Books

Today’s Women’s Outlook Show Links

~ Cheryl

Well I don’t know about you folks, but I thought that went pretty well.

Kevlin Henney can always be relied upon to do great things with flash fiction, and I was delighted to hear that this year Bristol will be the focus for National Flash Fiction Day. I’m really sorry I can’t go to all of the good stuff that Kevlin has planned, but I will be in Finland so I mustn’t complain. If you want to attend the flash workshop on the 22nd, details of BristolCon Fringe meetings are here. Details of all of the events in Bristol on the 27th are here.

Lucienne Boyce is excellent value on the history, and I was really please that her husband, Gerard, came along and read a bit of the John Clare poem. It sounds so modern in places, and the similarities between the 18th Century landlords fencing in common land, and our present-day politicians selling off the NHS, are quite alarming. You can learn more about Lucienne and her books at her website.

I also managed to get in a brief discussion of the work Nicola Griffith has done recently on women and literary awards.

And you can listen to the first hour of the show here.

Hour two begins with a little discussion of the Caitlyn Jenner story and then dives into the interview with Sarah Savage. Before the ads, Sarah talks about her time on My Transsexual Summer. After the break we move on to discuss Trans Pride and her new book, Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl? I really like the fact that Sarah & Fox have chosen to avoid writing about a trans kid and have instead tackled the issue of gender stereotyping of children. if we can stop people obsessing about gender stereotypes the lives of trans people will become immeasurably easier.

Details of tomorrow night’s event in London with Paris Lees, Peter Tatchell and Owen Jones (amongst others) can be found here.

The final segment was with Kalpna Woolf of 91 Ways, a wonderful project that uses food to promote links between Bristol’s many diverse cultures. I’m always happy to discuss food, especially when that involves looking at cuisines all around the world. I expect to be donating a food memory to the 91 Ways website at some point. It may well be something else from Melbourne.

The Mexican restaurant I talk about is Fuego.

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

The music on today’s show was as follows:

  • The Story of Beauty – Destiny’s Child
  • Me and Mrs. Jones – Billy Paul
  • Kung Fu Fighting – Carl Douglas
  • The Boxer – Simon & Garfunkel
  • True Trans Soul Rebel – Against Me
  • Get Up, Stand Up – Bob Marley & The Wailers
  • Food for Thought – UB40
  • Living for the City – Stevie Wonder

I know that Against Me isn’t the sort of music that we normally play on Ujima, and to be honest (sorry Laura), they are not really my cup of tea. However, True Trans Soul Rebel is a brilliant pop song. Were it not for the fact that I am completely useless with guitar and cannot sing to save my life, I would love to perform that song. I have been humming it to myself all day.

Oh, and if you listen along you’ll hear mention of something called 50 Voices. I’m appearing in it. So is Kalpna. I’ll have more to say about that in due course.

Tomorrow on Ujima: Flash, Crime, Trans & Food

~ Cheryl

I have a very busy show lined up for Women’s Outlook tomorrow.

First up from Noon I will be joined by Kevlin Henney who will, of course, be talking about flash fiction. It is that time of year again. In particular Kevlin and I will be discussing a workshop that he’ll be running at the next BristolCon Fringe (which sadly I shall miss because I’ll be on my way to Finland for Archipelacon). And of course Kevlin will have a story or two to read.

Next up is Lucienne Boyce. We’ll be talking about her new historical novel, Bloodie Bones, the launch of which I reported on last month. The book is an historical crime novel set in Somerset during the time of the 18th Century Enclosures. There will be poaching, and bare knuckle boxing, and talk of agricultural workers’ rights.

Also on the show will be an interview that I recorded with Sarah Savage when she was in Bristol on Friday. We talked about her time on My Transsexual Summer, about the founding of Trans Pride, and about her new children’s book, Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl?, which challenges gender stereotyping.

And finally I will be talking to former BBC executive, Kalpna Woolf about her latest project, 91 Ways. This is part of the Bristol Green Capital initiative. It is based around the idea that there are 91 different languages spoken in Bristol. That’s one heck of a lot of different cuisines. The project aims to:

  • Inspire people to lead more sustainable lives using the power of food to encourage dialogue, shared learning, education and action
  • Help people make better decisions about their food and well-being to improve the health and sustainability of our city
  • Create a modern social history of Bristol through food and be instrumental in encouraging a sustainable way of living across the whole city
  • Help us all to have a better understanding of how Bristol’s communities live and their behaviour, food journeys and how they engage with our city

Yes, of course this is an excuse for me to talk about food. But it is a great project too.

