JoSelle Vanderhooft's Blog, page 7
April 22, 2011
sorry for lack of posting
Buried under editing and reviewing, exhausted, and having headaches because of heterosexism and ableist bullshit. While trying to figure out just how the hell I'm going to travel with my cat this weekend. In other words, can't think of anything cool to say beyond KEYSMASHes of the rather profane and defeatist variety, so it's probably good to leave the blogging alone, I think.
Though I did see Wicked last night and do want to blog about the ableism. Note: That aside, I really liked the musical, and while the ableism in it was upsetting, this is not the ableism that is making me want to scream at the moment.
Though I did see Wicked last night and do want to blog about the ableism. Note: That aside, I really liked the musical, and while the ableism in it was upsetting, this is not the ableism that is making me want to scream at the moment.
April 14, 2011
It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN!
This is just to say that Steam-Powered II subs are due TOMORROW at 11:59 PM!
And now, have an 80s song.
And now, have an 80s song.
April 11, 2011
Three...
Keeping it quick tonight because I'm not really feeling well. There are just three days left for you to submit to Steam-Powered II. Tempus fugit.
April 8, 2011
Hoping LJ stays up long enough for me to post this...
OK, LJ. Does anyone out there have a copy of InDesign cs3 they can sell me? I know, I know, it's an old copy, but I'm told it runs on Windows 7, and if that's the case, I want it.
Also: seven more days to get your Steam-Powered II subs into me. The sands of time flow ever downwards.
Is it true that LJ has been having DDOS attacks? I can't seem to get it to work long enough to check the news community...
Never mind. Got it to load. Daymn. :O
Also: seven more days to get your Steam-Powered II subs into me. The sands of time flow ever downwards.
Is it true that LJ has been having DDOS attacks? I can't seem to get it to work long enough to check the news community...
Never mind. Got it to load. Daymn. :O
April 4, 2011
Achievement Unlocked: One Series
So, good announcement the first can now be, er, announced! And it is a big one.
Steam-Powered is going to be an annual series!
OMG. I NO, RITE?!?
No publication dates made yet, but I am going to try and make them happen in the same season every year. I'm so very, very pleased that, really, I've been trying to figure out how to do this post all weekend, and I haven't found anything smarter to say than OMG!
Ahem. What this means is that I may want to consider a few stories that don't quite make the cut for Steam-Powered II for the third volume. So you may get presented with this option if you submit.
And speaking of submissions...you now have 10 days to get those stories in to me. Tick tock on the clock.
Steam-Powered is going to be an annual series!
OMG. I NO, RITE?!?
No publication dates made yet, but I am going to try and make them happen in the same season every year. I'm so very, very pleased that, really, I've been trying to figure out how to do this post all weekend, and I haven't found anything smarter to say than OMG!
Ahem. What this means is that I may want to consider a few stories that don't quite make the cut for Steam-Powered II for the third volume. So you may get presented with this option if you submit.
And speaking of submissions...you now have 10 days to get those stories in to me. Tick tock on the clock.
March 31, 2011
Excitement!
It's always fun to have like three (maybe four) huge Very Good Things to announce, but not be able to just yet. How's that for being Cryptic?
One good thing I can announce, though, is that my long poem "Blood, Snow, Birch and Underworld" about the curses that pass down from mother to daughter and how stepmothers can interrupt those curses will be published in the September 2011 edition of Cabinet des Fees, marking my return to the magazine after what I think is a three-year absence. This is also one of the only poems I've published since 2009 thanks to my career as an editor suddenly taking off.
But as I'm completing three--three omg!-- poetry collections as we speak, this certainly won't be the last.
No, the Announcements Jo Cannot Make Yet are not poetry-related, but something else.
One good thing I can announce, though, is that my long poem "Blood, Snow, Birch and Underworld" about the curses that pass down from mother to daughter and how stepmothers can interrupt those curses will be published in the September 2011 edition of Cabinet des Fees, marking my return to the magazine after what I think is a three-year absence. This is also one of the only poems I've published since 2009 thanks to my career as an editor suddenly taking off.
But as I'm completing three--three omg!-- poetry collections as we speak, this certainly won't be the last.
No, the Announcements Jo Cannot Make Yet are not poetry-related, but something else.
March 28, 2011
Hark, Kindlers!
Just a belated note that Steam-Powered is now available for your downloading pleasure.
M/M in MY YA? It's more likely than you think.
