Tue 4 Jun 2013

Observations from the SFWA Bulletin Fiasco – part 2

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
[3] Comments

2. That the nature of communication, mostly via social media, has changed the speed of unfolding events at all levels of politics.

News events and scandals travel like an avalanche now, picking up speed (and commentary) across the virtual landscape. A day is now A. Long. Time. in politics. If something happens on a weekend now, you can’t just wait til Monday or when the board/committee can meet to address the issue anymore. In this case, the SFWA President was travelling over the weekend and was physically incapable of addressing the issue as it unfolded. For me, watching it all, it felt like a very long silence before SFWA made an official statement. And it made me feel uncomfortable  – I know how the President feels about sexism, and still, I started to feel a bit unsure about whether, maybe, I wasn’t as sure about their position as I had been. Maybe the organisation had different values? Afterall, I had heard for years how sexist this organisation was.

In reality, I first came across it at about 7.30/8pm Friday night, by the time I got up late on Saturday morning there was an official statement that there would be a taskforce “to look at the Bulletin and to determine how the publication needs to proceed from this point in order to be a valuable and useful part of the SFWA member experience” and yesterday the official statement from the President was made which takes responsibility for what happened and reinforces the value of all members to the organisation. So, a timespan of maybe 60 hours?

Not really a long time, in thinking about the speed that organisations work through processes. Not a long time to gather facts, speak to those involved, assess the situation and develop a way forward. And not a long time when considering the President was travelling, it was a weekend and a volunteer organisation.

But. This is the internet age. I don’t think the pace is going to slow down or people’s expectations for action to be mediated by “what’s reasonable”. The avalanche rolls down the mountain gathering volume and speed. And the shouting into the void gets angrier the longer it goes on unmitigated.

I don’t necessarily think there’s an obvious here. If you speed up your reaction to situations, you are more than likely going to make a mistake, regret things you say or do or suffer the consequences of kneejerk reactions. Everybody, including those who have made mistakes, deserve due process and for decisions to be made that set precedents that are fair and are not in the heat of the moment. So often the second thing you think to say or do is wiser and better than the first. There are countless examples lately of news stations covering unfolding events and reporting false information in their rush to be the first to get the scoop. Some of these can be very damaging. That said, I don’t see things slowing down. I don’t see people moderating their expectations for instant-ness to take that into consideration. I think the five day working week will slide into the past, with expectations of always being available and for people to think and act on their feet. And with that, in the process of learning how to do that, I think we will see more and more events and the PR of them, mismanaged as they unfold.

In this case, I personally think a public statement reinforcing the values of SFWA along with all the other services and work that the organisation does for its membership would have gone a long way to heading off some of the online drama at the pass. This would have placed the issue of the Bulletin, one aspect of the organisation, into more of a context – that it’s not all of what SFWA does, and that opinions expressed in it do not reflect the values of the organisation as a whole.

As an observer, watching from the outside looking in, I am interested to see what the taskforce will produce. But until they do, this story is hard to assess.

Tags:

 

Tue 4 Jun 2013

Observations from the SFWA Bulletin fiasco – part 1

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
No Comments

So, the SFWA Bulletin thing. I’ve been following it quite closely since it spilled out onto Twitter on Friday night. As it happened right on the heels of a week of the Eddie McGuire racism “gaffe”, I was immediately interested not in the issues themselves (in the SFWA Bulletin case, the Feminism 101 stuff is not really interesting here, the sexism is so awful it almost reads better as a parody but for a truly awesome takedown, Foz Meadows cannot be missed on the issue – “Old Men Yelling at Clouds” btw should become the actual term for this stuff) but in the conversations that do and do not happen around them.

A couple of aspects of the whole situation really interest me:

1. The way people react to negative feedback

I’m not an affiliate member (which is all I can be) of SFWA so I am not a reader of the Bulletin. I have, though, read excerpts from the last several issues and I did see the … I could say controversial, but it’s just ridiculous and offensive and outdated … cover of issue 200. There is some very problematic material published in these issues. And this has occurred over (at least) 3 consecutive issues, so, over the course of the last nine months. On reading all this material on Friday night, I really felt that I would be annoyed if my membership money was being used to pay for it to be published and to represent me, as part of that professional organisation. I wouldn’t want my business to be affiliated with that kind of material – that women should be quiet like Barbie, that lady editors should be remembered not just for how competent they were but also how good looking (in a piece intended to discuss the role of women in the industry) and so on. I protect my brand very carefully, and I thought long and hard about whether I would want it associated in any way with this kind of material. (I do not).  So I understood why some members felt they needed to leave SFWA after their complaints about this material had seemed to be falling on deaf ears (since the offensive material just kept coming). At the same time, I also understand that change happens from within, and that it’s just as important to speak up as a member of an organisation to push for change. So I also understood people who began joining or stated they would remain members.

Ultimately, that people complained, even for a publication that is clearly not respected or widely read (many people claim they put it straight in the bin or skim read it) is important. That they kept complaining when things didn’t seem to improve is also important – it’s so easy to give up when you feel you aren’t being heard or that things aren’t being addressed. That there has been very little material that I have seen online defending the material (I’ve seen two posts on blogs only) might say more about me and where I hang out on the web but also was uplifting to me – that there was so little discussion about whether it was inappropriate and more that because it was inappropriate it needed to be dealt with. In many ways, it felt that at least the conversation at large has moved beyond Feminism 101.

And I say that quite lightly. See Ann Aguirre’s post (or a bunch of other posts by women speaking out and their experiences to show that, no, sexism in SF still alive and well, alas).

Still, the explaining seemed mostly to be at the authors of this material. And this is what interests me – the most current opinion column by Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg was to address complaints about previous offensive material in their column. And, um, this is what they came up with. Yeah. Frankly, it’s so over the line and so over the top offensive that it’s hard to get angry at it. It’s like someone telling you the world is flat. It’s also a good practice at feminist bingo if you like, tracking through all the usual ways to defend themselves and attack the dissenters.

It’s kinda boring.  I mean, a couple of old men, whose work is not really my thing (I’ve only read Resnick, I doubt I’ll feel like getting round to reading Malzberg ever), don’t get that the world has moved on since the 60s. They genuinely do not understand the complaints. This is plainly clear in the piece they have written. They do not get it. And I don’t think they will ever get it. I don’t think explaining it to them, or trying to educate them, is going to get anyone anywhere. I also don’t think that the editor understands the issues at hand either. So for me, the issue is not about addressing them or how they behaved, it’s about deciding whether that kind of material should appear in a professional industry magazine representing (and being paid for) by professional writers. Does this material represent the values of that organisation? If not, it seems obvious to me what should happen. But, that’s process related and takes time.

Meanwhile. I’m totally fascinated by the calls by Resnick and Malzberg that they are being censored and subject to the thought police. It’s such a huge and dramatic, and dare I say it? *emotional* reaction to complaints about being offended by them. I’m completed fascinated by people who claim that our genre is about ideas, and about thinking about the future, (and about how women aren’t capable of either of those things) but who cannot cope with or engage with opposing ideas to their own. SF writers  who are stuck, culturally, in the past. It’s such a complete dichotomy that it deeply intrigues me. Well, and amuses me.

How does someone say with a straight face that their freedom of speech is being denied as what they write is being published, and paid for? Since when did the publishing of what you actually wrote in a publication become censorship? How does actually getting to voice your (offensive) thoughts become being censored by the thought police? Like, how does that actually work. I can’t even type this paragraph without laughing.

But here’s what really gets me annoyed. How does freedom of speech, the concept, mean that it only applies to you? I don’t understand people who think that only they get to express whatever it is that they want to say, and no one else is likewise allowed to express their own freedom of speech by telling you they disagree with you? (bearing in mind that the entire concept of freedom of speech is different in Australia to the US anyhow). I mean, that’s actual thought policing or censorship, isn’t it? And since when did someone telling you they disagree with you become the OMG most horrible thing that ever happened to anyone, anywhere in the world, OMG the sky is falling? If you’re a fan of ideas, which I am, don’t you enjoy the cut and thrust of debating them? Isn’t engaging in alternative views and ideas …. thrilling? Isn’t that the fun? Isn’t that, OMG, the point of writing? Or, the point of writing anything worthwhile of being read, in any case?

