Category: Discussion

The book blogging community is quite special; switched on, communicative and quite powerful. I didn’t quite realise that until I started writing YA fiction.  Out there in YA-land they’re talking and loving books – and they are respectful of each others’ tastes. I suppose it’s a generational thing, and that younger readers (say 35 and under) are using the social networking platforms that they’ve grown up with, to share their passion. It makes me wish I was younger! How less isolating it would have been for me growing up. How amazing to have been part of such a wide and thriving community. Life would have been so much better.

Anyway, today is a big shout out to Lyndsey at Strangemore who has just begun a campaign to bring Burn Bright (The Night Creatures trilogy) to the US. To all those lovely readers who’ve emailed me asking where they can get the book – CHECK IT OUT!

A second shout out to Krista at Cubicle Blindness who has been single handedly campaigning for the same thing  for a while. You’re not on your own anymore!

And also to ALL those wonderful bloggers who’ve run interviews with me and giveaways of Burn Bright – especially those who have taken it upon themselves to send Burn Bright on a book tour (Nomes at Inkcrush) around the world, so that others may enjoy it. You know who you are!

Lastly, to Braiden at Book Probe, who hosted a blogger kafee klatsch for myself and Alison Goodman and made my YouTube site look pretty.

Image borrowed from A Readers Record.

Thought I’d start doing a periodic posting of interesting snippets. I don’t have time to write about all of them in depth but they will be things that I think are worthy of your attention.

Anyone following me on FB and Twitter will have seen my links to Nicola Griffith’s blog discussion about Women Authors in SF, which was a response to an article in The Guardian online. I was delighted to see that this was followed up on by The Guardian again and garnered a wide and varied response. Though, I admit to be depressed by some of the comments, it was great to bring this into an open debate.

I’ve had acerbic comments cast at me for posting these links, which I found rather insulting. Have published eight SF novels now (and written nine, plus numerous published short fiction SF stories), I feel I have a reasonable grasp of my reading audience. I don’t purport to being an exceptional writer but I am readable, entertaining and coherent and have been nominated for and won awards.

I know from personal experience that there is an antipathy and sometimes animosity to women writing SF by SOME readers. It’s there, it’s real. Many won’t even try reading work by a woman, or do so with such ingrained bias that it’s hardly worth their while. I’m still being regularly asked by emerging female SF writers (most often people I don’t know) if they should write under a masculine pseudonym so that they will be read and accepted. The day I don’t get that question anymore, will be a day for celebration.

None of this is news to female writers in genre but in the ebb and flow of change, there are moments when things need to be reiterated. I sense this is one such moment. I’m staggered that we (the reading community at large) STILL harbour such bigotry that women are STILL frightened to write under their own names. It makes me think that we are closer to Mira Fedor’s (reference: Sentients of Orion) world than we care to acknowledge.

Thankfully, I have many readers of both genders who are intelligent and open-minded and to them I nod. You, and your children are the hope for our future evolution as a species.

I’m just about to be featured on Helen Lowe’s blog series which has been absolutely fantastic. So fantastic, in fact, that IO9 picked up Tim Jones’s post and did an article on it. As you know I’m a big fan of Ballard’s writing and Tim’s reference to The Drowned World was spot on. If you’re looking for a prophet then The Drowned World and The Burning World are there waiting for you to dip in.

Helen’s series is to celebrate the release of her book Heir of the Night which you can read all about here.