Author: Cheryl

Award Eligibility Post

~ Cheryl

It is that time of year again when I do an award eligibility post to make my author friends less self-conscious about doing their own.

I have very little eligible work this year.

Technically this blog is fan writing, but I’ve already won a Hugo for that.

I did have one story published: “Camelot Girls Gone Wild” in Fantastically Horny from Far Horizons. Few of you will have read that, and frankly I don’t expect to win any awards for comedy erotica about a gay satyr.

The one thing I have done that might be award-worthy is my essay on trans characters in SF&F in Gender Identity and Sexuality in Fantasy and Science Fiction from Luna Press. However, that’s just one essay in a book full of good stuff. If you are going to nominate this I’d prefer you nominated the whole book and gave the award to the editor, Francesca T Barbini.

Of Myths & Monsters

~ Cheryl

Myths & Monsters is a 6-episode, British-produced documentary series on Netflix which looks at a variety of mythical themes and the reality behind them. Numerous historians are used as expert commentators, including Liz Gloyn whom I have chatted with on Twitter and who is currently writing a book on Medusa (though the Classical version, not the Bronze Age version which is far more interesting to me).

I binge-watched the series over New Year and enjoyed it, though I didn’t encounter anything much new. There were times when I wanted to disagree with things they said, particularly when they strayed into psychological explanations for myths. On two occasions where they stated firmly that no Norse woman ever went viking, let alone fought. This was based in part on an assertion that there was a psychological function for the Valkyrie (a sort of reverse birth thing) and that therefore all references to women warriors must be purely mythological. Even more bizarrely they used Thor’s silence at Thrymm’s Wedding (for which he had the good reason that his voice would give away his masquerade as Freya) as proof that Norse women were not allowed to speak much at home.

That said, there was a lot of good stuff to the series. I was particularly interested in the bit in episode 5 on social change where they started to talk about the witch panic of the 17th Century being a result of harvests failing due to climate change. I still haven’t read the new Ronald Hutton book, but it did sound plausible and, rather more scarily, it postulated the general theory that people are more likely to believe fake news, no matter how bizarre, during times of economic stress.

Anyway, it is still up on Netflix, so if you have access why not give it a look and let me know what you think.

Ujima Today – Review of 2017

~ Cheryl

My first Ujima show of the year was today, which was also the first day we were back live on air after the holidays. Indeed, I was the first live show. I marked this by being half asleep as I had been kept awake most of last night by the storms. I do wish that the Jotun would manage to hold their New Year parties on the right night.

Anyway, as I didn’t expect that anyone would want to be a guest today, and there were no back office staff on duty, I decided to make the show a look back at 2017 and re-run some old interviews.

First up was the Sarah Pinborough interview from BristolCon 2016, which was totally 2017 news because last year was the year that Sarah changed from being a moderately successful writer of dark fantasy to a global superstar. Behind Her Eyes has sold over 100,000 copies each in paperback and ebook, and has been listed as one of the 100 top selling books of all kinds in the UK last year. Well done Sarah, I’m absolutely delighted for you. Can I come and stay with you when you buy your Caribbean island? 😉

Also in the first hour I re-ran my interview with D.B. Redfern of M-Shed about Doris the Pilosaurus, because there are still parents wondering what to do with the kids between now and school starting.

You can listen to the first hour of the show here.

The second hour began with a look back on the women’s cricket season with triumphs both for England and for Western Storm. That included interviews with Lisa Pagett and Stafanie Taylor.

Next up I re-ran my interview with anti-FGM campaigner and WEP parliamentary candidate, Nimco Ali.

And finally there was my interview with Nalo Hopkinson at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki.

You can listen to the second hour of the show here.

The music for today’s show was inspired partly by the New Year’s Eve shows on the BBC, and partly by the trip that Kevin and I made to New Orleans back in the days when I was allowed into the USA. The connection is the very fine Trombone Shorty & New Orleans Avenue who are this year’s discovery from my watching the Jools Holland Hootenanny.

