Books

Today on Ujima – Cat Valente, Rape Prevention, Hate Crime & Brexit

~ Cheryl

Sorry about the weird company, Cat. That’s the way it goes with radio some days.

Today’s show began with an interview I did with Cat Valente at Finncon. As usual with such things, I was only able to broadcast about half of it. All of the in-depth writerly stuff got cut. The full thing will appear on Salon Futura in a few weeks. Cat and I seem to have done a lot of giggling in that interview.

In the second half hour I was joined by Charlotte Gage from Bristol Women’s Voice to talk about the “R U Asking 4 It” fiasco, in which members of Avon & Somerset Police were taken to task by a group of Bristol teenagers for entirely inappropriate comments on rape prevention. I should note that following the initial disaster the response of the police has been fantastic. Very senior people have got involved, and I understand that today another email went around the force reminding officers of the need to be on message over such issues.

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

Next up I spoke to Jennie Darch from SARI about the rise in hate crime following the Brexit referendum. SARI is a charity that specializes in helping the victims of hate crime, and there is no doubt that their case load has increased dramatically since the vote. Charlotte also mentioned women talking to BWV about a sudden upsurge in racist harassment.

I was delighted to see that during the music breaks Charlotte and Jennie were busy comparing notes and thinking of ways in which their agencies could work together to tackle this problem.

The final half hour was given over to vox pop interviews about Brexit that I collected at Finncon. My thanks to the many lovely people from around the world who were willing to share their views.

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

The music this week was mostly on the theme of immigration. That included “Get Back” by The Beatles which was very much on an immigration theme before the Fab Four thought better of it and re-wrote the lyrics to be more politically safe (including some casual transphobia). The full playlist is as follows:

  • Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On?
  • Jama – No Borders
  • Bob Marley – Buffalo Soldier
  • Horslips – The Man Who Built America
  • Tabby Cat Kelly – Don’t Call Us Immigrants
  • Maryam Mursal – Lei Lei
  • The Beatles – Get Back
  • Fontella Bass – Rescue Me

Well That Went Well

~ Cheryl

The nice LGBT police people seemed to enjoy my talk. It was great to catch up with Surat Shaan Knan and see the new pop-up version of the Twilight People exhibition. There were at least two trans people (serving police officers) in the audience.

The conference was in the Guildhall in the City of London. It is a very impressive space. I haven’t had time to process my photos yet, but hopefully I’ll have some for you later.

We also had a lovely party last night. One of the advantages of hanging out with gay people is that they have no qualms about playing Wham. Whatever else you might think about George & Andy, “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” is a great dance track. (And no, I can’t hit that high, I don’t have that vocal range.)

Today I took myself off to the British Museum to see the Sunken Cities exhibition. This is material from the Egyptian cities of Thonis (called Heracleion by the Greeks) and Canopus. It is amazing, if you like that sort of thing, which I do. The quality of the artifacts is superb, because they have been preserved under the sea rather than out in the open getting weathered, smashed and stolen.

The exhibition traces the history of Egypt’s incorporation into the Mediterranean world from the first use of Greek soldiers by the pharaohs through the conquest by Alexander to incorporation into the Roman Empire. The religious history over this period is fascinating, with Egyptian gods first being mapped onto Greek religion and then incorporated into the religious use of the Empire. I’ll have more to say about this in a separate post.

And finally I paid a brief visit to Forbidden Planet and came away with a pile of books. Chief among this was Seanan McGuire’s novella, Every Heart a Doorway, which is utterly delightful and thoroughly recommended.

An Accident of Stars

~ Cheryl

An Accident Of Stars - Foz Meadows
This is not a book review. That’s because the copy of Foz Meadows’ debut novel, An Accident of Stars, that I received was very much an Advance Reading Copy. So advance, in fact, that it still had bits of chat between the author and editor embedded in it. I’m guessing that this happened because there was an issue with NetGalley and the lovely folks at Angry Robot kindly sent me something they had to hand instead.

Anyway, I’m not going to assume that what I read was final, but it was still a complete book. I won’t pass judgement on quality because it may change somewhat before it reaches the shops, but I do want to comment on trans representation.

The non-spoilery version is that I think that Foz has done a great job. If you are very allergic to spoilers then stop reading now.
Continue reading →

Freedom Youth Book Launch

~ Cheryl

FreeToBeMeLast night I attended a book launch in Bristol. It was nothing to do with science fiction, but had a close connection with Wizard’s Tower nonetheless.

