Katharine Beutner's Blog, page 21

A whole week of the semester

I've been teaching my intro English class on the history of the romance for a week now and so far everything is sunshine and roses.  Seriously, I'm very happy with this class and I think we're going to have a great time, partly because many of the students chose the class because they want to read the books we're reading.

I am looking forward to getting the last bits of my schedule settled — those of us who teach in the shiny computer-stocked classrooms also work as proctors in the computer...

The first rule of Pride Day: DO talk about Pride Day

The newly-formed and super awesome Outer Alliance has declared today Pride Day and has asked those of us who are members to post the Outer Alliance mission statement as a sign of support and solidarity, which I will happily do:

As a member of the Outer Alliance, I advocate for queer speculative fiction and those who create, publish and support it, whatever their sexual orientation and gender identity.  I make sure this is reflected in my actions and my work.

The next part of Pride Day is to...

The waves

See accompanying image for an illustration of what the oncoming semester feels like.

I'm just about done prepping a new class — an intro English lit class, "Women's Popular Genres" — and I've finished my wonderful two-year internship at the Harry Ransom Center, where I worked in the Public Services department.  I'm finishing up my first dissertation chapter, trying to stay on top of the book world, writing fellowship applications, and awaiting a galley copy of my first academic publication...

Great news: no more whitewashing of 'Liar'

Justine Larbalestier's book Liar has a beautiful new cover. You can see the old cover via the Amazon link (right now, anyway — hopefully that'll be fixed soon, too). Responding to the distress of her readers, Ms. Larbalestier chose to speak out about Bloomsbury's decision to represent her black protagonist with a white cover model. And Bloomsbury — after much embarrassing defensiveness — finally chose to do the right thing and produce a new cover. They could've gone with the Australian...