A couple of recent conversations (including a letter conversation with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7)
mrissa about history and social customs)plus some interesting links made me think about exploring the connection between history and fiction beginning with time.
mrissa about history and social customs)plus some interesting links made me think about exploring the connection between history and fiction beginning with time.It's been quite a good conference here professionally speaking, but last night I went to bed early feeling irritated and sour. This morning I woke up feeling depressed and upset.
I walked for an hour along San Antonio's Riverwalk and tried to really get down into why I felt the way I did. Some facile explanations readily presented themselves, but even in the midst of my emotional distress, I recognized those for what they were. I think I eventually reached a better understanding, which in turn made me rather uncomfortable.
The fact that I was rather uncomfortable strikes me as a important, and as a reason to talk about this despite my first impulse to keep the whole business to myself in a fit of passive-aggressive sulking. This is especially true in the light of John Scalzi's recent, excellent post on the Lowest Difficulty Setting.
Last night, well after all our formal events were concluded, about a dozen of us were in the conference suite goofing off, cutting up, and so forth, as one does. Alcohol had been flowing, a little of it into me. For me, this evening space at writing conventions and conferences among like-minded people has always been one of the few places in my life where I can really cut loose and be my unfettered self. Fast talking, flirty, potty mouthed, pun riddled, and rather over the top. Those of you who've known me for a while in real life have probably seen me in this mode.
Most of the time I'm Dad, or an employee, or a professional writer representing myself, my work and my field, or a cancer patient. (A hell of a lot of that last one.) Or I'm just some guy in the grocery store or the post office or whatever, going about his business. All of those are roles, adopted with varying degrees of self-consciousness. But that convention/conference party space is one of those rare places where I have always felt I can just be me.
Except it went wrong for me last night. To be clear right up front, not through anyone else's bad behavior, as no one treated me badly at all, but through my own internal processes.
A joke with religious content was told. Someone was offended and left abruptly. I neither told the joke nor was upset by it, but I certainly made a strong material contribution to the fast-and-loose social environment that made that joke seem reasonable to the teller, and made all of us but one laugh uproariously.
In the wake of that moment, the bunch of us got into a lengthy, serious discussion about our social responsibilities to one another, what I in a moment of flipness called a "white people encounter group." It was rather productive, especially given that a number of us were at least tipsy, and we were all pretty tired. It was also eye-opening for me.
I've been explicitly aware of the concept of privilege, as discussed in progressive social circles, since the late 1980s. The first time I can recall hearing the term with this meaning was listening to an interview on NPR in 1988 or so with Peggy McIntosh discussing her essay on white privilege and male privilege, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.
I've been thinking and writing about it both directly and indirectly for the quarter century since then. I've expended a lot effort in my personal life to avoid leveraging that privilege in areas where I do have control. Put very simply, for example, not cutting in front of the deli line because I'm the tall(ish) white guy standing in the crowd and the clerk points to me next.
I'm also co-parenting a child who is a female person of color. One of my primary jobs as her parent is prepare for her life by helping her become a happy, self-confident, intelligent young woman with enough wisdom and resilience to deal with all the stuff she'll have to wade through that has simply never come my way.
As for me, in Scalzi's terms, yeah, I'm playing life on the lowest difficulty setting. I sometimes joke that if I were fifty pounds lighter and $500,000 richer, I would be The Man. Except that's not a joke, it's true. And yes, I can point to a lot of obstacles in my life history from childhood sexual abuse to deep clinical depression in my teens and twenties to cancer in my forties, but all of those were overcome in part through my privilege as a white male, for example, by having the kind of family support and adult employment that gave me full access to high quality healthcare with excellent doctors who treated me with respectful attention. Even with all the crap, I'm still playing on the lowest difficulty setting.
What I realized last night, what depressed and upset me, was that my sense of being free and unfettered, of being able to cut loose and be myself, is itself a distinct form of privilege. Once we got serious, some of the women in the room were willing to speak up and explain that certain jokes which had passed earlier made them uncomfortable, but they didn't want to ruin the mood by saying anything. I myself pointed out that there had been some psuedohomoerotic clowning around by straight guys, including me, which would probably have made any LGBTQ-identified people in the room uncomfortable, though no one had spoken up. I was sharply (and appropriately) corrected when I prefaced one of my comments by saying we now live in a culture where offense is in the eye of the beholder. That is certainly my experience, but I'm speaking and thinking from a position of privilege, almost all of it transparent to me as its beneficiary. As the other person pointed out, women are constantly being told by men what they should or shouldn't be offended by. Probably including me, some of the time.
I feel like I lost something important last night. I feel like I lost a sense of unguarded social freedom. How I lost that sense of unguarded social freedom was by realizing deep in my gut something which I've known intellectually for years. That is, that for most people, that sense of unguarded social freedom never existed in the first place.