The book is called Free to be Me and is a history of the first 21 years of Freedom Youth, Bristol’s LGBT Youth club. Freedom Youth was founded back in 1995. One of the founders was Berkeley Wilde, with whom I now do a lot of trans awareness training via his company, The Diversity Trust. The club has kept going ever since through various changes of local government support, and I have had the pleasure of speaking at their meetings on several occasions.

The book is the brainchild of Rosa Fanti, one of the club;s current members, and has been supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. OutStories Bristol and our friends at Bristol Records Office have been helping Rosa with her research.

So where is the Wizard’s Tower connection? Well to start with Rosa’s mum is a big fan. Having told her of my trip to Finncon, I sent her off with a list of Finnish authors to read. Also the book is published by Tangent Books run by Richard Jones who kindly stocks some of my physical books in his store. And because it is a Tangent book the layout is done by Joe Burt who also does my layouts.

If you are interested in getting the book, it is on sale via the Tangent store. I expect it will also be on sale at Bristol Pride tomorrow.

Trans Panel Reading List

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Suzanne may have some additions to this at some point. These are the books that I can remember us mentioning:

  • Lizard Radio — Pat Schmatz
  • Who Killed Sherlock Holmes — Paul Cornell
  • Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper — David Barnett
  • The Rhapsody of Blood series — Roz Kaveney
  • Luna: New Moon — Ian McDonald
  • Every Heart a Doorway — Seannan McGuire
  • Karen Memory — Elizabeth Bear
  • Eon & Eona — Alison Goodman
  • “Coral Bones” in Monstrous Little Voices — Foz Meadows

There was a question about intersex characters in response to which we mentioned the following:

  • Ilario — Mary Gentle — great on intersex, but essentially contrasts “valid” intersex identities with “invalid” trans identities
  • Pantomime and Shadowplay — Laura Lam — shock reveal and use of circus freak symbolism
  • 2312 — Kim Stanley Robinson — most characters are intersex but this is not explored very deeply

I film/TV we mentioned Sense8, which is on Netflix, and Julie Taymor’s version of The Tempest. I completely mangled the cast on that. It has Helen Mirren as Prospera; Russell Brand is in it, but he plays Trinculo.

You can find Suzanne’s books here, and my short story here. I also have an academic paper on the history of trans themes in SF here. Most of the books mentioned in that didn’t get mentioned in the Finncon panel and we were looking mainly at new stuff.

One fairly new story we didn’t mention is “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi” by Pat Cadigan, which you can find in Edge of Infinity (Jonathan Strahan, ed.). Pat is in the process of writing a novel based on that story.

The books I mentioned that I have seen recommended but have not read are:

  • The Fifth Season — NK Jemisin
  • Full Fathom Five — Max Gladstone
  • Wake of Vultures — Lila Bowen

If you have any other recently-published recommendations I would love to hear them as I have an essay to write for this.

Updates:

1. On the plane on the way home I finished reading An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows. I can now add that to the list of recommended books. You don’t find out that one of the supporting characters is trans until the second half of the book, but the way the reveal is done is very well handled. The book is only the first one in a series, but I have a lot of confidence in Foz continuing to gets things right.

2. Vaarna’s comment below has reminded me of two things I should have linked to. First there is Vee’s article in The Gay YA, which is mainly about things to avoid when writing trans characters. Also there’s one by me in Strange Horizons on how to write better trans characters.

3. I also forgot links for my two friends from Bath. Fox Benwell’s author page (still under the old name until the publishers do new editions) is here. You can also find him on Twitter. And the website for Ray Gunn & Starburst, scripted by ‘Olly Rose, is here.

Fairy Tales Panel Reading List

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Here as promised is my reading list from the “Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Puss in Boots” panel. Cat and Anne may want to add to it as some point, and feel free to add your own recommendations in comments.

First up, here is the poem by Charles Perrault that I read to open the panel. It is from his popularization of Little Red Riding Hood.

Little girls, this seems to say,
Never stop upon your way,
Never trust a stranger-friend;
No one knows how it will end.
As you’re pretty so be wise;
Wolves may lurk in every guise.
Handsome they may be, and kind,
Gay, and charming — nevermind!
Now, as then, ‘tis simple truth
— Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!

