Readercon: Of Tin Foil Hats

Among the events today was the Tin Foil Hat event, where strange theories were floated as possibilities. As you can see, one intrepid panelist actually produced a tin foil hat, too.

It was a "you had to be there" kind of event. Many theories both bizarre and  plausible were floated. My own consisted of the idea that in not too many years, what with blogs, social media and indie publishing making everyone a writer, there would only be five readers left in the world (two in China, one in Argentina, one in the UK, and the last in a very difficult to locate island in the Pacific). This handful of remaining readers would be lionised consequently, living like ancient kings with all manner of wealth while writers crawled before them, begging for their attention.

Well, it was better than my initial idea: all SF fans are thin at one end, much much thicker in the middle and thin again at the other end...

The urban fantasy/paranormal panel went quite well.We had a wide ranging discussion that really engaged the audience, too. Everyone had a great time. I finally got to meet Delia Sherman, who's just as terrific as she seems in print. There were a couple of panels dealing with Joanna Russ' legacy and with memories of her from folks who knew her like Chip Delaney. I sold some books at the Broad Universe table -- and I got a great review for "Vironsusi" today, too.

And before I forget, Happy Birthday, big brother!

Ms. Russ & Horror

Lesson: this is what happens when you complain about something to generally nice people -- you get asked to share your opinion, too. I commented on Ms. Magazine's initial post on Joanna Russ' passing by expressing my disappointment that the piece was so cursory and written by someone who said she didn't really read the genre (always distressing). So here's my piece:

When Joanna Russ Changed Us

May 15, 2011 by K. A. Laity · Leave a Comment

Michele Kort’s vivid remembrance of Joanna Russ (who died April 29) based on a single encounter with Russ’s short story “When it Changed” is a testament to just how far this woman’s influence continues to spread. Few have come away from reading Russ without a strong opinion. Ideas she posed as many as 30 years ago—a world without men, kick-ass action heroines, feminist romance—continue to vex and inspire us.

The Russ’s unflaggingly popular novel The Female Man and its development of the world known as Whileaway—a place devoid of men for centuries—will long be part of her fame. This imagined future is an agrarian reverie filled with hard work but little advanced technology beyond the ability to merge ova to make babies. People tend to refer to Whileaway as “utopian” but I doubt that Russ would agree. Simple answers never suited her....

Read the rest at Ms.

Today I begin the summer intensive,  Three Weeks of Terror -- or a sort of abbreviated history of the horror film. It's always a bit of a breathless run which tantalises more than it teaches, I fear. As a boot camp in the genre, at the very least it usually introduces the students to films they've not seen and a way of looking at familiar films that makes them completely new. It also funds my travels in England for June, so whoo hoo! Doubtless I will have much to say about the class in the coming days.

BitchBuzz: Judy Judy Judy

My column today seems to be snagging the zeitgeist, as Publishers Weekly picked up on the same story. If you don't know the saga of Pennsylvania English teacher Judy Buranich, read on:

The Problem with Literary Slut Shaming

By K. A. Laity

Because women don't write anything important, right?

Shocking revelations this week—or at least that's how it was presented. WNEP in Snyder Country, Pennsylvania ran a story with the deliberately provocative headline, "Parents: English Teacher Writes Racy Novels" as a way to manufacture controversy. Like the Simpsons' Helen Lovejoy shrieking, "Won't somebody please think of the children?" the local news station began their "news" story with the following slut-shaming gasp:

A series of racy romance novels by an author named Judy Mays are a little too racy for some parents in our area, especially now that they have discovered the woman known as Judy Mays is teaching their children...

Read the rest over at BBHQ and see the comments, too, where I've added link to the PW write up and to the fantastic video made by one of her former students that will warm the heart of any teacher.

I'm still reeling from the news about Galway! So much to do -- which is why after going to bed around 1am I woke up before 6 and could not get back to sleep. Paperwork is the first order of the day (well, actually laundry was) as I have to have formal permission from my college to be released from the coming year's teaching. Given the prestige a Fulbright offers to the institution, I suspect it won't be a problem, but there are always hoops through which one must jump. I got the welcome packet already and emails of a couple of current Fulbrighters so I can ask them about their experiences. The info from the foundation had the tag line about being "A Fulbrighter for Life." As one of my former students pointed out on Twitter, "It sounds like you just joined the Jets or the Sharks." 

RIP: Joanna Russ

I can't add too much to the fine encomium that Todd wrote; I'll just say that bringing The Female Man to a bunch of students at UHD, while definitely a challenge, offered a real eye-opening (and mind-expanding) experience to them as well. I've been talking about Russ a lot lately with folks in the romance field, but it seems she doesn't have the same cachet with the spec fic audience that other elder statesmen have. Just too hard to pigeon-hole. For that I have always admired her: a true iconoclast. If you haven't read her, do. I highly recommend How to Suppress Women's Writing as well. As I have spent my afternoon with some particularly awful academic writing, I appreciate once again Russ's clear-sighted ability to convey complex ideas with verve and style. She refused to be anything but herself in every way: a very out lesbian and an unapologetic feminist. Raise a glass to her name: more importantly, take her books off the shelf, read them and talk about them.

Update: The Locus obit (thanks, Todd).