That makes me very, very sad.
I hate teachable moments, especially when I'm on the receiving end of them.
I walked for an hour along San Antonio's Riverwalk and tried to really get down into why I felt the way I did. Some facile explanations readily presented themselves, but even in the midst of my emotional distress, I recognized those for what they were. I think I eventually reached a better understanding, which in turn made me rather uncomfortable.
The fact that I was rather uncomfortable strikes me as a important, and as a reason to talk about this despite my first impulse to keep the whole business to myself in a fit of passive-aggressive sulking. This is especially true in the light of John Scalzi's recent, excellent post on the Lowest Difficulty Setting.
Last night, well after all our formal events were concluded, about a dozen of us were in the conference suite goofing off, cutting up, and so forth, as one does. Alcohol had been flowing, a little of it into me. For me, this evening space at writing conventions and conferences among like-minded people has always been one of the few places in my life where I can really cut loose and be my unfettered self. Fast talking, flirty, potty mouthed, pun riddled, and rather over the top. Those of you who've known me for a while in real life have probably seen me in this mode.
Most of the time I'm Dad, or an employee, or a professional writer representing myself, my work and my field, or a cancer patient. (A hell of a lot of that last one.) Or I'm just some guy in the grocery store or the post office or whatever, going about his business. All of those are roles, adopted with varying degrees of self-consciousness. But that convention/conference party space is one of those rare places where I have always felt I can just be me.
Except it went wrong for me last night. To be clear right up front, not through anyone else's bad behavior, as no one treated me badly at all, but through my own internal processes.
A joke with religious content was told. Someone was offended and left abruptly. I neither told the joke nor was upset by it, but I certainly made a strong material contribution to the fast-and-loose social environment that made that joke seem reasonable to the teller, and made all of us but one laugh uproariously.
In the wake of that moment, the bunch of us got into a lengthy, serious discussion about our social responsibilities to one another, what I in a moment of flipness called a "white people encounter group." It was rather productive, especially given that a number of us were at least tipsy, and we were all pretty tired. It was also eye-opening for me.
I've been explicitly aware of the concept of privilege, as discussed in progressive social circles, since the late 1980s. The first time I can recall hearing the term with this meaning was listening to an interview on NPR in 1988 or so with Peggy McIntosh discussing her essay on white privilege and male privilege, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.
I've been thinking and writing about it both directly and indirectly for the quarter century since then. I've expended a lot effort in my personal life to avoid leveraging that privilege in areas where I do have control. Put very simply, for example, not cutting in front of the deli line because I'm the tall(ish) white guy standing in the crowd and the clerk points to me next.
I'm also co-parenting a child who is a female person of color. One of my primary jobs as her parent is prepare for her life by helping her become a happy, self-confident, intelligent young woman with enough wisdom and resilience to deal with all the stuff she'll have to wade through that has simply never come my way.
As for me, in Scalzi's terms, yeah, I'm playing life on the lowest difficulty setting. I sometimes joke that if I were fifty pounds lighter and $500,000 richer, I would be The Man. Except that's not a joke, it's true. And yes, I can point to a lot of obstacles in my life history from childhood sexual abuse to deep clinical depression in my teens and twenties to cancer in my forties, but all of those were overcome in part through my privilege as a white male, for example, by having the kind of family support and adult employment that gave me full access to high quality healthcare with excellent doctors who treated me with respectful attention. Even with all the crap, I'm still playing on the lowest difficulty setting.
What I realized last night, what depressed and upset me, was that my sense of being free and unfettered, of being able to cut loose and be myself, is itself a distinct form of privilege. Once we got serious, some of the women in the room were willing to speak up and explain that certain jokes which had passed earlier made them uncomfortable, but they didn't want to ruin the mood by saying anything. I myself pointed out that there had been some psuedohomoerotic clowning around by straight guys, including me, which would probably have made any LGBTQ-identified people in the room uncomfortable, though no one had spoken up. I was sharply (and appropriately) corrected when I prefaced one of my comments by saying we now live in a culture where offense is in the eye of the beholder. That is certainly my experience, but I'm speaking and thinking from a position of privilege, almost all of it transparent to me as its beneficiary. As the other person pointed out, women are constantly being told by men what they should or shouldn't be offended by. Probably including me, some of the time.
I feel like I lost something important last night. I feel like I lost a sense of unguarded social freedom. How I lost that sense of unguarded social freedom was by realizing deep in my gut something which I've known intellectually for years. That is, that for most people, that sense of unguarded social freedom never existed in the first place.
That makes me very, very sad.
I hate teachable moments, especially when I'm on the receiving end of them.
Your Sunday moment of zen.
