ladybusiness | Entries tagged with events: guest posts

Today we welcome Jenny from the delightful book blog & podcast Reading the End to Lady Business to discuss Superwomen: Gender, Power, and Representation by Carolyn Cocca. *\o/*

As a critical, feminist fan of (American) football and (mostly Marvel) comics, I fairly often hear the argument that people don’t come to football and comics for politics, they come to football and comics for fun. Social justice warriors and PC police are taking a thing that’s supposed to be fun, this argument goes, and making it grim and serious by getting politics all over it.

This is kind of like saying you don’t want to eat yogurt because you don’t like the idea of having bacteria in your body. The bacteria’s in there already, team. What you mean is that you don’t want these bacteria. You don’t want these politics, the ones that do not actively work to conceal systems of oppression in which you and your fun thing are complicit. Because—and perhaps you should be sitting down to receive this news—adherence to a perceived political norm is also political. ( Read more... )

helloladies

We're happy to welcome forestofglory to Lady Business to discuss the Hugos Awards and their history (and their future! Which you can influence!) with an award for Young Adult literature. Thanks, forestofglory!

I’m part of a committee helping to create new award for YA books to be given out at Worldcon (short for the World Science Fiction Convention) like a Hugo award. Currently the committee working on the award is running a survey to gather name suggestions. If you are interested in this we’d love for you to take the survey. It is online at bit.ly/worldconya. The survey will remain open until November 15.

If you’ve been reading Lady Business you have probably heard about the Hugo awards – some of you even nominated Lady Business for the Best Fanzine Hugo last year. But for those of you not familiar with the awards, they are a big deal in SFF and one of the few awards people who don’t follow SFF closely have frequently heard of. The Hugos are given out every year at Worldcon and are voted on by the members of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS). ( Read more... )

helloladies

We're super happy to welcome regular Lady Business contributor Jenny back to discuss some awesome nonfiction recommendations. \o/

My middle sister, one of the most voracious readers I’ve ever met, told me recently that she’s completely stopped reading fiction. "I just don’t enjoy it anymore," she said to me super-casually even though this is, like, my nightmare. I read more nonfiction than I used to, and I’m worried that I’ll wake up one morning and find that I, like my cleverest sister, have just stopped enjoying fiction.

But that’s…not likely, right? And also kind of a dark, Christoper-Nolan-y way to open a nonfiction rec list. Let me put it to you this way: I only entertain the possibility of this fiction-free future because I am aware of how phenomenally great nonfiction can be. As we head into fall and embrace that back-to-school vibe, here’s a list of some excellent nonfiction to entertain, educate, and astound you. ( Read more... )

Phew. That was a lot of nonfiction. I believe I’ll go read a book about aliens having space adventures now, as a palate-cleanser.

helloladies

Welcome to Readers of the Lost ARC! This project aims to recommend under-read books from the past few decades and to highlight stories that might interest readers looking for that next great book. We're happy to welcome Courtney Schafer back to Lady Business to tell us all about her favorite under-read books from the 1990s. Read on for some cool recommendations!

( Read more... )

helloladies

Welcome one and all to our newest feature, Readers of the Lost ARC, a project aimed at recommending under-read books from the past few decades to highlight stories that might interest readers looking for that next great book. We're happy to welcome Courtney Schafer to Lady Business to tell us all about her favorite under-read books from the 1980s. Read on for some cool recommendations.

( Read more... )

helloladies

We're happy to welcome Elizabeth Fitzgerald to Lady Business today to give us the rundown on all the amazing women writers who helped carve out space in the literary scene of Australia and the women currently writing today. Thanks, Elizabeth!

Australian Women Writers

What makes a good list? On episode #44 of Fangirl Happy Hour, you probably heard special guest Gin Jenny of Reading the End offer her criteria: time period, tone, race, and gender. I have one other that I like to add to that: nationality. Being biased, this usually means I’m looking for Australian authors.

Being an Australian reader and fan is an interesting thing. We have such a strong SFF scene and I find it disappointing how little that gets recognised on an international scope. As a book blogger, I try to counter this by keeping a focus (mostly) on home-grown work, and I always keep an eye on Australian representation in award nominations and recommendation lists.