By now I'm sure a lot of you have heard about this situation and this development. But a summary just in case: YA author Jessica Verday turned in a story to an anthology called Wicked Pretty Things that was 1) G-rated, 2) centered around a gay male romance. Trisha Telep, the editor, told her to change it into a heterosexual romance instead, so Verday pulled her story. And blogged about it. The editor showed up and gave a very unsatisfactory apology which included dog whistly bigoted words like "alternative sexuality," a bizarre assertion that she thought the press (which had published LGBTQ stories before, by the way) wouldn't accept it, and a whole lot of "oh dear"s instead of "I'm sorry"s. And something about her having wrestled a gay man in Glasgow once which, um, what?
Fast-forward to a few days later, and six of the anthology's 13 writers have pulled out because of this "kerfluffle," as Telep so charmingly called the situation in her first attempt at an apology.
I'm not going to go into an exegesis of Telep's statements and the heterosexual privilege behind them, because a lot of people have been doing that, and I don't feel compelled to retread ground in the discussion.
Instead, I'm going to write about my experiences and fears as an openly queer author, poet and editor who regularly writes about LGBTQ characters, edits LGBTQ-themed anthologies*, and is open to stories about LGBTQ people even if the anthology isn't LGBTQ-related. Folks, I love being a queer woman, I'm proud of my sexuality, and I've worked damned hard in my life to be able to say that.
But there are a lot of things in society that make being queer suck for me. And a lot of them can be found in the publishing industry. For example? Right now I'm shopping around a non-fiction proposal about the LGBTQ community in Utah. Since I love this community and think its struggles (and its hard-won victories) are incalculably important both nationally and internationally, I've wanted to find a large audience for this book, and to donate all the royalties I would receive from it to an LGBTQ organization in my home state.
While, admittedly, I haven't been shopping this around for very long, I so far haven't received any nibbles. Sometimes there is no explanation, but other times, the explanation is simply that they don't do books about LGBTQ issues--even if the press itself covers current events and/or regional politics. Given that 1) the LDS Church hierarchy (which is based in Utah) played a huge role in drumming up support for Proposition 8, 2) a documentary about their involvement that featured a ton of interviews from LGBTQ Utahns premiered at Sundance and won the audience choice award, 3) more than 1/4 of Utah's population is now covered under LGBTQ-inclusive housing and employment nondiscrimination ordinances, and 4) I'd be here for hours if I described all of the LGBTQ groups in Utah fighting for change, I'd say that this is pretty damned important both to current politics and to the Southwestern US**.
But many big publishers do not see it that way, and so the door is closed. And folks, it's a fairly heavy one--one that I see every time I sit down to write.
Right now, I have a lot of novel projects I'm working on, at least three of which feature lesbian or bisexual protagonists (one of whom, by the way, also has an anxiety disorder--a disability that people routinely see as either bullshit or hilarious). And I wonder, if I were to submit any of them to a large publisher, would they be rejected solely on the grounds of "we don't do books about your issues?" Yes, of course, big publishers have taken on LGBTQ books before (Malinda Lo's Ash comes to mind, obviously, as does Catherynne M. Valente's Palimpsest). But situations like the one Verday blogged about prove that anti-LGBTQ bias--intentional and unintentional--are alive and well in mainstream publishing.
Now, I love small presses. I really love LGBTQ presses and imprints (hell, I even run an imprint of my own). I would never want to stop working for or with them. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. But neither I nor any other author or editor of any sexual orientation or gender identity should have fewer options than writers/editors who deal with heterosexual material. Just like, for example, people of color, people with disabilities, or people who aren't Christian should have some options unavailable to them because they lack white, abled or Christian privilege and/or don't want to write or edit stories about a socially dominant group. Frankly, this hurts not only minorities of any kind, but the publishing industry and US society at large. It also hurts the world at large and no, this isn't hyperbole. As a writer and editor, I do believe that stories we tell and stories we give each other access to have world changing consequences for good and bad--just ask Joseph Goebbels and his "Big Lie" if you don't believe me.
Ultimately, I'm cheered that so many writers spoke out against Telep's behavior and pulled their stories. But when I think about all the writers out there (including several LGBTQ writers) who are getting that heavy door slammed in their faces day after day, who aren't getting nominated for awards, let alone noticed, who are getting verbal and psychological abuse for the stories they write in the form of anti-LGBTQ comments and death threats...well, it just feels like so many raindrops in an ocean sometimes, you know?
