Radio

Yesterday’s Radio

~ Cheryl

Yesterday was Ujima Radio day. I very nearly didn’t make it, as the train I was planning to catch was cancelled. Fortunately I don’t trust FGW and there was a later train that, with the help of a taxi, got me to the studio in good time.

Being there on time meant I got to meet Mel and Shana, The Lovettes, who apparently did quite well on X-Factor. It was very clear that they were stars. To start with they were an hour and a half late for a two-hour show, having overslept from a good night out. But once arrived they blew through the studio in a hurricane of charm and energy. You can catch them singing live in the last 10 minutes of Tommy Popcorn’s show.

The first half hour of Women’s Outlook was all me. In the first segment I talk about Karen Lord’s books, and play an interview that I did with Karen over Skype. You may hear a certain amount of background noise during the first bit. We haven’t done pre-recorded interviews on the show before and a small amount of tech panic ensued. Thankfully it all turned out right in the end. You find find that material in this hour of the show (sorry about the title of the show still being wrong in the Listen Again section). The second half hour is all about feminism, and includes a guest from France.

I’m also on in the first 15 minutes of the second hour. That’s a less serious segment, in which Paulette wanted us to talk about power dressing and shoulder pads. Somehow I managed to get in a mention of Lucy Worsley’s recent TV shows, and to have a dig at the RadFems. Do also stay with the show for the Woman of the Week segment because Nia is an awesome lady who is well worth listening to. The second half hour is once again devoted to the issue of female genital mutilation, with again some interesting guests.

Next week on the show I’ll be talking about getting boys to read. I’ll be reviewing Ian McDonald’s Planesrunner (and introducing Bristol to the awesome Anastasia Sixsmith). Tim Maughan will be my guest in the studio.

Forthcoming Appearances

~ Cheryl

I have a busy few weeks coming up. Here’s a brief rundown.

Tomorrow I will be at the M-Shed in Bristol giving a talk about trans pioneer, Michael Dillon. That’s a 2:30 start. It is a free event, but if you are coming please sign up on Eventbrite so we have some idea of numbers in advance.

On Wednesday (20th) I’ll be on the Women’s Outlook show on Ujima taking about Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds. If the tech works, we’ll have an interview with Karen on the show.

The following weekend (23rd/24th) I’ll be in Exeter for Microcon where I’m giving a talk about ebooks. I can’t find any public web presence for this (there is a page on Facebook, but you have to log in to see it), but Kari Sperring will be there too, as will Emma Newman and Jo Hall.

On Wednesday 27th the Ujima Women’s Outlook show will be about getting boys to read. I’ll be talking about Ian McDonald’s Planesrunner, and we’ll have Tim Maughan as a guest in the studio.

And on March 6th BristolCon is taking over the Word of Mouth event at the Thunderbolt in Bristol. Emma Newman and Jo Hall are the guest authors, and I’ll be introducing them.

Yesterday’s Radio

~ Cheryl

My appearances on local radio yesterday are now available as podcasts. The Ujima Radio show was all about China, in honor of the Chinese New Year. In this segment, around 23 minutes in, you can hear me enthusing about Ken Liu and Guy Gavriel Kay.

Somewhat to my surprise, I also featured in yesterday’s Shout Out Bristol. The entire show is given over to the hot topics of marriage equality and LGBT History Month. Around 45 minutes in there is a selection of sound clips from the two launch events. You get part of my speech opening the exhibition immediately after the Lord Mayor.

Women Warriors at Ujima

~ Cheryl

The podcasts from yesterday’s shows at Ujima are now available worldwide.

I started off with a slot in the last 10 minutes of the Tommy Popcorn show, where I got to preview LGBT History Month. Many thanks to Tommy for inviting me on.

The discussion of warrior women comes in the first half hour of the Women’s Outlook show (which I see the Ujima website still has incorrectly titled). I managed to get in some discussion of Julian May’s Saga of the Exiles, and Justina Robson’s Quantum Gravity series. The other people on the podcast loved the picture of Lila Black on the cover of Down to the Bone. I was hoping to get a mention in for Kameron Hurley’s Bel Dame Apocrypha as well (I love the opening of Rapture, which I wanted to read), but there’s only so much time available on live radio.

