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renayRecently, Stitch published Let’s Talk About Tone Policing and (A Lack of) Reading Comprehension In Conversations About Racism In Fandom. It's essential reading. ( Read more... )
renaybookgazing
It's the start of July. I am trying to review Kameron Hurley's essay collection, The Geek Feminist Revolution. In my wisdom, I have decided an analysis of her essay, "I'll Make The Pancakes: On Opting In And Out of the Writing Game", would make a great entry point for my review. I reread it to remind myself of the piece's fundamental points:
The more women writers I read, from Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler to Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Toni Morrison, the less alone I felt, and the more I began to see myself as part of something more.
It wasn't about one woman toiling against the universe. It was about all of us moving together, crying out into some black, inhospitable place that we would not be quiet, we would not go silently, we would not stop speaking, we would not give in.
It's hard to see the keyboard when you're trying not to cry.
( Read more... )
litomnivoreThe arrival of Star Wars: The Force Awakens made the Star Wars fandom explode earlier this year. The modern Star Wars fan is catered to not only by seemingly every kind of product with enough surface area to slap Kylo Ren on (laugh all you want, this cereal is wicked delicious), but also by the width and breadth of the fanworks available to her. With decades of fanworks to sift through, the possibilities can seem infinite. But once she’s read her eyes out on all the Poe/Finn fic she can find and indulged in prequel fanvids set to Evanescence songs (kids, ask your parents), she might have a question.
Where, a new Star Wars fan might well ask, is all the Han/Luke fic?
"C'mon, kid…"
Han Solo and Luke Skywalker have all the hallmarks of a successful slash ship: namely, they are two white dudes who stand next to each other in a mainstream media property. Pointed, bitter joking aside, they’re initially thrown together by happenstance and grow to become friends after a rocky start over the course of A New Hope. They then embark on, with Leia, one of the greatest love triangles of the twentieth century. (It must be deeply stressed that nobody knew that Luke and Leia were siblings for six years. Including George Lucas.) Han and Luke clearly enjoy each other’s company and value each other greatly. On top of all that, Ford and Hamill have good chemistry and banter well together, the hallmark of any true Star Wars romance (prequels? What prequels?).
And yet, other and newer Star Wars ships seem to take precedence. Like Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi or Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, the latter a pairing whose canon interaction is now limited to a single film. (Whose living canon interaction is now limited to a single film. I am perfectly aware that Qui-Gon sometimes appears as a Force ghost to Obi-Wan, presumably to continue the endless torment of having such a terrible Jedi as your master. Qui-Gon Jinn: the original Bad Idea Jedi.) It seems impossible that Star Wars fandom somehow just politely ignored the slash potential of Han and Luke from 1977 (when Star Wars debuted) to 1996 (when the first Han/Luke fanzine, Elusive Lover, was published), and yet that’s what the fossil record seems to indicate. And why didn’t it have more of a presence in the last two decades?
Well, friends and fen, to answer that question, we have to go back to the late seventies.
( Read more... )
Where, a new Star Wars fan might well ask, is all the Han/Luke fic?
"C'mon, kid…"
Han Solo and Luke Skywalker have all the hallmarks of a successful slash ship: namely, they are two white dudes who stand next to each other in a mainstream media property. Pointed, bitter joking aside, they’re initially thrown together by happenstance and grow to become friends after a rocky start over the course of A New Hope. They then embark on, with Leia, one of the greatest love triangles of the twentieth century. (It must be deeply stressed that nobody knew that Luke and Leia were siblings for six years. Including George Lucas.) Han and Luke clearly enjoy each other’s company and value each other greatly. On top of all that, Ford and Hamill have good chemistry and banter well together, the hallmark of any true Star Wars romance (prequels? What prequels?).
And yet, other and newer Star Wars ships seem to take precedence. Like Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi or Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, the latter a pairing whose canon interaction is now limited to a single film. (Whose living canon interaction is now limited to a single film. I am perfectly aware that Qui-Gon sometimes appears as a Force ghost to Obi-Wan, presumably to continue the endless torment of having such a terrible Jedi as your master. Qui-Gon Jinn: the original Bad Idea Jedi.) It seems impossible that Star Wars fandom somehow just politely ignored the slash potential of Han and Luke from 1977 (when Star Wars debuted) to 1996 (when the first Han/Luke fanzine, Elusive Lover, was published), and yet that’s what the fossil record seems to indicate. And why didn’t it have more of a presence in the last two decades?
Well, friends and fen, to answer that question, we have to go back to the late seventies.
( Read more... )
Hey, Short Fiction! Why So Complicated?
Nov. 6th, 2014 01:33 amrenay"2014,", I said in 2013 (pretty arrogantly, in hindsight) "is going to be the year where I stay on top of short fiction!"
Friends, this was a complete fabrication. I'm a rotten, dirty liar.
Like every year before this, the sheer scope of the short fiction landscape first bemused me and then overwhelmed me. I did the same thing I've done the last four years. I gave it a shot early in the year, determined and hopeful, with a few short stories and a few different anthologies. I tried to read the stories that people mentioned on Twitter or their blogs. I failed out of multiple pieces because I felt ignorant and/or I couldn't figure out what the piece was saying. Eventually I gave up, figuring I'd use award seasons to find short fiction to read — people are always tossing around recommendations during that time.
