Gwenda, Author at Gwenda Bond

Tiptree’d

3 Comments / Books, Scientifiction / By Gwenda / April 15, 2008

Needless to say, I am VERY happy with the work we jurors did this year. Go us!

PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION – 2008.04.14

JAMES TIPTREE JR. AWARD WINNER ANNOUNCED

A gender-exploring science fiction award is presented to Sarah Hall for The Carhullan Army (Daughters of the North)

The James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2007 Tiptree Award is The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall (published in the United States as Daughters of the North). The British edition was published in 2007 by Faber & Faber; the American edition in 2008 by HarperCollins.

The Tiptree Award will be celebrated on May 25, 2008 at WisCon (www.wiscon.info) in Madison, Wisconsin. The winner of the Tiptree Award receives $1000 in prize money, an original artwork created specifically for the winning novel or story, and (as always) chocolate.

Each year, a panel of five jurors selects the Tiptree Award winners and compiles an Honor List of other works that they find interesting, relevant to the award, and worthy of note. The 2007 jurors were Charlie Anders, Gwenda Bond (chair), Meghan McCarron, Geoff Ryman, and Sheree Renee Thomas.

The Carhullan Army elicited strong praise from the jurors. Gwenda Bond said, “Hall does so many things well in this book – writing female aggression in a believable way, dealing with real bodies in a way that makes sense, and getting right to the heart of the contradictions that violence brings out in people, but particularly in women in ways we still don’t see explored that often. I found the writing entrancing and exactly what it needed to be for the story; lean, but well-turned.” Geoff Ryman said, “It faces up to our current grim future (something too few SF novels have done) and seems to go harder and darker into war, violence, and revolution.” Meghan McCarron said, “I found the book to be subtle and ambiguous in terms of its portrayal of the Army, and its utopia….The book became, ultimately, an examination of what it means to attain physical, violent power as defined by a male-dominated world. And it asserted that it could be claimed by anyone, regardless of physical sex, provided they were willing to pay the price.”

The book, which is Hall’s third novel, also won the 2007 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best work of literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama) from Britain or the Commonwealth written by an author of 35 or under.

The Tiptree Award Honor List is a strong part of the award’s identity and is used by many readers as a recommended reading list for the rest of the year. The 2007 Honor List is:

"Dangerous Space" by Kelley Eskridge, in the author’s collection Dangerous Space (Aqueduct Press, 2007)
Water Logic by Laurie Marks (Small Beer Press, 2007)
Empress of Mijak and The Riven Kingdom by Karen Miller (HarperCollins, Australia, 2007)
The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu (Hyperion, 2007)
Interfictions, edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss (Interstitial Arts Foundation/Small Beer Press, 2007)
Glasshouse by Charles Stross (Ace, 2006)
The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper (Harper Collins 2007)
Y: The Last Man, written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Pia Guerra (available in 60 issues or 10 volumes from DC/Vertigo Comics, 2002-2008)
Flora Segunda by Ysabeau Wilce (Harcourt, 2007)

The James Tiptree Jr. Award is presented annually to a work or works that explore and expand gender roles in science fiction and fantasy. The award seeks out work that is thought-provoking, imaginative, and perhaps even infuriating. The Tiptree Award is intended to reward those women and men who are bold enough to contemplate shifts and changes in gender roles, a fundamental aspect of any society.

The James Tiptree Jr. Award was created in 1991 to honor Alice Sheldon, who wrote under the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. By her choice of a masculine pen name, Sheldon helped break down the imaginary barrier between “women’s writing” and “men’s writing.” Her insightful short stories were notable for their thoughtful examination of the roles of men and women in our society.

Since its inception, the Tiptree Award has been an award with an attitude. As a political statement, as a means of involving people at the grassroots level, as an excuse to eat cookies, and as an attempt to strike the proper ironic note, the award has been financed through bake sales held at science fiction conventions across the United States, as well as in England and Australia. Fundraising efforts have included auctions conducted by stand-up comic and award-winning writer Ellen Klages, the sale of t-shirts and aprons created by collage artist and silk screener Freddie Baer, and the publication of four anthologies of award winners and honor-listed stories. Three of the anthologies are in print and available from Tachyon Publications (www.tachyonpublications.com). The award has also published two cookbooks featuring recipes and anecdotes by science fiction writers and fans, available through www.tiptree.org.