I find people who react the way they did in that article boring – intellectually immature and selfish and lacking self reflection as well as respect and empathy for others – but mostly boring. Their column, in response to being asked to address the concerns, was predictable. It’s how we expect Old White Men (their words) to react to such things. Imagine if they had gone another way. Now that would have been cool.

But seriously. We know that this kind of reaction is the desperate attempt to maintain the status quo, the one where they have power, and others do not.  But what gets me is, what would happen, really, to them, and the world as they know it, if they didn’t objectify women in their opinion columns and deliberately differentiate to segregate female professionals in their field? What would happen, really? How does not pointing out that an editor is female affect them? How does it change what presumably incisive and revealing ideas and concepts they have to offer about the world, the SF field and the future? What skin would it be off their nose to not mention how beautiful a particular writer’s wife was, back in 1942? After all, how many of us really care? Why do they?

 

 

 

Tags:

 

Wed 29 May 2013

Expectations

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
[4] Comments

Posting again after a longer silence than I intended. I had meant to post every day as a way of checking in with the world and also to mark progress on this long project of mine. But life has a way of not ending up the way you thought it would, doesn’t it?

Take today, I feel really like I haven’t actually accomplished very much. I didn’t “sleep in” but left the house early for breakfast with C who is on long service leave for a bit. We did some vague errands and came home. I feel like I loitered around on the computer for hours and now it’s quarter to 6 and almost dinner time. My loitering involved uploading some more ebooks to Kobo – I have started rolling out the TPP backlist on Kobo (no longer really relying on Smashwords to do it cause it’s now so unwieldy to use). So a couple more books are up waiting for publishing and three I noted are now published (A Trifle Dead, Cracklescape and Asymmtrey). I answered some emails. I sent some feedback to writers on work submitted that I read yesterday. I started setting up some other online accounts and things for projects in development. I filled some book orders and answered some emails about other orders. And I received the proofs by courier for Caution: Contains Small Parts. I proofed those and have spoken to Amanda and the printer about some issues with those. And I backseat drove a bit of  the wardrobe cleanout that C was doing :)

And in truth, between you and me, I feel like I might have wasted the day.

Which comes to the title of this post – expectations. I think I’ve probably always lived my life trying to meet someone’s expectations, whether they be mine or other people’s. I remember getting my very first report card in Grade 1. My mother was standing with a cousin and they were comparing my report card and my cousin’s (I had about 5 cousins in my class, small community). He had got As and I hadn’t. And up until that very moment, I didn’t know I was supposed to, or that we would be graded and that the grades would *count*. And I remember thinking, “Why didn’t I know this?” And for years looking back on that moment of feeling completely behind the 8 ball, and inadequate, I’m still not sure how you are meant to know that life is going to be filled with marks and assessments and *judging* unless someone tells you. I still remember vividly being 6 years old and feeling completely inadequate and not good enough. (And I’m sure the grades were of things like handwriting and colouring in).

That moment kind of taught me that life was going to be a race and that people were going to scrutinise you and compare you to others. And that seems pretty harsh and stressful, sure. But I went to a high achieving school with over achievers. If I’d not had  a competitive streak in me (and maybe that Grade 1 report card lit that spark for me), I would have drowned in that school. Others did, and I felt sorry for them at the time. But for me, I think otherwise, I would have been lazy and sat at average. Instead, I was up there competing and pushing and striving to be the best. I never was though. Fourth was the slot for me and I had to slog away and work my arse off to maintain it. In high school, we  ended up in much much smaller classes and I might have topped Calculus on a good day (but there were only two of us in the class anyhow). But the pushing to be the best got me an engineering degree. And even though I was probably only average or just above class average in my degree, without that expectation to perform, and without constantly measuring up, I don’t think I would have passed. As I said, I have the tendency to be lazy.

I started TPP as an experiment, really. I wanted to see if I could implement some of the ideas that I had through ASIM. And I wanted to see if a small press *could* be financially viable. I’m still seeing if a small press can be viable – I don’t consider TPP to be established enough yet as a business to really be able to test it (longevity, credibility, reliability, consistency, backlist and relationships and networks take time to develop) and I’m still learning so much about publishing. But one of the people who lit a spark in me to be competitive was Paul Haines. We were at a room party at a Convergence and he said to me, “Yeah GJ, what you’ve done is good and all, but you’ll burn out soon enough, like they all do.” And I looked at him and I said, “No I won’t.” And he said, “We’ll see.” And any time I’ve felt down or tired or like I could burnout or throw the towel in, I’ve remembered that conversation and thought, “I’m going to prove to him that I can do this.” And I still will.

I’m lucky to have found people in this community of ours who believe in me and support me and help make this dream a reality but also know how to push my buttons. Some people push them the wrong way but a lot more of them know how to push them to help me achieve more and better than I would have done if left to my own devices. And I’m really grateful to those people – who pick me up when I am down and push me on when I need the push. And sometimes the people who push you aren’t doing it with love. But without them, too, I’d be less.

But what happens when you aren’t in a classroom anymore or in a workplace where promotion is the thing you’re working on? I work from home now, by myself, on a project I am mostly in charge of myself including the direction, the point, and ultimately how my performance will be graded. I don’t have anyone to mark myself against. And having done this before, albeit that time I did it on campus so I had a lot of people around me to mark my expected progress over time etc, I know that a PhD is essentially a solitary endeavour and can be very confronting. The whole point of it is to come out the other side which then, after doing it, justifies and makes meaning out of the journey.

In some ways, the answer is that there is no real difference to what I was doing with TPP on my own – setting my own expectations, devising milestones and marking progress along the way. I guess, though, the trouble with me (and isn’t there always) is that I can actually go either way – be lazy or set unrealistic expectations. And there’s that word again. Because somehow, I think that because I am now working on this full time, I must therefore achieve exponentially more than I was before, whilst also taking off my weekends. And now on top of that, I’ve suddenly, in my second trimester, developed the need to sleep 10 hours a day, every day. I have NEVER slept that much before. I’m a 6 to 7 hour a night person with 1 day in the week of maybe 8 or 9, and I’m good. This sleeping so much feels … wasteful, I guess? Even though, if I don’t do it, I feel physically ill, and I can intellectually understand that my body needs the rest, what with all that multitasking of growing inner ears (we did that last week) and fingerprints (or whatever it is this week).

I’m just really scared that I will squander this opportunity I have here. It feels like such a huge gift and I want to make sure that I exhaust every aspect of it and put it to good use. And then I “sleep in” and work more slowly and feel sluggish a lot. It … comes back to expectations. I know.

 

 

 

Tags:

 

Sat 18 May 2013

Paris snaps

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
[5] Comments

It’s taken me this long to blog about our trip at new year’s to Paris. I think partly it’s been because there’s been a horrible delay in our wedding photos which got me down about thinking about the whole thing. And also partly because it felt so private. But, you know, with distance and time and all that … :)

At our wedding reception, a friend of mine wanted us to open their gift. Alas, all the gifts had already been packed away and were en route to my parents’ and they were quite alarmed. “Promise me, you’ll open it before you leave!” she said desperately. “The present will be meaningless if you wait til you get home.” My parents managed to bring two potential present candidates when we met up with them on Christmas Day and we opened the wrong one first! But when we opened their present, it was really clear what she meant!

photo 1

Instructions – that they had given us a gift of memory – what a fantastic idea! We were to head to the bridge as outlined in her note and then place the lock enclosed on the bridge to symbolise our enduring passion and then toss the keys into the river below.

photo 2

Engraved on one side are our names and on the other, our wedding date. We both loved the idea and also the sense of mission about it. I think we decided it would be the first thing we would do in Paris, it had such a sense of urgency about it and set of tasks and would help us settle into the city and get our bearings before we figured out what else we wanted to do.

