemonic control is to promote myth of mobility w/out even getting people to look at reality of class differences that are persistent, structural & long-lasting.

MA: Even tho I'm not a real demographer I'm going to go a little bit into this -- basic facts -- median wage for white men peaked in 1973; it has been roughly constant since then, maybe slightly declining. mean wage has been increasing dramatically; the growth has occurred at the top -- very top, top 0.1%. top 1%i is still less than top 10% and one of conflicts between belief & reality that we have in US today is a lot of our expectations about how wage growth works & class mobility works are set around the world of 1973, the peak. a couple of very unusual decades b/w late 40s & early 70s which were very good for white male working class.

? Q: do you mean wages or income?

MA: I mean income.

AC: you mean buying power?

MA: I mean inflation-adjusted income and my knowledge is running down.

DL: key in on chip -- myth is conservative. if you look at frames, one of the key concepts is that what you get in life is earned from who you are and what you do. the myth is that people in the top are there because they earned it. it helps keep the rest of us down by in stilling in us the concept that if i'm not doing well in life it's my own fault & i should work harder, be a better cog. like pie in the sky - justifying your own place at the top and providing a (pacifying) myth to others down.

AC: like various myths -- social darwinism, calvinism. watching christians who are really calvinists.

MA: even earlier - great chain of being; the idea that a happy ending to a story is for all people to be restored to where they belong. i detect that in some stories like cinderella - she should have always been at the top & then her true worth was recognized & she was restored.

SD: since we're at wiscon we could look at what part women play. i think the quintessential novel is the one about women moving thru class - the great fat thing you see in 7 volumes, Remembrance of Things Past; heroine starts out as a street walker, spends a few years as a mistress, then ends as a Duchess. her rise thru class -- a story that Balzac tells in his novels; it's a story that Proust has chosen to tell in his novel. an index of the fall of culture -- the fact that she gets higher & higher is a sign that society is in decline. Odette prostitute taking over highest place in society is a sign that highest place has fallen. ... Vanity Fair is the english version of the same thing. a repeated story that we tell ourselves again and again. on the other hand -- there's another side to class mobility wher eit actually works. my grandmfather -- not great grandfather, but my grandfather -- was born a slave in this country. he was born in 1857, and emancipation came when he was 7 years old. that's my GRANDFATHER. probably there are similar stories to be told somewhere in russia in terms of the peasantry there. but that's really amazing that two generations later you've got a tenured english professor coming directly from slaves. there is something really odd about the united states that things like this can happen. and i will go to my grave thinking fundmanetally it's a good thing, not a bad thing. there needs to be more of it and i would like to see more of it and i would like to see it more widely spread. the fact that it happens at all -- and you compare to the much more sedimented european societies.

AC: certainly a good thing that i can hear chip delany say things like that. certainly a good thing and a weird thing that we can have that situation where the grandchild of a slave can be a university professor. i was born at a time and raised at a time when women were not allowed to ahve any expertise on anything least of all sexual matters ... not polite for women ... so all the experts on female sexuality were men; you actually had men telling women what it was like to be pregnant. ... i like the idea that these conservative ideas -- so contradictory; we are actually watching fox news S& told at the same time that as we lower people rise thru society we have debased society; that's a constant message we hear from conservatives even while they pretend to be promoters of american progress in society.

VR: a few facts for people to know - for example roughly b/w 1960 when first measurement was made b/w comparable worth b/w men & women, 59c/dollar, by 2006 for comparable worth/work it is now roughly 74c/women for 1.00/men. if this rate of increase continues and does not change and decrease or icnerase altho i t hasn't shown any signs of that -- we'll gain comparable worth b/w men & women roughly 2065. now that might be sf.

AC: mike lowrey -

aud/mike lowrey: not as drastic for me as for sam. my mom & daddy picked cotton. i have dragged myself from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.