Flower. © 2006, 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
The current photo series is from my 'favorites' file, hence the dates jumping about
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Flower. © 2006, 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
The current photo series is from my 'favorites' file, hence the dates jumping about
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Sunny Skies over the Pacific Northwest — I think I can see my house from here.
New-found exoplanet is evaporating away
Birther controversy: ‘Obama might not make ballot' — In a revival of the controversy surrounding US President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, Arizona’s top election official has said it is “possible” Obama may not make the state’s November ballot due to unanswered questions about his birth place.![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=1)
shsilver
‘Metrosexual Black Abe Lincoln’ — Charles M. Blow dissects the latest Republican crazy.
?otd: How do you feel about teachable moments?
5/20/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (full day of conferencing and critique)
Body movement: 60 minute walk along San Antonio's Riverwalk
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Light Breaker by Mark Teppo
New-found exoplanet is evaporating away
Birther controversy: ‘Obama might not make ballot' — In a revival of the controversy surrounding US President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, Arizona’s top election official has said it is “possible” Obama may not make the state’s November ballot due to unanswered questions about his birth place.
shsilver‘Metrosexual Black Abe Lincoln’ — Charles M. Blow dissects the latest Republican crazy.
?otd: How do you feel about teachable moments?
5/20/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (full day of conferencing and critique)
Body movement: 60 minute walk along San Antonio's Riverwalk
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Light Breaker by Mark Teppo
...that this year would be a very good year to apply to the Viable Paradise Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop on Martha's Vineyard.
The deadline for applications is 15 June, but the instructors are reading MSS right now as they come in. (Notifications of acceptances all go out in a bunch at the end, but the selection process goes a lot more smoothly if we don't have to read the whole stack in 48 hours or so after the gates are closed.)
Good things about Viable Paradise (aside from lighthouses and weather-permitting jellyfish viewing and early morning walks along the beach): you'll have eight instructors, all in the same week, for 24 students; it's a one-week workshop (because while a month or six weeks can be prohibitively hard for a lot of people to get free, even folks with day jobs can usually hack and slash at their schedules enough to cut loose a single week); and the folks at VP don't just work with short story submissions -- we like working with novels, too.
The deadline for applications is 15 June, but the instructors are reading MSS right now as they come in. (Notifications of acceptances all go out in a bunch at the end, but the selection process goes a lot more smoothly if we don't have to read the whole stack in 48 hours or so after the gates are closed.)
Good things about Viable Paradise (aside from lighthouses and weather-permitting jellyfish viewing and early morning walks along the beach): you'll have eight instructors, all in the same week, for 24 students; it's a one-week workshop (because while a month or six weeks can be prohibitively hard for a lot of people to get free, even folks with day jobs can usually hack and slash at their schedules enough to cut loose a single week); and the folks at VP don't just work with short story submissions -- we like working with novels, too.
I've been doing some preliminary work on the new Deverry book -- rereading some of the old ones, sketching out a few ideas, consulting my beaten up, crumbling master map. I'm about to start on the proposal for real, though.
In an odd way I'm embarrassed. I always swore I'd never go back there again, and here I'm doing just that. Although the new book will NOT be part of the original series, it's still a Deverry book. Oh well, if people mock me for going back, I'll deserve it. :-)
And alas, THE SILVER MAGE does seem to have a story or two missing from it. Since it's about 450 pages long as it is, there really was no room for the rest of Hwilli's story, and I wonder about those sea villages that Pol came from. But at the time, editors wanted the story finished, and they didn't want to pay for more books, and so there we were, and doubtless still are.
In an odd way I'm embarrassed. I always swore I'd never go back there again, and here I'm doing just that. Although the new book will NOT be part of the original series, it's still a Deverry book. Oh well, if people mock me for going back, I'll deserve it. :-)
And alas, THE SILVER MAGE does seem to have a story or two missing from it. Since it's about 450 pages long as it is, there really was no room for the rest of Hwilli's story, and I wonder about those sea villages that Pol came from. But at the time, editors wanted the story finished, and they didn't want to pay for more books, and so there we were, and doubtless still are.
- Mood:
rueful
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2011 Nebula Awards®.
