Video Found: Signing At the Waldenbooks
A very cute little video about author signings. The really funny part about it is that most of what he sings about is pretty true. Author signings for newbies or non-bestsellers generally aren’t the most bustling of events. But, if they were all perfect things there wouldn’t be anything funny to say about them, now would there? Exactly. Here it is for your enjoyment (after the fold):
The Skiffy and Fanty Show #3 is live!
Thought I’d let everyone know that the third episode of the podcast I’m doing with Weirdside is live. We talk about the worst novels/authors for aspiring writers, Will Smith, the recent controversy over Paizo Publishing’s Before They Were Giants anthology, and much more! Feel free to check it out and let us know what you think! Thanks!
RIP: Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper passed away today from prostate cancer in his home. We all remember Hopper for his various crazy roles in film, genre or otherwise. He had roles in Apocalypse Now, Hoosiers, Speed and the less-than-spectacular Waterworld and Super Mario Bros. I have fond memories of Hopper, even if I didn’t like some of the movies he made. Needless to say, some of the worst movies he was in were made bearable by his presence.He will be missed!
Note: Update on Security Warnings (on this site)
I’ve done a lot more work to find out what’s been going on and had a friend who has more knowledge about Internet things look over on the site. Both of us show nothing wrong with WISB. At best I suspect that what happened was a fluke (a site external to my own who I link to might have had an attack or some such or Google got it wrong and nothing is going on at all). We might never know what happened. In any case, the warnings have ceased appearing for me. My understanding is that they have not for everyone else. I don’t know what that means, but if you continue to get warnings from this site beyond Monday, please don’t hesitate to email me at arconna [at] yahoo [dot] com or send an @ message to my Twitter account. Thanks for your patience!
Note: Temporarily Out of Service
I wanted to give you all a heads up. My blog was recently hacked or something. I’m getting a lot of Malware notices for the pages for various posts, but not for the main page. I have no idea what’s going on, but, rest assured, I’m working on fixing it. My apologies for the inconvenience. Stick around. Once I get it fixed, everything will be back to normal and you won’t have to worry about your Internet safety. Thanks!
Genre Inclusivity: The Fundamental Paradox of the Love/Hate Relationship in SF/F
Last week, Weirdside and I discussed M.D. Lachlan’s article on the inclusivity of the genre community in the second episode of The Skiffy and Fanty Show. While we both agreed that, generally speaking, the genre fiction community is far more open and welcoming than other segments of the writing world, we never properly addressed what I think is a potential destroyer of genre fiction. I’m not talking about disinterest in reading science fiction, or the lack of respect by academics, or the various other things that people cite as the downfall of SF/F or other genres. I’m talking about the internal conflict within SF/F, induced in part by the ability of the Internet to provide a space for any voice, opinion, thought, and so on, often without serious consequences for the speaker. The conflict usually appears with a “fail” at the end of it, such as GenderFail, RaceFail 09 (and 10), and so on. The problem with these moments in SF/F isn’t so much that nobody is addressing a legitimate issue. It would be foolish to claim that race and gender are not important problems in our culture. It’s unfortunate that we still have to deal with things like the casting calls for The Last Airbender or the fact that not enough women are being given their due in today’s SF/F book culture. Despite how inclusive genre seems to be, it still has a lot of problems that need to be worked out. This is part of the paradox of inclusivity, because the genre is not as inclusive as it should be, and moments when that inclusivity is questioned have created more uproar and divides than were present before (the result not just of the people on the “bad” side, but on the “good” side too; these arguments have no innocent parties, sadly). The problem with RaceFail and GenderFail is the way certain individuals have used these moments not to help solve a problem or bring attention to it, but to divide us further by ejecting innocent people from the discussion, disregarding key facts, and generally using these moments as soap boxes for a view that may or may not be as true as they think. Racism exists, yes, but one racist instance at one time doesn’t necessarily mean that other instances that are similar are inherently racist. Sometimes the dice just roll that way, and that’s life. The same is true of gender. Again, I don’t deny that racism and sexism exist; if the last year has taught us anything (and the last couple of months especially), it is that both are very much alive and well and on the rise, a fact that, for the vast majority of Americans, should be disturbing, but which has not been appropriately addressed by people in the various movements in which such racism or sexism are rearing their ugly heads. But, despite that, what I have said before, and will inevitably repeat somewhat here and in the third episode of the Skiffy and Fanty Show coming this weekend, is that the SF/F community is in need of a massive overhaul, not just in its publishing realms, but in its engagement among fans, producers of SF/F products (writers, editors, and so on), and academics. We’ve continued to become divisive in nature, and this is a problem that needs to be solved now before more and more people get shoved out of the SF/F mainstream or movements once regarded as legitimate are sunk in a sea of unproductive anger. Case in point, and an issue I recently discussed with Weirdside in our third episode (albeit not in as much detail as I would have liked), is the recent controversy over Paizo Publishing’s Before They Were Giants anthology. Bloggers and critics grew angry over the fact that the anthology contains only one woman and excludes a vast number of excellent big name female writers. The editor, however, came out of the woodworks and explained his editorial process, part of which involved a number of women SF/F writers turning him down for the anthology (many, we’re led to assume, rejected the offer for very good reasons); some writers who were mentioned in the comments were actually excluded by the editor not because they were women, but because they had been published in a series of anthologies with the same concept years before, and the editor didn’t want to create an anthology of repeats. These are only two of the points that the editor made, but bloggers and critics wouldn’t have any of it. Some went so far as to ignore the most important points made by the editor, as if desperate to keep the onslaught going. In all of this, only a few people came out with honest faces, and a number, some particularly prominent members of the critical/academic SF/F community, came out looking like ruthless trolls so sunk into the bitter world they’ve created for themselves that they can’t see what their actions are actually doing: creating more divide and solving nothing whatsoever. The one thing I have always wondered about these “fail” movements is whether it is possible for the SF/F community to take a step back and perhaps use the community itself as a vehicle to make the changes to publishing and production that need to be made, without all of the vitriol flooding the Internet and poisoning the community. How important is it to people to bring more women into the SF world? Or people of color? Or international authors? To me, they seem monumentally important, so much so that I can take a step back and think about ways to create change without alienating or destroying people. I don’t want more female or PoC writers and characters if the exchange is one of the following: Many good editors, perhaps who make a mistake or have legitimate reasons to have left out some female/PoC writers, lose their jobs and become ostracized by the community that inevitably wants them to change. It