Deborah J. Ross's Blog, page 9

In Praise of Community Music

Until not that long ago, music was a participant event.Everyone in the village gathered to sing, play handmade instruments, and dance.If you were especially skilled, you received recognition (and maybe a fewrounds of free ale or whatever passed for it). I grew up in the era of folkmusic, where almost everyone I knew had a guitar, banjo, recorder, orequivalent instrument. Maybe a dulcimer, castanets, or lap harp. Sure, we wentto concerts, but we made our own music, too. For the last couple of centuries,folks who could afford it had a harpsichord, clavichord, pianoforte, as well asa harp (ref. any Jane Austen novel or film). Composers wrote for their patrons(or their patrons’ families), music simple enough for an amateur to enjoyplaying. Even with the shift through recorded media to professional concertmusic (everything from symphonies to metallica), folks continue to enjoy playingmusic. Perhaps it’s a bug they catch in high school band or orchestra. Perhapstheir moms forced them into piano or clarinet lessons and they found themselveswanting to play long after lessons went by the wayside.

So I’m not at all surprised at the popularity of communitymusic groups. Amateur choral groups, whether associated with religiousinstitutions or not. Recorder ensembles playing Christmas music. Church choirs.Community bands or string ensembles—after all, where else are those bandmembers or not-quite-good-enough-for-professional violinists going to findkindred spirits and have fun?

My husband, a clarinetist, played in a community band comprisedof retired musically inclined folks and high school seniors or graduates, plustwo for-credit community college bands. The “symphonic band” in particular drewfrom current students and ordinary folks. I used to love attending theseconcerts, well within our budget (aka, free). They varied in quality but it wasalways clear how much fun the musicians were having.

Fast forward through the pandemic and waning interest…to asign outside one of the tiny churches in our tiny town: “Concert!” Of course, evenat the requisite 25 mph, I couldn’t catch the date and time. Then my pianoteacher said, “I’m playing the piano solo at the church, you should come.” Icame. I sat where I had a good view of her hands. The church held maybe ahundred people, but the acoustics were marvelous. I went back for a secondconcert, although I had the same problem finding out when the performances were.At last, I found the website for the “Concertino Strings,” showed up for aperformance, and had a marvelous time.

The directors, Joanne Tanner and Renata Bratt, did abrilliant job selecting music that was fun to play, within the skill level oftheir musicians, and delightful to listen to. This last concert included:

Don Quixote Suite; A Burlesque, by G. P. Telemann

Gigue, by J. Pachelbel (the one written to go with hisfamous Canon in D)

Pachelbel’s Rhapsody, by Katie O’Hara LaBrie

As Renata Bratz pointed out, we have all heard Pachelbel’sCanon in D umpteen times, although few of us have shared the experience of thecellists, who play the same 8 notes over…and over…and over. Maybe that was whatLaBrie had in mind when she arranged a delightful blend of Pachelbelian themesin a sprightly modern setting. I came home and looked it up online. You canenjoy it, too!

Thenext concert is December 11 and 14, featuring Sammartini'sConcerto Grosso “Christmas.”

 

Short Book Reviews: A Librarian and Her Spider Plant Assistant

 The Spellshop by SarahBeth Durst

I’ve been a fan of Sarah Beth Durst for years now, so I washappy to see the attention her latest novel is receiving. Of course, I eagerly grabbeda copy and devoured it. It’s an understatement to say that The Spellshopis wildly inventive, sweet, enchanting, and impossible to put down.

Fleeing the violent revolution in the capital city,librarian Kiela packs a few crates of precious books of spells (which areillegal for non-approved sorcerers to cast, by the way) and escapes with herfriendly assistant, a talking spider plant named Caz, who has more common sensethan most humans. She lands on the island of her birth, where she thinks tohide in her parents’ abandoned house until—she does not know, she can’t plan thatfar ahead. Nor can she cope with the sudden appearance of her neighbor and childhoodfriend, merhorse herder Loran, who shows up on her doorstep with a welcominggift of cinnamon buns. Soon Kiela and Caz are drawn into the community ofhumans and magical beings, ever fearful to keep their stash of forbidden hidden.Before long, however, Kiela ends up creating spells (for reasons that seem goodat the time) that she calls folk “remedies,” sometimes with hilarious results(like the apple-tree bird or the sentient cactus that Caz falls in love with).