  • The Beat – Mirror in the Bathroom
  • Trombone Shorty – Here Come the Girls
  • Cedric Watson – Zydeco Paradise
  • Preservation Hall Jazz Band – When the Saints Come Marching In
  • Jamil Sharif – On the Sunny Side of the Street
  • Chic – Rebels Are We
  • Liane la Havas – Midnight
  • Jamiroquai – Blow your mind

My next show will be on February 7th and will doubtless have an LGBT History focus.

The Hotwells Horror

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Well, today seems to be a day for book announcements.

The Hotwells Horror is an anthology put together by my friend Pete Sutton in honor of local writer, David J Rodger who sadly took his own life in 2015. The book is named after one of David’s own stories and features contributions from a number of authors who knew David, including me.

There is a launch party planned for Saturday Jan. 13th. The venue hasn’t been confirmed yet. I have to be in Bath that afternoon, but as the event is scheduled to run until 19:00 I hope to make it to Bristol before the end.

All proceeds from sale of the book will be devoted to Mind, the mental health charity. This delights me as they have been very supportive of trans people over the past year.

In case anyone is interested, my story is set in New York in the 1920s and is told from the point of view of a Mrs. Sonia Greene. There may be hideous creatures from beyond the stars too.

And if you want to know a little bit more about David work, he did a reading at BristolCon Fringe back in 2014.

The Green Man is Coming

~ Cheryl

Well, technically his heir.

Juliet McKenna mentioned on her blog today that she has a brand new novel scheduled for this year. It will be called The Green Man’s Heir, and Juliet describes it as, “a modern fantasy, drawing on the folklore of the British Isles, and prompted by looking at urban fantasy from a few different angles.” I am delighted that Wizard’s Tower will be publishing it.

Obviously McKenna fans out there will be asking, “when will it be available?” Well I have done the ebook (subject to proofing by Juliet and a few little things that need adding). The paper version will take a bit longer because there’s a whole lot more involved in producing a paper book. Once Juliet and I have a timeline in place we’ll let you know.

February Schedule Firms Up

~ Cheryl

The various events at which I am doing LGBT History talks in February are starting to go public with their schedules. A while back I mentioned the Women in Classics event at the University of Reading. I can now add the Historical Fictions Network conference which is February 24/25 at Stoke-on-Trent. I will be giving a talk titled, “If Your Past isn’t Queer it is not Realistic”. The full program is available here, and booking details here.

More Seasonal Cheese Tasting

~ Cheryl

I promised you some more comments on my holiday cheese purchases.

First up, after due consideration, I think I still prefer the Eve over the Rollright. I think it has a much more interesting texture.

The other two I tried were flavored hard cheeses. One was Meldon from Curworthy, which uses wholegrain mustard blended with spices and garlic, sourced from Chiltern Ale brewery. It was pleasant, but not particularly special.

The other was Devon Sage, which I believe is also from Curworthy but isn’t currently listed on their website. I’m very fond of a good Sage Derby, but these days what you find in shops is normally made with bright green coloring. A proper sage cheese is much less excitable in color, and much more tasty. The Devon offering looked and tasted right, but not having a proper Derby cheese to compare it with I can’t say too much more.

Anyway, there was cheese, it was good, and I have eaten it. I hope you had some good holiday food too.

Self-Fertilizing Fish

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

Every so often I come across a news article that is relevant both to trans science and science fiction. Yesterday was one of those magical days, because I discovered the existence of self-fertilizing fish.

I should probably go back a few stages here by way of explanation.

To start with there is the whole question of what we mean by “biological sex”. Fish do not share the same XX/XY chromosome system familiar from mammals. In fact there are a wide range of different biological mechanisms that fish use to differentiate sex. When I talk about the biological sex of a fish here I mean whether the fish produces eggs, fertilizes eggs, or both.