VR: so that makes you a marxist

aud/mike lowrey: yes ... brings me to the wagner act. the product of the wagner act is the reason that there is what little decrease in class differences there were and what little class mobility there was b/e 1936 & 1973 is because there were unions, they worked, and they were allowed to organize. that was hampered greatly by taft-hartley act but the fact is that the strength of unions & possibility of class mobility for most americans correlates to a terrifyingly large degree & no coincidence that union membership at its lowest point now. matt w/ all due respect great chain of being is the old story. the story told now to workers is that everyone can become a millionaire & any limits on millionaires will hurt you & your chances of becoming a millionaire. if you read into the conservative press even into the 50s there were still worker-run cooperatives and still old visions of bringing a new world ... and there were more than one path -- not just becoming billionaire like walton family -- but bringing up class. and we've been told that's dead and the only sole path to power is by becoming a billionaire yourself.

MA: in fact we've been told something more than that -- voting patterns phrase -- aspirational class identification. you vote not as the class you are but the class you think you belong to, the class you aspire to. in some sense this is a magical ritual: if you vote like a billionaire the billionaireness will rub off on you. in fact it is insulting if you tell people that they should vote to the class they are in b/c they hear that as saying they will never get better.

... AC:

DL: ...altho i think it's sad to tell people about votingn against their own economic interest i also against my own economic advantage b/c i vote for people who will increase my own taxes.

MA: i don't vote against my economic itnerest; i vote for better infrastructure etc.

... chat

VR: class in society is also fractured along racial lines & we have to remember that. unions were segregated. ... white families in society have on average 8x the wealth of black families. if you look at it that way, the effect on native americans as well as on latino people as well as african-americans or blacks you will find that this society does radically stratify on class along racial lines.

VR: my story is not that unlike chip's; my g-g-grandfather was an army scout for US army. if we go back more than 5 generations there are no records because my people did not have them. my father went from living on or near a reservation in south dakota and he realized that he had to get out. so i grew up firmly believing that i was a middle-class child without realizing that from my ethnic background i was at the top of an economic pyramid.

SD: voting against economic interest i wonder if it doesn't divide out slightly differently. i think the way it works - any 18yo kid doing a sweep-up job no matter where or what ethnicity the kid is it probably works like this: i am getting all my salary from X; what are X's best interests. i vote for the best interests of the person who pays me my money b/c if he or she does well then i will do well. ... i've seen very few people analyze it like that but i think that's the way it works. it's not even voting for the class interests or the class you aspire to be, it's voting for the class that's paying you.

VR: organization man

audience: decline of unions was half of my point; the other half was the drastic increase in price of education over past 3 decades. if you look at statistics not only is cost of education increasing but money providing loans etc has gone thru floor. and getting edudcation w/out going into debt for 30 years

AC: i think there's a deception there b/c if they're moving the jobs to another counry it doesn't matter how educated you are. structural stuff. as long asthey had the money to go to these schools it didn't matter if they had anything. it was just social club a party for the social class, the ruling class. a lot of these people are never going to do anything.

VR: education does have ameliorative effect on poverty

audience/LQ: ?

audience: story of class mobility is a story of shape-shifting, you have to take on aspects of class, shift thru social structures to take on aspects of that class, take on appearance of that class

audience: world of debt / now adadys student loans etc. ... people spend to the class they aspire to.

VR: credit cards.

AC: when AirAmerica started and they netcast, so i'm actually listening to AirAmerica AM radio and all of a sudden i'm hearing things actually aimed at that group of people and it's a constant petrifying nbarrage of instruction about how to get out of debt. it is nothing like i heard on the ardio when i left this country 7 years ago. everybody listening to the radio is assumed to be living in incredibly precarious conditions. so we want to sell you an absolute scam that will sort of make things seem better.