In addition to presenting the Tiptree Award annually, the James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council occasionally presents the Fairy Godmother Award, a special award in honor of Angela Carter. Described as a “mini, mini, mini, mini MacArthur award,” the Fairy Godmother Award strikes without warning, providing a financial boost to a deserving writer in need of assistance to continue creating material that matches the goals of the Tiptree Award.

Reading for the 2008 Tiptree Award will soon begin, with jurors K. Tempest Bradford, Gavin Grant (chair), Leslie Howle, Roz Kaveney, and Catherynne M. Valente. As always, the Tiptree Award invites all to recommend works for the award. Please submit recommendations via the Tiptree Award website at www.tiptree.org.

For more information, visit the Tiptree Award website at www.tiptree.org.

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Monsters of Academia (Updated)

1 Comment / Books, MFA Rock / By Gwenda / April 14, 2008

To a greater or lesser extent, John Gardner’s ideas about writing are just one of those things you eventually have to deal with in MFA school. For my critical thesis topic–the omniscient point of view–The Art of Fiction became one of my primary source books (he was a big fan), and On Becoming a Novelist worked its way in there too, since I had a point to make about the oft-misinterpreted fictive dream concept.

I won’t bore you with talk about that. But running down some things, I came across a couple of links that might be of interest. (Jeff Ford, you studied with Gardner, right?*)

Anyway, I like this passage from Stewart O’Nan’s "Notes from the Underground," on how seeing the various drafts of Grendel taught him to revise:

I’d heard how hard writers worked at revising, but here was concrete and heartening proof. I’d been impatient with my work because my early drafts lacked depth and precision; now I realized I had completely misjudged them, and misjudged the effort required to write well. It was not brilliance or facility that was necessary, but the determination to bear and even enjoy the dull process of wading into one’s own bad prose again, one more time, and then once again, with the utmost concentration and taste, looking for opportunities to mine deeper, clues to what these people wanted and needed. I went back to my desk, applied myself with this in mind, and discovered that I was again writing on another level, a level that even now I’m happy to reach.

More fun is a Baltimore City Paper piece about Gardner’s infamous feud with John Barth:

As the class proceeds, Gardner proceeds to take the gloves off. Suddenly he is attacking his host, Barth, whom he tags as a "secondary" writer–someone who writes fiction about fiction. And chief among Barth’s offenses, just in case the students were thinking of buying it, is Giles Goat-Boy, which Gardner tells them is "arch, extravagantly self-indulgent, clumsily allegorical, pedantic, tiresomely and pretentiously advance-guard, and like much of our ‘new fiction’, puerilely obscene."

A few days later, the argument is recounted in The Sun, in an article portentously titled "Two Literary Lions Tangle." Barth fires off a letter to The Sun, acknowledging that he "registered, very briefly, some of my objections to [Gardner’s] eloquently expressed literary opinions because that is what seminars–indeed universities–are for." But as the letter proceeds, it sounds as though Barth believes he’s entitled to a rebuttal. What follows is a biting, if somewhat tongue-in-cheek, evaluation of his colleague’s recently published On Moral Fiction as "an intellectually immoral, self-serving, finally demalogical attack on his contemporaries, many of whom (in my opinion) are immensely more talented than himself."

It’s hard to disagree with the take of Liz Rosenberg (caught between them at the time):

When asked how significant, in the end, she thought this battle was, Rosenberg thinks carefully before answering. "I don’t know," she says finally. "There was an experimental phase in writing, which has died down to some degree, but maybe that battle untethered the way for greater freedom in writing." She does express some regret for the passing of an era when two major writers cared passionately enough to fight about the principles of their art. "Since then, battles have become purely personal and a lot less ideological," she says.

More high-minded feuds, please.

*Updated: Jeff reminds me why I was thinking that — well, besides that it’s true. A couple of years ago, he posted his introduction to the Fantasy Masterwords edition of Grendel:

I got to see first hand how he approached the craft of fiction. I’d bring him my short stories, and he would go to work on them, spending as much time as was necessary to show me the gaffs, what repairs were possible, where the fatal flaws lay, and discuss writing strategies that would help me to circumvent the same problems in the future. A meeting could take up to two hours. Rehabilitating a single awkward sentence was as important as understanding the entire structure of a story, and a story’s structure was discussed as if it were a kind of music. If there was a line of students waiting to see him outside his door, they would have to wait until he was finished, but they always waited, because they knew that when it was their turn, he would do the same for each of them.

