2014: Who is best at us? WE WIN! \o/
Dec. 22nd, 2014 02:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ladybusiness2014 has made it all too easy for us to get a little down at Lady Business HQ and forget just how much we've accomplished in our own corner of blog space. Today we're going to shake it off, beat the little hater & celebrate all the special events we've been part of and all the projects we've begun, kept going and completed this year.
As a present to us all, Ira created our current banner and pony avatars. This allows us to present a striking, memorable and cohesive identity across all of LB's social media platforms. Also, we are ponies :D
Nearly a year on, seeing our pony banner and avatars everywhere still makes all of us smile. Thanks again, Ira.
Coverage of Women on SFF Blogs, our project to collect data about how books by female authors are represented in the reviews on blogs, turned three in 2014. This year also sees the conclusion of this project, which we deem a successful part of the ongoing discussions about gender representation in the online SFF community. In the years since, the discussion has grown considerably, and we're very happy that we were a small part of the ongoing dialogue about gender. We're incredibly touched by all the support the genre community has given us throughout the life of this project. Thank you all very much!
Fanwork Recs came out of Renay's well documented love and commitment to fandom. Including fanfic, fanart, fanvids (a growing obsession at Lady Business HQ), meta, essays, gifsets and cosplay, Fanwork Recs gives us a space at Lady Business where we could talk more about our favorite pieces of fanwork and celebrate the amazing creative culture of fandom.
Jodie started Short Business to encourage herself and others to explore more SFF short fiction. As Renay said in her recent post, Short Fiction, Why So Complicated?:
We hope that by continuing with the Short Business feature Lady Business can play a part in helping people to navigate this growing mass of short fiction, and that people we know will come over to talk about short fiction with us.
The Friendship Zone is a Tumblr project we began in 2014 so we could post and reblog pictures, quotes & essays to prove that women like women.
So many narratives still include this standard, sexist idea that women are always tearing each other down, and that it is impossible for them to be friends or allies. Yet, as we prove with this Tumblr, this idea is demonstrably untrue; many women have wide networks of female friends and are supportive of female colleagues.
As Lady Business is run by three female friends, who all have other female friends, we feel strongly about countering this lazy idea and asking for more interesting stories about positive and negative female relationships. And if we have to spend hours staring at gifs of smart women hugging then, hey, that is just the price feminism demands of us.
The easiest way to push us to get productive? Make a list of fantasy titles you can't wait to see. Largely forget that women exist. Put said list on a major internet site and wait.
When Buzzfeed contributor Sean McCarrick launched a list of titles that showed why 2014 was going to be a banner year he only included one title by a woman. And even that title (N. K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season) had already been pushed back to 2015. We got kind of angry and published Don't Be a Dick (Or 15 Great Sounding SFF Novels Available in 2014), a list that only contained books by female authors.
In the hopes of generating excitement for 2015 titles, and addressing some of the problems with our original list, we also made #YesAllStories: 2015 Books That Reach for New Horizons — a list of 51 fascinating sounding books!
We had so many smart guest posts this year. We love your words — please come again :)
In September we ran a set of posts about the work of Kate Elliott, an epic fantasy author with a tremendously varied back catalogue. And in November we ran Super Women & Comics Week and it was great! For seven days we put out posts focusing on women and comics. Thanks again to all our guest contributors for making it such a fun week.
We don't really want to count post numbers but, before we finish, we do just want to mention how many co-projects we completed this year.
When we started Lady Business, we saw it primarily as a way for the three of us to share things and get to know each other better. And that aspect of running this co-blog has been an amazing success — our inboxes stand testament to that.
The blog has also allowed us to make stronger connections with other media lovers by giving us the chance to create co-reviews, podcasts, and discussion posts with people from across the blogosphere. We all love co-projects (being able to talk to other people about things we love is a huge part of why we're on the internet) and learning more about the people we like, so this has been a huge benefit of running Lady Business.
We've got big plans for Lady Business in 2015 including new features and long planning e-mails full of CAPSLOCK. Make sure to come back next year and cheer us on.
Visually Rebranded Lady Business
As a present to us all, Ira created our current banner and pony avatars. This allows us to present a striking, memorable and cohesive identity across all of LB's social media platforms. Also, we are ponies :D
Nearly a year on, seeing our pony banner and avatars everywhere still makes all of us smile. Thanks again, Ira.
