So, guess who is part of this, then?
The 50 presenters are being spread through the three days. I’m doing the Saturday, because on the Thursday and Friday I am busy with the Trans Studies Now conference.
So, er, now all I have to do is write a 5-minute performance poetry piece on trans rights. And deliver it flawlessly.
No pressure.
Thanks for the opportunity, Roger!
Advance warning to Brighton people. I will be amongst you next week. There is a conference called Trans Studies Now taking place at the University of Sussex on Friday, June 12th. There will be keynote speeches from important people like Roz Kaveney and Lewis Hancox. And there will be me talking about science fiction and how gender might evolve in the future.
If you want to attend, details are here. And if you can’t go you should be able to follow along on Twitter.
As it is a formal academic conference, my paper will go up on Academia.edu after the event.
And because it starts early in the morning I’ll be in Brighton on the Thursday night. If anyone wants to catch up for dinner and/or a drink in the Marlborough, please let me know.
Well that was a lovely day out. This year’s Exeter Pride took place in Rougemont Gardens, which is a lovely little venue right in the center of the city, and once the inside of a Norman castle. The weather was beautiful, and I met lots of great people, including a few good pals from Brighton. My talk went OK. The audience was a little thin at the start because of an overlap with a panel discussion on religion, and because the weather was so good, but we got a decent number in the end.
Thanks in particular to the Exeter Pride team for inviting me, and to Emily and her colleagues at Exeter Library for providing me with a venue.
Yesterday was a lot of fun.
The radio show went well after a slight technical hitch at the start. More on that tomorrow.
I got to Oxford on time, and Lev Grossman’s talk was very interesting. He’s a very nice chap too. More on that tomorrow as well.
Today I spent a bit of time in the Ashmolean. The Great British Drawings exhibition is nice, though it does serve to emphasize once again that Byrne-Jones wasn’t very good. I went mainly to see Rossetti’s Proserpine, which is indeed lovely, and to confirm my suspicion that there would be nothing from Simeon Solomon in it. There wasn’t. You would have thought that the British art establishment would have grown up by now, but clearly it hasn’t. Still, there was a Ronald Searle and a Gerald Scarfe, which cheered me up.
The Caricatures exhibit is interesting mainly for the evidence that slut-shaming of women has a very long history. The best thing in it is this gorgeous little cartoon of gout.
The Ed Paschke exhibition is very bright. I suspect that the cover of Roz Kaveney’s Tiny Pieces of Skull may have some Paschke influence.
The exhibition I really wanted to see was Gods in Colour, where they have taken a selection of Greek and Roman statues, and painted them up to look like they would have looked when they were new. It was great. I wish they had done more.
Oh, and I had lunch in a pub called the Eagle and Child, which was apparently the venue for some sort of fannish pub meet years ago. A bunch of wannabe fantasy writers known as The Inklings used to go there and discuss their work over a pint or several. I did not find Viriconium.
Tomorrow I’ll be on Women’s Outlook again. This isn’t one of my shows — I’m covering for Paulette while she’s in Jamaica on family business — but it should be very interesting. We have a dementia special, which has been planned for us by our good friend Subitha Baghirathan. I’m just there to ask old-person-in-the-street questions.
By the way, I’ll be leaving for Oxford straight after the show so I can get to the Tolkien lecture. Don’t expect me to be online much tomorrow.
Tomorrow night in London the lovely people from Holdfast Magazine will be launching their first print anthology. The event will be at the College Arms in Store Street, not far from the British Museum. Details here.
According to Facebook some 76 people will be going, most of whom I don’t know which will be very interesting from an SF point of view. Part of the entertainment will be some short readings, and topping the bill (at least from my point of view) is the fabulous Stephanie Saulter.
As I have to be in London for Trans*Code I’m popping over a day early to attend this. Rather foolishly, Laurel & Lucy have asked me to read something too. So there will be a new piece of flash fiction, which I think classes as mythpunk. It will only last a few minutes. You can bring ear plugs.
Phew, that’s over!
The end of February was very busy (hence the lack of bloggage). Following up on the panel at Bristol University, I was at Bath University on Thursday to give a repeat of my Trans History talk. It didn’t get quite the audience it should have done because the local UKIP parliamentary candidate was on campus at the same time and some of the students felt honor-bound to go along and represent, a decision that I wholeheartedly support. However, we did have several people attending from outside of the university, which was very pleasing.