We headed off, jetlagged into the cold Parisian day. Stopping, of course, past the first patisserie we saw – on the corner opposite our hotel – and ate what I think will always be the best pastry of my life.

photo 1

One of the really fun ideas that worked out well was I bought a bunch of  walking tours of Paris on cards – I think there were 50 different ones. And we pulled out the one that went past the bridge we were to visit and headed out and did that. This photo is of C checking the card for directions! They were so much fun – really appealled to the gamer in C and I got to see lots of out of the way things that I never would have found on my own. The cards also pointed out important things like which cafes and icecreameries and famous patisseries to stop past on the way to things :)

photo 2

And voila! Here I am on the bridge. Note my tourist sneakers! Notre Dame is just in front of me and to the right. And all the shiny things behind me are locks on the bridge. I dunno. I was kinda torn on this whole thing, en masse, does it ruin the bridge or does it make it into a contemporary living and breathing part of the city? I tried not to think about the pollution of all those rusting keys in the river bed below.

photo 1

Proof that we succeeded in our mission.

photo 2

And just one of the reasons I love him – taking some pictures for the coordinates of where we placed our lock so we can come back and find it again later. xx

Tags:

 

Fri 17 May 2013

[Phd Post]: Statistics of Aussie presses post 2

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
No Comments

Today’s statistics are for Midnight Echo.

Midnight Echo is according to the website: “the official magazine of the Australian Horror Writers Association. Each issue contains more than 100 pages of horror (or dark) fiction, poetry, art, comics, columns, articles, book releases, and more!”

The editorship is a rotating one. Only the first two issues had female co-editors. Since Issue 2, no woman has been at the helm of Midnight Echo. The magazine has never been solely edited by a woman. In contrast, five issues have been solely edited by men.

The gender breakdown for the prose fiction for all issues of Midnight Echo is:

MidnightEchoFiction

The average gender breakdown for the two issues coedited by women is 24% female authors to 76% male authors.

The gender breakdown for poetry, nonfiction and interviewees (ie people who were interviewed in the magazine, Note: interviewers were not always listed in the ToCs so have not been computed for this market) are:

MidnightEchoPoetryMidnightEchoNFMidnightEchointerviewees

Several of the issues feature a comic as it’s done by the same pair, the illustration is separate out from the overall art figures:

MidnightEchoComicsMidnightEchoArt

Tags: , ,

 

Thu 16 May 2013

[PhD Post]: Statistics – Presses

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
No Comments

As well as looking at awards stats, I’m also looking at the publishing stats, to place one in the context of the other. Additionally, I’m going to be looking specifically at some case studies as I move further into my PhD. Likely those won’t be Australian presses but the Australian context is within which Twelfth Planet Press sits.

Today’s data then is for Eidolon and Potato Monkey.

Eidolon Magazine was edited by Richard Scriven, Jonathan Strahan and Jeremy G Byrne and then later on by Jonathan Strahan and Jeremy G Byrne. In their debut editorial, this team outlined their vision for the publication:

Eidolon is for you if you are interested in encouraging the development of new writers, if you are passionate about your views on speculative fiction in any media and if you enjoy discussing all of this and more. In short, Eidolon is for people who care about speculative fiction and all its off-shoots.

…

We are committed to promoting the idea of the “pro-fan”; a person who has a love for some aspect of speculative fiction, be it literary, cinematic, game-related or some other facet, and who strives to extend the boundaries of his perception of that passion; a person who seeks to create, to contribute and to objectively discuss.

Eidolon featured fiction, non fiction, interviews, reviews, artwork and letters from their readers. I thoroughly enjoyed getting absorbed in the discussions in the letters and through these discovered the editorial for Issue 12 which addresses concern over the apparent gender bias in their published fiction. Issue 24 (1997) was a Special Women’s Issue. I would have been interested to compare the gender breakdown pre- and post- this issue but Eidolon closed four volumes later, in 2000 with Issue 30. Nine issues had all male fiction ToCs. None occurred after the special issue.

Here is the overall breakdown of the fiction published in Eidolon by gender:

EidolonFiction

The breakdown of Nonfiction by gender:
EidolonNF

Here I’ve looked at both the reviewers and those they reviewed by gender:

EidolonReviewersEidolonReviewees

And then done the same for interviewers and those they interviewed:

EidolonInterviewersEidolonInterviewees

And the artwork broken down by gender of the artists:

EidolonArt

And then finally, the gender of the authors of the letters printed in each issue:

EidolonLetters

Potato Monkey was edited and published by Ben Payne. It ran for five issues from 2001 to 2007 and featured fiction only. Of the five issues, issue 5 consisted only of fiction written by men. Apart from issue 1, all the cover art was created by women.

This is the breakdown of the fiction in Potato Monkey by gender:

PotatoMonkeyFiction

Tags: , , ,

 

Wed 15 May 2013

So, how’s this all going to work then?

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
[14] Comments

First of all, it’s important to realise that the absence of formal prohibitions against committing art does not preclude the presence of powerful, informal ones. For example, poverty and lack of leisure are certainly powerful deterrents  to art … It’s commonly supposed that poverty and lack of leisure did not hamper middle-class persons during the last century, but indeed they did  – when those persons were middle-class women.

…

As for the leisure .. Emily Dickinson seems to have had it (although she participated in the family housekeeping and nursed her mother in the latter’s last illness), but according to biographer Gordon Haight the time of the famous Marian Evans (later to become George Eliot) was demanded, through her late twenties, for managing the household and caring for her dying father … Marie Curie’s  biographer, her daughter Eve, describes her mother’s cleaning, shopping, cooking and child care, all unshared by Pierre Curie and all added to a full working day during Madame Curie’s domestic years, which were also the beginning’s of her scientific career.

Nor does the situation change much in the twentieth century. Sylvia Plath, rising at five in the morning to write, was – as far as her meagre work-time went – fortunate compared to Tillie Olsen, a working-class woman, who describes the triple load of family, writing, and full time outside job necessary for family survival.

Joanna Russ, How to Suppress Women’s Writing (University of Texas Press, 1983)

We haven’t really fully decided what’s going to happen post-baby. In our first broaching of the conversation, my husband asked me what I was thinking of doing and I told him my plan was to submit my PhD Candidacy application on time (due Sept 30), hopefully get candidacy, and then go on maternity leave. He nodded. And then I said I was planning on withdrawing from my degree for a year once the baby was born. To uh, you know, do the thing you do with newborns.  And my beautiful husband stood there, and looked at me and said, “Really? Uh … are you sure … are you sure you will be happy doing that?” Frankly, he looked really skeptical that that was a good plan for me and I possibly kissed him.

*Obviously* I’m not taking time off Twelfth Planet Press! When I stated such, he nodded and seemed much relieved. (Seriously … how is it that I ended up with the perfect person for me, who actually understands me?)

But in all seriousness, I’m preparing for the next chapter in my life. I’m well aware that my life is about to change. And I’m also really aware that I can’t expect myself to perform the way (or in the timeframe) that I am used to. At TPP, one of our focusses is to support female writers. And a big part of that has been to be ensure that we understand that timeframes for writing for women with family commitments need to be flexible, longer and understanding. Life happens. And it’s really easy for writing to fall off the radar when more pressing matters have to be dealt with. And when you haven’t published for three or five or ten years because you’re raising or caring for your family, well, it’s really easy for everyone else to decide you don’t write anymore. We have a few projects in the background at the moment working on supporting writers who are just going to take longer than commercial timeframes demand, because that’s the way it is. And I’m really proud of them, even if I don’t get to talk about them yet.

But that’s also why I’m not as hard arse an editor as I should be about deadlines. I’m way too soft with writers about meeting their timelines, and I think that’s possibly a weakness of mine. On the other hand, we’re all grown up professionals. And writers who are serious about writing, will write. And the rest are not. I make back up plans and I work with what I have. But I certainly don’t think that creativity being stuffed into 1 hour of writing before the kids get up or the last 10 minutes of lunchtime is going to be improved by hardlining.

