Topics

About Renay
About Jodie
Is this a feminist project?
Why do you link to other reviews at the end of your posts?
Are you currently accepting unsolicited review copies?
Commenting Policy

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About Renay

 

Renay is a long time member of slash fandom and nerdfighteria who stumbled into book blogging by accident and decided she liked arguing with herself at length and in capslock — it was all downhill from there. Since those fated days of a failed general book blog, failed YA book blog, failed general book blog again, and a wake of dead dreams and projects, she dragged her friends into a blog with her in hopes that peer pressure will help her save face. She has come to embrace her love of science fiction, explosions, and longform writing, which as everyone knows is the most unpopular way to communicate on the internet since Livejournal ceased to be the hub of fannish interaction after being eaten by tumblr sharks and twitter whales. Renay enjoys explosions, unrealized sexual tension (later realized as explosively as possible), talking about popular culture, ladies being awesome, fanfiction, and exploding in feelings on Twitter. She lives in Arkansas with her cats, her resigned but patient partner, and her MacBook Pro.

"I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other." — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

About Jodie

By day Jodie is one of those evil marketers you're always hearing about. In fact she’s an evil British marketer and probably the inspiration for the next Bond villain. She numbs the pain of this knowledge with stories, booze and cheerful sarcasm.

Jodie enjoys talking about media critically. For her, examining how a book or film works reveals the world like taking the back off a watch, or looking at the detail of a leaf does. Suddenly the world appears deeper than she ever guessed; she can never go back now she’s seen the beauty of gears.

This makes her seem a little weird, but she is also happy and eager to try to fall in love with your favourite thing at the drop of a hat. She welcomes the chance to make connections by squeeing over media, or gleefully picking apart that thing you hate-love, especially if you have a supernatural program to recommend. She is always up for sharing gifs of hot boys and awesome female celebrities.

He tells her that the Earth is flat-
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.

The planet goes on being round. — Wendy Cope, 'He Tells Her'

Is this a feminist project?

Lady Business is a feminist project insofar as the three of us are feminists and we value stories told by and featuring women. However, we don't always, and are not obligated to, engage with everything from a feminist perspective. There may be times we actively avoid it, only do so in the comments or on Twitter, or do so after posting in email among ourselves. We believe that engaging with media and culture created by men is also important since we would have severely limited entertainment options if we eschewed media by men, and also because in our lives we are who we are because of our male allies.

We focus on sharing things we like with each other, helping one another grow as writers, readers, and critics, and talking about things that are important to us on a day to day basis. We ask sincerely for you not to typecast us. Lady Business is not, and never will be, only one thing.

Why do you link to other reviews at the end of your posts?

It's best to quote Ana, who was one of the early adopters of this practice. We've carried it over to Lady Business for many of the same reasons:

The conceptual answer is that I like the fact that it contextualises what I've just written as one reading among many, which is what I believe all reviews to be, even professional ones. There have been countless discussions all over the blogosphere — and outside of it, I'm sure — about what constitutes legitimate intellectual authority and whether or not All Readings Are Created Equal. I don't mean to repeat them here, so I'll just say that I don't want to set up my own writing as the end-all and be-all of book blogging, and that I'm perfectly happy to link to another review even if I disagree with every single word of it.

The more practical answer is that it's useful — it's useful for bloggers to have relevant sites link to them, and it's useful for readers who might have stumbled upon a single review on Google but have no idea of what else is out there. I don't do the snippets from other reviews thing because I believe that context is important, and also because I want readers to click over, read a full review, and possibly discover a new blog that they love. I know that the belief that nobody ever does this and therefore links are useless is pretty widespread, but I've actually had readers thank me for introducing them to new blogs in this way.

Are you currently accepting unsolicited review copies?

Commenting Policy

1. If you comment without a Dreamwidth/OpenID account, sign it.
2. If you forget, just reply to yourself and say "this is me."
3. Don't treat us or other people in our space like meat popsicles.
4. Sit down when we tell you to sit down.
5. Don't be a fuckmuppet.
6. Don't forget to be awesome.