* Note: I have yet to write a transgender character or edit an anthology about transgender characters, but erm...let's just say that the former will happen and the latter is in the works?
** Someday soon I will write a post about how I think a lot of US media (LGBTQ and 'mainstream') caters disproportionately to LGBTQ people (and usually white, upper-class gay men) who live in either New England, the West Coast and large metropoli and ignores the rest of us unless we're getting bashed or having bills written against us--and sometimes not even then. I've been patronized by grown adults for being a poor oppressed little dyke from one of those backwards, flyover, fundie Red States. While I've been told that these grown adults probably were trying to sympathize, I nonetheless felt gawped at like a museum exhibit. I also felt like the concern they were showing me had less to do with real, honest solidarity and/or a willingness to learn about a queer person's experience that was different from their own, than with what I like to call "activist entertainment"--that is, being able to pat the supposedly downtrodden person on the head before going back to their happy Blue State with its civil unions and domestic partner bennies. You know, kind of like how one can go see a movie with a theme along the lines of "x group of people are human, too" and leave feeling special and proud of oneself for being so progressive and enlightened. In other words, regardless of what the intent was, I felt minimized, and I do not think my feeling can be attributed to my being oversensitive.
Fast-forward to a few days later, and six of the anthology's 13 writers have pulled out because of this "kerfluffle," as Telep so charmingly called the situation in her first attempt at an apology.
I'm not going to go into an exegesis of Telep's statements and the heterosexual privilege behind them, because a lot of people have been doing that, and I don't feel compelled to retread ground in the discussion.
Instead, I'm going to write about my experiences and fears as an openly queer author, poet and editor who regularly writes about LGBTQ characters, edits LGBTQ-themed anthologies*, and is open to stories about LGBTQ people even if the anthology isn't LGBTQ-related. Folks, I love being a queer woman, I'm proud of my sexuality, and I've worked damned hard in my life to be able to say that.
But there are a lot of things in society that make being queer suck for me. And a lot of them can be found in the publishing industry. For example? Right now I'm shopping around a non-fiction proposal about the LGBTQ community in Utah. Since I love this community and think its struggles (and its hard-won victories) are incalculably important both nationally and internationally, I've wanted to find a large audience for this book, and to donate all the royalties I would receive from it to an LGBTQ organization in my home state.
While, admittedly, I haven't been shopping this around for very long, I so far haven't received any nibbles. Sometimes there is no explanation, but other times, the explanation is simply that they don't do books about LGBTQ issues--even if the press itself covers current events and/or regional politics. Given that 1) the LDS Church hierarchy (which is based in Utah) played a huge role in drumming up support for Proposition 8, 2) a documentary about their involvement that featured a ton of interviews from LGBTQ Utahns premiered at Sundance and won the audience choice award, 3) more than 1/4 of Utah's population is now covered under LGBTQ-inclusive housing and employment nondiscrimination ordinances, and 4) I'd be here for hours if I described all of the LGBTQ groups in Utah fighting for change, I'd say that this is pretty damned important both to current politics and to the Southwestern US**.
But many big publishers do not see it that way, and so the door is closed. And folks, it's a fairly heavy one--one that I see every time I sit down to write.
Right now, I have a lot of novel projects I'm working on, at least three of which feature lesbian or bisexual protagonists (one of whom, by the way, also has an anxiety disorder--a disability that people routinely see as either bullshit or hilarious). And I wonder, if I were to submit any of them to a large publisher, would they be rejected solely on the grounds of "we don't do books about your issues?" Yes, of course, big publishers have taken on LGBTQ books before (Malinda Lo's Ash comes to mind, obviously, as does Catherynne M. Valente's Palimpsest). But situations like the one Verday blogged about prove that anti-LGBTQ bias--intentional and unintentional--are alive and well in mainstream publishing.
Now, I love small presses. I really love LGBTQ presses and imprints (hell, I even run an imprint of my own). I would never want to stop working for or with them. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. But neither I nor any other author or editor of any sexual orientation or gender identity should have fewer options than writers/editors who deal with heterosexual material. Just like, for example, people of color, people with disabilities, or people who aren't Christian should have some options unavailable to them because they lack white, abled or Christian privilege and/or don't want to write or edit stories about a socially dominant group. Frankly, this hurts not only minorities of any kind, but the publishing industry and US society at large. It also hurts the world at large and no, this isn't hyperbole. As a writer and editor, I do believe that stories we tell and stories we give each other access to have world changing consequences for good and bad--just ask Joseph Goebbels and his "Big Lie" if you don't believe me.