That said, that pushing creativity into the hour before the baby wakes up, or grabbing a spare 10 minutes where I can find it, is going to be me soon (again, I guess, since that’s how I ran TPP when I had that pesky day job). So in preparation, I have been carefully planning what the heck I’m gonna do. I’ve blocked out a good chunk of time assuming I will be completely nonproductive (it’s possible I haven’t given myself enough time – Oct to Feb/March at the moment, thoughts?) And I’m trying to get ahead of that big block of down time with some titles finished early so that we can still roll out our books on time. A few authors got advanced warning of my news – I’m pregnant, you have to write faster! – so that we could bring forward some deadlines, shuffle some others around. Everybody’s been really great about it and I’m completely overloaded at the moment with work. If it doesn’t get done, it’s on me.

I don’t know how it’s going to go. But what I do know is, if you really want something, you find a way to make it work. And for now, I’m clinging to my plan :)

Tags: , ,

 

Tue 14 May 2013

You are not entitled to my attention

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
[7] Comments

So I’m not feeling all that awesome today. At the moment I seem to be having two days respite from morning sickness and today is not one of those days. I had a bunch of errands that were time specific so I’ve spent the morning trying to find a window where I thought I could, if efficient, get to Australia Post, the ATM and the shops in minimal time and get the hell out to go lie down again. I found that window just under an hour ago. I managed to get to the post office just before the queue and got in and out in no too bad time (yay for being an expert in parcels by now). I navigated Woollies and started to feel a bit faint towards the end of my list, discarded a few items, bought myself some tulips to cheer myself up and headed through self check out.

On my way out the shopping centre, focussed on getting to my car ASAP where I could sit down and maybe feel less woozy, I headed past a WWF stand. As I passed it, one of the young lads there called out to me but I shook my head and carried on walking. When I was more than 5 m past him, he called out to me, “hey, did you buy me flowers?”. To which my annoyed response was, “I DID not!” as I carried on walking.

But by the time I got to the car I was fuming. The heckle was harmless. Almost innocent. But … that kind of shit in the context of often getting singled out and heckled when out by yourself gets tiresome after a while. What does it achieve? Obviously I didn’t buy him the flowers, I wasn’t going to stop and give them to him (he WAS NOT remotely cute enough) and I was always going to keep walking. What was the point? The point was, I ignored him. And he couldn’t let that go. He *needed* me to acknowledge him so he heckled to demand my attention, even if it was negative. And for what end? My feelings towards him are unchanged but he managed to make himself exist enough in my world for me to write this post to say – you are not entitled to my attention, I get to walk past you and not notice you.

Tags:

 

Sun 12 May 2013

12WBT PreSeason Task: Say it Out Loud

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
No Comments

Tomorrow is the beginning of the new round of the 12 Week Body Transformation program and I’ve signed up again. I’m doing so under medical supervision and with a promise on a handshake that I made with my midwife (and then signed off by my OB) that I not put on any weight in this pregnancy. It’s a pretty daunting thought. Don’t pregnant women *have* to put on weight? Aren’t you supposed to be a whale? Aren’t you eating for 2 etc?

Many years ago now, when I was having an anxiety meltdown, Tansy said to me – you have to work out *how* you can do [particular thing I wanted to do but had decided I could not, due to OCD] and figure out all the things you need to set in place to make that ok. What she was saying to me, and what she’s said many many times since is – figure out and set goals for things you have control over. It’s not reasonable to say “my goal is to win [X] award or publish [so and so] or create a viable business” but it *is* reasonable to set high standards for the fiction you buy and your editorial processes in order to publish the best work you can possibly publish. *That* is something you can control. And it turns out, *that* is also something you can be proud of. The rest, you can’t control so what is the use in stressing about it?  I’ve taken this advice and I’ve clung to it. When I start to freak out about something, I look at what I *can* do about it and I focus on that. If noone is buying any of my books this week, I look at what I’ve personally done to promote them and what I could be doing. And I do that.

So in the face of all the media hysteria that gets thrown at you about leaving having babies too late, I looked at what I could do, given that I can’t halt time. I looked at the factors that were within my control – I lost 15kg. I ate better, consistently. I reduced my intake of alcohol. I exercised. I didn’t take up smoking. I don’t know whether these made a difference but I do know that they gave me things I could focus on, healthy things that would improve my quality of life, even if that’s the only benefit I got.

And now here I am. 37. Pregnant. And getting bombarded with all kinds of other scary risk factors and statistics. Having a higher BMI increases the risk of complications later on in pregnancy. And given my family history of diabetes. And my own potential health complications. The best thing I can do is be healthy in this pregnancy. I believe my midwife called it ‘body sculpting” – I guess whereby the sculpture I produce at the end will be a baby? I sorta feel bad that said baby will have been made out of ice cream, chocolate and gummy bears. But probably that’s just the funny things my brain does to random shit I hear.

There’s no doubt that eating well will help me feel better and make the best baby I can make. It’s been rough so far as I have had no appetite at all, felt sick pretty much most of the time, and can’t stand the taste of water. This has meant I’ve mostly eaten glutinous carbs which have also made me feel sick due to Crohn’s stuff. I don’t see how you are supposed to only eat 200 extra calories when pregnant yet also stave off morning sickness by never having an empty stomach. How does that even freaking work? Carrots don’t quite seem to cut through that empty growling abyss in the pit of my stomach. And with my heartburn issues, there’s a whole bunch of food that I used to be able to eat that I now cannot. And so, being a vegetarian with gluten and lactose intolerances now having to avoid anything acidic … you see why toast with honey is the option, right?

Anyway. Here’s to morning sickness abating (any day soon!) and moving on to that whole extra energy thing I hear is supposed to kick in (any day soon!). I’m signing up to the next 12WBT with the goal of not putting on any weight and of getting fitter in preparation for this whole labour thing I’m trying not to hear so much about. Mostly I’m looking forward to someone else thinking through the balanced diet thing so that I start to feel better. (Incidentally, the 12WBT has a pregnancy plan option which adds in the extra calories, gives a range of meal options with pregnancy safe foods and pregnancy workouts).

So that’s me telling you the goal, as per pre season task 4. I’ll probably check in once a week on this. I start tomorrow.

Tags: ,

 

Fri 10 May 2013

Star Trek: Into the Darkness

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
[2] Comments

Here be spoilers:

Last night we saw Star Trek: Into the Darkness in Gold Class in Rockingham. It’s not quite as flash as Gold Class in the Northern Suburbs but it’s a nice date night out and considering C and I have been apart for a few weeks and he’s at sea on and off at the moment, it was definitely a nice night out. You get free popcorn and a drink with a comfy seat and not too many people in the theatre. (I got mud cake and icecream as well!)

I’m a trekkie and would have seen this movie no matter what. And despite what I’m about to say about this movie, I’ll still head along to see the next one.

First up, you can tell a lot about the promoters think about either the movie or the audience heading along to a movie by the trailers they run before it. And what I learned is that probably not a lot of women are expected to enjoy Star Trek. Which is funny really when looking around, I estimated that the audience was about 50:50 on the gender lines. There were hardly any women in any of the trailers for movies you might also like to see. The women who did make the trailers got to be wives or whores. There was one woman who got to train and suit up in the robot warrior costume to fight big monsters in the upcoming Pacific Rim. And that was it. Male protagonists and view points all the way.

So. The movie. For the most part, I enjoyed it. I like the reboot. I kinda like the Spock/Kirk dynamic. I like the shiny and I like that it’s new Star Trek onscreen. But for all that, it was a bit … Bat Man, is the best way I think I can describe it. It feels like science fiction action now needs to be Bat Man-like for some reason. I don’t even know what I mean by that but watching this film, I felt like I was back watching the Dark Knight Rises. We’re in a gloomy place for science fiction it seems. All the preview trailers were about the end of the world. And the Star Trek film is placed just prior to the Klingon/Federation (?) war. I guess in general, we don’t seem to think brightly about the future right now.

