2012 – Page 7 – markwebb.name

In which I become less impressed with my AWWC achievements

I recently posted on me reaching my target in the Australian Women Writers’ 2012 Reading Challenge. I was (and still am) happy that I’ve participated in the challenge – everything that I said in the original post about expanding my reading etc still holds true.

As a part of the post I added up all the reviews that I’d done since I started this website to check the gender breakdown. It turned out it was roughly equal (16 female authors compared to 14 male authors). I was pretty happy with that too.

That’s the part I’ve been thinking about over the last week. While I remain satisfied with the ratio, there was one aspect of my own reaction that has started to bug me.

I feel like I’ve been reading mostly women authors over the last 6 months or so. I sought out books written by women in the genres I’m interested in and made a point of prioritising women authors in my to-be-read list. I didn’t feel like I was reading many male authors at all and that my reading was “dominated” by female authors.

And it still came out 50/50.

It was a stark reminder of the power of unconscious biases. Admittedly my sample was pretty small, but somehow I’d “made an effort” reading 16 books by female authors, while reading 14 books by male authors had somehow happened without me noticing.

I consider myself a firm believer in equality. I don’t think I engage in any conscious sexist behaviour and I believe in judging individuals on their merits, not based on a stereotype or cliche. I knew I’d been guilty of letting my reading circle shrink over the years, but the fact that pre-challenge I was reading mainly male authors I put down to being time poor and perhaps a little conventional in sticking with authors I’d discovered in my youth.

Thinking about my reaction and listening to some of the discussion in the last couple of episodes of The Writer and the Critic podcast (episodes 18 and 19) when Ian and Kirstyn spoke at length about some of the default male centric settings in modern Australian society has left me a bit shell shocked. It’s triggered a lot of self reflection. I blame the bloody objective data. Self delusion would be a lot easier without it.

I look forward to the day when maintaining a more diverse reading pattern doesn’t seem like an effort. But in the mean time I’ll continue on with the AWWC, listening to excellent podcasts like The Writer and the Critic when they intelligently discuss these kinds of issues and hope like hell I’m able to evolve!

In the Service of the Public accepted for publication

Ion Newcombe, the editor at Antipodean SF, has accepted one of my flash fiction pieces for publication. In the Service of the Public is currently scheduled for issue 169 of Antipodean SF, published in July 2012. I’ll also record a reading for the radio show/podcast, which will be broadcast some time in June.

Many thanks again to Nuke and the group of people that volunteer to help out with Antipodean SF for being such great supporters of my work.

Australian Women Writers 2012 Reading Challenge – mission accomplished?

This morning I published my review of Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan and I realised I’ve read 10 books by Australian women writers in 2012 and published reviews on all 10. And that means I’ve met my revised challenge target – a purist (speculative fiction) at the Franklin-fantastic level (read 10 books, review at least 4).

I must admit it feels good to have met my target. Participating in the challenge has helped me become more aware of the biases in my reading habits, assisted me to more consciously seek out diversity amongst the authors I am following and led me to some cracking good yarns I might not have otherwise come across. Can’t ask for much more out of a reading challenge!

I’m particularly proud of the article on the reading challenge I had published with Antipodean SF, as well as the review of When We Have Wings that Elizabeth Lhuede was good enough to publish on the Australian Women Writers website.

But like the circumstances that surrounded the US President who famously said his mission was accomplished, the challenge doesn’t really end here. I’m hoping this milestone marks the start of a fundamentally different pattern of reading for me. A quick check over my reviews on this website since I started shows me reviewing 16 books by female authors and 14 by male authors. That’s within a margin of error of parity. By this time next year I intend to be able to quote similar statistics.

I’m going to continue with the AWWC until the end of 2012, tagging any reviews of Australian female authors for the challenge. 10 by May – hopefully December will see me at 25 or so.

For those that are interested, links to my first 10 reviews can be found below:

Update

Since finishing the initial challenge, I’ve read and reviewed a few more books. I’ll keep updating this post with the additional reviews as they come in so I have a single listing.

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2012 Reading Challenge. All my AWWC reviews can be found here.

Sea Hearts (also published as The Brides of Rollrock Island in the US and UK) by Australian author Margo Lanagan is a powerful exploration of the dynamics of a closed community when put under (magically induced) stress.

After a brief prologue, the story opens from the perspective of a young girl, Misskaella, who is growing up in a small village on Rollrock Island. Unloved and unliked by family and neighbour alike, she grows to resent her whole village. When she discovers she has the ability to draw out selkies from seals, who take the form of women with an unearthly beauty and a strong level of docility, she begins to exact a measure of revenge by accepting payment from men to get a sea-wife for them.