Novel Winner: Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)
Other Nominees
- Embassytown, China Miéville (Macmillan UK; Del Rey; Subterranean Press)
- Firebird, Jack McDevitt (Ace Books)
- God’s War, Kameron Hurley (Night Shade Books)
- Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, Genevieve Valentine (Prime Books)
- The Kingdom of Gods, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Novella Winner: ”The Man Who Bridged the Mist,” Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November 2011)
Other Nominees
- “Kiss Me Twice,” Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s Science Fiction, June 2011)
- “Silently and Very Fast,” Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA Press; Clarkesworld Magazine, October 2011)
- “The Ice Owl,” Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November/December 2011)
- “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary,” Ken Liu (Panverse Three, Panverse Publishing)
- “With Unclean Hands,” Adam-Troy Castro (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, November 2011)
Novelette Winner: ”What We Found,” Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September/October 2011)
Other Nominees
- “Fields of Gold,” Rachel Swirsky (Eclipse 4, Night Shade Books)
- “Ray of Light,” Brad R. Torgersen (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 2011)
- “Sauerkraut Station,” Ferrett Steinmetz (Giganotosaurus, November 2011)
- “Six Months, Three Days,” Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com, June 2011)
- “The Migratory Pattern of Dancers,” Katherine Sparrow (Giganotosaurus, July 2011)
- “The Old Equations,” Jake Kerr (Lightspeed Magazine, July 2011)
Short Story Winner: ”The Paper Menagerie,” Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March/April 2011)
Other Nominees
- “Her Husband’s Hands,” Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine, October 2011)
- “Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son,” Tom Crosshill (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2011)
- “Movement,” Nancy Fulda (Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 2011)
- “Shipbirth,” Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 2011)
- “The Axiom of Choice,” David W. Goldman (New Haven Review, Winter 2011)
- “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees,” E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld Magazine, April 2011)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation Winner: Doctor Who: “The Doctor’s Wife,” Neil Gaiman (writer), Richard Clark (director) (BBC Wales)
Other Nominees
- Attack the Block, Joe Cornish (writer/director) (Optimum Releasing; Screen Gems)
- Captain America: The First Avenger, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely (writers), Joe Johnston (director) (Paramount)
- Hugo, John Logan (writer), Martin Scorsese (director) (Paramount)
- Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen (writer/director) (Sony)
- Source Code, Ben Ripley (writer), Duncan Jones (director) (Summit)
- The Adjustment Bureau, George Nolfi (writer/director) (Universal)
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Winner: The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)
Other Nominees
- Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor (Viking Juvenile)
- Chime, Franny Billingsley (Dial Books; Bloomsbury)
- Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Hodder & Stoughton)
- Everybody Sees the Ants, A.S. King (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
- The Boy at the End of the World, Greg van Eekhout (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
- The Girl of Fire and Thorns, Rae Carson (Greenwillow Books)
- Ultraviolet, R.J. Anderson (Orchard Books; Carolrhoda Lab)
Mirrored from SFWA | Comment at SFWA
People in need--unfortunately, those seem to be on the increase. green_knight wants work, as she's getting freelance biz off the ground. Here's the post. I personally recommend her translation skills from English into German. She also scanned three of my novels and converted them to text files for me to work with.
green_knight wants work, as she's getting freelance biz off the ground. Here's the post. I personally recommend her translation skills from English into German. She also scanned three of my novels and converted them to text files for me to work with.I bicycled from home to Bryant-Lake Bowl this morning, taking the Midtown Greenway. Greenway = AWESOME. Half an hour to Uptown through wildflowers, gardens, between old restored warehouse and manufacturing buildings, birds singing, kids playing soccer at Kix Field, and no automobile traffic. My legs were a mite wobbly when I got back, and I was sweaty as a sweaty thing, but I was also full of exercise and self-determination endorphins.
And what I went to Bryant-Lake Bowl for was the monthly Fiber Brunch, which I've been meaning to get to for, well, months. Doreen runs a terrific get-together. And we had extra big fun, because the cast of the Princess Bride Drinking Game show asked if they could use the theater stage to rehearse. Of course we warned them that we could all recite entire scenes, but would try to contain ourselves. They were terrific, and lots of fun to knit to. ("Inconceivable! *drink!*)
Now I'm having a beer. Because that's what you do after a bike ride.
And what I went to Bryant-Lake Bowl for was the monthly Fiber Brunch, which I've been meaning to get to for, well, months. Doreen runs a terrific get-together. And we had extra big fun, because the cast of the Princess Bride Drinking Game show asked if they could use the theater stage to rehearse. Of course we warned them that we could all recite entire scenes, but would try to contain ourselves. They were terrific, and lots of fun to knit to. ("Inconceivable! *drink!*)
Now I'm having a beer. Because that's what you do after a bike ride.
- Mood:
content
Page Summary
- sartorias : Fiction, History, and Time [+4]
- jaylake : [personal] Teachable moments [+11]
- jaylake : [photos] Your Sunday moment of zen [+1]
- jaylake : [links] Link salad is thoughtful [+0]
- malkingrey : A Little Bird Tells Me... [+0]
- aberwyn : Deverry again [+5]
- elisem : WOOOOOO! [+3]
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=91.7)
sfwa :: sfwa_admin : 2011 Nebula Awards Announced [+0] - sartorias : Signal boost [+9]
- coffeeem : Ahhhh, good ride. [+8]