On Friday I headed back to Bristol to give a trans awareness talk at Southmead Hospital. This was a repeat of an event I did last year. I’m pleased to report that the audience was bigger this time, and included some counselors and an actual doctor. Here’s hoping that I have done some good.
That evening Out Stories Bristol put on a talk by a friend of ours from Bristol University, Dr. Josie McLellan. The subject of the presentation was gay life in East Berlin prior to the unification. You can read a version of it at Academia.edu. The story of the Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin (HIB) is fascinating, in particular the way in which it operated very openly, on the grounds that the Stasi would find out about them anyway so they might as well not bother hiding.
From my point of view, the most interesting part of the story was that played by a trans woman, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. She owned a large house with extensive grounds on the outskirts of Berlin. The HIB used to hold meetings and parties there, and Josie had film of them dancing (to Abba, naturally) at one. Von Mahlsdorf was something of an historian herself, running a museum at her property. Her collection included the bar from a Wiemar era gay club, which she re-assembled in her basement for the benefit of her gay friends.
The biography of von Mahlsdorf on Wikipedia suggests that she was even more remarkable. A teenager during WWII, she ended up killing her Nazi father in self-defense. I note also that her family has attempted to erase her trans identity since her death.
Yesterday I was in Bristol again for the final event of this year’s History Month. Of course that was all about launching Out Stories’ next project, so doubtless I’ll still have plenty to keep me busy. Also I have already started work on next year’s History Month events. You’ll hear more about that in due course.
On Monday March 23rd I will be giving a public lecture entitled, “Exploring Gender Fluidity Through Science Fiction and Fantasy” at Liverpool University. The event is sponsored by Flagship, the university’s LGBT lecture series, by the University Library (which has a fine special collection of SF&F works), and by the Science Fiction Foundation. To my astonishment, the talk is being introduced by the Vice Chancellor herself. (And she’s a professor of English, so I’d better be on my toes.) Details are as follows:
Date: Monday, March 23rd
Time: 5:30pm
Location: Lecture Theatre 6, Rendall Building, Cambridge Street, University of Liverpool
The flier for the event (PDF) is available here.
Update: To book a (free) place please go here. (Space may be limited.)
Like I said, it is a public event. I hope to see some of you there.
I am back from Manchester. I also have a cold. Given how badly I was sneezing on the train on the way south (deeply embarrassing, I can assure you) I elected to steer clear of the two Bristol events I was supposed to attend last night, and instead go straight home. I need to get myself fit again for the launch of Antonia Honeywell’s The Ship on Thursday night.
The one piece of good news from yesterday was the launch of Stonewall UK’s new trans inclusion policy. This looks to have been really well done, and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of it.
In the meantime, of course, the “feminist” lobby in the mainstream media has been busily stirring up hated against trans people. I may have a few things to say later today.
2015 is starting to get into full swing, and already I am starting to find my calendar filling up. Here are a few places where you will be able to find me over the next few weeks.
Monday January 19th: BristolCon Fringe, featuring Emma & Peter Newman. There will probably be tea, and possibly a spot of mild peril. I cannot promise an appearance by That Latimer.
Saturday February 7th: My LGBT History Month talk at the M-Shed in Bristol: “A Potted History of Gender Variance”, in which I set out to show that rigid insistence on the binary nature of gender is a comparatively recent, Western, invention.
Sunday February 15th: My paper at the National Festival of LGBT History academic conference in Manchester: “Their-stories: Interrogating gender identities from the past”. (See, it has a colon in the title. I’m a proper academic, I am.)
Thursday February 19th: I’m hosting the launch event for Antonia Honeywell’s novel, The Ship, at Foyles, Cabot Circus.
Wednesday February 25th: I’m participating in a panel as part of the Bristol University Student Union’s Festival of Liberation: “What Next for the LGBT+ Movement Following the Passing of the Same Sex Marriage Act?”.
Gareth Powell will be launching his latest novel at Forbidden Planet, Bristol on Thursday January 15th, and I plan to be there because Gareth has promised to dress up as a monkey for the event.