The second half hour of that segment features some women drummers who are a lot of fun and are clearly doing useful woman-positive work. I find it very sad to find such people insistent that they are Not Feminists, because to them Feminism is all about hating men. I blame you for this, Julie Bindel.

I’m also involved in the Lighter Side of Life segment in the first 15 minutes of the second hour of the show. That’s all about “What’s in a woman’s handbag?”. So if you want to know what is in mine, do listen in.

Next week I’m doing a slot on the main Outlook show where we celebrate Chinese New Year. Women’s Outlook takes a break until the 20th when, it being February, we’ll be doing love stories.

Ujima’s LGBT Show

~ Cheryl

I’ve now managed to listen to all of yesterday’s Women’s Outlook show on Ujima. I think we did OK. I’m still very much learning to do radio. It requires a lot more thinking on your feet than blogging, and sometimes you just can’t make the points you want to make because the discussion has moved on. Also Ujima is much more of a working class environment than the parts of the blogosphere I move in. I don’t expect the people I end up talking to there to have the same nuanced understanding of sexuality and gender that is expected of people online. I’m much more interested in knowing that people’s hearts are in the right place, than in having them use “correct” language all of the time.

Anyway, the first hour of the show is available here. In it we talk books, and I get to enthuse about Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve, and Stella Duffy’s Theodora. There’s also a lengthy digression on the subject of Julie Burchill. That’s followed by a segment on lesbian life with my friends Annabelle, from the City Council, and Janet, a recent arrival from Australia. Annabelle explains that Bristol Council has placed 21st overall, and 3rd amongst local authorities, on this year’s Stonewall LGB employer index. Janet contrasts the legal situation for lesbians in the UK and Australia. I get to be rude about Stonewall and explain intersectionality.

Toward the end of the hour you get to hear some background noise as Donald pops in to tell us off for using bad words, followed by Paulette apologizing for having quoted Julie Burchill. Later on we talk quite a bit about the forthcoming Revealing Stories Exhibition, and I talk about Michael Dillon.

Hour two, available here, starts off with the standard “lighter side of life” segment, which Paulette and I agonized over a lot beforehand. We ended up talking a lot about cross-dressing in comedy, and I think I got all of the right points in eventually. I also got to enthuse about the very wonderful Bethany Black.

The second segment is, I’m afraid, all about me. Everyone except Kevin can fast forward through that and on to the final segment in which a group of us chat generally about sexuality and gender. I get to comment on the relationship between LGBT folks and gender, and to dump on the Tories.

Next week the topic for the books section will be “warrior women”, which will be my opportunity to enthuse about the likes of Mary Gentle and Kameron Hurley. Even if you are not interested in the LGBT stuff, I hope you’ll take a listen to the books segments of these shows. Sooner or later someone at Ujima will notice they are getting downloads from all over the world.

Burchill, Free Speech and Radio

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I have spent today in Bristol. The main reason for going (despite the hideous cold) was a 2-hour Women’s Outlook show on Ujima devoted entirely to LGBT issues. I need to listen to it again just in case I said anything stupid, but I think it went OK and should have links up tomorrow.

The reason I’m blogging now is an incident that happened early on in the show. The subject of Julie Burchill’s Observer rant came up, and Paulette, the host of the show, quoted briefly from what Burchill had written. Shortly thereafter, Donald, the station manager, came in and told us we had to apologize for the words we had used, which we duly did. Our first thought was that some listener had phoned in to complain about Burchill, which would have been awesome. However, it turns out that the short extract the Paulette had quoted contained something that was in breach of Ofcom’s broadcasting code, and Ujima would have been liable for a £2,000 fine had we not apologized immediately.

So, freedom of speech, eh? I wonder how many of the journalists loudly defending Burchill’s right to say what she wanted about trans people knew that her article could not have been broadcast on UK radio. I suspect rather a lot of them.

For the record, I’m one of those people who wanted the article to stay up. I make the comments above to illustrate how complicated this “free speech” issue is, and how dishonest and cynical I suspect the commentariat of having been on the issue.