Readers in the UK are probably familiar with the recent episode of Blue Planet II in which David Attenborough’s team filmed a Sheepshead Wrasse in the process of changing sex. There are, in fact, many fish species that practice what is called Sequential Hermaphroditism, in which the animal is male for part of its life cycle and female for another part. The much loved Clown Fish from Finding Nemo is another example. These fish only exhibit one sex at any one time in their lives.

There are also many fish species that exhibit Simultaneous Hermaphroditism. That is, they are capable of producing eggs and fertilizing eggs. Some species of Sea Bass have these abilities, which is something worth pondering next time you eat one. However, these fish have to have sex with other, similarly hermaphroditic, fish in order to make baby fish. How else would genetic diversity be achieved, right?

However, there is one species of fish (well, more properly two closely related species) that can make babies by individuals having sex with themselves. Enter the spectacularly named Mangrove Killifish.

The killifish is pretty amazing on several levels. It can live in both fresh and salt water, and it can survive for up to two months on land. But self-fertilization is seemingly the most miraculous ability because surely all of the fish would be clones, so how would they evolve? Mutation doesn’t seem an adequate explanation.

However, it turns out that killifish come in two sexes: both and male. The males are very rare, but very popular. If a clone family of both-sex spots one they’ll seek him out and make lots of baby fish. In that way a certain amount of genetic diversity is maintained.

For those who are interested, there is more scientific detail here.

And for those of you thinking of interesting ideas to use in alien biology, have at it!

A Pro-Diversity Literary Agency

~ Cheryl

Some of you may remember that back in September Random Penguin ran a series of events looking for new authors from diverse backgrounds. One of those workshops was in Bristol and was coordinated by local writer, Nikesh Shukla. Nikesh is currently best known for crowdfunding the anthology, The Good Immigrant, which explores what it means to be Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic in Britain today.

Just before Christmas, Nikesh announced the formation of a new literary agency, The Good Literary Agency, to be run by himself and Julia Kingsford. The agency will be a social enterprise, so not taking a profit from the business, and this is what it has to say about its objectives:

Inspired by a desire to increase opportunities for representation for all writers under-represented in mainstream publishing it will focus on discovering, developing and launching the careers of writers of colour, disability, working class, LGBTQ+ and anyone who feels their story is not being told in the mainstream.

They are not yet open for submissions, but you can sign up to be notified when they do at their website.

I note that the agency is part-funded by the Arts Council, which appears to think that “genre fiction” is commercial and not in need of support, whereas “literary fiction” — that is the stuff that publishers pour fortunes into marketing, and the media will always write about, despite it not always selling — is in need of loads more money. However, that’s not their only source of money. My guess is that you can get away with calling your SF&F “literary” if it is not about straight white men, because “everyone knows” that only straight white men read SF&F.

A Disturbance in the Force

~ Cheryl

As numerous sites have been posting spoiler-filled reviews of The Last Jedi I assume that it is OK for me to do the same. My apologies to those of you who haven’t seen the film.

Like many people, I found the film interesting as long as you make allowances for it being a Star Wars movie. You really don’t expect any of it to make sense. Adam Roberts does an excellent job of pointing out some of the more egregious plot holes over at Strange Horizons.

Of course not all of this can be blamed on the mythic nature of the Star Wars universe. Some of it is required by the nature of the beast. For example, Leia could have made a much better job of disciplining Poe, but to do so she would have had to make him confront the cost of his recklessness more closely. That would doubtless have been deemed too dark for a family film. In Star Wars death is sad, but everyone gets over it quickly.

Sometimes sense is sacrificed for the sake of plot. Admiral Holdo might not have seemed so incompetent had it not been necessary to make her seem so in order to sucker the viewer into the misdirection of her being a traitor. A better script might have helped, but there was probably no room. Even at 2.5 hours there wasn’t enough room in the film for all of the story that they tried to cram into it. This is by no means an unusual problem with modern Hollywood. I can understand the temptation to want to cram in more and more story, but the result of that is that the script gets pared down so ruthlessly that we have to rely on our semiotic intuition to fill in the gaps left by missing dialog and poor acting.