As usual you can stream the show live from the Ujima website, and it will be available via the Listen Again system for several weeks after broadcast.

Winter Song Available

~ Cheryl

Winter Song - Colin HarveyIt has taken a little longer than I wanted, but I finally have the first of Colin Harvey’s novels available again as an ebook. Winter Song is now available from the usual ebook stores in a fine new Wizard’s Tower edition. It also boasts a new introduction by Gareth L. Powell.

For a list of purchase options, click here.

Work on Damage Time is progressing well and I hope to have it available very soon.

And then we start work on the hardcover editions.

Launching Bloodie Bones

~ Cheryl

Yesterday evening I was in Foyles for the launch of the latest book by my historical novelist friend, Lucienne Boyce. This time she’s gone for a bit of genre-blending, because the book is a mystery, and has a tinge of fantasy to it as well.

Bloodie Bones is billed as a Dan Foster Mystery, Mr. Foster being a former pick-pocket who now works for the Bow Street Runners (an early London police force) and is an amateur pugilist (bare-knuckle boxer). The story is set in Somerset and is based around the events of the Enclosures, a time when the nobility were changing their lands from being open fields and woods to fenced private property. The net result of this was to force large number of agricultural workers off the land and into cities were they could be employed very cheaply by the new factories.

The title, of course, refers to the mythological figure, Raw Head and Bloody Bones, who featured in Jack Wolf’s novel.

The evening opened with Lucienne’s husband providing a powerful reading of “The Mores” by the working class poet, John Clare, who did fine work documenting this part of English history. There were also readings and questions, which inevitably resulted in yours truly putting her hand up because no one else wanted to be first.

The event was recorded by a lady called Suzie Grogan who works with a Somerset-based community radio station, 10 Radio. I’m not sure when the material will be aired, but I’ll be keeping in touch with Suzie to find out. They don’t appear to have a full Listen Again service like Ujima, but they do podcast some of the material. Suzie’s main interest as a broadcaster is books, so one or two of you reading this may hear from her soon.

Want To Write A Letter To Tiptree?

~ Cheryl

The fine folks at Twelfth Planet Press are currently working on a non-fiction piece in which contributors share their thoughts about the life and work of James Tiptree Jr.. They have commissioned a number of pieces, but they are also having a period of open submission. The guidelines are given below. It is possible that I’ll have a piece in this myself, though there is still plenty of time for Alex & Alisa to come to their senses.

The great James Tiptree Jr was born sometime in 1967, a little over forty-eight years ago. Fifty-two years earlier Tiptree’s alter-ego, the talented, resourceful and fascinating Alice B. Sheldon was born. And somewhere in there, about forty years ago, poet Racoona Sheldon showed up.

In celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Sheldon’s birth, and in recognition of the enormous influence of both Tiptree and Sheldon on the field, Twelfth Planet Press is publishing a selection of letters written by science fiction and fantasy’s writers, editors, critics and fans to celebrate her, to recognise her work, and maybe in some cases to finish conversations set aside nearly thirty years ago.

Letters to Tiptree will be a collection of letters written to Alice Sheldon, James Tiptree or Racoon Sheldon; a set of thoughtful pieces on the ways her contribution to the genre has affected (or not) its current writers, readers, editors and critics.

Edited by Alexandra Pierce and Alisa Krasnostein, we are looking for two types of submissions.

Firstly, letters that are between 1000 and 2000 words, exploring personal and/or literary reflections on Tiptree/Sheldon.

Secondly, briefer responses addressing questions such as:

  • Does it make a difference, reading James Tiptree Jr’s work, knowing that Tiptree was Alice Sheldon?
  • Who is James Tiptree Jr to you?
  • Why do you care about James Tiptree Jr?
  • What impact has reading James Tiptree Jr’s fiction had on you?

We are paying 5cpw up to $USD100 to be paid on publication. We are looking for World First Publication in all languages, and exclusivity for twelve months. Letters to Tiptree will be published in August 2015.

Submissions are open between May 18 and June 8.

Please send your essay to contact@twelfthplanetpress.com.

