Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: The new riot reporter, in reply to Russell Brown,
Greg was good value tonight
Meanwhile, just checked my library waitlist and Alix Bosco's oeuvre is IN TRANSIT. Thank you, Auckland Libraries. (Should be writing two reviews for The Listener that are due on Tuesday, but public libraries are evil literary tinny houses for us weak-willed bibliophiles...:) ]
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Field Theory: How's that working out for…, in reply to giovanni tiso,
One I got in my inbox today concerning the RWC – a spin off from SKY’s abhorrent military-themed campaign – ended with the words “Do it now cupcake.”
I don't talk to my snacks -- that's just weird. :)
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Field Theory: How's that working out for…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I don’t get the relentless negativity, I really don’t.
Neither do I – really, I don’t care but I’m sure there are plenty of folks out there who are (inexplicably) equally indifferent to the pending arrival of Torchwood: Miracle Day and the return of Doctor Who.
But, Jesus, bullshit like this and the Adidas non-troversy ( don't buy the fucking thing ) really isn’t doing much to enhance my RWC-related zen.
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Hard News: The new riot reporter, in reply to Russell Brown,
and, more to the point, because she had some bloody choice words earlier this year for the men who were outed pretending to be lesbian bloggers.
Which, without putting words in Duffy's mouth (and looking forward to seeing the show) I hope she'd not put Greg McGee on the same level as that. I'm actually trying to make the transition from seething incoherence to seething coherence at this:
Before publication, Cut & Run was assessed by five readers. I insisted that three of them not be told who the author was. The two (one male, one female) who knew that I’d written it, had major problems with Anna’s credibility. The three readers (two female, one male) who had no idea who the author was, thought Anna was a wonderfully written, sympathetic and engaging character.
That was the moment when I decided my name would not be on the book. I wanted the book and Anna to be treated on their merits, not be assessed on what people thought they knew about its author.
What. The. Fuck. First, I could rattle off a bloody long list of female mystery writers who write perfectly acceptable novels with male protagonists, and any reader who had "credibility issues" with them really needs to kept far away from sane publishers with a mystery list. For that matter, it's not impossible for straight writers to produce GLBT characters who aren't stereotypically swishy queens or uber butch man-hating dykes.
Grrr...
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Hard News: The new riot reporter, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Does it matter one iota if she is lesbian?
Not really, but Duffy is out and her genre work prominently features lesbian-bi protagonists - it wasn't that long ago when authors of genre fiction with a Sapphic flavour published under pseudonyms and heavens forfend mainstream publishers would sully their hands with invert pornography. (Patricia Highsmith wouldn't even publicly acknowledge the lesbian romance novel she published under the nom de plume 'Claire Morgan' in 1952 for over thirty years. Murderous sociopaths, no probs. Dykes who didn't commit suicide or rediscover a taste for cock in the last chapter, not so much.)
So, yeah, I think we can let Russell off with a warning. :)
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Hard News: The new riot reporter, in reply to BenWilson,
It’s the only way I’d do it. Being able to choose a good pseudonym is like the first basic qualification for being able to bluff your way through that genre.
I wouldn't be so dismissive of romance fiction -- which has always been the red-haired bastard of genre fiction. It's not exactly high art, but any writer (or publisher) who condescends to their audience is going to have that disrespect paid with interest. "atergory romance" may be as strict a form as a haiku, but Mills & Boon and Harlequin haven't done as well as they have, for as long as they have, by not listening to readers who know what works and aren't shy about saying so.
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Or the opposite, which is the long tradition of men (for whatever reason) writing books as women, which has been going on since at least the eighteenth century.
And you might be surprised how many men write romance novels under female pseudonyms - including a former President of the Romance Writers of America.
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I’ve asked my friend Stella Duffy, lesbian writer of lesbian thrillers, for some comment, and it would seem that McGee isn’t the only writer working under gender disguise.
Oh, for fuck's sake - I've been working on a post about this and been severely hampered by my inability to beat up any great degree of outrage. Might help if genre fiction wasn't so damn full of pseudonyms and a long history of women "dragging up" to get published, or taken seriously.
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Hard News: When the Weather is the News, in reply to Russell Brown,
I think Craig was talking about Auckland. Wellington is plainly messed up.
Yes, and if I was still living in Karori (run Allington Road through Google Maps) I'd be feeling a little more anxious.
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Hard News: When the Weather is the News, in reply to George Darroch,
Nevertheless, I do find it amusing that the slightest flurry sends great parts of the country into apoplexy
I don't know if anyone outside the media was getting apolexic. There was more "wow, kewl" shit going down, and I don't know about anyone else but I really need a bit more child-like wonder in my days.
(ETA: Yeah, I know it's easy to say in a well-insulated water-tight house when you don't have a small cardiac event every time the power bill comes around.)
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