The remainder of the novel tells the story of the impact of that action on the community. It is told from multiple points of view over several generations. One of the effects of this technique was to give a great sense of the timescale over which the story is being told (in this way it was similar in effect to the recent collection Ishtar although over much shorter timeframes).

I struggled to understand the men of Rollrock Island. The desire for beautiful but docile women who keep house and are only in the relationship because they have no choice seems… well seems stupid. So there was a certain satisfaction in watching a society based on that premise slowly disintegrate, that form of relationship critiqued and found wanting. However, where the tale was most powerful was when it showed the impact of such imbalanced relationships on the children exposed to them.

The writing was very poetic and quite lovely. I’ve only read some of Ms Lanagan’s short stories before this, and this novel reinforced my impressions of an author who has a very strong mastery of language.

The structure of the book was very interesting. The changing points of view is a good vehicle for creating rich characters, none more so than the witch Misskaella. Essentially, the novel traces out the arc of her life, from young woman to dying crone but by showing her from different perspectives it allowed the reader a measure of sympathy for someone who otherwise risked being just another evil witch caricature. It lent the novel an air of tragedy instead of being a simple morality tale.

The exploration of the consequences of different forms of ill treatment was also compelling. From Misskaella’s treatment by her family and general community, which led to her revenge by introducing the sea wives, which led to unbalanced marital relationships, which led to tragic outcomes for children – the chain of consequences was profound. It made me want to be a little nicer to people around me.

This is not a novel that is strongly plotted in the traditional sense, more an exploration of character and community. Each part of the story told from a different perspective forms a mini-arc of its own (perhaps reflecting the novel’s origins, growing as it did from a World Fantasy Award winning novella in the X6 anthology from Coeur de Lion Publishing). The overarching story arc requires the reader to either track the fortunes of the whole community or the life of the witch Misskaella. Either unifying thread requires some very satisfying work on behalf of the reader to pull together. This is a story that I kept thinking about for a long time after finishing reading it.

There are hints of a more familiar world away from Rollrock Island, with mentions of London and other cities. These touches gave the story a sense of enchantment just out of reach of the “real” world which were quite effective.

This is a powerful and thought provoking piece of writing. Highly recommended.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Aurealis Awards 2012 – a wrap up

In my ongoing quest to learn more about the speculative fiction world, I went along to the Aurealis Awards here in Sydney, at the lovely Independent Theatre in North Sydney. I’ve just got home, so I thought I might write up a few thoughts while they are still fresh in my mind.

I’ll say at the outset that I went along not knowing anyone. There are a few Sydney/NSW based authors who I’ve seen at some events around Sydney (Richard Harland, Kate Forsyth, Margo Lanagan, Alan Baxter) and may have even exchanged some words with (usually along the lines of “could I just squeeze past you to get to the bar” sure, but they are still words!).

So I very much appreciate the people who took some time to say hello – in particular Kathleen Jennings who was very generous with her time pre-show and I finally got to meet face to face with Ion “Nuke” Newcombe, who has edited and published my stories in Antipodean SF. It was great talking with both of you!

The ceremony itself was interesting, with some special effects introducing each of the categories and some masterful MCing by Kate Forsyth. It started on time and moved along at a fair clip. Upfront there was a slideshow of pictures (which got a few laughs – some in-jokes there that I, as a newcomer to the industry, didn’t really get).

I was surprised at the number of recipients who weren’t there to receive their awards, but I guess travel around Australia isn’t always easy. I was also surprised at the number of people who hadn’t prepared anything to say in the case that they won. It’s very self effacing, but I bet there will be a few people who wake up tomorrow terribly regretful that they forgot to thank someone important.

I won’t go through all the speeches etc, but I will highlight a couple of moments.

Favourite reaction of the night – Kim Westwood when she won best Science Fiction Novel (‘Fuck!’).
Most moving speech – a short note read out on behalf of Paul Haines’ family on his posthumous award for Best Horror Short Story.
Funnest recipient of the night – Lisa Hannett upon winning her second award of the night, and having nothing more to say!
Most obviously chuffed – Tom Taylor, who gave a very exuberant speech.
Best “thanks” – I liked that Lisa Hannett mentioned one of her first editors, who helped her get a 18,000 word short story that she’d written down to 5,000 words and taught her a lot about writing short stories in the process.