DL: getting into question of shapeshifting to change class or spending to change class this gets into a question that i've been thinking about the whole panel which is what is class? it's a stet of tastes, actions, possessions. you can't change class just by earning more $ that just makes you nouveau riche, someone prtending to be upper class. les miserables an attempted inversion -- who are the comedy characters the ones who start out at the bottom but they're trying to be tops but they aren't fooling anybody. so when you mimic a higher class to try to become it - the only way to actually become class is to actually do it, but really what is class but a set of appearance & behaviors.

MA: there are difficulties in defining class but i think we shouldn't lose too much sight of the underlying issues of MONEY and POWER

audience: necessary & sufficient

VR: yes it's possessions etc but it's defined by those w/ power & wealth & those definitions are part of hegemonic discourse of power.

audience (carol?): 3 comments. one when we talk about class mobility most of it is all w/in middle, lower-to-middle-to-upper middle or maybe professional but that's upper middle not upper class. i don't think very many people make it even from lower to upper top unless they marry there. i don't think even john kerry was there until he married there.

AC: again it's movement w/in working class. you do see people who start as dirt poor & maki it to working class. right. but you don't make it to top classes.

aud (carol?): the other thing is voting - the NYT has sa thing about how almost nobody wanted to vote for the estate tax b/c they all thought they would have $6M when they died. and i live in farming community and farmers thought that.

AC: but we kept hearing about family farmers losing their farms. that was a lie.

DL: they voted that way b/c they were lied to

aud (carol?): they were lied to by the media

audB - another thing is standard of living vs. class. the poorest of the poor hear have a higher standard of living than in other countries. so why do they stay b/c our floors are better than the floors from where they came.

VR: do people know what minimum wage in mexico is? translates to $5 a day. do the math.

audB: problem w/ defining class in a society that tries to prtend it has class mobility without having class is a major contradiction in US. i don't see anything ennobling about having to work for a living. I'm a sf fan: let the robots work. i've had very strange arguments w/ people who seem to think in paradise that everyone will work.

AC: we were supposed to have more leisure b/c of technology

audB: 40-hour work week has been good & modernization has freed us from drudgery but lives are still consumed by having to work at someone else's beck & call. corporation government is much more ... safety net isn't there; puts you in so much more peril that you have to keep that job b/c you can't' afford to not be employed. "have to be employed" is a defining characteristic

VR: what we're in essence doing is recreating a kind of corporate feudalism. some of the jobs we now consider most desirable kind of entail a liege

AC: healthcare a kind of slavery

panel: we don't have corporate feudalism b/c corporate masters have no obligation to us.

aud/Steve Schwartz: immigration myth drove a great deal of 18th/19th century "look you can make it" b/c everywhere people could look around & say "hey the schwartzes" have done good for themselves.

VR: profoundly changing our ideas of whiteness.

audience: any thoughts on monopoly end-game syndrome. alwayhsb lips -- like in 60s lots of artists etc. become millionaires. but it's kind of like in the beginning of the game in monopoly you can get lucky but gradually all the hotels get owned by the same people and mobility whatever amount of it there is decreases even more significantly and i wonder if we're reaching that time or whether it's the same as 10-15 years ago.

SD: the major thing is that a million dollars is not worth nearly as much as it used to be

MA: wealth distribution has gotten much more unqueal over last few years

VR: it is an "L" curve and i'm not kidding

MA: end state is a wealth distribution curve like el salvador; we're not there yet but are heading that way.

AC: i remember growing up with the vision of calcultta as a terrifying picture; growing up in america it was always thank god i'm not there. i've been very aware over last 20 years that we are starting to accept the idea of heading in that direction.

.... lots of audience/panel back & forth ....

VR: Hoxchild study, second shift; one of the things demonstrated is that in a two-income household, the household tasks were still being performed by women; even in households were men & women earnestly & ardently felt they were splitting it 50/50, the time & motion studies indicated men doing a third of the work.

audience: academic class.

MA: fights over rights of unionization of professors; at my father's university they denied them the right to unionize b/c they were managerial.

Allison: i've got a collection.