Picking Your Fights

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

The row about Julie Burchill’s Observer article continues to rumble on in the UK media, becoming more and more meta by the day. The current situation is that everyone is up in arms about how a journalist who decided to vilify and threaten an oppressed minority because she said they were bullying her friend is now apparently being bullied in turn by that same evil minority group. Given that Burchill is such a shy and retiring individual herself, all of her friends are queuing up to defend her from awful people like me. My heart bleeds for the poor dear, it really does.

Sadly, however, I can’t fight on behalf of all oppressed minorities, so I’ll have to leave defending poor Julie to the rest of the Bolly and Lobster consuming commentariat. I have other things to do. Most of yesterday was actually spent working on the day job, but in the evening I headed off to Bristol to talk to Freedom Youth, a local LGBT Youth group. My colleague, Andy Foyle, and I were there to encourage them to get involved in the LGBT History Exhibition. It was a really fun evening, and I think I came over quite well thanks to my knowledge of superheroes, Buffy, Xena and so on.

Today I was in Bristol again for an appearance on Ujima Radio. This was for the launch of Paulette’s new Women’s Outlook show. We had a great half hour on women in literature, in which I got to talk about Tolkien, Eowyn and the forthcoming Kij Johnson lecture. That’s the first part of this podcast (and yes, the Ujima website has got the name of the show wrong). The second half hour of that podcast has women from three local feminist groups as guests. I was delighted to hear Anna Brown of the Bristol Feminist Network talking about their inclusive policy (and her colleague, Sian Norris, has been very supportive over the Burchill debacle).

Talking of Sian, there will be a Women’s Literature Festival in Bristol in March. Stella Duffy will be there, and therefore so will I.

I also got a couple of slots in the second hour of the show. It begins with a slightly silly session on public toilets, in which I argue the merits of gender-neutral bathrooms. The final half hour is devoted to discussion of Female Genital Mutilation. Paulette kindly let me get a mention in right at the end for Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death. Hopefully that will get Nnedi a few more sales.

Tomorrow night I’ll be on ShoutOut with a couple of other trans people talking about #TransDocFail, which I happen to think is far more important than Miss Stroppy Pants Burchill.

And next week on Ujima we have a whole hour devoted to LBT issues, so I’ll have lots more of me to link to after that.

Ujima Today

~ Cheryl

For those of you in the Bristol area, I’ll be on Paulette’s Outlook show on Ujima Radio around 12:15 today. I think it will be a “things to look forward to in 2013” panel, so I’ll probably be mostly talking about the LGBT History Exhibition. I’ll post a link to the podcast version later today or tomorrow once it is available.

Radio Daze

~ Cheryl ~ 6 Comments

Well, yesterday was definitely busy. But it was also great fun. Also I got to be on two different local radio programs, which is excessive even for me.

The first event of the day was an appearance on the Outlook show with Paulette on Ujima Radio. This is a radio station based in St. Pauls’, and area with Bristol with a lot of immigrant families. Ujima, unsurprisingly, plays a lot of Afro-Caribbean music. Outlook, however, is a community interest chat show, and I had been invited on as part of their Sound Reads project which, very splendidly, encourages listeners to read. You can listen to the part of the show I was on here. There’s some material about the Bristol Pound before the book panel comes on, and that might be interesting too. I got to plug a lot of good stuff, including Christmas stories, Colinthology and Doctor Who writers.

Part FoodAfter the show, there was a party for the station staff and guests. As you can see from the photo, there was a huge amount of food (and mulled wine too). The things on the skewers were particularly delicious. And down the other end of the table there were mini cheesecakes and mince pies. The filling in the mince pies was obviously home made because it tasted way better than the shop pie stuff. And all of this was done by one person. Yvonne, you are amazing. If I ever need someone to cater a party, I’ll come calling.

I didn’t eat again all day.

Many thanks to Paulette and her colleagues at Ujima for a lovely time. Hopefully I’ll get invited back.

Also, one of my fellow guests on the program was Rebecca Lloyd. As you’ll see from the website, she’s one of us. Halfling is a kid’s fantasy, but she tells me that her real love is creepy Gothic fantasy. And I’m very interested in Pangea, the anthology of stories from around the world that Rebecca edited with Indira Chandrasekhar. Apparently they are planning a second book. I know some people who would be good in that.