Tehani Wessely (judging convenor) made some comments on the field, which I found interesting. In particular, she spoke about the rise of self published work and what impact that might have on entry criteria for future awards given the workload it creates on the volunteer judging panels.

After the ceremony I spoke with Nuke for a bit, but found that most people had settled into pretty tight knit groups of people they already knew (and fair enough too – I imagine people living in different cities don’t often get a chance to catch up face to face).

There were a couple of people that I saw in the crowd that I wish I’d had a chance to say hello to. Kirstyn McDermott, one of the hosts of my favourite podcast at the moment The Writer and the Critic. Also, Jason Nahrung was there who is one of my favourite Australian authors. Finally, the three hosts of the Galactic Suburbia (who won the Peter McNamara Convenor’s Award) were also in the crowd. Still, I’m sure there will be other events!

So, all in all it was an interesting experience and great to be at one of these events that I usually only hear about second hand through podcasts etc.

For those that might not have seen them already, the results in the order they were announced:

CHILDREN’S FICTION (told primarily through words)

City of Lies by Lian Tanner (Allen & Unwin)

CHILDREN’S FICTION (told primarily through pictures)

Sounds Spooky by Christopher Cheng (author) and Sarah Davis (illustrator) (Random House Australia)

YOUNG ADULT SHORT STORY

“Nation of the Night” by Sue Isle (Nightsiders, Twelfth Planet Press)

YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

Only Ever Always by Penni Russon (Allen & Unwin)

ILLUSTRATED BOOK / GRAPHIC NOVEL

A tie!

Hidden by Mirranda Burton (author and illustrator ) (Black Pepper)
The Deep: Here be Dragons by Tom Taylor (author) and James Brouwer (illustrator) (Gestalt Publishing)

COLLECTION

Bluegrass Symphony by Lisa Hannett (Ticonderoga Publications)

ANTHOLOGY

Ghosts by Gaslight edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers (HarperVoyager)

HORROR SHORT STORY

Another tie!

“The Past is a Bridge Best Left Burnt” by Paul Haines (The Last Days of Kali Yuga, Brimstone Press)
“The Short Go: a Future in Eight Seconds” by Lisa L. Hannett (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)

HORROR NOVEL

No shortlisted or winning novel

FANTASY SHORT STORY

“Fruit of the Pipal Tree” by Thoraiya Dyer (After the Rain, FableCroft Publishing)

FANTASY NOVEL

Ember and Ash by Pamela Freeman (Hachette)

SCIENCE FICTION SHORT STORY

“Rains of la Strange” by Robert N Stephenson (Anywhere but Earth, Coeur de Lion)

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

The Courier’s New Bicycle by Kim Westwood (HarperVoyager)

Peter McNamara Conveynors’ Award

Galactic Suburbia podcast (Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts)

Kris Hembury Encouragement Award for Emerging Artists

Emily Craven

Ditmar voting – go on you know you want to

Voting in the Ditmars 2012, Australian speculative fiction’s premier voted awards, is still open. Like any awards determined by popular ballot, the more people who vote the better. Voting is open to anyone who is going to the 2012 Natcon (Continuum 8) or went to the 2011 Natcon (Swancon Thirty Six) . If you can’t make it to Melbourne you can purchase a supporting membership to Continuum 8 for $35, which makes you eligible to vote.

I used derivations of the word ‘vote’ too many times in the previous paragraph.

I haven’t read everything on the ballot, but looking through the list I realised that I have reviewed (directly or indirectly) a fair number of the nominations. So, for convenience I thought I’d list out links to my relevant reviews on one handy page.

Note (with one glaring exception) none of what follows should be interpreted as particular support for any story, publication or person. It just happens to be the stuff I’ve looked at.

Best Novel

The Courier’s New Bicycle, Kim Westwood (HarperCollins)
Debris (The Veiled Worlds 1), Jo Anderton (Angry Robot Books)
Mistification, Kaaron Warren

I’m currently reading The Shattered City by Tansy Rayner Roberts ~~and Mistification by Kaaron Warren~~. If I finish either before voting closes I will update this blog entry.

Sadly I don’t think I’m going to get to Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres by the time the voting closes.