Stories For Chip Entering Final Week

~ Cheryl

It is crowd funding reminder time, folks. The Stories for Chip anthology, which is an amazing collection of fiction being published in tribute to the great Samuel R. Delany. Their target is $10k, and they’re only at 83%. There are 9 days of the campaign left to go. We can get them there, right? Check out the contributors and pledge here.

I must say that I find it very depressing that a diversity-themed crowdfunding campaign run by a bunch of white folks gets massive over-support, but if the campaign is being run by PoC for PoC then the level of support drops dramatically.

Yesterday on Ujima

~ Cheryl

Yesterday’s show seemed to go OK, despite the long layoff. I don’t think I have lost my touch, which is a relief. And I managed to cope OK with the new (temporary) studio. Thanks are due as ever to Valentin for making things happen when I need them to.

The first hour was all about books. I started out with Sarah Hilary talking about her Marnie Rome novels. Someone Else’s Skin has just been long-listed for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Most of the discussion, however, was about the new book, No Other Darkness. We talked about killing children, pointing fingers, preppers, the role of crime fiction in the world, and the amazing talent of Lauren Beukes.

Sarah was followed in the hot seat by Pete Newman. We talked about being a two-writer household, sexism in the book business, babies, goats, demons, singing swords and the genius of Akira Kurosawa. We also talked briefly about Tea and Jeopardy, and there was a brief appearance by Latimer.

You can listen to the first hour here.

The second hour followed on from my article on sanitary products for Bristol 24/7. I had a pre-record interview with Chloe Tingle, and then two of her colleagues, Frances Lucraft and Michelle Graabek, joined Judeline and I in the studio to discuss the issues raised. The Talk Period is now live, so if you are in or around Bristol please do get involved. Frances and Michelle assure me that male-identified persons are welcome.

You can listen to the second hour here.

I Interview Roz Kaveney for Lambda Literary

~ Cheryl

You all know that Roz Kaveney has a new novel out, right? Tiny Pieces of Skull is not fantasy. It is a fictionalized memoir based on Roz’s time as a young trans sex worker in Chicago in the 1970s. It is very good indeed, and has what might be my favorite last line of a book ever. Of course you do have to have a certain amount of interest in trans issues and feminism to appreciate it the way I do, but hopefully lots of people will like it.

Anyway, I was asked to do an interview with Roz for the Lambda Literary website. That’s now online, and it also links to a review of the book written by someone else (so you don’t need to take my word for it). Mostly Roz and I talk about how life has changed for trans folk between when the book was written and now. We also talk about why the book is dedicated to some chap called Neil Gaiman, of whom you might have heard.

Read. Enjoy. Go buy Roz’s book.

Back On Ujima

~ Cheryl

For a whole variety of reasons I have not been doing any radio for the past few months. However, I’ll be back on Women’s Outlook tomorrow. The original plan was for me to do a whole show once a month, which would be much more manageable from my point of view. However, Paulette has had to head out to Jamaica for a few weeks on family business so I’ll actually be doing the next three week’s shows.

My first guest tomorrow will be crime writer, Sarah Hilary. We’ll be discussing her new novel, No Other Darkness, and also the fact that her debut, Someone Else’s Skin, has just been long-listed for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award.

Next up will be Pete Newman, husband of the fabulous Emma and half of the Hugo-nominated Tea and Jeopardy podcast team. I’ll be asking Pete about his novel, The Vagrant, which launched last week. I may also get him to allow Latimer to say a few words.

The second hour will be given over to the issues raised in my Bristol 24/7 article from last week. It includes an interview with Chloe Tingle of No More Taboo — recorded because she’s in Uganda right now. Also a couple of her colleagues will be joining the team and myself for further discussion.

As usual you can catch the show live via the Ujima website. It should also be available via the Listen Again service for a few weeks.

Launching The Vagrant

~ Cheryl

Last night I was at Forbidden Planet in Bristol for the launch of Pete Newman’s debut novel, The Vagrant. As you should know, Pete is the husband of Emma Newman, and half of the team that makes the hilarious (and Hugo-nominated) Tea & Jeopardy podcast. Emma came long to provide support. It was lovely to see her looking well after all she’s been through over the past year.

