Allyson Shaw's Blog, page 10
February 15, 2011
Fighting Words from Eileen Myles
Is writing just a job. Writing books, writing poems. If it is then the message to women is to go elsewhere. But they can go to hell—these messengers, the collective whoever or whatever that is saying it. I don't believe that this is a job. I think writing is a passion. It's an urge as deep as life itself. It's sex. It's being and becoming. If you write, then writing is how you know. And when someone starts slowly removing women from of the public reflection of this fact they are saying that she doesn't know. Or I don't care if she thinks she knows. She is not a safe bet. "Being Female", Eileen Myles
After seeing the recent gaping gender discrepancy in the NYTimes Book review for 2010– Women, 283 to men, 524– Eileen Myles responds by questioning not just gender bias but whether feminism has taken hold after the 70s and what is women's position in publishing as an ever-shrinking door. She also talks about what it might be like to be loved.
"The culture. I try to act like its mine. Its beloved son." It's something all writers must do to trick themselves into the hard work of writing– how much harder is this mind trick for women when faced with these statistics and all the other negations that come with being female? But the ones that do manage it– what stories they tell.
Speculative fiction is still dominated by male voices, but the female writer of speculative fiction has a better chance at this daily battle for love– she invents the fresh universe of her work and its laws and loves. Writing is how you know.
April 3, 2010
My First Con
GenCon XV, 1983 from Alexander1968's Flickr stream
Yesterday I braved Odyssey Con in the badlands outside of Heathrow. A strange landscape to traverse– part of it appears/disappears in The Desperate Ones. My partner who was good enough to accompany me said, "Don't you want to change all the H's to D's so it reads Deathrow?" Yeah, kinda.
The venue was small, labyrinthine and much too hot. (What was with all the under-filled "water-interest" decor about the place? Those glass fish beached at t...
April 2, 2010
Automata Fetish
Andrew Chase's Robotic Cheetah
I confess my fetish. All authors must have them, these objects the subconscious courts, and these furtive meetings fuel the writing.
My last fling was with Tippoo's Tiger, an automata at the V&A:
Tippoo's Tiger
The automaton has a bellows inside which simulates growling and human cries– this informed the imagining of the locusts in the novel, though of course this has only revealed itself to me in hindsight.
More wind-up life can be found here: automataonline
...
March 27, 2010
12 Years of Comics in 60 Seconds
For 12 years Patrick Farley, cover artist of The Desperate Ones, has been producing amazing comics and putting them on the web during his spare time. He's stepping things up with .
There are so many ways to get involved and support indie publishing, it's really an exciting time to get on board with this movement.
March 22, 2010
Don’t Look Back
Frame from Patrick Farley's "Don't Look Back"
Patrick Farley, cover artist of The Desperate Ones, has a new comic up at Dicebox, Jenn Manley Lee’s gorgeous web comic site. Patrick’s comic is funny and packed with philosophical verisimilitude, all packaged in his sublimely subversive VR aesthetic.
Don't Look Back
Frame from Patrick Farley's "Don't Look Back"
Patrick Farley, cover artist of The Desperate Ones, has a new comic up at Dicebox, Jenn Manley Lee's gorgeous web comic site. Patrick's comic is funny and packed with philosophical verisimilitude, all packaged in his sublimely subversive VR aesthetic.
December 1, 2009
An exciting new journal of esoteric thought
Mermaid Surgery, one of my earlier sestinas, has been reprinted in the lush, tactile and fascinating Abraxas. To be among the pages with Aleister Crowley is quite thrilling.
November 22, 2009
Support indie authors and publishing
Hello dearest readers, in breaking the lull on this blog, I give you a necessary argument about indie artists and money, by Amanda (fucking) Palmer. I will let her speak for me. In short:
…artists will now be coming straight to you (yes YOU, you who want their music, their films, their books) for their paychecks.
please welcome them. please help them. please do not make them feel badly about asking you directly for money.
dead serious: this is the way shit is going to work from now on and it...