I liked the pacing of the film and I liked the tension. I also kinda liked the pastiche to the original series. But I have to admit, I feel a bit like the point of a reboot for a franchise should mean the opportunity to do other things. I mean, sure, we’re going to walk back through an alternate timeline but does that mean we have to encounter all the previous scenarios and nemeses? Surely there is freedom in just doing totally different stuff and going in new and different directions? I would think there would be a lot of pressure in bringing back old enemies and friends.

I have two main gripes. The first is that we get a new female member to the main crew of the Enterprise – she gets a name and a job title and everything (there are other women on the bridge, probably more than in the Original Series, but they don’t get named and I think only one ever gets spoken to). So after 40 years of feminism, we get TWO named women in the gang. But … in exchange for this, we have to see her in her underwear. And like, I get that Kirk is that whole cowboy playboy dude of awesome and all but … really?? In 2013,  we still have to minimise the female physicist weapons specialist by making her take off ALL her clothes right before she disarms bombs and stuff??? Seriously?

I also have a bit of an issue with the way they directed Uhura when she bravely volunteers to attempt to negotiate with the Klingons on Kronos. Was it really necessary to make her physically appear scared? I don’t think they ever make the male characters look that afraid when they are about to do scary things. They get to just bravely do them. But Uhura has to be vulnerable …

Secondly. Like Skyfall, the last 15 minutes of this movie undid the rest of the fun. If you can’t make a pregnant woman cry in a death scene, then your writing sucks. Because, let’s be honest, this is a franchise and there’s no way you bother rebooting this whole gig for just 2 movies. Which means, we know that Kirk isn’t gonna die. Or isn’t gonna stay dead. So having to suffer through that whole badly acted scene was AGONY. There was no tension, no suspense and no real depth to the dialogue. Which is a shame because the moments before that, when Kirk works to save the ship are highly charged and full of suspense – not in will he, but how will he?

But, like I said. I’m still gonna come back for movie three :)

 

 

Tags: ,

 

Sun 5 May 2013

Through Splintered Walls Art Exhibition

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
[10] Comments

photo(35) Yesterday, I attended the opening for the Through Splintered Walls Art Exhibition at the new Rockingham Art Centre.

Background: Last year, around this time, we launched the sixth volume of the Twelve Planets series – Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren – at Natcon in Melbourne. We had a great launch and sold a bunch of copies and then later in the con, we discovered that there had been a printing error – the top line of every page was missing. After manic searching to check this error didn’t happen at our end, we promised everyone we would replace their copies and then we set about thinking what we could do.

It was such a let down and disappointment. You work so hard to get a book to print and then you proudly release to the world and anxiously anticipate how it will be received. And you hope it will fly. So when it dives and crashes and burns … well it’s a devastating feeling. And one I hope to never experience again. Whilst we stood around feeling sorry for ourselves, Narrelle Harris suggested that we think about turning the spoiled books into artworks – to find a way to get artists involved to use the books for art instead of pulping them. As an environmentalist, I was totally broken hearted about the idea of the waste of all that paper. So the idea sounded perfect. Plus, we had a chance to tank a mistake and turn it into something better.

TSW_1 The three of us worked on some ideas and a pitch and then I took this to Lee Battersby who works at the City of Rockingham (the city I and TPP are now based) as the Cultural Development and Arts Coordinator. His immediate response was “we can do that!” and when I turned around, he’d organised the whole thing. He organised four artists to give four different workshops for anyone who wanted to come along and learn about paper art techniques. And then he organised for the participants to submit their finished works (made from three copies of Through Splintered Walls each, the ruined copies which I donated to the city) for a final art exhibition.

And yesterday, we attended the opening for the exhibition. Here is the Mayor of the city opening the exhibit. It turns out, this is the very first exhibition to be held in the long awaited Rockingham Arts Centre!

Kaaron was brought over for the event and to give a writing workshop whilst she was here.

Here she is giving a few remarks and raving about how awesome the finished artworks are.

photo(7)

I wandered around and took photos of most of the pieces. Here’s a gallery of them – every one used to be a copy of Through Splintered Walls!
photo(3)photo(1)photo(6)
photo(16)photo(17)photo(18)photo(19)photo(21)photo(22)photo(23)photo(41)

This one, the artist came and gave me the story to the piece. It’s not quite as she intended. You see, her new puppy accidentally chewed up that copy of the book and so she had to change her plans! I love this piece, I think it’s really great!

photo(20)photo(42)

And these are works that one of the workshop tutors made as examples:
photo(24)photo(27)
photo(40)photo(25)
It’s quite an unsettling feeling to be pleased to see copies of your book shredded, cut up and folded. I’m so happy with the way this project turned out!

Tags: , , ,

 

Thu 2 May 2013

My Conflux 9 Report

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
No Comments

I don’t really have a highly informative “this is what happened” kind of con report to deliver. Apart from the fact that a lot of my con was taken up either trying to avoid or manage morning sickness and being tired cause pregnant, when you trade in the dealers room, you don’t really experience a con the same way as everyone else. Programming becomes this outside force that determines when you think you can expect waves of people to wander through or to explain why you haven’t seen a non dealer for what feels like days. You usually head to the room before 9 to straighten up and set up for the day and then you hang out there til the room closes. If you’re lucky, like at Conflux, the room has a lock on it and you don’t have to pack your stuff up at the end of each day.

So for me, attending a con tends to be about spending time with my friends – both at my dealers table when they come and hang out with me and keep me company or bring me food (and water) and at breakfast and dinner. This time round, cause I knew this might be my last con for a while (alas, I can’t go to Brighton now), I was determined to really spend quality time with friends all in one place. Because I had to hit the sack early, I didn’t get as much bar time as I would have liked. But this, I am learning, is life.

It’s also about all the people who come past – not just to buy or look at our new books but also to say hi, to show me stuff, to check in on projects we’re working on and to pitch me. I do a lot of other business, other than selling books, in the dealers room at a con. I also get a huge creative boost just by interacting with people. I come home from a con buzzing with ideas and energy and usually throw myself into frenetic work pace for weeks afterwards. I love it.

This is what I get out of being a publisher – my favourite thing, the thing that I get the buzz from, is working with others on a project. I love the creative process from beginning to end. I love coming up with ideas, whether on my own or bouncing ideas with others. I love the development of a work – I love working with creators, I love that synergy, the being on the same wavelength, inspiring each other, taking a good idea to a better one, pushing and inspiring and supporting someone else to be the best that they can be. That’s why I do this, that’s what it’s all about for me. And if my press is never more than what it is now, I think it will have been well worth it. I’m having an awesome time with it.

Tags: ,

 

Wed 1 May 2013

So the food thing?

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
[3] Comments

It turns out, the world is a really dangerous place, eatingwise, we just never knew. As I mentioned before, I got me the OCD which is related to my anxiety stuff. And so I have a pretty darn strict set of food related hygiene rules. Trust me, I annoy everyone I live with with them. But actually, most of them are pretty standard – they’re mostly what you would do in a commercial kitchen (a lot of illness at home can be attributed to incorrect food handling).

Anyhoo, pregnancy brings with it a whole new set of food rules and I gotta admit, for someone who is in therapy for their food rules crazy (among other things), even *I* think this shit is out of the park. Let’s see … no soft cheeses, no processed meats like salami (I’m a vegetarian), no smoked salmon :( , no uncooked eggs of any kind – so, no poached eggs, no hollaindaise sauce, no chocolate mousse, no commercially made custards, no exciting desserts out at restaurants – no prepared salads and no unwashed salad leaves including the prewashed salad mixes you can by at the supermarket. No sushi. No eating prepared food that has been sitting around for more than 24 hours, including at your house ie no leftovers from more than 24 hours ago.