All of which brings me to the Canto Bight episode. I gather that lots of people have been complaining that it was a waste of space. Over at Tor.com Molly Templeton makes the case that it was necessary to show ordinary people resisting the First Order. The return there at the end of the film underscores that. But Templeton is wrong to dismiss the few lines of dialog about morality as comparatively inconsequential.

As is often the case these days, some of the best analysis comes from the LA Review of Books. Dan Hassler-Forest goes through the usual points about foregrounding female power at the expense of toxic masculinity. But he then goes on to look at the significance of Canto Bight and how it completely undermines the entire Star Wars narrative.

The lesson of Canto Bight is that both the First Order and the Resistance are being played by rich oligarchs who sell weapons to both sides and encourage them to fight. They are the real power in the galaxy: not the Jedi; nor Snoke, Kylo and their petulant, entitled pawn, General Vox.

There’s a serious political point being made here. Rian Johnson is asking his audience to forget about political tribalism and follow the money. That’s where you’ll find the real enemy. Whether the message will get through is another matter. The people who most need to learn that lesson are the people blithely voting for the First Order because they’ve been told that the Resistance are a bunch of dangerous SJWs who will destroy their European Heritage and Masculinity. But maybe once the enormity of the tax bill takes hold they too will learn that they need to stop fighting those they hate and start saving those they love.

Of course the chances of this message being carried through into Episode IX are not great. The people in charge of merchandising at Disney will continue to try to pretend that Kylo Ren is the hero of the story. Changes in plot direction may well be required of the next director. After all, misdirection is a staple tool of Star Wars plotting.

Which brings me to the question of Rey’s parents. Does anyone really believe that they were nobodies? Yes, it would be great if they were, because that would further undermine the dynastic theme of the franchise. But all of that can be changed. My bet for Episode IX is that it will be revealed that Rey was vat-grown from tissue stolen from Han and Leia when they were prisoners of the Empire, and Kylo will be redeemed because he can’t bring himself to kill his sister.

Yeah, that sucks. But at least we will have had The Last Jedi, and once again the middle part of the trilogy will be the one everyone says is the best.

Solstice Cheese Tasting

~ Cheryl

Because I am trying to make better use of my limited time, I did my holiday cheese shopping when I was in Bristol on Tuesday rather than make a special trip to Bath. Of course these days I have the fabulous Rosie at the Bristol Cheesemonger shop to visit, so quality cheese buying in Bristol is far less of a trek than it used to be. Two of my purchases got tried out as part of my Solstice dinner last night.

First up was Eve, a soft goat’s cheese made by White Lake Dairy in Somerset. It is washed in Somerset cider and wrapped in vine leaves. It seemed to me that goat’s cheese and vine leaves were a perfect combination for a very Dionysian Saturnalia.

The other new cheese was Rollright, from King Stone Dairy in Oxfordshire. This is a soft cow’s milk cheese washed in brine.

When it comes to visuals I think that the Rollright wins hands down. That bubbliness makes it look like a much harder cheese than it really is. The Eve, in contrast, is pale and creamy in appearance. Taste is a different matter. Normally I prefer my cheese hard, strong and tasty, so neither of these two were off to a good start. First impressions suggest that I prefer the Eve, if only because it tastes like it looks and therefore doesn’t disappoint. However, I’ll give them another try over Christmas. I also have a couple of other new cheeses to try, including a sage cheese that doesn’t come from Derbyshire. Stay tuned, cheese lovers!

November Fringe Readings

~ Cheryl

Well, this is a little bit late, but treat it as a timely Solstice present. Here is the audio from the November BristolCon Fringe event, with a bonus interview at the end.