The world building and cast of characters are fresh,original, and charming, but for me the best part of The Spell Shop wasthe skill and sensitivity with which Durst portrays how those characters changeand grow. In particular, she captures Kiela’s voice as the reclusive librarianslowly emerges from her isolation with evolving insight into the motives andemotions of others…and herself. No wonder Book Riot called Durst “a hidden gemof the fantasy world.”

File this tale under: Perennial Comfort Reading. And buy asecond copy to lend to special friends.

Short Book Reviews: An Librarian and Her Spider Plant Assistant

 The Spellshop by SarahBeth Durst

I’ve been a fan of Sarah Beth Durst for years now, so I washappy to see the attention her latest novel is receiving. Of course, I eagerly grabbeda copy and devoured it. It’s an understatement to say that The Spellshopis wildly inventive, sweet, enchanting, and impossible to put down.

Fleeing the violent revolution in the capital city,librarian Kiela packs a few crates of precious books of spells (which areillegal for non-approved sorcerers to cast, by the way) and escapes with herfriendly assistant, a talking spider plant named Caz, who has more common sensethan most humans. She lands on the island of her birth, where she thinks tohide in her parents’ abandoned house until—she does not know, she can’t plan thatfar ahead. Nor can she cope with the sudden appearance of her neighbor and childhoodfriend, merhorse herder Loran, who shows up on her doorstep with a welcominggift of cinnamon buns. Soon Kiela and Caz are drawn into the community ofhumans and magical beings, ever fearful to keep their stash of forbidden hidden.Before long, however, Kiela ends up creating spells (for reasons that seem goodat the time) that she calls folk “remedies,” sometimes with hilarious results(like the apple-tree bird or the sentient cactus that Caz falls in love with).

The world building and cast of characters are fresh,original, and charming, but for me the best part of The Spell Shop wasthe skill and sensitivity with which Durst portrays how those characters changeand grow. In particular, she captures Kiela’s voice as the reclusive librarianslowly emerges from her isolation with evolving insight into the motives andemotions of others…and herself. No wonder Book Riot called Durst “a hidden gemof the fantasy world.”

File this tale under: Perennial Comfort Reading. And buy asecond copy to lend to special friends.

[science] Dark Oxygen, Quark Matter, and Terraforming Mars

So much exciting astronomical news! Click through for all the juicy details.

Mars Could be Terraformed Using Resources that are Already There 

A team of engineers and geophysicists led by the University of Chicago proposed a new method for terraforming Mars with nanoparticles. This method would take advantage of resources already present on the Martian surface and, according to their feasibility study, would be enough to start the terraforming process.

Neutron Star Mergers Could Be Producing Quark Matter

When neutron stars dance together, the grand smash finale they experience might create the densest known form of matter known in the Universe. It’s called “quark matter, ” a highly weird combo of liberated quarks and gluons. It’s unclear if the stuff existed in their cores before the end of their dance. However, in the wild aftermath a neutron-star merger, the strange conditions could free quarks and gluons from protons and neutrons. That lets them move around freely in the aftermath. So, researchers want to know how freely they move and what conditions might impede their motion (or flow).

What if you Flew Your Warp Drive Spaceship into a Black Hole?

Recently, two researchers looked at what would happen if a ship with warp drive tried to get into a black hole. The result is an interesting thought experiment. It might not lead to starship-sized warp drives but might allow scientists to create smaller versions someday.

How Vegetation Could Impact the Climate of Exoplanets

The term ‘habitable zone’ is a broad definition that serves a purpose in our age of exoplanet discovery. But the more we learn about exoplanets, the more we need a more nuanced definition of habitable. 

New research shows that vegetation can enlarge the habitable zone on any exoplanets that host plant life.

Dark Oxygen Could Change Our Understanding of Habitability
Dark oxygen is produced by manganese nodules on the ocean floor (pictured above). If the same thing happens on the Solar System's ocean moons, it changes our notion of what worlds could be habitable.

Book Review: Beyond the Sea of Endless Grass

The Endless Song (Tales of the Forever Sea: Book Two),by Joshua Phillip Johnson (DAW)

I adored Joshua Phillip Johnson’s The Forever Sea, setin a world where ships kept afloat by magical hearthfires sail an endless seaof grass, so much that I eagerly snatched up the sequel. And ended up wishingit had been a stand-alone.