So when I recently ran across a list of 100 SFF novels written by women, I scanned it eagerly for familiar names. After all, Australia has an excellent tradition when it comes to female SFF writers—particularly in fantasy, as author and critic Tansy Rayner Roberts has noted. I was disappointed to see that in this list of 100 there were just two: Juliet Marillier and KJ Bishop. Both are brilliant authors (and Kirsten is an amazing sculptor to boot), but there were dozens of deserving names that could be added.

I realise no list can be definitive. More than anything, they should serve as a starting point for further exploration of a topic. With that in mind, I offer you my own list.

If you’re a reader looking for a general introduction to Australian women SFF writers, the Twelve Planets series from Twelfth Planet Press is a good place to start. These are short, single-author collections by some of Australia’s finest writers. Each book contains four stories and are a great way to dip in and get a feel for whether this author is for you.( Read more... )

20/08/16: Minor corrections have been made to this post since it went up. Trudi Canavan's fantasy is not YA as previously stated, and Lisa Hannet's "Lament For The Afterlife" is a novel not a collection of short stories.

helloladies

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the author of Signal to Noise - one of Jodie's favourite books of 2015 so far. Today she joins us to talk about how Mexican soap operas have influenced her writing.

Periodically people ask me where I get my ideas, how my Mexican background influences my writing and the role of music in my life. And by periodically I mean only for the past few months because my debut novel Signal to Noise – about teenagers who learn to cast magic spells using vinyl records in 1980s Mexico City – came out this year and I’ve done some interviews on this topic.

Now when someone asks you to lists your influences and cultural background there’s a classy way to do it, which involves mentioning some of the great writers you read. And then there’s the dark underbelly of my childhood, the 1980s monster lurking under the bed: the intros to Mexican soap operas.

( Read more... )

helloladies

Today we bring you the second post in our Women in Authority theme week. Our next guest post is from Jenny one of the bloggers from popular site Reading the End (she's known as Gin Jenny over there).

I cheated a little bit on this assignment. (Don't tell the ladies of Lady Business; I want them to invite me back.) When they proposed this week of guest posts about lady bosses, I promptly volunteered to write about one of my favorite books of all time, The Color Purple, even though they were thinking of Heads of Corporate Conglomerates, and I wanted to write about a small business owner. (It is not like I need much excuse to write about The Color Purple. If I could write about The Color Purple once a week without boring y'all stiff, I'd do it.)

( Read more... )

helloladies

The guest posts keep coming! We knew no one could resist the chance to throw out hundreds of words about female villains. Next up is Amy who lives in Southern California and occasionally maintains the blog My Friend Amy which recently turned eleven! She loves stories in all their forms, arguing about sports, and over committing herself to various projects.

Psycho is one of the best known horror films of all time and the actual psychosis behind the actions of Norman Bates in the film continue to intrigue. So much so that a few years ago, A&E greenlit a backstory to the film in the form of a TV show—Bates Motel Despite the eye rolling that was to be done over Hollywood’s lack of original ideas, the concept was fresh in some ways. The story was to be set in present day. And even more interesting was the prominent role Norman’s mother would play. The real flesh and blood mother before she became nothing but a corpse in the fruit cellar.

( Read more... )

helloladies

Our third guest post of the week is from Renay's fellow Xena fangirl, Clare McBride. Clare is a book blogger, fan, and pop culture critic at The Literary Omnivore.

( Spoilers for Thunderball, A View to a Kill, and The World is Not Enough below. )

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Entries tagged with events: guest posts

Review: Superwomen: Gender, Power, and Representation by Carolyn Cocca

The Hugo Awards and YA Literature: Building the YA Award

Bad Nuns and Good Science: Jenny's Nonfiction Rec List

Readers of the Lost ARC: Courtney Schafer Explores the 1990s

Readers of the Lost ARC: Courtney Schafer Explores the 1980s

Australian Women Writers

Australian Women Writers

Guest Post: Slivers of Another World by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Guest Post: Pants and Female Agency in The Color Purple

Guest Post: Norma Bates

Guest Post: The World is Not Enough: The Transgressive Villainesses of James Bond

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