The world is completely unsafe for pregnant women! Seriously, we should look into that! My developing theory on this, by the way, is that “pregnant women” – the subgroup in society – is a moving target. So you’re never really inconveniencing the same people for more than 9 months. And then they got other things to do and so get distracted. But really. This shit is just ridiculous.

I already have a bunch of eating issues – I have some food allergies (nuts, sulphur) and intolerances (dairy, gluten, deadly nightshades food group (tomatoes, eggplant etc)) and then some other foods I avoid because of my bowel diseases (meat, seeds, grains). And it turns out, that all the foods I’d been relying on to eat to fulfill my daily nutritional requirements as a person are in the above group pf outlawed foods whilst pregnant. And further, that when restaurants cook for vegetarians, they add only the above, banned for pregnancy ingredients. Over the last weekend, I ended up eating meals like – boiled pasta with butter stirred through it at a very nice Italian restaurant because they could not remove the soft cheese out of any of their vegetarian options and when I asked well what did they have for pregnant vegetarians? all she could offer me was pizza. At the con hotel, there were three vegetarian options on the menu two of which were chips. And the third had uncooked eggs. There was also a buffet meal option but the food looked like it had sat out for quite some time. The soup of the day remained creamy mushroom for the entirety of the con which raised other concerning questions. I took to stealing boiled eggs in their shells at breakfast in order to be able to eat something at lunch.

So over the weekend I lived off bread, muesli bars and eggs. I dunno about you but there’s some kind of fucked up irony where you end up feeling gross, bloated, unwell and wondering when you last ate protein, cause you can’t fucking eat anything in case you accidentally kill your baby. All these stupid rules leave you thinking … but now I am eating a stupid arse unbalanced diet. How is this right??? Seriously. How?

I’m lucky because my friends have been travelling with me at cons for a while and they know my Crohn’s gets triggered and we’re starting to pinpoint how this happens. Mostly because I am a difficult eater, and I don’t like to be openly difficult so I will tend to eat things I know I shouldn’t just to fit in. I eat too much gluten and it doesn’t end nicely. This time round Terri and Tehani made sure I got gluten free options by including it in the Coles runs they did to source food (how lucky am I to have such great friends?) and I didn’t feel as bad as I usually do.

And it begs the question, has part of why I’ve felt so horrible in my first trimester been because in order to follow the stupid “don’t leave your stomach empty” rule to supposedly avoid/manage morning sickness, the easiest thing to grab is gluten filled carbs? You’re supposed to only eat 200 extra calories whilst pregnant but bugger me if I can figure out how you do that AND maintain a constantly non empty stomach. When you have that raging hunger abyss in the pit of your stomach, a carrot stick just ain’t gonna cut it.

I read an article on an online news site yesterday which said that women who eat (primarily) junk food whilst pregnant are more likely to have babies who are addicted to junk food. And I thought – fuck off! When you rule out all the fucking healthy shit I’ve been eating in the last year because of risk of listeria, what the fuck else does that leave you?

So. Yes. Welcome me to the world of never can win, eh? The guilt and shame of being a pregnant woman and being constantly at fault. It’s delightful.

At the con, I drank a juice and halfway through I thought that maybe it was fizzy – maybe it was? maybe it was supposed to be? maybe it was reaction with my mouth (I had a minor flare up over the con and my mouth was full of ulcers, hello not being able to eat properly, and my tongue gets funny). Anyway. I panicked cause I thought maybe I had drunk off juice. And I asked those around me, “OMG have I killed my baby?” to which I got two very matter of fact “Nos” from Alex and Rachel (love you both). This is what we do to women with all these fucking rules.

 

Tags:

 

Mon 29 Apr 2013

The cone of silence serves you, not me

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
[11] Comments

I’m assuming a whole bunch of these posts I’ll make on this grand adventure of realisation to the extent of women’s body policing and sexism I am about to experience you’ll nod and tell me you told me so. And sadly, that’s just how it’s gonna be, I spose.

One of the most infuriating things for me in the first trimester was that whole not telling anyone thing til you hit the 12 week mark. Actually, it’s had me raging mad for weeks and weeks. It’s a whole lotta bullshit, that, that serves to make other people feel better and bright and shiny about my experience. There’s no way that shit is about me.

For example, on news that I was indeed pregnant, I discovered, much like getting engaged, I was suddenly completely behind on everything. Apparently, if I want an OB (and I do, see yesterday’s post about some potential complications plus my age etc), I need to book in with my Dr of choice at 6 weeks or else they get booked out. And I’d know which doctor I want because … ???

I couldn’t book an appointment with my GP until I was 7 weeks along and the OB doesn’t see you until 10 weeks so that’s a long time to go in your beginning stages without really any advice, guidance or help if it’s your first time if you don’t tell anyone. Am I supposed to have just gone to a couple of books and muddled through on my own?

And of course, no matter how much I tried to be all “hey this is not a thing until like 8 months along, I can totally just go on with my regular daily life like nothing is different, cause that’s what I’m supposed to do, right?” I felt dreadfully ill most of the time, unbelievably tired, I have a cold that doesn’t go away (8 weeks now – I think it’s just another pregnancy symptom and it does allow me to not have to supersmell all the time), I can’t sleep and then I need to sleep all the time, and pregnancy brain … I was dropping balls all over the place. And … I’m supposed to just … offer no explanation?

BUT … I’m also supposed to suddenly go off coffee (that one is hard to hide in an office situation when you are known as the local caffeine addict snob), alcohol, soft cheese, unknown if unwashed salad, prepared salads, uncooked eggs, smoked salmon, anything that has been in your fridge for more than 24 hours etc etc (try looking unsuspicious at a convention with that list). And what the fuck is with every vegetarian option at a restaurant being pregnancy unfriendly??? Seriously?

You know what? I’ve just felt like a big fucking liar for the last 2 months. This whole not telling people means you have to lie, all the time. How is that more palatable? And people get suspicious (I’m sure a bunch of my Twitter followers picked up on the clues) and start asking you outright, like “Why aren’t you drinking coffee, Alisa?” Which is like … if I was going to tell you, I would tell you, right? But instead I had to look people I really like and respect in the eyes and lie. It made me feel like shit, every single time.

And here’s what makes me angry about that. You don’t tell people you’re pregnant in the first trimester “in case something happens”, right? I’m going through this experience regardless of whether or not you know about it. I’m on the train and it’s left the station. No matter the outcome, this is real and valid to me. Now if I tell you and then I have to … untell you? … then you have to deal with the yucky unhappy icky things related to “something happened”. If I don’t tell you, and something happens, you get to go on with your life and not deal or interact with it. But for me, I was already on the train, regardless, I have to go through it. And the not telling others is about sparing them “unnecessary” emotions.

So, if you don’t tell anyone and you can’t talk about being pregnant, does that mean it’s not really real until the second trimester? If people don’t want to hear about it til they know it’s “stuck” then … what is it when it’s the first trimester? Not something we want to take seriously until we know for sure it’s going to work out happily? We don’t want to be a part of the unhappy stories of first trimester pregnancies. And for me, then, the whole discussion about how evil murderers women are if they have an abortion in the first trimester becomes so unbelievably fucking hypocritical. YOU DIDN’T EVEN WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE IT ANYWAY!

One of those, either way women’s experiences must be denied, things.

It won’t surprise you then that I decided “fuck that” and did it differently. There’s no way I would have made it through that first stage without my friends. I did need the reminder that “this too shall pass”. I needed suggestions and help on finding ways to make it through the day. And what’s normal and what’s not. And a shoulder to cry on. Most of that, of course, was C, who has been brilliant and kind and patient and got himself a loyalty card at the pharmacy round the corner for his midnight runs already. One night, he gave up rugby training to lie in bed and hold my hand and watch DVDs all night with me cause that’s all that was left that could be done. I also had to tell a few people I’m working on projects with because I became flaky and unreliable at working to deadline and I needed to be watched, with that suddenly unreliable pregnancy brain. It was really clear something was up. There really was no way to hide it. Plus, in publishing you work on 12 to 18 month timeframes and I have a huge chunk of time about to come up in which I won’t be working, really. And I needed to start troubleshooting on that with authors.