And now, here are some books and stories:

  • Catherynne M Valente — Six Gun Snow White, Deathless, Speak Easy
  • Sarah Pinborough — Poison, Charm, Beauty
  • Robin McKinley — Beauty, Donkeyskin
  • Salla Simukka — As Red As Blood, As White As Snow, As Black As Ebony
  • Angela Carter — The Bloody Chamber, A Company of Wolves
  • Helen Oyeyemi — Mr. Fox
  • Malinda Lo –- Ash
  • Sheri Tepper –- Beauty
  • Genevieve Valentine –- The Girls at the Kingfisher Club
  • Neil Gaiman -– The Sleeper and the Spindle
  • Linda Medley -– Castle Waiting (graphic novel)
  • Joan Vinge –- The Snow Queen
  • Margo Lanagan -– Tender Morsels
  • Greg Frost –- Fitcher’s Brides
  • Kate Forsyth -– Bitter Greens
  • Tanith Lee –- White as Snow
  • Holly Black –- The Darkest Part of the Forest
  • Naomi Novik –- Uprooted
  • Ellen Kushner –- Thomas the Rhymer
  • Patrick Ness –- The Crane Wife
  • Karen Lord –- Redemption in Indigo
  • Anne Sexton — Transformations
  • Christine Heppermann –- Poisoned Apples
  • Bill Willingham — Fables (multi-volume graphic novel series)

Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling have produced many anthologies of fairy tale based short stories, including the following:

  • Snow White, Blood Red
  • Black Thorn, White Rose
  • Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears
  • Black Swan, White Raven
  • Silver Birch, Blood Moon
  • Black Heart, Ivory Bones
  • A Wolf at the Door
  • The Green Man
  • My Swan Sister
  • The Faery Reel
  • The Coyote Road
  • Troll’s Eye View
  • The Beastly Bride

We also mentioned the TV series, Once Upon a Time, and Grimm.

Jasper Fforde has also done fairy tale re-tellings in his Nursery Crime series, though they are rather different projects that the subjects of the panel.

My thanks to Cat Valente and Anne Leinonen for being great panelists. Nina, I hope you feel better soon, and that I managed to do justice to your original idea.

Book Review – The Many Selves of Katherine North

~ Cheryl

The Many Selves of Katherine North - Emma Geen
One of the things I am hoping to do while I am in Finland is catch up on some reading and maybe write a review or two. I have been reading books (albeit not quickly enough), but writing reviews is something I just haven’t had time for. I am forcing myself into action on behalf of The Many Selves of Katherine North. It is a great debut science fiction novel by a woman. OK, it is also set in Bristol and Emma Geen is a friend, but I have been looking forward to this one for a while and I have not been disappointed. The main reason it is getting a review, however, is because it is not being marketing at us. Bloomsbury is putting it out as literary fiction. Of course that means that they think it is really well written, which is it. But it is mostly definitely SF.

You can find my review here.

The picture above, by the way, is from Emma’s Twitter feed, and I can see exactly why she photographed the book that way.

Heads Up North America – Jen Williams Incoming

~ Cheryl

The Copper Promise - Jen Williams
I have just had email from Angry Robot which, among other things, mentioned that they will be publishing a North American edition of Jen Williams’ The Copper Promise (book #1 in the Copper Cat series). I’ve not had the pleasure of reading these yet, but Jo Hall raves about them at every available opportunity. You can read her review of The Copper Promise here. All three books have been published in the UK, so if you get hooked you shouldn’t have to wait long for the other two. Why not give them a try?

For Fans of Frankenstein

~ Cheryl

A while back S.J. Chambers wrote a series of essays about Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, based on her travels through Europe in search of Shelley’s old haunts. The raw essays are available on Weird Fiction Review but, in honor of the 200th anniversary of that famous night in the Villa Diodati, Chambers is publishing a limited edition annotated and illustrated chapbook of the essays. More information about the book, and buy links, are available here.

Hidden Youth Kickstarter

~ Cheryl

Some of you may remember the fabulous Long Hidden anthology produced by the Crossed Genres team a while back. Well now they have a new project on the go, also highlighting characters from the margins of history. Hidden Youth will do what Long Hidden did, but for the YA market with all of the protagonists of the stories being under 18 years of age.

The book already has 22 stories lined up, and there are no listed stretch goals, so don’t get your pens out. The money they are raising is primarily to pay the writers professional rates, to pay the fabulous Julie Dillon who has once again produced a superb cover, and to pay for interior illustrations. You can back the project here. Buy a book, why don’t you?

Lammy Winners

~ Cheryl

The winners of this year’s Lambda Literary Awards were announced last night in New York. Most of the categories won’t mean much to you, or me for that matter. However, there are always a few of interest.

