Combine this with how well movies with female leads have been doing lately, and you have a powerful argument for diversity that doesn’t even rely on principle.
I suspect the reason is that women and minorities now have more economic power and self-confidence, and want to see themselves represented in the media they consume.
Originally shared by Fred Hicks
I’m not quite old enough to qualify, and don’t need it in any case, but I thought I’d pass this around.
Originally shared by Kat Richardson
If you’re a Spec Fic writer, fifty years old or older, and just getting started in your career, take a look at this:
#SLF #SpecFic #writer #sfwriters
Lots of interesting information in this survey. There are very few groups left in the US that contain a majority who are opposed to same-sex marriage; who are opposed to legal protections against discrimination for LGBT people; or who favour allowing a small business to refuse service to same-sex couples on the grounds of religious belief. Unsurprisingly, if you are old, white, male, conservative, Protestant, Republican and live in the Deep South, you’re more likely to hold these views, but even then it’s far from a lock.
(Side note: it always amuses me that US statistics lump Pacific Island people in with Asians. I live in Auckland, which has more Pacific Island citizens than any other city in the world, and the idea of considering them as the same demographic as Asian people is just bizarre.)
Originally shared by Will Shetterly
“majorities of black Protestants (54%), Hispanic Protestants (59%), Mormons (66%), white evangelical Protestants (67%), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (72%) oppose allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. Muslims are divided in their opinions over same-sex marriage (41% favor, 45% oppose).”
Microsoft are interviewing disabled people to figure out how to make products easier to use for everyone. “They are finding the expertise and ingenuity that arises naturally, when people are forced to live a life differently from most.”
I can attest to this. My wife can’t reach above her head or down to the ground, and I have a friend who only has the use of one hand. They’re very ingenious in finding alternative ways to do things, because the alternative is not to get those things done.
Originally shared by Brie “Beau” Sheldon
Really interesting! Via private share
This is a thought-provoking article about the role of class in the writing and publishing world.
I come from a family which was working class further back (my father’s father drove a train; my mother’s father ran a bus company, but came from a long line of tradesmen). My parents, though, were both schoolteachers, and by the time I was born had achieved some degree of middle-class economic stability, in part because my father, as an ex-serviceman, had received subsidised university education and a cheap house loan. He also wrote (nonfiction) books in his spare time, and by my mid-teens was making good money from them.
My parents supported me through university, and when I got an in-house job with a publisher, it was with the publisher who put out my father’s books (I’d previously been freelance, which I could sustain because I was still living with my parents). One of my earlier freelance jobs I got in part because the editor concerned was married to one of my former professors. Personal connection plays a big role in the publishing industry, and if I’d been, say, a Samoan kid from South Auckland whose parents worked in a factory, my opportunities would have been a lot less. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done (though I never saw it done, so maybe it couldn’t); it would, at the least, have been a lot harder.
Even today, I’m able to take one day off every two weeks to write, sacrificing 10% of my income, because I’m in a job that pays enough for me to do that (and where my employer allows me to do it). If I was struggling to put food on the table, and having to write late at night or on the weekends while exhausted from a tough week of work, I wouldn’t be anything like as productive as I am.
Originally shared by Rick Wayne (Author)
Lisa Cohen Mike Reeves-McMillan you guys might find this opinion piece interesting re: the article you shared earlier. An excerpt:
“Last year, I went to a writing conference in Boston. One of the first panel discussions was about how a writer claims authority, how it is that a writer asserts that he or she possesses the expertise to write about a topic, and how concomitantly the editor reading through the submission slush pile can determine whether the writer is someone who can claim authority as a writer.
One of the panelists, an editor, offered that the first thing he looked for when skimming through the cover letter was whether the writer possessed an MFA. He did this, he hastened to qualify, not because it guaranteed that the submitter would be a better writer, but because taking a year or two off out of one’s life to dedicate oneself to writing proved that one was serious as a writer. I came off my chair in anger—how could he assert such a thing? My friend pulled me back down, but I continued to fume. Who has more dedication: the person who has the financial wherewithal to spend time in a writing program, or the writer who writes despite having to work full-time, early in the morning, with absolutely no one but themselves for motivation? As another panel member offered their method for detecting “dedication,” I flashed back to sitting with Fred Busch as he recounted stories from his early days of working all day and spending time with his wife and son in the early evening and then taking the typewriter into the bathroom, so as not to wake his sleeping family, and writing as much as he could before fatigue demanded he go to bed. How much more dedication did one need to prove beyond that? But that’s not exactly something you can put on a resume. That panelist’s misguided assumption, that an MFA necessarily connotes greater dedication to writing, reveals an all too common blindness to the easy privilege of those with financial security.”
Lisa Cohen Mike Reeves-McMillan you guys might find this opinion piece interesting re: the article you shared earlier. An excerpt:
“Last year, I went to a writing conference in Boston. One of the first panel discussions was about how a writer claims authority, how it is that a writer asserts that he or she possesses the expertise to write about a topic, and how concomitantly the editor reading through the submission slush pile can determine whether the writer is someone who can claim authority as a writer.
One of the panelists, an editor, offered that the first thing he looked for when skimming through the cover letter was whether the writer possessed an MFA. He did this, he hastened to qualify, not because it guaranteed that the submitter would be a better writer, but because taking a year or two off out of one’s life to dedicate oneself to writing proved that one was serious as a writer. I came off my chair in anger—how could he assert such a thing? My friend pulled me back down, but I continued to fume. Who has more dedication: the person who has the financial wherewithal to spend time in a writing program, or the writer who writes despite having to work full-time, early in the morning, with absolutely no one but themselves for motivation? As another panel member offered their method for detecting “dedication,” I flashed back to sitting with Fred Busch as he recounted stories from his early days of working all day and spending time with his wife and son in the early evening and then taking the typewriter into the bathroom, so as not to wake his sleeping family, and writing as much as he could before fatigue demanded he go to bed. How much more dedication did one need to prove beyond that? But that’s not exactly something you can put on a resume. That panelist’s misguided assumption, that an MFA necessarily connotes greater dedication to writing, reveals an all too common blindness to the easy privilege of those with financial security.”
http://lithub.com/the-literary-class-system-is-impoverishing-literature/
The Toast usually does clever, sophisticated satire, but this isn’t that. Instead, it’s a heartfelt report from inside the traditional publishing industry about why it’s so lacking in diversity, and what needs to happen to change that.
Oh, hey, Emma Watson has started a feminist book club on Goodreads.
I would add C.L. Moore to this list. Her incorporation of emotions and relationships into the SF she wrote from the 1930s anticipated the New Wave of the 60s, and was far ahead of anything anyone else was doing until probably Murray Leinster in the 50s.
Originally shared by Lisa “LJ” Cohen
This is full of awesome! 10 women who defined and changed Science Fiction.
I would add C.L. Moore to this list. Her incorporation of emotions and relationships into the SF she wrote from the 1930s anticipated the New Wave of the 60s, and was far ahead of anything anyone else was doing until probably Murray Leinster in the 50s.
Originally shared by Lisa “LJ” Cohen
This is full of awesome! 10 women who defined and changed Science Fiction.