Ultimately, I'm cheered that so many writers spoke out against Telep's behavior and pulled their stories. But when I think about all the writers out there (including several LGBTQ writers) who are getting that heavy door slammed in their faces day after day, who aren't getting nominated for awards, let alone noticed, who are getting verbal and psychological abuse for the stories they write in the form of anti-LGBTQ comments and death threats...well, it just feels like so many raindrops in an ocean sometimes, you know?
* Note: I have yet to write a transgender character or edit an anthology about transgender characters, but erm...let's just say that the former will happen and the latter is in the works?
** Someday soon I will write a post about how I think a lot of US media (LGBTQ and 'mainstream') caters disproportionately to LGBTQ people (and usually white, upper-class gay men) who live in either New England, the West Coast and large metropoli and ignores the rest of us unless we're getting bashed or having bills written against us--and sometimes not even then. I've been patronized by grown adults for being a poor oppressed little dyke from one of those backwards, flyover, fundie Red States. While I've been told that these grown adults probably were trying to sympathize, I nonetheless felt gawped at like a museum exhibit. I also felt like the concern they were showing me had less to do with real, honest solidarity and/or a willingness to learn about a queer person's experience that was different from their own, than with what I like to call "activist entertainment"--that is, being able to pat the supposedly downtrodden person on the head before going back to their happy Blue State with its civil unions and domestic partner bennies. You know, kind of like how one can go see a movie with a theme along the lines of "x group of people are human, too" and leave feeling special and proud of oneself for being so progressive and enlightened. In other words, regardless of what the intent was, I felt minimized, and I do not think my feeling can be attributed to my being oversensitive.
March 25, 2011
Steam-Powered II: Reprieve
It has come to my attention that there's just a week left to submit stories to Steam-Powered II, and that some would-be submitters are feeling a little pressure. Thanks to the alarming fact that winter colds also exist in Florida (I NO RITE? OMG!), I, also, am feeling a little pressure in many ways--most notably in my nostrils.
Therefore! I am granting y'all a two week reprieve. Submissions will now be due by April 14. No later, though; I have submissions opening for Femmes Fatales in May, and staying open any longer will really mess up my time line for both of these books and for a number of other projects I'm working on.
(NB: If I've invited you to submit to me, this deadline does not apply to you, so please don't panic! Your deadline remains unchanged.)
I hope this won't upset anyone who submitted early. I want to be clear that I appreciate your having done so a lot! (I mean, I think most editors will tell you such a thing makes them happy ;). And on that note, if you have a story that is ready, please don't delay in sending it! I'm currently 100% caught up on queries and submissions, and while I'm hardly sitting here twiddling my thumbs, I do want to read more steampunk.
I'm trying to figure out how to mass email everyone who has expressed interest in submitting. Until I can, please spread this message far and wide.
Therefore! I am granting y'all a two week reprieve. Submissions will now be due by April 14. No later, though; I have submissions opening for Femmes Fatales in May, and staying open any longer will really mess up my time line for both of these books and for a number of other projects I'm working on.
(NB: If I've invited you to submit to me, this deadline does not apply to you, so please don't panic! Your deadline remains unchanged.)
I hope this won't upset anyone who submitted early. I want to be clear that I appreciate your having done so a lot! (I mean, I think most editors will tell you such a thing makes them happy ;). And on that note, if you have a story that is ready, please don't delay in sending it! I'm currently 100% caught up on queries and submissions, and while I'm hardly sitting here twiddling my thumbs, I do want to read more steampunk.
I'm trying to figure out how to mass email everyone who has expressed interest in submitting. Until I can, please spread this message far and wide.
March 20, 2011
From the Management
I've come down with my second cold in about as many months, and it's just as bad as the first (though at least, thank God and little green lizards, I can kinda talk). Therefore, I may be much slower than usual to answer emails, depending on how bad this is going to get before it gets better. (Estimates from those around me who have had it indicate 1-2 weeks *sigh*).
In other words, if I owe you a response and you haven't heard from me in a few days, please nudge me. Also, if I send a response that is less coherent than usual, I apologize. Dealing with this cold while having the added "bonus" of dealing with another unrelated infection is really kicking my ass.
In other words, if I owe you a response and you haven't heard from me in a few days, please nudge me. Also, if I send a response that is less coherent than usual, I apologize. Dealing with this cold while having the added "bonus" of dealing with another unrelated infection is really kicking my ass.
