The Curious Case of the Masonic-sounding Award

[sandramcdonald]

Alice Mary Norton was an ambitious young writer who went off to college to become a teacher. Then the Depression set in, and she had to drop out to go work for the local library. She was told it would be easier to sell her books under a male name and so she legally became Andre. Her first book was published when she was 22, and for seventy years

Comments

[j_cheney]

Sadly, I only caught one...

[sandramcdonald]

Which one?

[j_cheney]

Robert Langdon would run across in a cryptic puzzle in the Louvre

That's a Dan Brown reference, right? (Although I don't know which books)

[sandramcdonald]

Yes :-) DaVinci code. Which I could not get past page 2 of, because of the horrific writing style.

[sartorias]

The Curious Case of sounds like the whole Arthur Conan Doyle subgenre.

Wow do I agree, but awards by their nature all go to whoever the in crowd running them likes, and in the case of sf, it's been mostly white males for decades.

[sandramcdonald]

I agree - women only win Grand Master when women are presidents of SFWA. I think there's got to be a better way to do it.

[ccfinlay]

Really?! That's pretty damning. I would think some male president of SFWA would take it as a personal challenge to correct that.

And for Kate Wilhelm to *not* get the award in her lifetime would be... ridiculous on so many levels.

[sandramcdonald]

Yes, it's true. The only three women to be awarded Grand Master received it while women were presidents of SFWA.

I think some future male president of SFWA should definitely take it on as a challenge :-)

[sandramcdonald]

Thanks for commenting :-)

I think it helps, for those of us in SFWA, to recognize there are perhaps maybe possibly some areas we can improve when it comes to gender parity.

[dawtheminstrel]

If you wait around for men to give you validation, you'll wait a long time. I'd say screw it, except women who write in these genres suffer for the lack of recognition.

[sandramcdonald]

True! I would say the same about the screw :-) but women do suffer from the lack of recognition, and in this day and age we can do better.

[therinth]

I sent a fan letter to Andre Norton in elementary school. She wrote me back. I still have it. I always hoped I'd get to meet her some day.

[sandramcdonald]

That was very nice of her! I wish I had gotten to meet her as well.