There’s a Fringe event on February 16th, but I’m traveling back from Manchester that day and had promised the University I’d drop in on another of their events that evening, so I may not be there for the whole thing.
Jo Hall and Gareth Powell are doing a reading at Bristol Library on Friday February 27th, but I think I am double-booked with an Out Stories event so I might not make that.
As we lumber towards 2015, various things are starting to ramp up. One of the events in my sights is the UK’s first National Festival of LGBT History, which will take place in Manchester during February (because that’s when we do LGBT History Month in the UK). You can find lots of exciting details at their newly revamped website. You may also note that there is an academic conference attached to the event, and if you look carefully through the programme you will find that I’m giving a paper. I may be talking a bit about Alice Sheldon.
It stopped snowing here last night. Temperatures overnight were below freezing, and stayed that way into the early morning when I had to get to the venue for the training course I am giving. I was expecting a nightmare of packed snow and black ice. Instead I found all of the sidewalks neatly cleared and gritted. Well done, Toronto. I’m impressed.
Having spent most of the day doing training, I am officially exhausted. How school teachers cope I do not know. I don’t even have the energy to read (and of course the TV is crap because it is Friday night). I may just go to bed. After all, it is 1:00am UK time.
I am here. I won’t be online much, partly because I am busy, and partly because the roaming charges are horrendous. I have put my phone in airplane mode so that the apps on it can’t rack up massive bills without me doing anything.
There is snow. Lots of it. It started late last night and continued through most of today. Right now it is quite pretty. Tomorrow it will be EVIL. I hope they grit better than London.
I have dropped off a few copies of Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion at Bakka Phoenix books, so if you are in Toronto and would like a copy please do drop by before they sell out. I have come away with a bunch of new books by other people, including The Three Body Problem, which I am very much looking forward to.
This evening I am off to the Merril Collection to see Jill Lepore talk about her book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman.
I may get a cab.
Tomorrow, if all goes well, I’ll be flying to Toronto. It is a business trip, and very much a flying visit. I’ll be in meetings much of Thursday-Saturday, and I’m flying back Sunday night. I will have a bit of free time, but not much. Part of that time needs to be spent visiting Bakka Phoenix Books, where amongst other things I will be dropping off some copies of Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion.
However, I won’t be entirely absent from the Internet while I am traveling, because if all goes according to plan I will have an article up on the Tor UK and Tor.com websites. Apologies in advance that I won’t have much time to respond to any comments.
What will be you be doing on the weekend of March 14/15 next year? I very much hope some of you will be tuning in to SofaCon 2, the second virtual convention run by Tony Smith and the Star Ship Sofa team. It will be a great event, of course, but the highlight for me will be getting to interview Joe Haldeman.
Yes, that’s right, I’m doing one of the guest interviews, and it is with one of the greats of the field. That will be 6:00pm on Saturday 14th, though hopefully you’ll be following more of the program.
How do you get a membership? Interestingly, you do it by backing the Kickstarter campaign. There are some very nice rewards on offer, including Kaffeklatsch-like sessions with Jo, Kim Stanley Robinson and David Brin.
This year’s Cheltenham Festival of Literature begins on October 3rd, and I’m delighted to announce that I will be appearing there this year on Saturday 4th. No, it is nothing to do with Wizard’s Tower, and not directly to do with my story in The Girl at the End of the World. What I’m doing is chairing a science fiction panel discussion. Here’s the blurb:
Welcome to the world of the dystopia: of government and society gone nightmarishly wrong. From 1984 to The Handmaid’s Tale, this image has been a gripping cautionary force. Ken MacLeod (Descent), author Chris Priest (Adjacent) and Jane Rogers (The Testament of Jessie Lamb) join chair Cheryl Morgan to explore fiction’s greatest nightmare visions and their enduring appeal.
Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to this. I see that Margaret Atwood is doing an event earlier in the day and I hope she’ll pop along too. It would be great to have her in the audience. Francis Spufford may be around too, as he’s doing a panel on the future of Christianity. Sadly it is sold out already, because I would have liked to go to it.
If any of you happen to be in Cheltenham on that day, I’d love to see you there too.
As some of you will know, my mother had to go into hospital briefly last week. Other family members have been doing a good job helping out while I have had other commitments, but I’m free of that stuff now and as the person with the most flexible lifestyle, and living the closest, it is down to me to do much of the care.