AC: try & be brief

allison: way back in discussion of republican/conservative, the dissonance b/w what we're asking people to believe, i think it's on both sides. it's rather which one you prefer and we're asking 2 diff things. on neocon side we're asking working side to believe that it is better to give things to an upper class b/c then they will benefit ultimately ... trickledown. on democratic end we're asking people middle-class & above to give to their community possibly not in their own personal & immediate interest b/c it will trickle-down to them. now personally i believe in democratic plan but we're asking both sides not to vote for their own individual personal itnerest.
- having to look like the class you're in. there are a whole lot of those single-digit millionaires. many of us know or are people like that. and they don't look like millionaires. they may have a nice home but it's not a mansion. pressure put on people to NOT look like "millionaires"

audience: i'm a bloody european socialist (applause) - the way we see it is not that you give to your community b/c it trickles down to you but b/c it is your duty to your fellow and it is a completely different story, you're not expecting anything in return.

applause

[[category:WisCon 2006 Panels]]

Infanticide in SF

2006-06-20T02:37:08Z

162.83.198.150:

* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]. [[Barrayar]].
* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]. "[[The Mountains of Mourning]]".
* E. M. Forster. "The Machine Stops"
* [[Esther Friesner]]. [[The Psalms of Herod]]. (Sequel [[The Sword of Mary]] didn't deal so closely with that issue.)
* [[Lee Killough]]. [[A Voice Out of Ramah]] (1979)
* [[Lois Lowry]]. [[The Giver]] (1993)
* [[Raccoona Sheldon]]. "[[Morality Meat]]" (in Jen Green & Sarah Lefanu, editors, Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, The Women's Press: 1985)

Birth control in SF

2006-06-20T02:36:32Z

162.83.198.150:

* [[Aldous Huxley]]. ''[[Brave New World]]'' (1932)

* [[Bruce Sterling]]. "Are You For 86?" in ''Globalhead'' (1992) (RU486 is illegal in the US & must be smuggled into the US)

see [[Abortion]]

Infanticide in SF

2006-06-20T02:31:27Z

162.83.198.150:

* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]. [[Barrayar]].
* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]. "[[The Mountains of Mourning]]".
* [[Esther Friesner]]. [[The Psalms of Herod]]. (Sequel [[The Sword of Mary]] didn't deal so closely with that issue.)
* [[Lee Killough]]. [[A Voice Out of Ramah]] (1979)
* [[Lois Lowry]]. [[The Giver]] (1993)
* [[Raccoona Sheldon]]. "[[Morality Meat]]" (in Jen Green & Sarah Lefanu, editors, Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, The Women's Press: 1985)

Infanticide in SF

2006-06-20T02:30:03Z

162.83.198.150:

* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]. [[Barrayar]].
* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]. "[[The Mountains of Mourning]]".
* [[Esther Friesner]]. [[The Psalms of Herod]]. (Sequel [[The Sword of Mary]] didn't deal so closely with that issue.)
* [[Lee Killough]]. [[A Voice Out of Ramah]] (1979)
* [[Lois Lowry]]. [[The Giver]]
* [[Raccoona Sheldon]]. "[[Morality Meat]]" (in Jen Green & Sarah Lefanu, editors, Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, The Women's Press: 1985)

Birth control in SF

2006-06-20T02:29:34Z

162.83.198.150:

* [[Aldous Huxley]]. ''[[Brave New World]]''
* [[Bruce Sterling]]. "Are You For 86?" in ''Globalhead'' (1992) (RU486 is illegal in the US & must be smuggled into the US)

see [[Abortion]]

Abortion in SF

2006-06-20T02:22:34Z

162.83.198.150:

SF About Abortion

* [[Elizabeth DeVos]]. "Out of the Fire" (in Imagination Fully Dilated: Science Fiction, ed. by Robert Kruger & Patrick Swenson) (a phoenix decides not to die; right-to-lifers are concerned that the phoenix will never be reborn)
* [[Lucy Ferriss]]. ''The Misconceivers'' (all about future abortionists)
* [[Robert J. Howe]]. "Miscarriage of Justice" (in Salon.com, 2004 March 24) (punishment for abortion is a "life sentence of hard labor")
* [[Marie Jakober]]. ''[[Even the Stones]]'' (originally published as ''High Kamilan'') (abortion scene at beginning of novel; abortion turns out to have been an important aspect of plot)
* [[Thomas F. Monteleone]]. "Breath's a Ware That Will Not Keep" (in Dystopian Visions, edited by Roger Elwood (Prentice Hall: 1975).
* [[Rachel Cosgrove Payes]]. "Come Take a Dip with Me in the Genetic Pool" (in Dystopian Visions, edited by Roger Elwood (Prentice Hall: 1975).
* [[Josephine Saxton]]. "[[Big Operation on Altair Three]]" (in Jen Green & Sarah Lefanu, editors, Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, The Women's Press: 1985) (In a hyper-real world of future advertising, a real live surgery is performed to sell cars ... )
* [[Raccoona Sheldon]]. "Morality Meat" (in Jen Green & Sarah Lefanu, editors, Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, The Women's Press: 1985) (What happens to all the extra babies in a near-future US when abortion has been outlawed?)
* [[Rick Lawler]], editor. ''Abortion Stories: Fiction on Fire'' (1992) (23 stories about abortion; many are SF)
* "[[Battlestar Galactica (2004 television series)|Battlestar Galactica]]" episodes "Epiphanies" (forced abortion) and "The Captain's Hand" (abortion is outlawed with the intent of increasing the population)

see: [[Birth Control]]

Abortion in SF

2006-06-20T02:21:57Z

162.83.198.150: added miscarriage of justice

SF About Abortion

* [[Elizabeth DeVos]]. "Out of the Fire" (in Imagination Fully Dilated: Science Fiction, ed. by Robert Kruger & Patrick Swenson) (a phoenix decides not to die; right-to-lifers are concerned that the phoenix will never be reborn)
* [[Lucy Ferriss]]. ''The Misconceivers'' (all about future abortionists)
* [[Robert J. Howe]]. "Miscarriage of Justice" (in Salon.com, 2004 March 24) (punishment for abortion is a "life sentence of hard labor")
* [[Marie Jakober]]. ''[[Even the Stones]]'' (originally published as ''High Kamilan'') (abortion scene at beginning of novel; abortion turns out to have been an important aspect of plot)
* [[Thomas F. Monteleone]]. "Breath's a Ware That Will Not Keep" (in Dystopian Visions, edited by Roger Elwood (Prentice Hall: 1975).
* [[Rachel Cosgrove Payes]]. "Come Take a Dip with Me in the Genetic Pool" (in Dystopian Visions, edited by Roger Elwood (Prentice Hall: 1975).
* [[Josephine Saxton]]. "[[Big Operation on Altair Three]]" (in Jen Green & Sarah Lefanu, editors, Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, The Women's Press: 1985) (In a hyper-real world of future advertising, a real live surgery is performed to sell cars ... )
* [[Raccoona Sheldon]]. "Morality Meat" (in Jen Green & Sarah Lefanu, editors, Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, The Women's Press: 1985) (What happens to all the extra babies in a near-future US when abortion has been outlawed?)
* [[Rick Lawler]], editor. ''Abortion Stories: Fiction on Fire'' (1992) (23 stories about abortion; many are SF)
* Salon.com story
* "[[Battlestar Galactica (2004 television series)|Battlestar Galactica]]" episodes "Epiphanies" (forced abortion) and "The Captain's Hand" (abortion is outlawed with the intent of increasing the population)

see: [[Birth Control]]

Parodies and retellings

2006-06-20T02:14:30Z

162.83.198.150: adding trojan women stories

Retelling stories is a common way for critics to make a critical point about a work. The commentary might be humorous, as in a humorous parody; critical, as in a work that demonstrates the earlier work's failings of writing or perspective; or exploratory, as in a work that explores new dimensions and resonances of an early story.