After that I went to see Bristol-based artist, Penny Clark, about the portraits she has done of her friend, Martine Shackerley-Bennett. I’m hoping we’ll include one of Penny’s pictures in the LGBT History exhibition that we are putting on in February.

New leather jacketI had a bit of time to kill before my final appointment so I decided to do some shopping. Everywhere seemed to be having a sale, so I figured I should look now in case all of the good stuff is gone by Boxing Day (anyone remember when it used to be the “January sales”?). As it happens, I found myself a rather nice new leather jacket at 33% off. And the original price was very reasonable too. I was very pleased. Then, much to my surprise, I bought a new ballgown, at less than half price. No photos of that as I may want to wear it to an award ceremony one day. Also it is the first time in my life I’ve been able to fit into something sold in Jane Norman. Progress!

The final event of the evening was the live Christmas party show for Shout Out, the LGBT show on Bristol Community FM. We were broadcasting live from the Bristol Bear Bar, a pub in the gay quarter of the city. Mostly it was a silly hour of party games, but I did get to do a quick plug for the exhibition.

New leather jacketThe highlight of the evening, however, was a fellow guest, Louise Goux-Wirth. That’s a genuine London Olympic torch she’s holding, and it belongs to her because she was an actual torch-bearer. London had a system whereby people could be nominated as potential torch-bearers because of the good work they have done for their local community. That’s how Louise got the job. US readers might be interested to know that the part of the UK where Louise carried the torch was the small North Devon town of Bideford. That’s the place where most of the colonists for the Roanoke Colony came from.

Louise’s next project is to go and work with orphan children in Rwanda. There’s a fundraiser going here to get the money for her trip. There’s also a blog here that explains a bit more about how the money will be used and what Louise will be doing. She’s amazing.

Not At Home

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

I’m not here. This post has been scheduled from last night. Today I will be in Bristol. Firstly I’ll be on Ujima Radio helping suggest books to read for Christmas. Then I’ll be talking to an artist about borrowing one of her pictures for the LGBT History exhibition in February. And finally I’ll be attending the Shout Out live broadcast Christmas party, which will probably mean being on the radio briefly again.

French Author Lionel Davoust Interviewed

~ Cheryl

France’s biggest SF&F convention, Utopiales, took place recently in Nantes. The guests included Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock and Nancy Kress. The fabulous Moira Young (you are following her career, aren’t you, Canadians) won the award for Best YA Novel. A local radio station, Euradionantes, covered the event, including an interview with my friend Lionel Davoust. The interview is in English, so it provides a rare opportunity to listen to a very fine French author talk about his work. Lionel has posted a link to the interview on his blog.

Radio Again

~ Cheryl

It will be quiet here today because I’m off to Bristol very early. I’ll be on Ujima Radio talking to Paulette North about Out Stories Bristol. For local people, I’ll be on between 11:15 and 11:45. For everyone else the show will be podcast later and I’ll put up a link to it when I can. I have lots of stuff to do in the city after the show so don’t expect bloggage before tomorrow.

Shout Out Podcasts Live

~ Cheryl

Mary the Producer must have been working very hard yesterday, because all of the podcasts from Saturday’s marathon at the Shout Out Bristol radio show are now live. I am in both hours of the “Out and About” show. I’m about 40 minutes into the first hour, and 25 minutes into the second. I’ve just listened to the first one and it sounded OK (much relief). It has plugs for Patrick Ness, Melissa Scott, Lethe Press, Aqueduct Press and BristolCon. And you get to find out which song I chose.

There’s also a lot of other good material. I want to listen to the “God Loves Gays” show. Also my friend Dru Marland was on earlier in the day, though I’m not sure when. And of course I want to listen to Natalie’s show which is all about getting dolled up for a party. The poor girl had to spend hours in a beauty salon “for research”.

A Grand Day Out

~ Cheryl

I spent most of the day in Bristol. After a little book shopping (so, Tad, you have a new novel…) I turned up for the first half of the BristolCon meeting where much good stuff was plotted. Then I headed out for the Bristol Community Radio studios for my appearance on Shout Out.

I had two slots on The 16:00-18:00 show. During the first I got to talk about SF, including plugs for Wizard’s Tower, Lethe Press and BristolCon. In the second I teamed up with Jess from Bi Visible Bristol and Peter from Off the Record (a support service for LGBT youth) to talk about how different parts of the community experience being out.

