264. Writing the Other / Writing the Self Panel w/ Nalo Hopkinson, Susan Jane Bigelow, Keffy Kehrli, & Kate Elliott
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode264WritingTheOtherWritingTheSelf/SandF%20–%20Episode%20264%20–%20Writing%20the%20Other%20-%20Writing%20the%20Self.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSThe world, the people, and the mistakes, oh my! Nalo Hopkinson, Susan Jane Bigelow, Keffy Kehrli, and Kate Elliott join us to talk about the dos and don’ts of writing people who are not like ourselves (and vice versa). We hope you enjoy the episode! Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below): Episode 264 — Download (MP3) Show Notes:
Guest Post: On sniping, women, and SF by Brenda Cooper
There’s a lot of sniping going on across genders in our field. Vitriolic sniping. Shame on us. Yes, science fiction is largely male dominated. So are a lot of fields. I know. My day job is in technology, where I’m a c-level exec. It wasn’t necessarily easy to get here even though I live in the liberal bubble of the West Coast where it’s easier than it is in a lot of places. I’ve been living this conversation my whole life across multiple fields of endeavor. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it needs to stop. But sniping isn’t the answer. Mind you, I’d be fine with sniping if it worked. It’s kind of fun. But as far as I can tell, it’s not effective. Yes, there are truly evil men out there in the midst of the current social fights, like whoever issued the death threats to women writing about feminism in the game world. This is not an article about how to deal with them. Jail time would be a great start.
Diversity in SF Film: Things to Come (1936)
This is my third post on diversity in Science Fiction films. I started with Metropolis (1927), and then skipped two decades to The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Largely, my reason was that there weren’t any options for the 30s or 40s available on Netflix. Apparently, there aren’t very many SF films within that twenty year period.[1] I’ve decided to skip Frankenstein — although the novel is one of the first, if not the first, SF novels — because the classic film has more in common with horror than SF. I feel much the same about King Kong. Therefore, I settled on Things to Come (1936), which is based upon the H.G. Wells’ novel published in 1933 entitled The Shape of Things to Come. I know I’m risking a bit of confusion by going backward here, but I felt it was too important to skip. Also: keep in mind that I don’t think I read the novel. At least, I don’t remember having read it.[2] So… Things to Come.
237. Green is Not Diversity Panel at CONvergence
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode237GreenIsNotDiversityPanel/SandF%20–%20Episode%20237%20–%20Green%20is%20Not%20Diversity%20Panel.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSDiversity bingo, Hollywood shenanigans, and Will Smith, oh my! Arriving by an extremely slow rocket ship, this panel on diversity at CONvergence featuring Dr. Rubidium, Laura Zats, Benny S, Aimee Kuzenski, and Shaun features discussion about representation in film and literature, the motivations for and against diversity, and much more. We hope you enjoy the episode! Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below): Episode 237 — Download (MP3) Show Notes: The Panelists: Dr. Rubidium’s (a.k.a. Raychelle Burks) Twitter Aimee Kuzenski’s website Aimee’s Twitter Laura Zats’ Twitter Red Sofa Literary Agency (where Laura works) Benny S (no website, sadly) CONvergence Con Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0). That’s all, folks! Thanks for listening. See you next week.
When Calls for Diversity Are Not Enough
As a writer and reader based in Southeast Asia, I’ve been pondering the term “diversity” — at least, in the context of it’s use on the Internet. First, it’s focused on the Western publishing industry. Filipino publishers publish Filipino-authored works for example (although our publishing industry has different issues of diversity). The same goes for publishers in Malaysia, China, South Africa, etc. I do think it’s important to focus on the Western publishing industry, because it’s usually a one-way street: books from the Philippines rarely go out of the Philippines, but books from the US or the UK gets distributed around the world. A novel like Moxyland by Lauren Beukes, published by both Jacana Media in South Africa and Angry Robot Books in the US/UK, is the exception to the norm. And in my case here in the Philippines, there are some Filipino books that might not have been picked up by a local publisher if it weren’t acquired by a US/UK publisher first. And for all the talk about diversity in the US publishing industry, we have conversations like the ones mentioned by Jennifer Pan & Sarah McCarry.
IDIC and the problem with gatekeepers
When I started writing what I loved (science fiction) in about 2007, I didn’t have the impression that science fiction was US-centric. In fact, I thought that science fiction was like Star Trek’s philosophy of IDIC. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Wasn’t science fiction supposed to be like that? I mean, I did submit stories before and one even got published. That was in 2000, when I was fresh out of university, armed with a postgraduate degree. So, when I started writing in 2007, I thought it was still peachy, and a writer like me — a writer from Southeast Asia — would be easily accepted. My steampunk story “A Matter of Possession” was published by Crossed Genres in 2010 in their issue on alternate history. It was my first entry into an interesting scene (I couldn’t use ‘community’ — didn’t feel much of it, though). I realized, to my shock, that people like me, people living outside the United States, had (still have) difficulty getting their stories published. The gatekeepers of serious science fiction were standing at the gate and barring entry to those trying to find their way in. Often, the accepted stories were written by white men. I wondered who made the gatekeepers gatekeepers? Who had set the rules and regulations? Is science fiction going to be a pub where unwanted and unwelcome folk are kept outside the window, desperately staring in while the accepted cliques mingle, laugh and have fun? Who chooses who will write our future(s)?