If you’d like to hear part of The Vagrant, there’s a podcast of the first two chapters from BristolCon Fringe available here (along with the first two chapters of Emma’s forthcoming Planetfall). In addition I will have Pete on Women’s Outlook on Ujima next Wednesday. We’ll be talking about the baby, and the goat, and I’ll see if I can coax a few words out of his alter-ego, Latimer.

March Fringe – Chris Cutting & Paul Cornell

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

I have just uploaded the audio from the March BristolCon Fringe events. I suspect that this will provide our most listened to podcasts yet, by a long chalk.

We start out with Chris Cutting, who does more theatre than prose and always threatens to destroy my recording equipment when we work together. He has the loudest voice I have ever heard. My apologies if the audio is slightly distorted due to having to make it less LOUD. On the other hand, I think I have edited out all of the pauses caused by Chris having the story on his recalcitrant phone. I have to tell you about that because otherwise you won’t understand some of his comments in the Q&A.

Chris’s story isn’t exactly speculative, but it can be described as horrifying, and may have a slight tinge of steampunk to it.

Next up is the very wonderful Paul Cornell, who should need no introduction to the readers of this blog. Excitingly, we have an exclusive extract from his next Shadow Police novel. The book won’t be out until the end of the year, but once you have heard Paul read from it I’m pretty sure you’ll be wanting to read the rest to find out what the heck is going on. The title of the book will be…

No, I’ll let you listen. Paul announces the title during the reading. You are not going to believe whose murder his heroes end up investigating.

Finally there is a Q&A, in which we discuss all sorts of interesting things. Chris has a play to promote, which is all about vampires and social media. There are some terrible puns. We talk about Victorian fiction, including Dracula and Sherlock Holmes. We discuss the possible murderous tendencies of Neil Gaiman and George R.R. Martin. Paul drops another fascinating tit bit about the new book, and talks about a whole lot of exciting new projects he is working on.

Now I just have to work out how to get an advance copy of the book out of Paul, because I for one do not want to wait until December.

Book Review – Signal to Noise

~ Cheryl

Signal to Noise - Silvia Moreno-GarciaHere’s another book review for you. I owe Gary Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan for this one, because I would never have even noticed it without them. I’m really pleased that they talked about it, because it is a lovely book.

It has a lovely Eric Mohr cover as well, which is why I’m providing a bigger version of it here than the one in the review. I really must remember Eric on next year’s Hugo ballot because he does great work.

Anyway, the book. The short version is that Signal to Noise is a love story between two geeky teenagers set in Mexico City in 1988, with magic. However, things don’t finally get sorted out until they meet again in 2009. Gary said in his review in Locus that it is not a genre YA story, despite the teenage protagonists, and I tend to agree with him. It is, however, well worth reading. My review can be found here.

That’s How To Do A Book Launch

~ Cheryl

Donut Tree
Yeah, that’s a donut tree, fruiting with strawberries. Sarah Hilary does book launches in style.

Congratulations to all involved, especially Lydia who made the donuts and the tree. A good time was had by all. And now I am off to read more of Sarah’s new novel, because it is gripping.

No Other Darkness, y’all. It is good stuff. I’ll be talking to Sarah about it on the radio on May 6th.

Stories for Chip

~ Cheryl

Here’s the latest crowdfunding project that you should be following. It is an anthology called Stories for Chip. It is being published by Bill Campbell’s Rosarium Press — the same people who did the Mothership anthology — and it is chock full of great contributors. Plus, it is all dedicated to the fabulous Samuel R. Delany (Chip to his friends).

Contributors to the book include: Geoff Ryman, Nalo Hopkinson, Eileen Gunn, Nick Harkaway, Hal Duncan, Michael Swanwick, Fábio Fernandes, Ellen Kushner and Junot Díaz. There’s also a story in the book by my friend Roz Clarke, which I am very happy about.

For further details, and to back the project, see Indiegogo.

Book Review – Glorious Angels

~ Cheryl

I have been looking forward to the new Justina Robson novel for some time, and picked up a copy as soon as I could find one. It did not disappoint. In fact I really wish that I had the time to read it again, but I have this huge To Be Read pile that needs working on. Like any book, it won’t appeal to everyone, and a novel set in a world in which women are acknowledged to be the superior gender won’t go down well in certain parts of fandom (“Oh noes! Science fiction destroyed again!!!”), but hopefully Glorious Angels will sell in sufficient quantities to encourage Gollancz to buy more books from Justina. I know I want to read them. You can read my (very slightly spoilerly) review here.

