Liz Williams's Blog, page 9

Place now available for Milford SF Writers' Conference 2012

Originally posted by birdsedge at Place now available for Milford SF Writers' Conference 2012Due to a misunderstanding we have a vacant place at this year's Milford SF writer's conference in lovely North Wales from September 22nd - 29th. It's for published SF writers only (though you only need one sale to a recognised market under your belt to be classed as 'published').

The total price for 2012 is £560 inclusive of full board for seven nights. A deposit of £115 is required to secure your booking and £445 is payable to Trigonos upon attending (by cash or cheque - no cards). Apart from a small Milford admin fee of £10, this sum represents your booking with Trigonos for accommodation.

Full details here: http://www.milfordSF.co.uk/attend.htm

If anyone is disappointed because they thought they'd missed out when we (thought we'd) filled the places and closed the booking - here's your big chance.

Contact: Liz Williams <mevennen@hotmail.com>

I hope someone can fill in the gap.
:-)

Tweet

I am, by the way, now on Twitter (@mevennen). My first posts will involve an outpouring of halfwitted under-researched bile and repetitive death threats - oh wait. They won't.

The trouble with Celts is....

Oh dearie me, I seem to have contacted my inner cattle raider. We're talking grudges - for years. I've got several and plan to take them further. We're also talking a nuclear blast zone for miles around, taking out anyone within radius of Patient Zero. Any Irish/Scots/Welsh/Bretons/Cornish/Manx/other Celt (including honorary, from any continent - we're not exclusive) out there willing to comment on history/language/oppression? Because I think enough is enough, and without being nationalistic or trashing any other cultures - no need for that - it's time we had our say. Any whining to the effect that we don't UNDERSTAND - deleted asap.

Query

In trying to freeze the comments to the long thread, I've managed to vanish them, which is an epic piece of net fail on my part. If I can't get them back, hopefully someone has screencaps? I have promised to reply to specific issues with a couple of people and will do so in due course.

A question - does anyone have the link to the woman who critiqued the Chen novels a couple of years ago? I think this is the person I had a discussion with and I linked to her post before, but I can't find it. IIRC her name is "tempere". She's a critic who had read the books, is of Chinese origins, and had some legitimate concerns about the novels and I think it might be instructive to re-post the link. If anyone does have it, I'd be grateful.

To make this clear: I have a background in academic philosophy, and over a decade in writing fiction. I'm used to criticism of my work. I don't attach much to it emotionally; it has to be considered from an objective viewpoint. Criticism that is informed, insightful and if necessary deconstructive, is crucial: it's one way in which we as writers progress.

A quick PS

To the poster from RPG Codex on the long thread - by my own rules I'm not unscreening anon comments, and have in any case frozen the thread, but thanks very much for coming over and elucidating. Also the rest of the post, although appalling, was so well written that it did make me laugh, a lot.

Normal service is resumed

Well, that was invigorating.

Now, has anyone got any cat pictures?

Desperately seeking attention

Years ago, working for an all-female, feminist collective in Brighton, we had an issue with a woman who was continually complaining about oppression. She was Jewish, female (obviously) and lesbian. If she had an issue with a heterosexual man, he was instantly castigated for being misogynistic, homophobic and anti Semitic. The teachers at her daughter’s faith school were, if male, anti-women, and if not, homophobic. The people who ran the Pride march were anti-women (if male), and anti-Semitic. (You might notice a pattern here). Everyone involved was the sort of person who worried about these sorts of accusations, and there was much heart searching, until the pattern of toxic manipulation and bullying became a bit too obvious, another Jewish lesbian had a stern word, and all the groups involved turned round and informed the woman that the problems she was encountering were not to do with her faith, gender or sexuality, but simply because she was an asshole. When it was our turn to confront her about the bullying, she burst into tears and ran from the room, never to be seen again.


There’s also been a near constant Twitter feed, since Seeks Attention appears neither to work nor sleep, of threats against specific authors – Paolo Bacigalupi is one – including acid attacks, shooting people and blowing them up. SA has a particular thing about US servicemen and Western tourists, and has suggested mass killings of both. You don’t have to agree with Western warmongering or sex tourism, both of which are pretty foul, to have issues with this. She’s also accused rape survivors of being rape apologists and reserves particular ire for Asian-Americans, basically for not being Asian enough. Or possibly for breathing air – it’s hard to tell.

If a white guy was doing this, the SF community would be frothing at its collective mouth in outrage, but because Seeks Attention is Chinese (lives in SE Asia, educated partly in the UK, widely travelled and on her own admission extremely privileged – I can give you a rundown of what overseas students have to pay here, if anyone is interested), people are falling over themselves to prove their right-on credentials in enabling bullying, toxic, abusive behaviour. SA has enthusiastically adopted the post Racefail NuSpeak, in which ‘derailing’ means ‘how dare you call me out on my bullshit when I want to control the debate,’ the tone argument is used as a get-out-of-jail-free card for behaving like a high school bitch, and contains the usual tired old tropes of ‘white women’s tears’ and ‘butthurt’ (I AM going to do a bingo card one day). I’m not experiencing tears or butthurt: contempt might be more like it.

Oddly enough, SA was a member of a SW gaming comm which is well known for its racist, sexist and even overtly Nazi-supporting members, who are now somewhat baffled that she never called them out (she did, however, produce an Eye of Argon level 90K piece of Star Wars Old Republic slashfic which I gather is still legendary for its dreadfulness, so probably her valuable time was put into other areas). She is also, ironically, noted for her drooling support of an author whose, ahem, somewhat negative remarks about the Japanese are plastered all over the fanwank sites - although since SA is Chinese, and the two nations have a history of animosity, the drool might be because of those remarks rather than in spite of them.