Completed the final version of Coverage of Women on SFF Blogs
Coverage of Women on SFF Blogs, our project to collect data about how books by female authors are represented in the reviews on blogs, turned three in 2014. This year also sees the conclusion of this project, which we deem a successful part of the ongoing discussions about gender representation in the online SFF community. In the years since, the discussion has grown considerably, and we're very happy that we were a small part of the ongoing dialogue about gender. We're incredibly touched by all the support the genre community has given us throughout the life of this project. Thank you all very much!
Fanwork Recs Feature Launched
Fanwork Recs came out of Renay's well documented love and commitment to fandom. Including fanfic, fanart, fanvids (a growing obsession at Lady Business HQ), meta, essays, gifsets and cosplay, Fanwork Recs gives us a space at Lady Business where we could talk more about our favorite pieces of fanwork and celebrate the amazing creative culture of fandom.
Short Business Feature Launched
Jodie started Short Business to encourage herself and others to explore more SFF short fiction. As Renay said in her recent post, Short Fiction, Why So Complicated?:
I want to care about short fiction, but I have no clue how or where to start because there's just so much stuff and there's little to no filtering unless I slog through it myself or wait until December - March for Hugo season. I don't even slog through book catalogs that much by myself because I am lazy. I trust the people around me who read books: tastemakers I trust. I have over thirty people who read and/or review whose opinions will make me consider a book.
We hope that by continuing with the Short Business feature Lady Business can play a part in helping people to navigate this growing mass of short fiction, and that people we know will come over to talk about short fiction with us.
Launched The Friendship Zone
The Friendship Zone is a Tumblr project we began in 2014 so we could post and reblog pictures, quotes & essays to prove that women like women.
So many narratives still include this standard, sexist idea that women are always tearing each other down, and that it is impossible for them to be friends or allies. Yet, as we prove with this Tumblr, this idea is demonstrably untrue; many women have wide networks of female friends and are supportive of female colleagues.
As Lady Business is run by three female friends, who all have other female friends, we feel strongly about countering this lazy idea and asking for more interesting stories about positive and negative female relationships. And if we have to spend hours staring at gifs of smart women hugging then, hey, that is just the price feminism demands of us.
Got Listacular!
The easiest way to push us to get productive? Make a list of fantasy titles you can't wait to see. Largely forget that women exist. Put said list on a major internet site and wait.
When Buzzfeed contributor Sean McCarrick launched a list of titles that showed why 2014 was going to be a banner year he only included one title by a woman. And even that title (N. K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season) had already been pushed back to 2015. We got kind of angry and published Don't Be a Dick (Or 15 Great Sounding SFF Novels Available in 2014), a list that only contained books by female authors.
In the hopes of generating excitement for 2015 titles, and addressing some of the problems with our original list, we also made #YesAllStories: 2015 Books That Reach for New Horizons — a list of 51 fascinating sounding books!
Convinced a whole lot of people to pet the feminist pony
We had so many smart guest posts this year. We love your words — please come again :)
Held two successful theme weeks
In September we ran a set of posts about the work of Kate Elliott, an epic fantasy author with a tremendously varied back catalogue. And in November we ran Super Women & Comics Week and it was great! For seven days we put out posts focusing on women and comics. Thanks again to all our guest contributors for making it such a fun week.
Posted 12 LB co-reviews/podcasts/discussions & 10 co-reviews/podcasts/discussions with others
We don't really want to count post numbers but, before we finish, we do just want to mention how many co-projects we completed this year.
When we started Lady Business, we saw it primarily as a way for the three of us to share things and get to know each other better. And that aspect of running this co-blog has been an amazing success — our inboxes stand testament to that.
The blog has also allowed us to make stronger connections with other media lovers by giving us the chance to create co-reviews, podcasts, and discussion posts with people from across the blogosphere. We all love co-projects (being able to talk to other people about things we love is a huge part of why we're on the internet) and learning more about the people we like, so this has been a huge benefit of running Lady Business.
Onward to 2015!
We've got big plans for Lady Business in 2015 including new features and long planning e-mails full of CAPSLOCK. Make sure to come back next year and cheer us on.
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Date: 2014-12-22 02:07 pm (UTC)