The science fiction, fantasy and horror category was won by The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan. I’ve not read it, but several of my friends loved it. A worthy winner given that neither Radiance nor Luna: New Moon was on the ballot.

And… wait for it…

FANFARE!!!

The winner of the Trans Fiction category was Tiny Pieces of Skull by Roz Kaveney.

And here is my interview with Roz about the book which I did for the Lambda Literary website last year.

New Book, Contains Me

~ Cheryl

WisconChron
So apparently I am now a Social Justice Warrior. Or at least a reduxed one.

The sharp-eyed among you will have noticed that this is the cover of volume #10 of the WisCon Chronicles, an annual anthology of writings arising from the WisCon convention. This year’s editor, Margaret McBride, kindly asked me to contribute an essay on trans issues as part of the Social Justice theme of the book. That essay is titled, “What Should Diversity Look Like For Trans People?”. It is basically telling people to stop writing transition stories and to stop writing just about binary-identified trans women who transition in middle age. This isn’t new, but it is nice to have it in an actual book.

Other contributors include Takayuki Tatsumi, Nisi Shawl, Johanna Sinisalo, Kathryn Allan, Ian Hagemann, Sandra J. Lindow and Ajani Brown. The book also includes the texts of Alaya Dawn Johnson and Kin Stanley Robinson’s Guest of Honor speeches form last year’s WisCon, as well as the keynote speech Julie Phillips delivered at the Tiptree Symposium in December 2015. I am particularly honored to be in the same book as Johanna, and I am sure the rest of the contributions will be great too.

You can buy the book here. Payment for this was a flat fee, so there is no need to worry that you are enabling any of my addictions by encouraging lots of people to buy the book.

Zoran Živković News

~ Cheryl

Some excellent news for fellow fans of the Serbian writer, Zoran Živković. A company called Cadmus Press will be publishing his entire back catalog in English. Zoran has an announcement here.

Naturally I Googled Cadmus to see who they were. I found this:

Cadmus Press was founded to answer a growing need for enjoyable, high-quality, and easily available English translations of outstanding literature from Eastern and and Southeastern Europe.

The region known as Eastern Europe is familiar as the vague geographical area between Western Europe and Russia, mostly parts of the former Soviet Union. Southeastern Europe is less familiar, but generally includes (according to Wikipedia) “Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Kosovo, Moldova, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and partially Turkey, Italy and Slovenia.” This part of the world has been a nexus of cross-cultural pollination since ancient times, creating a rich and diverse cultural and literary heritage that is yet poorly represented in the English language.

We hope to bring some of its finest work into English, the modern world’s lingua franca, to help it achieve the international acclaim it so richly deserves.

Currently Zoran is their only signed author, but it sounds like an admirable project. Hopefully Zoran’s books will do well for them and help finance bringing other authors to our attention.

Guy Gavriel Kay in the Salon

~ Cheryl

Children of Earth and Sky - Guy Gavriel Kay
As promised last week, I have uploaded the full version of the Guy Gavriel Kay interview to the Salon Futura podcast. About half of the material got cut for the radio version, much of it stuff that would be of more interest to dedicated fantasy readers rather than a general audience. So even if you listened to the radio broadcast, this is well worth checking out. It is not all Guy and I talking about whisky, I promise.

In any case, Children of Earth and Sky is a fabulous book which I warmly recommend.

Pete Newman Interview

~ Cheryl

The Vagrant - Pete Newman

I am continuing to sort through my archives of author interviews and publish stuff that is still relevant. The following interview with Pete Newman took place on Ujima in May 2015. Pete and I talk mainly about The Vagrant, which has just been released in paperback. The sequel, The Malice, is also new out in hardcover. We spend a lot of time talking about demons, babies and goats.

As is fairly inevitable, there are a few things in the discussion that are dated — primarily where we talk about Tea and Jeopardy being a Hugo finalist. However, most of the discussion is still very relevant. Also Emma’s Planetfall is now out, and it is wonderful.

Next week the May 4th show will have fallen off the Listen Again system at Ujima so I will be able to bring you the full rambling glory of the Guy Gavriel Kay interview.

Today On Ujima: Judy Darley, No More Taboo, Predatory Peacekeepers and Mike Carey

~ Cheryl

Well that’s a fair old mix of a show.

I started off with local writer, Judy Darley, who is running a literary fundraiser for St. Mungo’s, a charity that works with homeless people. The event is going to be in St. John on the Wall, a fabulous 13th Century church built into the old city walls. Pete Sutton is having his book launch there later in June, though I’ll miss that due to Finncon.

