Friday Links is interested in Novels now
Originally published at tansyrr.com. You can comment here or there.
Jem demands extra Amy Pond content in all of Mummy's blog posts
The big news in indie press is that Alisa Krasnostein of Twelfth Planet Press, publisher of my own Love & Romanpunk and Siren Beat, is opening her doors to novels in January 2012. Exciting times!
Meanwhile, Narrelle M Harris, self-reprinter, discusses that other kind of indie press, and whether self-publishing is actually all about vanity.
Jason Nahrung has been on fire lately with some brilliant posts about our changing industry, and I particularly liked this one: Putting the eeeeee in e-books.
Meanwhile the Stella Prize for women was officially launched. Is it too much to hope that a spec fic writer wins it in the early years? Alisa, get publishing!
Aliette de Bodard wrote a marvellous rant which examines the way that US storytelling tropes are so ingrained in global culture that they basically dictate what is considered good and bad writing. I think this is a very important topic and one that bears further discussion.
Ellen Datlow is angry about the portrayal of older women in fiction, and challenged writers to do better.
Juliet McKenna has a challenge of her own, for us all to promote equality in genre writing and reviewing. Kudos to SFX for publishing this piece which criticises their own practices as well as those of the industry as a whole.
Elizabeth Bear has written a fascinating essay on Charlie Stross’ blog, about the role of the singularity in the science fiction community, and the issues she had with it as a concept. She talks about gender and diversity in this “rainbow age” of SF, and it’s well worth a read.
Meanwhile, there’s a new blog about science fiction in YA, something I know is on a lot of our minds at the moment! (not looking at Cat Sparks or Simon Haynes in particular) And if you missed it, here’s my blog post on the Locus Roundtable about our family’s favourite science fiction books for kids.
There’s a great positive news story about Jennifer Yeh Nelson, a successful female director in Hollywood.
Glenda Larke has been writing a series of posts on her transition to using Dragon Dictate software to write her novels, and she talks eloquently here about the writing-related technological changes she has seen in her lifetime, and how writers with RSI or other medical issues that limit their typing abilities shouldn’t be afraid to embrace the new.
Jim C Hines is once again showing off his chops as a good ally: in this case discussing what subtle (and in some cases not so subtle) differences he would face in his career if he had been born Jane.
Stirring stuff, but I also wanted to quote a tweet from Ekaterina Sedia which is certainly relevant, even if this wasn’t one of the posts she had in mind:
@esedia Ultimate irony: male bloggers writing about the difficulties of female bloggers get gazillions positive comments!
Podcast of the week is the Outer Alliance/Writer and the Critic crossover, in which Julia, Kirstyn & Mondy discuss a range of queer fiction (including Horn & Bleed by Peter M Ball) and many of the issues that emerge from writing and reviewing work with queer characters. And stuff. It’s brilliant, so listen to it! Also, the show notes are a work of art.
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