I think it is appropriate to say here that I write fiction set in a Chinese world. This is cultural appropriation – hand held up. I am also sure that I haven’t got it right (I’ve been in a lengthy dialogue with several readers who are Chinese, and who have pointed out the many places where I’ve got it wrong). I try not to exoticise the human characters, but since I’m writing fantasy, there’s going to be some of that with the non-human ones. I could do a lot better, and I will try: that’s my error and my responsibility. Seeks Attention has had a crack at the Chen series based on the extensive textual examination of a blurb and a comment made by me in an interview, and is of course welcome to dissect the whole thing if she chooses actually to read the books she’s critiquing: it might give me a tiny amount of publicity, although I doubt whether it will help or hurt sales much. Aspiring critics love to think that they wield massive authority, but they really don’t at this minor level: most articles are the online equivalent of fish and chip paper the next day.

I will doubtless be accused of racism for this post. Frankly, I’d rather be a small scale racist and politically incorrect than an aspiring fantasy serial killer. (I suspect that Seeks Atttention is just socially inadequate, like most trolls, and feeble as ditchwater IRL, but in the unlikely event that she is a potential psychonerd like the guy in Aurora, I’ve passed her details on to the relevant authorities and they can act if they see fit. Hey, if I’m going to be accused of being an Evil British Imperialist Whore [Tm] whatever I do, I might as well make the most of it). However, I’ve reached a stage in my life and career where I am not that concerned with what people think of me. At the end of the day, this isn’t some huge deal: I’m just a writer, and they’re just books, and this is not much more than a storm in a teacup. People can hate the books if they choose, and despise me if they like – so what? And there’s no bravery in a post like this – oooh, some people MIGHT BE NASTY TO ME, they might SAY SOMETHING, and I might, I don’t know, have to walk around at a convention in fear of some diminutive nutter leaping out of a cupboard and flailing at me with her handbag. Yeah, dream on.

On the day that I write this, 6 years ago, my partner was diagnosed with cancer. He’s now in remission, but this is the sort of thing that distresses me, not some anonymous wannabe-sociopath puking all over her laptop. If someone walks into my house, starts hysterically ranting, and randomly insults complete strangers, they’ll be banned, whatever their origins are. It’s not difficult. I’m used to death threats – we get about 2 a month. You know, siding with abusers, even if you think they’re right, is a great way to get fascism off the ground. I don’t like playground bullies who hide behind their keyboards. I despise privileged little girls who take the oppression high ground because they see a chance for a power trip, and I don’t believe in enabling abusers whatever their alleged principles or their origins might be – and given Seeking Attention’s repeated onslaughts on women, rape survivors and women of colour, I suspect that my dog’s backside has more of a social conscience than she does.
*

Anonymous comments - positive or negative - are enabled but will be deleted unless you say who you are. Unfortunately, this rules out Seeking Attention herself, as she’s been banned from LJ as well, for guess what? So she’ll just have to email me, or continue being a Twit.

Underwhelmed

Highly underwhelmed by some of the SF community at present, from Readercon's board* apparently making exceptions for sexual harassment, despite a prior zero tolerance policy, to people excusing online death threats on the feeble grounds that the asshole involved 'makes some good points'. I'm going to invent a 'grow your own backbone' potion and put it in the water supply.

*I'm given to understand that this is NOT the committee - please see below.

Moomintastic

We have been to the Moomin Museum, which features Tove Jansson's original artwork and dioramas made by her partner, Tuulikki Pietila. I was charmed by the model of the Moomins' house. Had not realised that the Moomins had such a bizarre origin: Jansson had an argument with her brother about Immanuel Kant, as you do, and drew a rude picture of a horrible troll on his lavatory wall, entitled 'Kant.' The troll, modified, later became....Moomintroll.

Finncon is now on its second day - we've been able to see quite a bit of Tampere, however. We have visited Harald, which is a Viking-themed restaurant chain, although not perhaps entirely authentic... I don't think the Vikings had ice cream and they certainly didn't have potatoes! However, the food was excellent (perch, for me, and a starter 'shield' which included bear sausages). Last night we went to a 100 year old restaurant on the river, and had herring and in T's case, a sort of potato hash. The food here is excellent, and we're enjoying Tampere, which is a small, friendly, leafy city. The convention is going well - really good to meet new people and catch up with old friends.

Finncon: Tampere

We had a press conference y'day morning in a rather nice bookshop, while T walked round the harbour and looked at boats. After this, we left Helsinki, driving up through miles of birch and pine forest to Tampere (and stopping off at the chocolate factory en route). Tampere is a reasonably large city, sandwiched between two lakes. Yesterday evening, M and K very kindly took a bunch of us up to their father's summer house, which is a delightful cabin on the shores of a lake, surrounded by wild strawberries and blueberries. They have a smoke sauna - not so popular these days due to fire risks etc - and a more conventional one with hot rocks, which left us all feeling more human. Then we swam in the lake, and had a BBQ. (There was a welcome lack of mosquitoes). I hadn't realised how many Finns of an older generation were born in the sauna - usually the cleanest place in the house. We got back to the hotel around midnight, which was a deep twilight but not completely dark - midnight sun indeed. We're in a rather weird space, timewise, because the light gives the impression that it's a couple of hours earlier than it is, but for T and myself, it is 2 hours earlier as we've not adjusted to the time zone yet.

And this morning: Moomin Museum!