This overly long book followed two storylines that are sodisconnected for the first three-quarters of the book, I wished it had been dividedinto two separate volumes or, better yet, that the “continuing” story be cut.By far my favorite part involves a mainland noble family, Borders, that has fallenon hard times, both financially and politically. The power struggles of theruthless Emperor and the vassal barons are convoluted, rich in culturalworld-building, and full of drama. I found the loving, boisterous relationshipbetween youngest Borders child, Flitch, and his siblings delightful andemotionally moving. The action gets even more gripping when, under immediaterisk of their barony being destroyed by the Emperor, Flitch’s father reveals asecret hidden deep beneath their castle: the entrance to a realm of immenselypowerful and deadly, nonhuman magic. Everything about the “Flitch” narrativegrabbed me, from the tense action to the sweet love story between one ofFlitch’s siblings, a gifted gender-neutral artist and a charismatic librarianfrom another barony, to their sister’s impulsive nature and the quiet, detailorientation of another brother. Eventually, the family seeks refuge with aneighbor baron, a youthful-seeming woman of extraordinary strength and madcaphumor. She may well give Flitch a run as the most enchanting character in thebook.

Meanwhile, Kindred, the heroine from the first volume,follows up setting the grass sea on fire with scuttling her ship, therebysending her crew—all two of them, one of whom is her lover--to the eerie bottomof the sea. Here, the landscape is filled with fantastical plants andperhaps-animals, not to mention roving bands of humans eking out theirlivelihood from detritus falling from the surface. Alas, until well past thehalfway point, there was so little dramatic tension in these chapters, I keptfalling asleep.

At last, most of the way through the book, the two storylines veer toward one another when Kindred’s long-lost grandmother unleashes anarmy of deep-sea monsters that threaten human life on the surface. Alas, atthis point I had lost all interest in the Kindred story, I skimmed over thoseparts to get back to the dramatic adventures of Flitch and his family. For me, pastmidway is far too late to introduce a reason to care about these characters andway, way too late for a hint that the two stories will at some nebulous pointin the future come together (and they don’t, except in a deus ex machinasort of way). I kept reading on the strength of the first volume, but I don’tsee how a reader new to this series would make any sense of it. Which is toobad because The Forever Sea is a really, really cool world. And Flitch's story is magnificent.

Book Review: Wishing Disappoints

 The Wishing Game, by Meg Shaffer (Ballantine)

I was intrigued by the premise of an updated Roald Dahl’s Charlieand the Chocolate Factory with emphasis on the plight of kids stuck in thefosterage system. As much as I was predisposed to like this book, especially inlight of it earning “Best Book of the Year,” I found in it one disappointmentafter another.

First, the protagonist: Lucy Hart, rejected by her family infavor of her chronically ill older sister, ought to have been a sympatheticviewpoint character. She has gone from one miserable life situation to another.As a child, though, she had the gumption to run away to the island fortress(Clock Island, site of the eponymous, wildly popular children’s book seriespenned by the mysterious recluse, Jack Masterson) and demand to become hisapprentice. Of course, this did not go well, although she, Jack, and giftedcover artist Hugo have never forgotten one another. At the opening of the book,Lucy is working at a dead-end job as a teacher’s aide. She’s barely able tomake rent, let alone provide a suitable home for Christopher, the foster kidshe’s determined to adopt. Herein lies my initial and enduring inability toconnect with Lucy. She seems to be no more emotionally mature than an averageadolescent, even more so when she decides that the only solution to her lifeproblems is to enter and win a fabulous prize offered by Jack, the only copy ofhis unpublished next Clock Island novel. Her wish appears to be coming truewhen she is selected as a finalist and travels to Clock Island.

Aside from one writer to another: One copy?? Give mea break! No agent, editor, publisher, publicist, beta reader, copy editor,proofreader, online writers group, professional association, or trusted friend(looking at you, Hugo) would ever allow such irresponsibility as printing out onecopy and then destroying all the files of the previous versions (orthe equivalent typewritten manuscripts). (At the beginning of my writing career,I typed out drafts (at least three) with carbon paper and kept them all, usingthem as show and tell for school presentations.)