It being just past Halloween, November was a horror month at Fringe. Our first reader was Baylea Hart who describes herself as an IT Technician by day, horror writer by night and a reader everywhere in between. She has a BA in creative writing from Bath Spa University and enjoys watching people grow slightly white after reading her stories. Her short story, “Jack in the Box”, won the 2015 Bristol Horror Writing Competition and her film, Behind the Door, won a Top 50 spot in the Bloody Cuts “Who’s There?” competition and has over 500,000 views on YouTube.

Baylea read from her novel, The Log House, which will be available from Unbound very shortly.

Our second reader for November was Jonathan L Howard, who read from his recently published novel, After the End of the World. This is a sequel to the critically acclaimed Carter & Lovecraft. And yes (spolier!), the world did really end in that book. There is a little bit of explanation as to what is going on in the Q&A, but chapter 1 of the new book stands pretty much on its own. The new world that Dan and Emily find themselves in after the destruction of the world we know is rather different. Explaining just how different allows Jonathan to indulge his passion for alternate history.

No tentacled beings from beyond the stars were harmed in the production of this podcast.

As is traditional, I put both of our authors to the question at the end of the evening. We learned that Baylea has the Best Mum in the World, and that horror writers have dreadful habits as children. Jonathan explained some of the background to After the End of the World. And Gareth Powell ask the very difficult question, “Who would win in a fight: Cthulhu or Godzilla?”

As a bonus, because it is Solstice Day today, here from Salon Futura is the interview I did with Jonathan on my radio show at the start of the month. It has a small amount of overlap with the Q&A, but we make up for that in enthusiastic discussion of Nazi-punching.

Fringe takes a break over the holidays, but we will be back in January with the very wonderful Lucy Hounsom.

Solstice Card

~ Cheryl


Yes, it is that time of year again. And because I am still in the Northern Hemisphere today is the Winter Solstice and a wintery card is required. If you were among the small group of people to whom I still send paper cards (mostly ancient relatives who don’t do the Internet much) this is what you would have got in the mail. The art is, as always, by my very talented friend, Dru Marland. You can find her Etsy shop here.

Happy Solstice, everyone! Thanks for being here over the past circuit around the sun.

Referendum by the Back Door

~ Cheryl

An interesting new development in civil rights has been the idea that such things should be put up to popular vote. Ireland did rather well out if it, supporting same-sex marriage so firmly that their frightened government passed a very progressive gender recognition act as well. Australia, on the other hand, was subjected to weeks of bitter argument in the media which involved a great deal of hate-mongering on the part of the anti-LGB lobby. What’s more, the vote wasn’t actually a referendum, it was just a postal survey of people’s opinion. In Australia voting is mandatory, but this was optional. Getting the vote out, or inhibiting it, suddenly became important.

As yet the UK has not had a referendum on LGBT rights. The country has had a rather bad experience with a referendum in the recent past and no one wants to go through that again. Nevertheless, the government is putting LGBT rights up for vote. They have launched a public consultation on the subject of the new sex and relationships curriculum to be introduced to English schools.

Consultations are not exactly new, but mostly they have been a matter for pressure groups, academic experts and so on. This one will be different. Right wing groups are already urging their supporters to flood the consultation with demands to ban all mention of LGBT issues from the curriculum. (See here, for example).

While the consultation is by no means binding, if it does come out strongly against LGBT inclusion, the government will be able to claim that it is the “will of the people” that we return to the days of Section 28. But, as I noted, this is not a referendum. It isn’t even something that the government will publicize heavily. We know that the other side will be well organized, well funded, and will have the likes of the Daily Malice on their side. We have to fight back.

I have had a brief look at the consultation. It is long and involved, and the government is asking for evidence. The anti lobby will doubtless provide prepared text for their supporters to cut and paste. Hopefully that will count against them. It would be good if we could look better informed. If you want to read up on the subject, Stonewall has plenty of information.

