By David Barnett Two centuries. Two hundred years. That’s how long we’ve had science fiction. From the birth of Frankenstein, to the death of Ursula K Le Guin. Two hundred years. This was originally meant to be just the story of Frankenstein, written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and published on 1 January 1818. But this week, with […]
Read More If Mary Shelley Invented SF, Why Are So Few Female SF Writers Known?From the December 2013 issue of Locus Magazine Telling people who don’t read science fiction and fantasy that I write it is still awkward. My mom used to tell people I wrote ‘‘novels like Stephen King,’’ even though I can’t watch a movie more supernaturally terrifying than Ghostbusters without enduring fierce nightmares, insomnia, and night sweats. I prefer corporeal, knife-wielding villains […]
Read More Kameron Hurley: Making Excuses for Science FictionBy James Davis Nicoll Once more into the past, this time armed with a more comprehensive list of women who debuted in the 1970s¹. In fact, my list has become long enough that I am going have to tackle the authors letter by letter, moving forward. In this case, I am looking at women authors […]
Read More Fighting Erasure: Women SF Writers of the 1970s, Part IIBy Kameron Hurley You will fail more than you succeed. You will remember the failures more often than the successes. The people who believe in you now will believe in you always. Get rid of everyone else. Readers will love your work. They will think this means they love you. They will be wrong, but […]
Read More Kameron Hurley: What I’ve Learned About Being a WriterBy James Davis Nicoll You may have been annoyed by recurrent comments from a certain surprisingly flammable Waterloo-region reviewer. He complains about the erasure from SF memory of women writing SF back in the 1970s—but has that reviewer ever bother to name names? Suggest books? I think not. It is time to confront the erasure directly. […]
Read More Fighting Erasure: Women SF Writers of the 1970s, A Through FHurrah! I became a Level 49 Human today and I’m in Chattanooga to celebrate my birthday with my parents. Mom is leveling up to 80 this weekend so we have a shindig planned. Meanwhile! I have a party favor for you. There’s a short story, “The Worshipful Society of Glovers” that came out last year […]
Read More Mary Robinette Kowal: Anatomy of a Story ProcessThis is one of my favourite novels of all time, one that actively whetted my interest in science fiction. Just FYI. 16 I first found Dawn, about fifteen years ago, in my local library. I hadn’t heard of Octavia Butler. I’m not sure why I picked Dawn up. It was probably the post-apocalyptic blurb; I’ve always been drawn to […]
Read More Starting with the Womb: Octavia E Butler’s DawnEpisode 2 – Space Opera: livestreamed February 18, 2018. #SpecWomenChat is a livestreamed panel discussion featuring women who work in, and write, SFF. Our Panel: Ann Leckie has worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a rodman on a land-surveying crew, a lunch lady, and a recording engineer. The author of many published short stories, and […]
Read More #SpecWomenChat Episode 2 – Space OperaDownbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh My rating: 5 of 5 stars Read for the 12 in 12 Challenge, the LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Challenge,, the Military Spec-Fic Reading Challenge, the Women of Genre Fiction Challenge, the Grand Mistresses of Genre Fiction Challenge, the Hard Core Sci-Fi Challenge, the Read the Sequel Challenge, and the Space Opera […]
Read More Book Review: Downbelow Station by C.J. CherryhSo this is how we manage work deadlines for my writing. This is the stuff that I’m intending to write & work on up to June of this year. The pink post-its are writing deadlines, and the green post-its are deadlines for my editor. We include the submission deadline at the bottom of the editorial […]
Read More My Work Board for 2018 (So Far)