The second half hour saw a welcome return for Chloe Tingle who runs No More Taboo, a non-profit which promotes the use of cheap and recyclable sanitary products. The main project they are raising money for is in Nepal where, unbelievably, women who are having their periods are still shunned socially and required to stay out of the family home until they are “clean” again. You can find the crowdfunding campaign here.

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

My planned 3rd quarter guest had to cancel, so I took the opportunity of spending a few minutes talking about the Predatory Peacekeepers campaign. This is attempting to hold the UN, and the French government, to account for sex abuse carried out by “peacekeepers” in the Central African Republic. The petition I mention on the show can be found here.

Rant over, I went straight into my final guest interview of the day, which was with Mike Carey. He’s in town promoting his latest (and very good) novel, Fellside. Mike and I will be discussing the book at the Bristol Waterstones tonight. We managed to find the time to discuss the state of the Girl with All the Gifts movie (which will be out in September) and our love for the X-Men as well.

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

The playlist for today’s show was:

  • Papa Wemba – Show me the way
  • Billy Paul – Me & Mrs Jones
  • The Specials – A Message to you, Rudy
  • The Selecter & Prince Buster – Madness
  • Madness – Night Boat to Cairo
  • The Beat – Mirror in the Bathroom
  • The Bodysnatchers – Lets Do Rock Steady
  • The Specials – Ghost Town

Fringe, Dead Sherlock & Writing as a Woman

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Last night’s BristolCon Fringe was really good. The podcasts will be available in due course, but you can hear Paul Cornell read from Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? at his previous Fringe appearance in March last year.

Martyn Waites chose to read from one of the stories he had written under his Tania Carver pen name. Naturally I was interested to know how writing as a woman worked for him. After all, we hear endless stories of how women in SF&F have to hide their gender in order to get published, or because they fear that their books will be ignored otherwise.

Again Martyn’s full explanation of the story will be in the podcast, but I wanted to highlight a few things here. First up, the whole thing came about somewhat by accident. His editor was bemoaning the lack of a hard-edged British female crime writer and Martyn, being a former actor and wise to the ways of freelancing, immediately said, “I can do that, gis a job”.

The important point, however, is that it worked. Tania’s first book was heavily promoted and became a best seller. The question is, why? How does this sort of thing work in crime but not in SF&F?

Martyn has some ideas. I do too. One thing that particularly fascinated me was Martyn’s assertion that women like gory crime stories. So why is there this impression that they would not like equally gory fantasy?

On the spot I came up with a panel idea for BristolCon. Obviously the idea has to be approved by MEG and pass the audience interest test, and participants have to agree, but hopefully we can make it work. I’d want to chair it, and have Martyn on the panel. I’d also want Sarah Pinborough who is one of this year’s Guests of Honour and a purveyor of gory horror tales, and Sarah Hilary who is turning out to be exactly the sort of crime writer that Martyn’s editor was looking for when they invented Tania. I think the panel also needs a publisher representative, and probably a male one for panel parity reasons. Any volunteers?

Mike Carey Reminder

~ Cheryl

Fellside - Mike Carey
This is mainly for Bristol people, but there will be radio coverage too.

Next Wednesday (May 18th) Mike Carey will be in Bristol to promote his latest book, Fellside. He will be on the radio with me at lunchtime, and in the evening we’ll be doing an event at Waterstones. So poor Mike gets to be interviewed by me twice in one day. I hope he doesn’t get too bored.

I, er, promise not to ask him about the next Felix Castor book more than once per interview, OK?

Anyway, it should be great. If you are in Bristol, please do come along in the evening. You can book (for free) here. If you are not local, I’ll be posting the Listen Again links to the show. I’ll try to get audio of the thing in Waterstones too, but I can’t guarantee I’ll get anything of decent quality.

Oh, and Fellside? Gripping.

Stephanie Saulter Interview

~ Cheryl

Last September I did a Skype interview with Stephanie Saulter for Women’s Outlook to promote her new book, Regeneration. As is usual with such things, Stephanie and I talked for far longer than I could possibly broadcast. As the book is being published in the USA this month I thought this would be a good time to dig out the full interview and publish it.

Obviously the discussion is a little old, but as far as I can make out the only thing that is dated is our discussion of Marlon James’ chances in the Booker. I’m delighted that he won, even though that meant I had no chance of getting an interview.

I have a bunch of other SFF-related interviews from Ujima shows that I really need to get online because the Listen Again links have vanished. All I need is a little time, right?