Examples are particularly common within science fiction and fantasy, but have also been common outside of sf.

* [[The Wizard of Oz]] ... [[Gregory Maguire]]'s [[Wicked]] and [[Geoff Ryman]]'s [[Was]]
* [[The Hobbit]] ... [[Pat Murphy]]'s [[There and Back Again]]

* numerous fairy tales & myths & folktales, including the King Arthur stories recycled by [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]] as [[The Mists of Avalon]], which set off a veritable storm of retellings; [[Pygmalion]] and [[Galatea]] story which has been retold many, many times, including in feminist sf [[Amy Thomson]]'s [[Virtual Girl]]. Another landmark book: [[Ellen Datlow]] and [[Terri Windling]]'s [[Snow White, Blood Red]]. To some extent, all retellings are reappropriations of myths, old or new; without a certain mythic status in a culture, there would be no point in retelling a work.
** [[The Snow Queen]] ... Joan Vinge's The Snow Queen
** Sleeping Beauty ... [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s [[The Gates of Sleep]], [[Sheri S. Tepper]]'s [[Beauty]]...
** Helen of Troy / Iphigenia / Cassandra - Helen of Troy in "Helen Remembers the Stork Club" by Esther M. Friesner; whole saga in Sheri S. Tepper's [[The Gates to Women's Country]]

Some non-SF examples:
* Gone With the Wind ... Alice Randall's The Wind Done Gone
* Lolita ... Lo's Diary
* Jane Eyre ... The Wide Sargasso Sea

See [[:category:Mythological Female Characters|Mythological Female Characters]]

Women and madness in SF

2006-06-20T02:08:21Z

162.83.198.150:

* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]] - ''[[The Curse of Chalion]]'' and ''[[Paladin of Souls]]''
* [[Charlotte Perkins Gilman]] - "[[The Yellow Wallpaper]]"
* [[Marge Piercy]] - ''[[Woman on the Edge of Time]]''
* [[Raccoona Sheldon]] - "[[Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!]]"
* [[Sarah Waters]] - ''[[Affinity]]''

==suggestions & possibilities==

* "A Very Little Madness Goes a Long Way" by M. Rickert

Infanticide in SF

2006-06-20T01:53:50Z

162.83.198.150: added mountains of mourning

* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]. [[Barrayar]].
* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]. "[[The Mountains of Mourning]]".
* [[Esther Friesner]]. [[The Psalms of Herod]]. (Sequel [[The Sword of Mary]] didn't deal so closely with that issue.)
* [[Lee Killough]]. [[A Voice Out of Ramah]] (1979)
* [[Raccoona Sheldon]]. "[[Morality Meat]]" (in Jen Green & Sarah Lefanu, editors, Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, The Women's Press: 1985)

The Female Man

2006-06-20T00:22:37Z

162.83.198.150: /* Influences, Impacts, Connections */

[[category:1975 Publications|Female Man, The]]

by [[Joanna Russ]]

Critical part of feminist SF canon, and also a damn good book. Takes place on [[Whileaway]]. Prequel is the short story "[[When It Changed]]".

==Editions & Translations==

==Influences, Impacts, Connections==

* The name of the lesbian feminist journal ''[[Sinister Wisdom]]'', founded in the [[1970s]], was taken from ''The Female Man''.

The Female Man

2006-06-20T00:22:15Z

162.83.198.150: adding connections

[[category:1975 Publications|Female Man, The]]

by [[Joanna Russ]]

Critical part of feminist SF canon, and also a damn good book. Takes place on [[Whileaway]]. Prequel is the short story "[[When It Changed]]".

==Editions & Translations==

==Influences, Impacts, Connections==

* The name of the lesbian feminist journal ''Sinister Wisdom'', founded in the [[1970s]], was taken from ''The Female Man''.