Second aside: many aspects of this novel read as if writtenby someone ignorant of the publishing business, yet Jack is a many-times-overbest seller, supposedly with an agent and editor with whom he’s had a longrelationship. It didn’t take long for me to suspect that the naïveté was on thepart of this book’s author. I confess to a prejudice against “Creative Writing”folks who all too often have no clue about how genre storytelling works. I can’tthink of another explanation for the prevailing ignorance.

These issues paled beside the huge red flags. Here are but afew: Lucy decides that the key to happiness is to adopt a kid. Other than thelimited, structured interactions with students her job, she has no experiencewith parenting. Her interactions with Christopher come across as sugar-coated wishfulfillment (except for a few small afterthought details in the last chapter).There’s no chemistry between the two of them; their stereotyped interactionscould have come straight out of 1950s family sitcoms. As Lucy’s history isrevealed, it’s clear that because she felt unloved as a child, her solution isto shower another child with the love she never received. Not to resolve herown issues, not to learn to love (and forgive) herself, not to let go of herresentment of her sister and parents.

Second huge red flag: Lucy goes from one inappropriateromantic relationship to another. Her longtime, emotionally abusive, and mucholder boyfriend kept her dependent, off-balance, and doubting herself-worth. Never does she address the lingering trauma other than to “do ageographic” and leave town. She’s had a crush on Hugo since meeting him as achild, he being quite a few years older then, and neither of them sees anythinguntoward about being attracted to each other. Her relationship with elderlyJack is bizarre. In the age of #MeToo and better understanding of how women aremanipulated, exploited, and gaslit, I’m appalled at how much of Lucy’svictimhood is rationalized, unexamined, and lacking in feminist context.Neither Hugo nor Jack is outwardly abusive, but the inherent imbalance in powerin each of these relationships means there can be no true consent. Lucy has notbecome empowered by escaping her previous domineering romance, she has only runaway. She is just as vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation as ever.

These issues are far less significant than the crucialproblem: Lucy has no agency as a character. She never rises to the occasion tosolve her own problems. Someone else, whether Hugo, Jack, or her co-worker,always steps in to fix things for her. In the end, after she fails to win thecontest, Jack gives her theisland (so she and Christopher have a place to live), Hugo gives her a painting worth a small fortune, and Jack’s attorney takes overthe legalities of Christopher’s adoption.

The contest to win the unpublished manuscript includes aseries of riddles, which were fun, but not amusing enough to cancel the seriousissues I’ve raised above. Anyone looking for a story in which a characterwrestles with their inner demons and rises above them, learns to act like anadult, and takes control over their destiny through their own efforts willlikely be as disappointed as I was.

 

Baycon 2024 Report

Baycon is my local science fiction convention and I’ve beenattending it, more or less regularly, since the 1990s. It’s moved from onehotel and city to another over the years and I have followed, “as the tailfollows the dog.” My attendance came to a screeching halt in 2020 with thepandemic. The last convention I attended in person was FogCon in February ofthat year. We knew that a nasty virus was afoot but nobody wore masks. We“elbow-bumped” instead of hugging. If anyone got sick, I never heard. Then camethe lockdown, as we called it. Conventions switched to virtual attendance. AlthoughtI’m a somewhat slow adopted or tech, I’d become used to video chatting back in2013, when I took care of my best friend in a different state while she wasdying of cancer. My husband and I stayed in touch (via Skype, if I remembercorrectly). Then when my younger daughter attended medical school on the otherside of the country, we visited by video chat regularly. She moved back to thisarea for her residency. Her final year was 2020, during which her regularservice rotations were replaced by caring for dying Covid patients. Needless tosay, I became quite cautious about my exposure. So even when conventions beganto move from virtual-only to hybrid to in-person, I reconnected slowly. Evenwhen I was ready to attend a convention in person (2023, which shows you howlong it took me), armed with masks, hand sanitizer, and rapid tests, theuniverse conspired to jinx my plans. It was hard. I missed my friends and allthe chance encounters and spontaneous expressions of community. All this is aprelude to my first successful return to in-person conventions.

Baycon programming had asked potential panelists to suggesttopics. Two of mine were accepted, including Writing Beyond Trauma. Here’s thedescription I wrote:

Theseare perilous times for many of us. As survivors or the loved ones of survivors,how has our experience affected us as writers? How do our stories transcend andheal? Escape? Educate our audience? Are there times when the pain is so great,the words simply will not come--what do we do when we have lost our voice andhow do we use writing to regain it? In this panel, we will strive to listenrespectfully and to leave time between each speaker to absorb more deeply whatthey have said.