I can’t imagine not being able to access and lean on my sisterhood. I think that must be one of the cruellest ways to control women – to shut them down and tell them they shouldn’t share (and validate) their experience with anyone. I don’t think I would have made it through without my friends. And I feel very angry that anyone else should have to feel that they should have to be able to do it on their own.

Incidentally, thank you to everyone who commented on yesterday’s post – I think there is a big difference between drive by lobbing of advice bombs and being engaged in a conversation in which you’re invited/asked to share your experience.

Tags:

 

Sun 28 Apr 2013

So, I have news…

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
[28] Comments

I’m snuggled into bed at Tehani’s house and am so so tired but so happy to have been to Conflux 9 this weekend. After half a week living with my friends, they’ve got my morning sickness figured out and my Crohn’s sorted and I’m feeling halfway decent after weeks and weeks. I’d been looking forward to this weekend for lots of reasons – seeing my friends all in one place, getting to launch Asymmetry, and FINALLY being able to tell people that I’m having a baby!

I’m having a baby!

I’m not very good with keeping my own secrets and I’ve been wanting to explain the loooooong period of sickness and redeem my very unreliableness. It’s been a really interesting process, both I guess, internally and socially. And I’m sure I have more of this “interesting” to go.

I’ve had a pretty rough time of the first trimester. If I knew it would be like this, I’m not really sure I would have signed up. Some days I was really quite immobilised by it. I quit my job 2.5 weeks early (went part time for one of those weeks) because I felt so ill and because I needed to sleep 3 hours at lunchtime after coming home from work about midway into my first trimester. I had days where I had about 1 hour to check emails and work on my press outside of my day job and needing to sleep (and I HATE napping). Morning sickness kicked in at about lunchtime to 2pm ish and increased steadily by bedtime. I’m still pretty much worse in the evenings and just not interested in life (generally) after about 7pm. That made being at the bar at the con til late an impossibility for me this con. But c’est la vie. I also have been suffering some side effects of Crohn’s which have been very painful, and interfered with any joy in life including sleeping. So it’s been a fun time (where fun is the opposite of a good thing).

I think this weekend, we’ve pinpointed some symptoms that are not morning sickness but Crohn’s related on top of it and so managing those as well as the other seems to be helping.

It’s been interesting how people are so quick to judge, though, how I’m going in relation to their own experience. The one thing I’ve learned so far is absolutely guaranteed that my experience of my pregnancy, and how it tracks, is going to be informed in no way by any one else’s. At all. And I’ve pretty much stopped listening. But it’s still *really* irritating how people have a need to share.

As well as my Crohn’s, I have a couple of other issues to manage through this. I have an Rh negative blood type so there’s stuff for that – that whole thing all my life where doctors and my mother have said “you know you have negative blood, right? And that that will cause problems when you have your babies” has finally arrived. But luckily they have antibody injections you can have now so that just seems like a monitor and manage situation.

The other is a bit more serious. For the last 8 years or so, I’ve had an anxiety disorder. It’s manifested in the OCD but also in mild panic attacks and depression. I’ve always been aware that depression can be exacerbated by the pregnancy/birth process and I’m aware of issues with my anxiety that may magnify through this and beyond. So I’ve been really managing my mental health with this in mind – mostly sticking with monthly visits with my counsellor, whether I really needed them or not, just to have someone really know me and be able to monitor me when I may not be able to. And also … just in case … etc.

But I’m quite fascinated by the number of people who feel a need to … is initiate the right word? … new people on this path. The number of people who feel a need to make comments like, “your life is over/going to change now” or “you will never sleep again” or “it’s going to be so much worse than you can imagine”. It might make them feel somehow triumphant, that they survived this death defying obstacle course but it’s really not a nice thing to do to someone with an anxiety disorder. I mean, really? You think I know nothing about pregnancy and child rearing that I haven’t been stressing about this for the last 5 to 10 years and that’s why it’s taken me this long to do this? I mean, really? What? I’ve never known *anyone* with a kid or just ignored *all these really obvious things about kids*? I’m a pretty organised, plan oriented, research gathering kind of person. You’d have to not know me very well to think I just woke up one day and thought “hey this’ll be fun” and leapt in, feet first, with no preparation whatsoever.

I’m going to start being much much more assertive (I was going to write “rude” there but actually, it’s them who are rude) about patrolling my boundaries. I need to for my mental health and there is going to be NO touching my stomach without asking, I am stating that now.

My aunt gave me some really great advice which was to pick one or two good friends who’ve had babies and follow their advice and ignore everyone else. And I think that’s really wise. Her other piece was – you’ll discover you’re not superwoman but you’ll also discover you’re the only one who cares. Talk about hitting the nail on the head. I’ve been really struggling with this for I guess 2 months now. I had pregnancy brain really really badly. I’m not used to not being able to rely on my head, in the face of anything. And here I was doing shit like making a cup of tea, carrying it out of one room and appearing in the next without it and no idea why. I lost words, they were just not there when I went to use them. I forgot how to do things. I became very clumsy. And it was *awful*. And then I resigned from the day job and it almost all went away. And I thought … shit, I was trying to do too much, I have a limit. And I did not like that. And, between you and me, so far, I’m not really enjoying being pregnant. I’ve kinda hated it, to be honest. And by extension, the world (more on that tomorrow). And I’ve been thinking that maybe I’m not going to be one of those women who love pregnancy and can hold down a day job and clean their house and cook dinner and run a business and be sweetness and light to everyone and everything. And I’m thinking that I might have to come to terms with being ok with that.

Tags:

 

Mon 15 Apr 2013

More on the Ditmars versus the Aurealis novels categories

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
No Comments

Before I move on, I wanted to dig a bit deeper into the stats I presented last time on the Aurealis Awards novels categories.

In my last post, I compared the gender of shortlisted authors and the winners in each of the Aurealis novel categories and then compared those to the gender breakdown of the Ditmar novel category. I wanted to look at that a bit more closely. Here is the breakdown in Ditmar novel winners by whether they won, shortlisted or were overlooked in the Aurealis Awards novel categories.

The Ditmars are often seen as a “correcting force” for the Aurealis Awards. 6% of the time, or once, a novel won the Ditmar which did not make the Aurealis Awards shortlists. That novel was The Scarlet Rider by Lucy Sussex. It is recognised in the subsequent charts as N/A for Aurealis Award category.

DitmarsvAA

This chart breaks down the Ditmars novel winners into genre using their shortlisted categories in the Aurealis Awards (for the length of the Aurealis Awards, only). 50% of the time, a SF novel wins the Ditmar. Last year was the first time that SF novel was written by a woman – Kim Westwood’s The Courier’s New Bicycle.
DitmarsvAA_2

 

61% of the time, the Ditmar novel goes to a novel that only shortlisted, but did not win an Aurealis Award. Those winners are broken down below into genre category.

 

DitmarsvAA_3

 

The other aspect I wanted to drill down into was the Fantasy novel category. It was remarked to me after I posted the last statistics that it’s interesting because it’s not a new thing for this category to be a strong female – dare I write “dominated” – category. It’s essentially the trend for this award.

Tallying up the winners for this category, where each nomination is a separate novel,  a couple stand out:

Juliet Marillier – 3 wins, 8 nominations

Sara Douglass – 2 wins, 10 nominations

Sean Williams – 2 wins, 3 nominations

Garth Nix – 2 wins, 3 nominations

Jane Routley – 2 wins, 2 nominations

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: ,

 

Thu 11 Apr 2013

Novel categories – Aurealis Award and the Ditmar

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
[7] Comments

This starts out with some feel good, happy carefree plots but be prepared for the sobering finish.

Looking at the gender breakdown of the Aurealis winners and shortlists over time.