The show should be available as a podcast in a few days time via this page.

On The Radio

~ Cheryl

This coming Saturday my good friends at Shout Out radio in Bristol have an all-day show in addition to their usual one-hour Thursday evening slot. I have been invited to appear on the “Out and About” show with Mary and Ben. I’ll be talking mainly about science fiction and fantasy: LGBT writers, Wizard’s Tower, and BristolCon. I believe that I’ll also be taking part in a later, more general session discussing the latest LGBT news stories, but I’m not sure when that will be.

Shout Out shows are usually archived online so that you can listen to them later at your leisure. I’m pretty sure that will happen with these shows as well, so West Coast people don’t need to get up early to listen to me.

Shout Out flier

PKD on the BBC

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives series featured none other than Philip K. Dick. The format of the series is that a celebrity is invited in to talk about someone they greatly admire. In this program Welsh actor Michael Sheen (Underworld, Twilight, Tron: Legacy, not to mention The Damned United, which doubtless means nothing to non-British readers) chose the inimitable PKD. British academic, Roger Luckhurst, was on hand to provide expert commentary. It is a pretty good program, and you should be able to listen to it here.

While you are at it, you may also be interested in the Stephen Baxter short story, “Voyage”, and the Ray Bradbury story, “Tomorrow’s Child”, which were both broadcast yesterday.

Cat Women: Part II

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

The second part of Sarah Hall’s Cat Women of the Moon series was broadcast on Radio 4 this morning and is available for listening here. Once again various well known people made a lot of good comments. My overall reaction, however, is a bit mixed.

The good news is that there was no obvious poking fun at SF, and no insulting trans people either. Indeed, in today’s episode Iain Banks made a point that I always make when talking about gender swapping in SF: if we are to believe in a society in which people swap genders easily and regularly, we have to assume that society has achieved gender equality. (If anyone knows which Culture novel the quote they used was taken from, please let me know. I want to quote it myself and all of my Culture books except Surface Detail are in California.)

On the downside, there wasn’t a lot of depth, and that’s entirely understandable. The programmes were clearly aimed at people who didn’t reach much, if any, science fiction, and consequently there was a 101 feeling to a lot of the discussion. Also, as anyone who has edited podcasts will know, it is really hard to patch together a bunch of separate audio clips to form a coherent narrative. You can’t just change the words as you might in print.

Given the obvious constraints, I was really quite happy with the series until the last few seconds. I’m not sure what Hall was trying to say at the end, but it didn’t come over well. The message that I got was that we could somehow avoid the potential problems that scientific progress has in store for us if we just stopped reading all that scary science fiction. Layered over that was the thought that you don’t stop thinking about good literature when you close the book, and it is stupid to suggest that you can do so. I suspect that someone at the BBC decided that they had to go out with a bang in some way, and that the ending was cobbled together in response without much thought as to what it meant.

SF & Gender on Radio 4

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

BBC Radio 4 will be broadcasting a two-part documentary, “Cat Women Of The Moon”, on gender in science fiction. They are hosted by Sarah Hall (author of the Tiptree-winning The Carhullan Army) and will feature interviews with Iain M. Banks, China Miéville and Nicola Griffith. A press release about the first episode (Aug. 30th, 11:30am), is available here. Hall’s website says the second episode will air at the same time on Sept. 6th. I expect both episodes to be available via the usual podcasting service, but I can’t be certain.

The press release notes:

In many novels the exploration of sexuality is unconventional and experimental. Some societies have more than one sex; in others, people can change sex at will. In other science fiction worlds, people form relationships with aliens or they might have sex with artificial life forms.

I confess to being somewhat nervous about this. I’ve not heard anything about it from Roz, so I’m assuming she wasn’t asked for comment, which probably means there is no input from trans people. I’m sure China and Nicola would be good if asked, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a certain amount of ignorance and prejudice on display.

Update: Just in case anyone gets the wrong end of the stick, I’m expecting problems from feminists and BBC arts pundits, not from Iain, who I know fairly well but have never talked to about trans issues.

Update 2: Nicola posts about the programmes here and mentions Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin as also being interviewed.

Many thanks to DH for the heads up on this one.