As asurvivor of complex PTSD, I’m passionately interested in how my experiencesaffect my writing but also how writing provides a path to healing. But traumarefers to much more than individual experiences: it includes community andmembership in larger groups (such as race or gender/sexual minority, immigrantstatus, incarceration history). My co-panelists included two people of color, aNative Indigenous person (Ohlone) and a survivor of cancer. Several of us hadlost people we loved to violence or lived with mental illness. Others hadexperienced genocide directed at our communities. As moderator, I wanted tomake sure the discussion was safe, respectful, and inclusive. I reached out tomy co-panelists before the convention to make sure I understood which topicsthey wanted to be included and which they would prefer to avoid. How might wetread the line between invasion of privacy and triggers while being open? Onething I did was to keep the discussion slow, with time to listen deeply to eachperson’s comments. On several occasions, I asked for a moment to let whatsomeone had said sink in. Panelists shared strategies for unblocking the innervoice when it has fallen silent due to overwhelming pain and grief. Theseranged from picking up a different medium of creativity like music or crafts to“putting fears on the page” to using “baby steps” to reconnect with the flow ofwords. The panel was rich, compelling, and deeply moving.

Thesame day, I was on a panel on Creating Original Worlds. When I was a youngwriter, world-building checklists were highly touted. I could never do that. Mycharacters took me on guided tours of the worlds of my stories. My fellowpanelists agreed that an organic approach to world-building is not onlyperfectly valid but works better for many writers. I’ve had the experience ofnot knowing what research to do until the story demands it. I loved the phrase “reality-adjacent”to describe taking real-world history, cultures, etc., and tweaking them.Alternate history is an example, as are worlds that are familiar except for theaddition of a fantastical or science-fictional element. How a writer createsworlds also depends on whether they are a "pantser” or an outliner.

Inthe panel on Beta Readers and Critique Groups, the panel agreed that it was asimportant to know what advice to ignore as what to take seriously. We alsoagreed that while it’s nice to ask your mother/partner/child to read yourmanuscript, they probably aren’t the best source of helpful feedback. Whenapproaching a trusted reader or critique group, it’s a good idea to specifywhat level of feedback you’re looking for, whether overall impact, sensitivityissues, or line editing. For myself, I rarely let anyone see my first drafts—secondor third is usual. I still revise a lot because my rough drafts are very, veryrough. I also value the community support of writers’ groups.

Mylast panel was Paying Forward, Backward, and Sideways, a love letter tothose who have encouraged us. We told stories of more senior writers who mentoredus, how our colleagues cheered us on (and vice versa), and our responsibilityto the generation of writers after us. I was reminded of a quote from SamuelGoldwyn: “When someone does something good, applaud! You will make two peoplehappy.”

In between all this, I hung out with friends I hadn’t seenin person in four years, had a delightful time in the dealers’ room(gift-buying destination!) and got to attend a few panels. My all-time favoritewas The Worst First Page (with GoH Ryka Aoki, Cliff Winning, Mark Gelineau, and Amanda Cherry), in which panelists attempted to write truly dreadfulfirst pages. Being great writers, they failed, often with hilarious results.One particular entry (by Amanda Cherry -- look for it!) was so well done, the audience enthusiastically urged thewriter to submit it for publication as a humor piece.

 

 

[Guest Post] Writing Black Rose by Arlo Z Graves

 Writing Black Rose

by Arlo Z Graves

 

 

 I knew I wanted to tell stories in first grade.

I entered kindergarten late because at five, Istill couldn’t talk well. Not long after, I ended up in special educationclasses and speech therapy. The special ed teacher, a lovely soul of infinitepatience, assigned us a retelling of Cinderella.

I hated school. The sounds, smells, social rules,they overwhelmed me. But this story, this retelling of Cinderella…it madesense. I could do that. I couldn’t read or write to any extent at the time. Irecall knowing the alphabet and little else, so my mom typed the thing while Idictated it.

It was terrible, naturally, the Cinderella story. Itchanged me. I knew it was what I wanted in life. I knew I had stories to tell.I knew I wanted to be a writer.