Aurealis SF Novel category:

Here is the breakdown by gender of the SF novel category for the history of the award:
Aurealis SF novel Shortlists
And here is the corresponding breakdown by gender of the SF Novel category winners for the history of the award:

Aurealis SF novel winners

But what of the shortlists? Here is the breakdown by gender for the shortlists for the SF novel category for the history of the award, by year:

Aurealis SF Novel shortlists column

What I feel I still need to chase down here, if the information can be found, is what was eligible for consideration for the shortlists for each of these years to have a look at that gender breakdown.

But here’s some fun facts for this category. Over the course of this category award, there have been 19 wins to 13 individuals: 4 women and 9 men. The 4 women are Marianne de Pierres, Kim Westwood, Maxine McArthur and Kate Orman and they each won this award once. 5 men have won this award more than once: K A Bedford (2), Damien Broderick (3), Sean Williams (2), Sean McMullen (2) and Greg Egan (2 – though he declined the second).

Aurealis Fantasy Novel category:

Shortlists by gender:
Aurealis Fantasy Novel shortlists

 

And the winners:
Aurealis Fantasy winners
And shortlists broken down by year for comparison:

Aurealis Fantasy Novel Shortlists column

 

Aurealis Horror Novel Category:

Shortlists by gender:

 

Aurealis horror novel shortlists

And the winners:
Aurealis Horror Novel winners
And shortlists broken down by year for comparison:
Aurealis Horror shortlists column

And YA Novel Category:

Shortlists by gender:
Aurealis YA shortlists
And the winners:

 

Aurealis YA Novel shortlists
And shortlists broken down by year for comparison:
Aurealis YA shortlists column

 

And finally, I thought it would be interesting to compare the above with the Ditmar novel category.

The Ditmars have been running a lot longer than the Aurealis Awards, are a popular vote by the attendees at Natcon and there is only one novel category:
Ditmar Novel Winners
Now, this is a pretty shocking pie chart. I think it presents case in point, Tansy’s Theory that as soon as you ask people to narrow their choice down to one, you [mostly] get a male winner. That 15% female winners, equates to 7 compared to 39 male winners: Cherry Wilder in 1978, Lucy Sussex in 1997, K J Bishop in 2004  and then Margo Lanagan (2009), Kaaron Warren (2010), Tansy Rayner Roberts (2011) and Kim Westwood (2012).

Or more importantly, here is where they sit chronologically:
Ditmar novel winners column

I need to do a proper comparison, but it feels like in most years, the SF novel beats out the Fantasy or YA to win the Ditmar. The other thing of note, is that the fantasy Aurealis category has some strong female novelists who appear multiple years on the shortlists and often have won several. These include Juliet Marillier, Sara Douglass, Glenda Larke, Marianne de Pierres, Isobelle Carmody.

I think these two awards gender breakdowns are interesting to compare to awards I already looked at, namely the lifetime achievement awards:
Chandler
Peter Mac WinnersPeter Mc Convenors

All these awards represent narrowing the winner choice down to one person. The most interesting here is the Peter McNamara Convenors’ award, given the novel category gender breakdowns above.

Tags: , , ,

 

Thu 11 Apr 2013

Tentatively on the mend?

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
No Comments

Despite having a bad night again last night, I think I’m progressively starting to feel a bit more like me. Ish. I still have a battery of tests to do, running here there and everywhere for time sensitive stuff, but they’ve started giving me drugs to treat symptoms. And it’s amazing how you realise just how bad you felt when you start to feel not bad and also just how easy it is to forget what feeling human feels like. One of the most important leaps forward was having my Vitamin D trebled by a doc this week. I feel instantly better. I’m sleeping great and I have my energy back. OMG not having energy is like some kind of horrible torture for me.

I’m also my own worst enemy, as my mother loves to say.

The worse I feel, the less likely I am to take action to make myself feel better. Dehydrated? Unlikely to start drinking more water. If I’m lucky, I’ll up the caffeine intake. Have a headache? Why pop a pill when I can just blame the self infliction and thus point to the self deservingness of said pain? Lack in energy and general blahness? Why consume more fruit and veggies and take a vitamin when I could loll listlessly about, nosh nutritionally devoid junk and just groan?

So my gradual improvement this week has also improved my outlook on life (yay) and I’ve started to eat better and take my meds and gotten into the upwards spiral I so often avoid.

And got myself to uni yesterday for the first time. (I mentioned I have an office at home so I don’t really need to be on campus all that much?) I had the energy and mindset to be able to cope with parking (luckily I had already set the parking app up on my phone so I just had to learn to use it) and I found the Humanities building and the postgrad lounge where the workshop I had RSVPed for was held. I’m not convinced I needed the workshop, I couldn’t tell you what I got out of it and to be honest, I find most other people’s thesis topics kinda boring (except for Helen’s other student who was there, obvs, since his is SF creative writing), which is more likely due to my lack of arts qualifications than anything. Also, I’m mostly not here to hang out and waste time. I can see that it’s a really fun campus and there are so many cool things on and even just that I could get involved in in my own dept but at the same time, I have a lot going on in my life right now, I took a big salary hit to be here, and I feel too old for the uni experience this time round. I’ve been there and done that and know how easy it is to lose 6 months or a year of productive study to being a student. And so on the one hand I’m making myself go to all these workshops on how to do a phd, which I didn’t take the last time through, but on the other hand … I mostly know all this stuff – I know that my thesis topic will change over the next four years. I know that at the moment I want to solve the world but most of that will fall away because the point is that you need to focus on one specialised idea and contribute that to your field etc.

Probably the one thing I took away from yesterday is the way a creative production phd is a dance between the creative work and the exegesis, that the two form one thesis together and that you need to work on them simultaneously so that one informs the other. And that that’s pretty cool as a thought exercise. And that it’s really really cool that I get to spend the next three years, like, thinking. I still can’t believe I’m allowed to have fun enjoying my day job. So weird.

Tags: ,

 

Wed 10 Apr 2013

Aurealis Awards 2012 Shortlists Stats

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
No Comments

Whilst I slog away processing the full stats for the history of the Aurealis Awards, here’s some stats for the current shortlists. I think these will be interesting to compare against the average, when I have that. Being a creative publishing phd, I’m also very interested in publisher statistics. I’m in the process of thinking through performance indicators for various measurements of “success” and here I am playing around with some of the elements of those (how do you measure how successful you have been at executing what you set out to do? – Big thesis-ey question)

Here is the breakdown of shortlisted authors, editors and artists by gender:

Aurealis 2012 shortlists by gender

And this one is a breakdown of the lists by the publisher size:
Aurealis 2012 by publisher size

 

I’m also interested in looking at trends and changes in the publishing industry so the following graphs look at which publishers have what proportion of the shortlists – divided roughly into big publishers and indie; and also number of titles per publisher shortlisted.
Aurealis 2012 big publishers

Aurealis publishers indie

Aurealis 2012 titles per publisher

 

ETA one final plot, of the women shortlisted for the Aurealis Award in 2012, these were their publishers:

Aurealis 2012 women by publisher

Tags: , , ,

 

Tue 9 Apr 2013

The Kitschies

Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
No Comments

Just a short one today – The Kitschies. The Kitschies are new awards, established in 2010 with the single Red Tentacle (novel) and subsequently gradually adding the Golden Tentacle (Debut novel), the Inky Tentacle (Cover art) and the Black Tentacle (Judges’ discretion). Important things to know about The Kitschies are that they are presented by Kraken Rum and “reward the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic.” The mission of the The Kitschies is “encouraging and elevating the tone of the discussion of genre literature in its many forms.” And the most important thing about these are the prizes – £2,000 in prize money and hand-crafted Tentacle trophies!

Here are the stats. I’ve only presented two charts here. The first chart is the gender breakdown of winners with 12 winners across 4 years, and excluding two of the Judges discretion awards at this time – SelfMadeHero (which does have a female publisher) and the World SF Blog.

Kitschies Winners

And the gender breakdown of the Red and Golden Tentacles ie the fiction component only.

Kitschies novels

Tags: , ,

 

Next Page »