Same old, same old. ( Read more... )
Friends, this was a complete fabrication. I'm a rotten, dirty liar.
Like every year before this, the sheer scope of the short fiction landscape first bemused me and then overwhelmed me. I did the same thing I've done the last four years. I gave it a shot early in the year, determined and hopeful, with a few short stories and a few different anthologies. I tried to read the stories that people mentioned on Twitter or their blogs. I failed out of multiple pieces because I felt ignorant and/or I couldn't figure out what the piece was saying. Eventually I gave up, figuring I'd use award seasons to find short fiction to read — people are always tossing around recommendations during that time.
Same old, same old. ( Read more... )
helloladiesToday Gavia Baker-Whitelaw visits Lady Business to tell us more about exciting new publishing enterprise Big Bang Press as they prepare to publicly release their first title. Gavia is Managing Editor of Big Bang Press, a regular fandom reporter for The Daily Dot & maintains the popular costume design blog Hello Tailor. (We suspect she may also have developed cloning technology).
I'm the Managing Editor of Big Bang Press, and my job is to sell original novels by fanfic writers.
Basically, if you've ever read a fanfic and thought, "Holy crap, this writer is better than a lot of published authors," then that's where we come in. ( Read more... )
helloladiesPut on your shades and grab the keys to the DeLorean, friends, because today we've got special guest Clare from The Literary Omnivore with us to take us on a trip through fandom history with a quick overview from our complicated past to our gloriously rich and unsurprisingly splintered present. Clare is one of our favorite fannish historians and pop culture critics, and we're super excited to feature her here. :D
Introduction
Fans have always been fans. Virgil’s Aeneid is literally epic fanfiction of The Iliad. Before Beatlemania and Whedonites, there were Lisztomaniacs. And the first documented ship war was over Jo and Laurie in Little Women, with Jo/Laurie shippers on one side and Louisa May Alcott on the other. The fannish impulse—that special blend of love, critique, and, occasionally, correction—has been expressed time and time again throughout human history.
But fandom—the organization of fans into a specific community—is a phenomenon of the twentieth century, especially the Western media fandom that characterizes fandom to many people both in and outside fandom. In fact, Ronald A. Knox’s 1911 essay “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes” gives fandom the practice of referring to their texts as "canon". The satirical essay is meant to mock the German New Criticism (a certain take on historical criticism of a text) of the Bible by applying the same method to the Sherlock Holmes stories. The comparison of the Biblical canon to Doyle’s canon caught on, which is to say that the fannish usage of “canon” is over a century old.
But fandom does not start there. ( Read more... )
helloladies
Episode #7 — Courtney Schafer and Fandom
Grab your charms, your cloaks, and your protection against evil mages and join Renay and Courtney Schafer — author of the adventure fantasy The Whitefire Crossing and its sequel, The Tainted City — as they discuss science fiction and fantasy, genre divides, gender parity, conventions, favorite authors, terrifying mountain trips, and a little fandom history. Download the episode for terrifying anecdotes about eating bugs and deadly falling rocks.
Disclaimer and warning: this episode was recorded five thousand years ago in Internet time and both of us were suffering from the plague.
Follow us on twitter, tumblr, via RSS, or subscribe via iTunes.
renayBack in October, Jared asked me to write about fanfic and do some recs as one of the special features he runs. Of course, over a month later I finish and I've gone 200% overboard in my excitement and the post has to become a standalone thing because I can't control myself when it comes to recs. I love talking about stories I enjoy, and I always wanted an excuse to highlight that fanfic barely scratches the surface of fandom and also that we're all awesome. Remix and Transformation: An introduction to fanfiction is live and I had a lot of fun writing it and sharing some of the stories I love — I was pleased to include some podfic and vids in there, too. ♥
....I barely restrained myself from having a full on meltdown about Supernatural, though. Ugh, Supernatural, I both hate and love you. :|
Anyway, if there are iconic and/or interesting stories/podfic/vids/art out there you love, please do share them in the comments over there. I thought about 19 things I could've included from unimported delicious bookmark links AFTER I finalized my draft. Curses. /o\
....I barely restrained myself from having a full on meltdown about Supernatural, though. Ugh, Supernatural, I both hate and love you. :|
Anyway, if there are iconic and/or interesting stories/podfic/vids/art out there you love, please do share them in the comments over there. I thought about 19 things I could've included from unimported delicious bookmark links AFTER I finalized my draft. Curses. /o\
renay
My second column is up in the latest issue of Strange Horizons! \o/ Communities: You Got Your Industry in my Fanwork discusses the changes to book blogging culture, creators interacting with fanwork and fan communities, and lots of things we were likely debating back in the 1970s, just with different names. Nothing new, except my perspective. :D
Other parts of the issue available now:
FICTION: Difference of Opinion, by Meda Kahn
FICTION: Podcast: Difference of Opinion, by Meda Kahn, read by Anaea Lay
POETRY: Triptych, by Jane Crowley
REVIEW: NOS4R2 by Joe Hill, reviewed by Katherine Farmar