 

I didn’t learn to read until I was sixteen. It’sstill a struggle. My brain sees the negative space around the words and lettersbefore the words themselves. Sometimes there are colors involved too. It’s aprocessing difference that modern technology allows me to adapt around. Butbefore I could change the display of my laptop or simply have it read to me, mymom read to me. She read so much of my college curriculum, she deserves her owndegree.

My dad told me stories. Every day on the way toschool, he fabricated outrageous adventures of magical creatures living onMars.

Between my parents, I might have been behind mypeers in terms of ability, but I was well-read and inspired.

In high school, I started writing fanfiction. Iwent through a several-year hyper-fixation on the movies Van Helsing andTombstone. So, I wrote about them. I put Van Helsing in the American West. Ipitted him against a shapeshifting menace with a magical revolver. It wasasinine teenage stuff. I called it Black Rose after the magical revolver.

“That’s a good story,” Dad said. “That’s a funstory.”

I forgot about it and moved on. Fast forwardthrough a creative writing program at UCSC and several years spinning my wheelsquerying.

One day, my partner and I had dinner in ScottsValley. I remember tearing up at the table. “I don’t know what I’m supposed todo,” I said.

I’d been writing and querying, and piling updozens, then hundreds of rejection letters.

I don’t remember exactly what my partner said.Something to the tune of: the right opportunities are coming.

Whatever he said, I got myself together and walkedacross the Safeway parking lot to the CVS for soap.

“Excuse me,” said a voice behind me. “That is themost amazing coat.”

I turned to thank her.

“You look like you stepped right out of a book. Iwrite fantasy, you could be a character.”

I almost started crying again. “A real writer?” Iasked. “You’re a real writer?”

She was indeed. She was Lillian Csernica (who writes about Finding Happiness in Writing here.)

We ended up meeting for tea. Then tea again. Sheintroduced me to Duotrope and got me writing in different lengths. Flashfiction, short stories, novellas. She pushed me. She believed in me.

More important than anything else, than anystories I may write or sell, I made a friend that day. A stranger in a Safewayparking lot picked up my broken hope, dusted it off, and handed it back to me.“Let’s fix this up. You’ve got things to do kid.”

 

I wrote about things that scared me. I wrote aboutthe fire, the CZU. That piece went on to win the grand prize in Stories ThatNeed to be Told.

My parents saved half of our neighborhood duringthe fire, and I want to give something back to them. My dad, at seventy yearsold, held a firehose over our cabin while a crew backburned up the mountain.Pieces of homes fell on the roof.

“Are you ever going to write Black Rose?” my dadstill asks me.

 

I wrote Black Rose.

It’s so stupid, it’s too stupid…I kept telling myself.

I imagined Lillian’s voice in my mind asking: why?Why is it stupid?

I outlined it, made the magic system, sat down andwrote the thing. I drew heavily from the Louis L'Amour books my mom readto me in bulk. I drew from the bonkers antics of my dad’s bite-sized spaceoperas.

Using my winnings from the fire memoir, I booked atrip to old west ghost towns for research and took my mom with me. This wassuch an important experience. I’d looked at hundreds of images of Rhyolite andGoldfield Nevada to craft a wasteland setting for the book. But when we gotthere in our rental car, we found the landscape rich with color and diverse inplant and animal life. If I’d gone off of Google’s visions of the Nevadadesert, I would never have known to incorporate so much beauty into the story.To me, those little details tied it all together into a piece I can be proudof.

 

Every time I give my family a writing update, Dadasks: “when are you going to write Black Rose?”

Don’t tell him I already wrote it. I hope somedaysoon, I can hand it to him, bound and polished. He always believed in it andI’m not sure why. And yet, here it is in spite of everything.

 

 

Postscript: Black Rose just made the long list forthe Uncharted Novel Excerpt prize.