I have been here less than a day and I have already had more than enough of health workers. A more arrogant, condescending and absolutely fucking useless bunch of jobsworths would be hard to find. We’ve had three separate visits. None of them seem to have any idea what any of the other lots of doing. All of them made it absolutely clear that they were there to do only one specific thing and they would not do or say anything outside of that. All of them clearly resented having anyone else here other than the patient. The amount of false jollity being exuded could fuel the entire country’s pantomime season for several years. The overwhelming impression that they give is that they don’t care about anything other than going through whatever act they’ve been told they have to perform to avoid getting sued for actually doing anything. You could not be more obviously dishonest if you tried.
Anyway, this is by way of warning that I am liable to have far less time available than usual, and I may be on a bit of a short fuse for a while.
In the center of a hurricane there is a region where everything is quiet. That is today. I’d like to spend the entire day sleeping, but I do have a bit of catch-up to do, so here I am.
I spent yesterday in London, mainly because I needed to go and see a gender specialist to get declared sane again. The NHS does not believe that trans people are really serious about what they do with their lives. They think is just a phase we are going through, and that sooner or later we will be Overcome with REGRET, and will beg on bended knees to return to the gender we were assigned at birth. Therefore I am required to have an annual consultation with a gender specialist who can let them know whether there are any signs of the onset of this expected phase of my life, and the anticipated emotional trauma. I’m afraid I keep disappointing them.
Following my appointment I headed off to the British Museum to worship Ishtar and re-acquaint myself with the many fine pieces of loot therein. Though I continue to be embarrassed at my ancestors’ kleptomania, I am rather relieved about the amount of stuff they took from what is now Iraq, because so much of what remains has been destroyed or sold to private collectors by the invading armies.
While there I noticed that the BM is now selling bookends. These are, of course, irresistible to anyone with a sizable library. The even worse news for me is that the models for the bookends include the famous Egyptian cat statue (£30 for a pair) and the Assyrian winged bull — some of you will remember the term Shedu — (a whopping £55 each but a must have for me). A full list of the bookends they offer can be found here.
I was by no means the only person to visit the Museum yesterday. I ran into: Madeline Ashby & David Nickle; Ellen Kushner & Delia Sherman; the Foglio family; David Levine & Kate Yule. I’m sure there must have been others.
As I had been too busy to shop at Worldcon, I popped into Forbidden Planet to collect copies of Resistance by Samit Basu and Afterparty by Daryl Gregory.
I got home late last night. This morning was spent sleeping, paying the rent, topping up on Euros, and buying food. Tomorrow I will be off to Ireland, via Bristol where I need to collection more copies of Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion from Jo.
I headed to London straight from the studio to be in time to catch up with Rina & Jacob from Tachyon Publications, and Rani Graff from Israel, for dinner. There was a party at Rina & Jacob’s apartment last night, at which I managed to catch up with a bunch of people, including Pat Murphy whom I have not seen in ages. Her work in progress sounds very interesting. Also John Kessel told me he has a novel that he’s almost ready to shop around, which is excellent news.
Oh, and Tachyon are bringing out collections by Kate Elliott and Hannu Rajaniemi next year. SQUEE!
I chatted a bit to Gary Wolfe about various things and he happened to mention seeing the infamous Michelle Goldberg article in The New Yorker, which Julia Serano eviscerates here. Goldberg clearly intended the piece to be a vehicle for TERF propaganda, but I’m starting to hear that for many people it had the opposite effect. Certainly Gary said that he found the TERF line that Goldberg was describing so vile that he automatically took against it. Yay! 🙂
Today the madness begins. I am booked solid from 10:30 to 18:00, save for an hour and a half to check into my hotel and get lunch. That starts at 3:00pm so I’d better eat something now.
Some of you are in the habit of using Facebook messages to contact me. As of Wednesday I’ll be starting a two week period when I’m mostly on the road, and I wanted to warn you that I no longer get FB messages on my phone. In fact I’ll probably be dropping the main FB app from it as well soon. That’s because FB wants access rights to things on my phone that I am not prepared to allow. I will try to check into a web version of FB once a day, but that makes it no faster than email. If you need to get a message to me quickly, Twitter is your best bet.