Index to sex, gender, sexuality, and reproduction

2006-06-20T00:11:44Z

162.83.198.150:

==Aspects of Reproduction==

* [[Infertility & Sterility]]
* [[Abortion]]
* [[Birth Control]]
* [[Childbirth, Labor, Delivery]]
* [[Breastfeeding, Nursing, Breast Milk]]
* [[Menstruation]]

Index to sex, gender, sexuality, and reproduction

2006-06-20T00:11:06Z

162.83.198.150:

==Aspects of Reproduction==

* [[Infertility & Sterility]]
* [[Abortion]]
* [[Birth Control]]
* [[Childbirth, Labor, Delivery]]

Index to sex, gender, sexuality, and reproduction

2006-06-20T00:10:36Z

162.83.198.150:

Aspects of Reproduction

[[Infertility & Sterility]]
[[Abortion]]
[[Birth Control]]
[[Childbirth, Labor, Delivery]]

Infertility and sterility in SF

2006-06-20T00:08:23Z

162.83.198.150:

==Widespread Infertility==
Infertility as a serious problem; or the implications of infertility.

* [[Margaret Atwood]]. The Handmaid's Tale (creeping infertility caused by pollution; in a Christian Right fundamentalist theocracy, Gilead, fertile women are given to government officials as "handmaids" to bear children)
* [[David Gerrold]]. "How We Saved the Human Race," in With a Finger in My I (1972) (bio-engineered infertility plague)
* [[P.D. James]]. The Children of Men (infertility caused worldwide by unknown causes; people fetishize the last generation)
* [[D.F. Jones]] Implosion (1967) (plague of infertility causes UK government to take totalitarian steps and set up female breeding camps)
* [[Nancy Kress]]. Maximum Light (global infertility caused by endocrine disrupters; people turn to pets, baby-stealing)
* [[Stephen Leigh]]. Dark Water's Embrace (1998) (on another planet, most children are born not-quite-right; odd mutations may turn out to be the key to solving fertility & mutation problems)
* [[Edward Llewellyn]]. The Bright Companion (1980) (in the last century, women became infertile because of a birth control; society collapsed; now fertile women are rare)
* [[Stephanie Smith]] (pollution has caused people's babies are increasingly mutated, weird - maybe a new species?)
* [[Kate Wilhelm]]. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (tide of infertility, probably caused by pollution - people turn to cloning)
* "A.I." (the movie) (ecological disasters have reduced population and fertility)

==Individual Infertility==

??? !!! ???

Infertility and sterility in SF

2006-06-19T23:58:15Z

162.83.198.150: adding some titles

==Widespread Infertility==
Infertility as a serious problem; or the implications of infertility.

* [[Margaret Atwood]]. The Handmaid's Tale - creeping infertility caused by pollution; in a Christian Right fundamentalist theocracy, Gilead, fertile women are given to government officials as "handmaids" to bear children
* [[David Gerrold]]. "How We Saved the Human Race," in With a Finger in My I (1972) (bio-engineered infertility plague)
* [[P.D. James]]. The Children of Men - infertility caused worldwide by unknown causes; people fetishize the last generation
* [[Nancy Kress]]. Maximum Light - global infertility caused by endocrine disrupters; people turn to pets, baby-stealing
* [[Stephen Leigh]]. Dark Water's Embrace (1998) on another planet, most children are born not-quite-right; - odd mutations may turn out to be the key to solving fertility & mutation problems
* [[Edward Llewellyn]]. The Bright Companion (1980) - in the last century, women became infertile because of a birth control; society collapsed; now fertile women are rare
* [[Stephanie Smith]] - pollution has caused people's babies are increasingly mutated, weird - maybe a new species?
* [[Kate Wilhelm]]. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - tide of infertility, probably caused by pollution - people turn to cloning
* "A.I." (the movie)

==Individual Infertility==

??? !!! ???

