May 23, 2019
There’s a city that erupted on the map in January of 1975, a decrepit mid-western one, isolated and populated by the grotesque and strange, through which a wandering kid explores his sexuality and encounters the fantastic — Bellona, the stuff of suburban nightmares and concealed urges given volition and form. Bellona, the city of Samuel “Chip” Delaney’s Dhalgren, can be…
April 20, 2019
Hail and well-met, strangers! Welcome to the next leg of the journey to the speculative realms. I’ll be your guide as we embark on a perilous quest through the sixteenth week of the year. Choose your weapons. Mount your steed. Join the guild, and let’s go!
April 16, 2019
In the eighties, the era where I reached menarche (such a fancy word), there were few books that addressed the topic of menstruation in popular fiction. One of course, was by the unparalleled Judy Blume – Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret (1970) about a girl growing up in a mixed faith household. (And let’s face facts, we all…
March 23, 2019
To quote the philosopher B. Spears: Oops. I did it again. Real talk for just a minute: I get migraines. Sometimes they are bad. Occasionally they are wretched, and I deal with them for multiple days. This was the situation last weekend. The pain was so bad that I wasn’t even able to reach out to my excellent community of…
March 19, 2019
There’s a long history of women using pseudonyms, initials, and the ever popular “Anonymous”. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte were respectively Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Mary Anne Evans was George Elliot and even today, Joanne Rowling became J. K. Rowling (and Robert Galbraith). Andrea Norton went for the ambiguous “Andre” and Alice Bradley Sheldon created the entire alter ego…
February 23, 2019
Greetings! Welcome to Saturday! I appreciate you all sticking by me each week, as I do my best to keep things cheerful and vaguely entertaining. I love you all. Ready for this week’s fun little recap?
February 19, 2019
In the mid-80’s a remarkable first occurred – women “of a certain age” – not shrinking, virginal violets, but mature women, began to colonize the Fantasy map. First wave feminism of the 70’s in speculative fiction concerned itself with the problem of equality, (economic, sexual, and political) and their literature reflected those struggles with rebellion against conformist roles, seen in…
December 22, 2018
Hello! Happy Saturday! Seasons Greetings, and what-not! For some of us, this is the last weekend before a big holiday. If you are among those running to and fro, attempting to navigate busy stores and coordinating travel plans, may the odds be ever in your favor! Take a few minutes to stop, rest, and look back over what we published…
December 19, 2018
There are many things you probably already know about Mary Wollstonecraft (née Godwin) Shelley, author of Frankenstein, and the creator-mother of the Science Fiction genre. For example, you probably know that her mother was the noted radical and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) and that her father, William Godwin wrote what many…
November 24, 2018
Hello all, and happy weekend! For those of you who have to work today, my sympathies are with you. Remember to take some time for yourself, if you can. How was your week? It’s a holiday weekend here in the US, and a lot of us are in the midst of planning for the next big holiday and finding creative…