Best Novella or Novelette

“The Sleeping and the Dead”, Cat Sparks, in Ishtar (Gilgamesh Press)
“Above”, Stephanie Campisi, in Above/Below (Twelfth Planet Press)
“The Past is a Bridge Best Left Burnt”, Paul Haines, in The Last Days of Kali Yuga (Brimstone Press)
“And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living”, Deborah Biancotti, in Ishtar (Gilgamesh Press)
“Julia Agrippina’s Secret Family Bestiary”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in Love and Romanpunk (Twelfth Planet Press)
“Below”, Ben Peek, in Above/Below (Twelfth Planet Press)

I note Ben Peek’s impassioned attempt to climb to the top of the “times nominated but never won” category. It’s too bad really – I liked Below!

Best Short Story

“Alchemy“, Lucy Sussex, in Thief of Lives (Twelfth Planet Press)
“Bad Power“, Deborah Biancotti, in Bad Power (Twelfth Planet Press)
“The Patrician“, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in Love and Romanpunk (Twelfth Planet Press)

Best Collected Work

The Last Days of Kali Yuga by Paul Haines, edited by Angela Challis (Brimstone Press)
Nightsiders by Sue Isle, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
Bad Power by Deborah Biancotti, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
Ishtar, edited by Amanda Pillar and K. V. Taylor (Gilgamesh Press)

Best Fan Writer

OK, strictly speaking I haven’t actually reviewed anything in this category but I’m going to mention Sean Wright, for body of work including “Authors and Social Media” series in Adventures of a Bookonaut. I’ve really enjoyed Sean’s writing over the last 12 months.

Of course, everyone else in the category is excellent too. But, you know, go Sean.

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium

While I haven’t done any formal reviews as such, I do describe the podcasts I listen to on my Podcasts page. It includes very brief commentary about the four podcasts on the ballot (The Writer and the Critic, The Coode Street Podcast, Galactic Chat and Galactic Suburbia)

Narration news – Antipodean SF 167 alpha

Episode 167 alpha of the Antipodean SF radio show is now out. No stories from me, but I did narrate Have to Learn the Hard Way by Stephen L Thompson, a short flash fiction piece about the future dangers of downloading a virus.

Many thanks to Stephen for providing his story for me to narrate.

Looking for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Speculative Fiction to Read

There has been a lot of discussion about gender balance in Australian authors/award nominations etc over the last few years (most recently represented by some interesting posts by Ian Mond crunching statistics from the Ditmar awards – plus a follow up – and a guest post by Tansy Rayner Roberts entitled Is Australian Fantasy Dominated by Women on Cheryl Morgan’s website). I’ve found all these discussions very interesting and they have had an impact on my reading and writing.

As previous posts on this blog have shown (e.g. my reading comfort zone), I’ve been trying to expand my reading of late, in particular attempting to read more broadly across Australian speculative fiction and participating in the Australian Women Writers’ 2012 Reading Challenge. While obviously the pursuit of gender equity in my reading will never be complete, I am interested in exploring other aspects of diversity in the Australian speculative fiction community. To that end, I’m attempting to seek out Australian Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander speculative fiction authors.

My search isn’t going too well so I suspect I’m not looking in the right places. So let me set a challenge for readers of this blog – any suggestions?

The Dreaded Kindle To Be Read List

I posted a comment recently on an article regarding to-be-read lists, the gist of which was how deceptive it was when your to-be-read list is on your Kindle. Such a slim device sitting innocently on your bedside table, completely masking the fact that you have the equivalent of bookshelves of books waiting to be read. It also has a large impact on your purchasing habits. When my to-be-read pile had a proper physical presence, I used to moderate my purchasing (“what’s the point of buying that when I still have 20 books waiting to be read”). Now, not so much (“how many books do I have on my Kindle? Oh, who can remember. One more won’t hurt”).

Through the week, I received in the mail my new Kindle Touch. My original Kindle is quite old, and I’ve been looking forward to getting the lighter and more interactive version for a while now. But then I had to transfer all my unread books from the old to the new.

50 books. Waiting for me to read them. Plus another 10 or so on the iPad. Plus about 8 issues of various magazines.

Added to the 20 or so yet to be read physical books I have in the mix (loving Damnation and Dames edited by Amanda Pillar and Liz Grzyb at the moment), it was a sobering experience.

No wonder I struggle to find time to write.

Antipodean SF – Issue 167

The Antipodean SF online magazine issue 167 is now available, both online at the website or through an ePub version. Ten speculative flash fiction stories (edited by Ion “Nuke” Newcombe) as well as a review of The Dragon With The Girl Tattoo by Adam Roberts.

I produce the ePub version of Antipodean SF as a part of my ongoing quest to learn more about speculative fiction writing and publishing in the Australian scene.