Pregnancy in SF

2006-06-19T23:52:41Z

162.83.198.150: /* Forced Pregnancy */

==Forced Pregnancy==
* D.F. Jones [[Implosion]] (1967) (worldwide plague of infertility leads the men in government in England to establish forced breeding camps)

==Pregnancy as Metaphor==
* Octavia Butler

==Alternative Pregnancy==

* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]] - the entire Miles Vorkosigan universe, but see especially ''[[Ethan of Athos]]'' and ''[[Barrayar]]''
* [[Marge Piercy]] - [[Woman on the Edge of Time]]

==Other Suggestions==

* Suzy McKee Charnas. Motherlines
* Hiromi Goto. The Kappa Child (2001)
* Elizabeth Lynn. "The Man Who Was Pregnant"
* John Wyndham. The Midwich Cuckoos (1957); reprinted as The Village of the Damned (1961)

Pregnancy in SF

2006-06-19T23:48:29Z

162.83.198.150: some initial titles

==Forced Pregnancy==
* D.F. Jones [[Implosion]]

==Pregnancy as Metaphor==
* Octavia Butler

==Alternative Pregnancy==

* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]] - the entire Miles Vorkosigan universe, but see especially ''[[Ethan of Athos]]'' and ''[[Barrayar]]''
* [[Marge Piercy]] - [[Woman on the Edge of Time]]

==Other Suggestions==

* Suzy McKee Charnas. Motherlines
* Hiromi Goto. The Kappa Child (2001)
* Elizabeth Lynn. "The Man Who Was Pregnant"
* John Wyndham. The Midwich Cuckoos (1957); reprinted as The Village of the Damned (1961)

Childbirth, labor, delivery in SF

2006-06-19T23:44:44Z

162.83.198.150: some initial entries

* [[Elizabeth Lynn]]. "Jubilee's Story"
* [[Suzette Haden Elgin]]. (Woman tortured during childbirth)

Birth control in SF

2006-06-19T23:41:46Z

162.83.198.150:

[[Bruce Sterling]]. "Are You For 86?" in ''Globalhead'' (1992) (RU486 is illegal in the US & must be smuggled into the US)

see [[Abortion]]

Abortion in SF

2006-06-19T23:41:07Z

162.83.198.150:

SF About Abortion

* [[Elizabeth DeVos]]. "Out of the Fire" (in Imagination Fully Dilated: Science Fiction, ed. by Robert Kruger & Patrick Swenson) (a phoenix decides not to die; right-to-lifers are concerned that the phoenix will never be reborn)
* [[Lucy Ferriss]]. ''The Misconceivers'' (all about future abortionists)
* [[Marie Jakober]]. ''[[Even the Stones]]'' (originally published as ''High Kamilan'') (abortion scene at beginning of novel; abortion turns out to have been an important aspect of plot)
* [[Thomas F. Monteleone]]. "Breath's a Ware That Will Not Keep" (in Dystopian Visions, edited by Roger Elwood (Prentice Hall: 1975).
* [[Rachel Cosgrove Payes]]. "Come Take a Dip with Me in the Genetic Pool" (in Dystopian Visions, edited by Roger Elwood (Prentice Hall: 1975).
* [[Josephine Saxton]]. "[[Big Operation on Altair Three]]" (in Jen Green & Sarah Lefanu, editors, Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, The Women's Press: 1985) (In a hyper-real world of future advertising, a real live surgery is performed to sell cars ... )
* [[Raccoona Sheldon]]. "Morality Meat" (in Jen Green & Sarah Lefanu, editors, Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, The Women's Press: 1985) (What happens to all the extra babies in a near-future US when abortion has been outlawed?)
* [[Rick Lawler]], editor. ''Abortion Stories: Fiction on Fire'' (1992) (23 stories about abortion; many are SF)
* Salon.com story
* "[[Battlestar Galactica (2004 television series)|Battlestar Galactica]]" episodes "Epiphanies" (forced abortion) and "The Captain's Hand" (abortion is outlawed with the intent of increasing the population)

see: [[Birth Control]]