 

 

Arlo Z Graves is a nonbinary hillbilly who livesin a shack in the woods. ‘Zven’ enjoys ocarina, night hikes, and goth fashion.Their story Gerald: a Memoir won Stories That Need to be Told 2023 andtheir work can be found at Dragon Soul Press, the 96th of October,and others. Visit Zven on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/arlozgraves/

 

 

 

Short Book Reviews: The Keeper's Six by Kate Elliott

The Keeper's Six, by Kate Elliott (Tordotcom)

 

I’m an unabashed fan of stories featuring kick-ass olderwomen. My favorites include The Stone War by Madeleine E. Robins andElizabeth Moon’s Remnant Population. Now I add The Keeper's Six, by KateElliott. The story opens with middle-aged Esther getting a frantic, cut-offphone call from her adult son, Daniel. It turns out to be every mother’snightmare: He’s been kidnapped. Only this is not the mundane world and Daniel’skidnapper turns out to be a dragon lord who lives in an island of stable realityin the midst of the non-real, ever-shifting, fatally treacherous Beyond whereDark is deadly but Bright daylight is even more so. Esther is not withoutresources. Although they are on temporary suspension by the Powers-That-Be, sheis a member of a Hex, a five-person magical team, a combination freelance fortunehunters and SWAT team. Their sixth member is Daniel, Keeper to the Keep (abungalow on Oahu where Daniel’s partner and their quadruplet toddlers live)that provides passage and anchor between ordinary reality to the Beyond. Aftersome persuasion, for Esther is responsible for the suspension and hence not inthe Hex’s good graces, she convinces them to track down Daniel and rescue him,whatever it takes. Daniel, meanwhile, has been organizing the dragon lord’s servantsto demand better working conditions through collective bargaining whilewhipping up heavenly pastries.

The story is by turns dramatic, thriller-tense, full ofreversals and plot twists, inventive in both world-building and characterdevelopment, touching, and funny. (I love the idea of magically indenturedservants going on strike.) And a sweet could-be-love story. Elliott pulls offthe difficult feat of weaving in backstory and innovative world-buildingwithout losing the dramatic movement of the opening scenes. It’s a stand-alone,self-contained gem. I expect fans will clamor for a sequel or five. TheKeeper’s Six is so perfect, I hope she resists.

 

[reprint] Sex, Gender, and Genetic Testing

Genetic testing cannot reveal the gender of your baby − two genetic counselors explain the complexities of sex and gender Gender and sex are more complicated than X and Y chromosomes. I Like That One/Digital Vision via Getty Images Maggie Ruderman, Boston University and Kimberly Zayhowski, Boston University

Gender reveal parties are best known as celebrations involving pink and blue, cake and confetti, and the occasional wildfire. Along with being social media hits, gender reveals are a testament to how society is squeezing children into one of two predetermined gender boxes before they are even born.

These parties are often based on the 18- to 20-week ultrasound, otherwise known as the anatomy scan. This is the point during fetal development when the genitals are typically observed and the word “boy” or “girl” can be secretly written on a piece of paper and placed into an envelope for the planned reveal.

Now there is a new player in the gender reveal game: genetic screening.

Advancements in genetic research have led to the development of a simple blood test called cell-free DNA prenatal screening that screens for whether a baby has extra or missing pieces of genetic information – chromosomes – as early as 10 weeks into pregnancy. Included in this test are the sex chromosomes, otherwise known as X and Y, that play a role in the development and function of the body.

Prenatal screening tests look for chromosomal abnormalities. Anastasia Usenko/iStock via Getty Images Plus

This blood test is more informally called noninvasive prenatal testing, or NIPT. Many people refer to it as “the gender test.” But this blood test cannot determine gender.

As genetic counselors and clinical researchers working to improve genetic services for gender-diverse and intersex people, we emphasize the significance of using precise and accurate language when discussing genetic testing. This is critical for providing affirming counseling to any patient seeking pregnancy-related genetic testing and resisting the erasure of transgender and intersex people in health care.

Distinguishing sex and sex chromosomes

Sex and gender are often used interchangeably, but they represent entirely different concepts.

Typically when people think of sex, they think of the categories female or male. Most commonly, sex is assigned by health care providers at birth based on the genitals they observe on the newborn. Sex may also be assigned based on the X and Y chromosomes found on a genetic test. Commonly, people with XX chromosomes are assigned female at birth, and people with XY chromosomes are assigned male. Since cell-free DNA, or cfDNA, prenatal screening can report on sex chromosomes months before birth, babies are receiving sex assignments much sooner than previously possible.

While cfDNA prenatal screening can offer insights into what sex chromosomes an infant may have, sex determination is much more complicated than just X’s and Y’s.