New Twelfth Planet Anthology Crowdfunding

~ Cheryl

Defying DoomsdayThe lovely people at Twelfth Planet Press have another anthology that they are crowdfunding. If it ends up being anywhere near as good as Kaleidoscope we are in for a treat.

So what’s the book about? It is called Defying Doomsday, and it will be “an anthology of apocalypse-survival fiction with a focus on disabled characters”. The editors will be Tsana Dolichva and Holly Kench, who are new names to me but knowing Alisa she will have checked them out thoroughly before working with them.

There’s plenty of information about the book at the Pozible campaign page, but this bit is worth sharing with those of you who haven’t yet clicked through:

We want to create an anthology that is varied, especially among protagonists, with characters experiencing all kinds of disability from physical impairments, chronic illnesses, mental illnesses and/or neurodiverse characters. There will also be a variety of stories, including those that are fun or sad, adventurous or horrific, etc, but we are avoiding stories in which the character’s condition is the primary focus of the narrative.

I’m not sure that I’d want trans characters to count as having a physical or mental disability, but I’m absolutely there with the idea of the story not focusing on the character’s condition.

I see that they already have Corrine Duyvis, John Chu and Janet Edwards lined up to write stories, which is very promising. I’ve backed it. I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

Launching Holdfast: Year 1

~ Cheryl

I’m just in from the launch of the Year 1 anthology for Holdfast Magazine. Lucy & Laurel have done a fine job with the book, which is a really beautiful object. I’d support something called Holdfast anyway, because I love the Suzy McKee Charnas novels, but I’m really impressed with what Lucy & Laurel have achieved.

The event took place in the basement of a pub between Tottenham Court Road and University College London. It sounded like there was a disco going on upstairs, but we had a sound system so hopefully everyone could hear. The evening was opened up by Stephanie Saulter who read a poem and a short extract from one of her (R)Evolution novels. Then came Chardine Taylor-Stone who read this letter to Octavia Butler from issue #4. There was me, and then there was Alice Sanders with a slightly updated version of this essay from issue #2 about the idiocy of shark movies.

Because I didn’t want to read just part of an essay, I asked Lucy & Laurel if I could read some flash fiction instead. They said yes, so I read something called “Goldilocks and the One Wolf”, which is sort of mythpunk, with Norse gods and gender-bending. It seemed to go down well.

Stephanie, who had been at last night’s BSFA meeting, introduced me to the work of Suniti Namjoshi. I need to go and buy some of her work.

Now I think sleep is in order. Or possibly reading more of Glorious Angels, because I’m enjoying it very much.

Inverted World at Mr. B’s

~ Cheryl

This evening I was in Bath for the Mr. B’s SF Book Club. The chosen book for this month was Inverted World by Chris Priest. It got a mixed reception.

One of the more interesting things about the book club is that the members are by no means what people might think of as typical science fiction fans. In particular, if a book is all ideas and devoid of interesting characters then they will probably take against it. How times change.

Another thing that the group had trouble with was the cover blurb, which trumpets a supposed twist ending. Now of course the book has to have a big reveal. It is obvious that there must be a reason why the world of the book is so odd. That means that the explanation, when it comes, is hardly a surprise. Obviously the detail is probably unexpected, but the fact that it happens, and the true nature of the world, are pretty much telegraphed.

Priest, of course, has written many other books about twisted perceptions of the world since. I’m sure he’d be the first to say that he’s got better at it. Nevertheless, as Adam Roberts points out in his introduction to the SF Masterworks edition, the idea of a city moving on rails through a post-apocalyptic environment has been very influential down the years. And I’m still blown away by the audacity of trying to create a world like that.

For next month’s meeting the group will be reading Nick Harkaway’s The Gone Away World, a book that really does have a twist to it. I do hope that they like it. My slightly spoilerific review can be found here.

Introducing Acheron – Italian SF&F in English

~ Cheryl

Here’s a great project. Acheron Books is a new Italian company that exists to publish Italian SF&F as eBooks in English translation. You can find out more about them, and read some samples, at their website. There are seven books available, with more to be added soon. Their blog also highlights famous Italians who may be of interest to SF&F readers, such as astronaut Captain Samantha Cristoforetti. My thanks to Adriano Barone and his colleagues for starting such a useful company. I hope they do very well.