It is also important that this new curriculum teaches young people to respect each other, and that sex should be a matter of consent. There is a big opportunity here to deconstruct harmful gender stereotypes. I’m assuming that the Women’s Equality Party will come out with some recommendations in the near future. I will point you at them when it happens.

By the way, one of the talks I have planned for the LGBT History Month event in Bristol on February 10th will be from the leading civil rights lawyer, Jonathan Cooper OBE. I have asked him to address this issue of putting civil rights up for popular vote. It should be a very interesting talk.

Writing & Gender Returns

~ Cheryl

I’m delighted to be able to report that Cat Rambo and I will be offering our Writing & Gender course again in January. How do you go about writing characters whose gender is different from yours? What about all these new, non-binary genders that we hear about these days? Not to mention new sexualities. How can you add gender diversity to your fiction and stay respectful of the various identities you are making use of? Cat and I are here to explain. The course is timed to work for people on either side of the Atlantic (so we can teach it together). If you are interested, details of how to sign up, together with a whole load of other amazing courses that Cat offers, can be found on her blog.

Up On the Aqueduct

~ Cheryl

It is that time of year when the Aqueduct Press blog blossoms with posts from Aquedistas talking about things that they have enjoyed reading, seeing and hearing over the past year. Today it is my turn. Obviously I can’t talk much about fiction because of the Tiptree judging, but I still managed to go on rather a lot. You can read my post here.

Rick Stein Does Mexico

~ Cheryl

My attempts at catching up on the enormous backlog of science fiction television I’m facing have floundered somewhat because I have found a new cookery series to watch. I’m not a big fan of celebrity chefs, but I do like Rick Stein. There are several reasons for this. His restaurant is in Cornwall. He started his career focusing on fish. And of course the shows are directed by David Pritchard who also discovered the mercurial genius that was Keith Floyd. Stein has nowhere near the personality, nor capacity for alcohol, that Floyd had. However, his shows are refreshingly free of lecturing about diets, healthy eating and so on, majoring instead on simple enthusiasm for good, fresh food well cooked.

The new series, Rick Stein’s Road Trip to Mexico, obviously features Mexican cuisine. However, it started out in San Francisco because there is a tale of Greater Mexico here, before the USA took so much territory away. There is also the story of Mexico’s influence on American cuisine, and of course of the current political fuss over immigration. Safely back in England after filming, Stein can’s resist the occasional dig at the orange-faced monster.

It is the food, however, that is the rightful star of the show. I have long been of the opinion that Mexican cuisine is one of the finest in the world. The combination of chili, lime juice and coriander is irresistible. The slow-cooked meats are utterly delicious. And the burrito is one of the world’s great portable food inventions. All of which is before I get onto the subjects of cooking with chocolate, and the Margarita.

Anyway, I’m hooked. Given that the Winter Solstice holiday is the only time of the year I ever get the time to do some serious cooking, I am looking forward to trying some of Stein’s recipes. I shall sit back on my couch and imagine that I am basking in the warm Mexican sun rather than listening to the rain pour down outside.

LGBT+ Classics in Reading

~ Cheryl

Here’s a bit of advance notice for an event that I am doing in February. LGBT+ Classics is taking place at Reading University on Feb. 12th. It will bring together academics and activists from around the country, including Jennifer Ingleheart, Beth Asbury, Jen Grove and Alan Greaves, all of whom I have had the honor to meet. My own talk will focus on the various excuses that have been used to claim that trans people did not exist in the past, and why they are all nonsense. The full program is available here.

Tickets for the conference itself cost £11.35 or £22.10 and can be booked here. The higher price includes membership of Women in Classics which I am guessing most of you won’t want. Jennifer Ingleheart’s keynote address is separately ticketed and is free to attend. You can book a place here.

I know it is a bit early to be thinking about this one, but the Eventbrite pages say that ticket sales will end in early January so you do need to get on and book.