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Sunday Hangovers (Updated)

2 Comments / Hangovers / By Gwenda / April 13, 2008

Trashing teachers (and others) on MySpace.
Time Out asks a bunch of publishing types about the industry, and how books get to readers–or not: "First of all, there are no prime movers in the publishing world, but rather a nexus of agents, editors and publicists who collaborate in the attempt to push a book toward the tipping point. Second, almost every person I spoke with—a mere sliver of a massive industry, I’ll admit—contradicted someone else. The interesting thing about this latter fact was that no one seemed wrong, exactly. Instead, the contradictions emphasized that while there are identifiable forces that might drive a book to success (most notably the twin peaks of an author’s talent and a publisher’s marketing skills), the industry remains a constantly shifting game of chance."
The Great All Right/Alright Debate of 2008: Scalzi vs. Cheney. Updated: Escalation has occurred: Hamster vs. Cthulhu Dick Cheney Threatening a Hamster!
A crown of sonnets written just for Poetry Friday (cheers!).
Various SF discussions referenced at Niall’s.
Lee Siegel pity reaches critical mass.
The 2008 Locus Poll closes on April 15th.
Nicola on the mysteries–and sweat–of writing.
"Gender Inequity in Whoville."
The transformation of CBGB into a shop for expensive clothes.
Ann Hornaday on the tenured professor in cinema: "It’s a cinematic archetype as reliable as the fish out of water and the blonde in distress: the disheveled, misanthropic college professor, in the throes of writer’s block (or some other form of publish-or-perish anxiety), living in book-lined solitude as a result of divorce, death or free-floating disgust with humanity."

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Nice Digs

1 Comment / Science Project / By Gwenda / April 11, 2008

I could totally live in this house. Although I bet the plumbing repair isn’t cheap there either.

Actually, I could live in most of these (this one‘s for Richard though).

(Via Ellen Datlow.)

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Counter Meme

1 Comment / Memes Upon Memes / By Gwenda / April 11, 2008

And Janni Simner springs a meme of her own "because most memes fail to ask the things we really want to know" — I’m going to employ the same one word answer rule. (Compound nouns count!)

1. Have you ever killed a man? no
2. With your own hands? no
3. What, in your opinion, is the best way to transport contraband across state and country lines? Burt Reynolds
4. Even if you’re transporting explosives? yes
5. Really? yes
6. Have you ever stolen a library book? yes
7. On purpose, or only because you found it under your bed years after you reported it lost and paid the fine? purposefully
8. Where were you on November 1, 2007? home
9. Can you prove it? yep
10. You had to think about that, didn’t you? yep
11. How much is it worth to you for me to pretend I didn’t notice? nada
12. Have you spent years building up an immunity to iocane powder? (And if you know a faster method, will you share it?) no
13. Name three different ways to start a fire. Drew Barrymore, Human Torch, matches
14. Now try to convince me you only know that because you were a Girl/Boy Scout/Guide once. wasn’t
15. How many digits of pi can you recite from memory? zero
16. Did you have to count out the digits on your fingers to answer that? no
17. Did you check online to make sure you remembered right before answering? no
18. Does all this talk about numbers make you uncomfortable? very
19. Or are you just wondering what it has to do with the rest of the meme? no
20. Seriously, where did you bury the body? permafrost
21. Where were you on March 16, 2036? why
22. If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump, too? yep (note: only because they would probably have a very good reason — smart friends)
23. What is the ninja replacement score for your life? none

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Friday Words

Memes Upon Memes / By Gwenda / April 11, 2008

Via the one and only Reechard Butner:

You know the drill: one word answers only.
1. Where is your mobile phone? desk
2. Your significant other? Sillyhead
3. Your hair? blond
4. Your mother? smart
5. Your father? cranky
6. Your favorite thing? unexpected
7. Your dream last night? forgotten
8. Your favorite drink? champagne
9. Your dream/goal? flexible
10. The room you’re in? windowed
11. Your ex? forgotten
12. Your fear? luck
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here
14. Where were you last night? bedrace
15. What you’re not? flighty
16. Muffins? maybe
17. One of your wish list items? scooter
18. Where you grew up? country
19. The last thing you did? chat
20. What are you wearing? green
21. Your TV? shows
22. Your pets? groomer
23. Your computer? currently
24. Your life? good
25. Your mood? tired
26. Missing someone? yep
27. Your car? cute
28. Something you’re not wearing? tiara
29. Favorite Store? Lush
30. Your summer? hot
31. Like someone? lots
32. Your favorite color? blue
33. When is the last time you laughed? today
34. Last time you cried? PMS

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Sparkly

3 Comments / Nattering / By Gwenda / April 9, 2008

I must tell you that I saw these little numbers at Tarjhay the other night, and it was very hard to resist. Lauren, what do you think?