For one, sex chromosomes don’t exactly determine someone’s sex. Other chromosomes, hormone receptors, neural pathways, reproductive organs and environmental factors contribute to sex determination as well, not unlike an orchestra with its ensemble of instruments. Each cello, flute, tympani and violin plays a crucial role in the performance of the final musical score. There is no single instrument that defines the entirety of the symphony.

Expanding social and medical concepts of sex and gender beyond the binary can help patients and doctors.

Intersex people, or those with variations in sex characteristics that deviate from societal norms of binary sex, exemplify the complexities of sex. These variations can manifest in various ways beyond X and Y chromosomes, such as differences in hormone levels, genitalia or secondary sexual characteristics.

The oversimplification of sex based on societal norms has led many to believe that there are only two discrete sexes. The binary framework of sex excludes intersex people and perpetuates their erasure and mistreatment within both health care and society at large.

For instance, many intersex individuals face unnecessary surgeries, such as nonconsensual genital procedures, to conform to binary norms, violating their bodily autonomy.

Where gender comes in

While sex typically describes someone’s anatomical characteristics, gender is an umbrella term that encompasses the way someone views and presents themselves to the world. Countless aspects influence how someone defines their own gender and how the world views their gender, including clothing, haircuts and voice tone. Similar to how Western cultures have historically confined sex to two buckets, it has also created two gender categories: man and woman.

Gender is not dependent on anatomical parts or chromosomes. People are not math equations, and having certain combinations of biological parts does not equal someone’s gender. For example, some people may be transgender, meaning their assigned sex is not congruent with their socially or self-defined gender. Nonbinary people do not identify exclusively with either of the two genders in the binary, regardless of their assigned sex.

Just like sex diversity, gender diversity is not rare. A 2022 Pew Research Center analysis found that approximately 5% of adults in the U.S. under the age of 30 are transgender or nonbinary.

These estimates will likely increase as societal awareness and acceptance of gender-diverse individuals increases. Anti-transgender legislation often oversimplifies gender as strictly binary, conflating it solely with sex assigned at birth.

Intersex and gender-diverse people show that sex and gender are both multidimensional. Gender is not solely determined by biology, and it is erroneous to define someone’s gender by their sex, much less by their sex chromosomes.

Challenging sex and gender norms

The idea that biology plays the largest role in determining who an individual is, or bioessentialism, has governed misconceptions about sex and gender for many years. This concept is used to confine people to buckets and limit their self-determination.

For instance, societal norms dictate that women should be nurturing and gentle, while men are expected to be protective and assertive. Such rigid gender roles, often enforced through the lens of biology, serve to uphold notions of evolutionary destiny and a purported natural order.

Categorizing your child at birth limits their ability to define who they are. Halfpoint Images/Moment via Getty Images

Marketing strategies for children’s toys often adhere strictly to gender roles, steering girls toward dolls and domestic play sets while steering boys toward action figures and construction sets.

Educational systems often reinforce gender norms by directing girls toward subjects such as literature and arts while steering boys toward science and mathematics. This perpetuates the notion that certain traits and interests are inherently linked to one’s sex and gender, thereby reinforcing societal norms and sustaining inequality.

Upholding binary constructs of sex and gender does not allow for individuality and gender fluidity. Categorizing people from the time their chromosomes are analyzed or the moment their genitals are observed at birth restricts their autonomy and authenticity. These simple assumptions set expectations that can be harmful.

Letting children define themselves

If you’re a parent offered cfDNA prenatal screening during pregnancy, remember that it is commenting only on one instrument in the orchestra of sex. It cannot examine all of the other factors that determine sex as a whole. And it most certainly cannot determine gender, which is an entirely different concert.

In recent years, Jenna Karvunidis, the mother considered the inventor of gender reveal parties, shared her regrets for starting the trend and noted that her views on sex and gender have shifted. In a 2019 Facebook post, Karvunidis wrote, “PLOT TWIST. The world’s first gender reveal party baby is a girl who wears suits!” She had also gone on to say, “Celebrate the baby … Let’s just have a cake.”

When the envelope is opened, the balloons are popped and the crafty cake is cut, consider how these practices perpetuate social confinements and a gendered destiny for your little bundle of joy. Perhaps opt simply for a celebration that leaves space for your child to one day define who they are.

Maggie Ruderman, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Boston University and Kimberly Zayhowski, Assistant Professor, Boston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.