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Heretical Amazon Hacking

2 Comments / Books, Scientifiction / By Gwenda / April 9, 2008

Paul Witcover over at the inferior 4+1 (inferior to no one!) pointed to this Reuters story about a survey looking at Americans favorite books. The findings:

"While the Bible is number one among each of the different demographic groups, there is a large difference in the number two favorite book," Harris said in a statement announcing the results.

Men chose J.R.R. Tolkien’s "The Lord of the Rings" and women selected Margaret Mitchell’s "Gone With the Wind" as their second-favorite book, according to the online poll.

But the second choice for 18- to 31-year-olds was J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, while 32- to 43-year-olds named Stephen King’s "The Stand" and Dan Brown’s "Angels and Demons".

Picks for second-favorite book also varied according to region. "Gone With the Wind" was number two in the southern and midwestern United States while easterners chose "The Lord of the Rings" and westerners opted for "The Stand".

In the comments, a clever commenter named Kit suggests the following diabolical scheme for authors:

You know that you can use the bible to make your amazon #s zoom, right? Make all your friends order your book and the cheapest possible edition of the bible simultaneously. Pretty soon people who click on the most-clicked-on amazon title will see:

readers who bought this also liked YOUR TITLE HERE

So obvious, it just might work…

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Tuesday Hangovers

5 Comments / Hangovers / By Gwenda / April 8, 2008

As anyone who’s read Brian Francis Slattery’s Spaceman Blues knows, it’s always a good thing when he writes about music.
Three members of the King clan–Stephen, Tabitha, and Owen–do a talk about writing for D.C. area high schoolers at the Library of Congress and the Washington Post writes about the family’s literary life. Some excellent little moments, like this one:
There is a widespread notion that "if you sell a lot of books, you’ve got to be peddling crap," she adds, and the problem is, it’s sometimes true. There are big-name authors who "can’t write and they can’t plot."

"But we won’t mention any names. Like James Patterson," Stephen says.
Jane Smiley stirs up some dust with her snobby review of Jennifer Weiner’s latest. Frank Wilson at Books Inq says he wouldn’t have ~~edited~~pulled the review either; spirited discussion in the comments.
Y tu, mattresses? Is everything we touch now polluted with vile substances? Don’t answer.
The fabulous Kevin Brockmeier will be the next guest editor for Best American Fantasy. (Congratulations, Matt!) Want a reminder what his taste is like? Some time ago, I posted the list of his 50 favorite books.
See The Pixies documentary loudQUIETloud online free for a week.
SAT = troubled test.
Jessa Crispin on reader’s block. I’m all about regressing to the Christopher Pike stage.
Ypulse reminds me to read the Magic in the Mirrorstone anthology.
Kelley Eskridge on story and mirror neurons.

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Mercury Retrograde?

1 Comment / Miscellany / By Gwenda / April 7, 2008

Today’s Annoying Parts of Life: 1) tire with a hole in it (fixed, and even for free), 2) hot water heater problems plus (with the plus upping the total to YEEOUCH 3-grand), and 3) dirty hair (see hot water heater problems) and bad sleep last night leading to a general state of fuzzy-headedness.

It’s a nice day outside, at least, and these things are minor in the scheme of, and too shall pass. Etc. (It would be, perhaps, easier if I wasn’t on antibiotics that prevent the consumption of wine. Three. More. Days.)

And now that I’ve TMI-ed you to death, here’s a happiness-inducing thing: Graeme McMillan’s list of X-Men Who Should Be X-ed Out. I’m still mulling whether I have any additions, but have got to concur with Angel and some of the other conclusions*. Your own nominations welcome in the comments.

Also, if you’re a moneybags and would, y’know, like to send me 3-grand, I have a use for it**.

*Who knew that Australian teleporters suck so hard?

**No, I’m not going post-apocalypse. I should be able to shower when I get home. Poor, but clean.

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