The article on gender, genre, publishing & ME in yesterday’s Hobart Mercury is now up electronically. Admire my library, cos it doesn’t always look quite that tidy. Cough. Thanks to Rebecca Fitzgibbon (@becfitzgibbon) for the article, it’s lovely to see some coverage of fantasy-relevant topics (not to mention feminism, gosh!) in our local paper. Bec has been writing some great pieces on culture in recent months, so it’s worth keeping an eye out for her byline.

I linked to this once already but I think it bears repeating: I appear on Jim C Hines’ blog, talking about my first novel publication.

Over on Doctor Her I finished up my series (for now at least) looking at Domesticating the Doctor with Marrying the Ponds.

A half-worked-out story idea about the concept of “lady novelists” and some mad Google fu led to my creation of this Pinterest board: Lady Novelists. I started out looking at 1920′s-1930′s era of women and then went a bit off book to add all kinds of people. I became fascinated with the images that came up for searches of particular authors – and when I only chose one picture to represent each (occasionally I picked a couple) I tried very much to find pictures that showed them at work – at the typewriter, holding books or public speaking. I was quite selective, trying not to automatically pic the most glamorous or smiley picture, but one that represented that writer’s personality. Except Nancy Mitford, of course, for who the glam pictures are just so calculated! And of course, some of them like Margaret Mitchell are glamorous while working. I also tried not to automatically go for an image of the author in her early career when I could put in a picture of a more interesting older woman. Miles Franklin, for instance, is so often depicted as a very young woman rather than the adorable dotty lady she seems to have become in later life.

I also took some new Deepings Dolls pictures that I’ll be putting up over the next week or two. Since my library was all clean and tidy from my photographer visit (heh) I used it as the base for this series of pictures, playing with books themselves as backgrounds. In this case, for Reader, I Married Him I used my aged and beloved copy of Jane Eyre (hate the novel, love the book) as a backdrop for a fake wedding album for a very happy example of our ‘nostalgia bride and groom.

My library (with me in it) was a centrefold in today’s Hobart Mercury, along with a great article by Bec Fitzgibbon on genre, gender and publishing. Is gender equality the next big thing in literature?

This pic courtesy of @beesncheese who achieved something I never have, by capturing a picture of my mother smiling at the camera, rather than diving behind the nearest rosebush to avoid it. All my other pics of her smiling have only been achieved by the judicious application of grandchildren and stealth.

Since Alisa is making book confessions over at her blog, it’s probably time that I made some of my own.

It’s the National Year of Reading here in Australia, and my one big reading challenge to myself is to buy fewer books. Which is quite a confronting thing to talk about publicly, because, well, I do rather spend a lot of my time online convincing other people to buy books, even if only a minority of them turn out to be my own. I am a book pusher. Listeners of Galactic Suburbia know this to be true!

But my teetering To Read bookcase is currently unsustainable, and my quest this year is to bring my book purchases (which are still flying on my pre-children reading abilities) more closely in line with how many books I am capable of reading. So for the National Year of Reading, I’m trying to read the books I ALREADY HAVE.

So my system is that I am only allowed to buy one book for every three that I read, and two of those three have to be from the physical To Read shelf as opposed to, say, my whopping bag of Agatha Christies, or my books for research shelf, or something from my greater library, or actual library books. I first stated these intentions here.

How am I doing, three months in? Not as well as I’d secretly hoped. Accidentally buying a pack of three Agatha Christies in the post office back in January did rather send the system into a tailspin which took some time to recover from.

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The Thor movie made me think.  Yes, really!

It’s a fun popcorn flick, with a charismatic lead, some witticisms, and fun supporting characters. What it doesn’t have is a convincing romance. Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth have plenty of romantic chemistry with various characters in the movie, but not with each other. So making romance a primary motivation for either of them is unconvincing, to say the least.

Likewise, Thor’s godly buddies ramble around the movie, in a generally supportive way, and near the end, one of them confesses love for him. Surprise, it’s Sif, goddess of war, the only female member of the gang. Her romantic interest in Thor adds absolutely nothing to the story, and makes her about 200% less interesting.

Meanwhile, Kat Dennings’ cute as a button sidekick character (yes, the lead female character gets a female sidekick, like I said, the movie doesn’t suck!) gets most of the best lines, is fun and entertaining on screen in her limited role, and doesn’t have to kiss anyone. Her character emerges with the best integrity, apart from Frigga (Rene Russo) who is rather awesome, but also Thor’s Mum, therefore does not have to be hot for him.

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Thank you to whoever entered me in the Best Australian Blogs 2012! The People’s Choice Award is open right now and anyone can go and vote. I promise, it’s MUCH less complicated than voting in the Ditmars! The only tricky bit is that if you want to find me, because my blog title (Stitching Words) starts with S, you have to skip a few pages to get to the O – S one. I didn’t read through every eligible name, but I would love to hear from other people whose blogs are nominated – after all, you can vote for as many as you like, so we might as well cross-signal boost. For instance, my friend & colleague Alisa (some of you MAY have heard of her) over at Champagne and Socks is in the running too. And if you like us equally, you can vote for both of us, instead of having to pick one, which is probably a good thing cos the last thing we need is an interbloggery Galactic Suburbia war.

I’m hoping that being in the competition will help bring a few more readers my way, and give me some practice at non-obnoxious self-promotion! The competition hash tag is #bestblogs2012.

Elizabeth at the Australian Women’s Writing Challenge has listed blogs which are in the running, by people who have been active with #AWW reviews. If you or anyone you know has been likewise active with #aww reviews and are in the Best Australian Blogs 2012 competition, drop her a note and she’ll add you to the list!

Voting closes 9 May 2012 at 5.00 pm. Anyone can vote, including those in international borders – only the entrants have to be Australian!

I promise I won’t mention it too often.

After my glamorous shopping trip yesterday, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to wear some of my bling straight away, as I was going out with friends to the local production of Cabaret at the Playhouse Theatre. I spent a lot of my childhood around theatres, thanks to drama groups, my Mum’s own theatrical activities, teaching and designing, so I feel a close kinship with every theatre in town.

I think the Playhouse is my favourite, though – it’s small enough that it feels cozy, large enough to be elegant, it has a wine bar and lovely murals, and there are NO PILLARS to get in our way of viewing the action. It’s where my mother was involved in The Servant of Two Masters, the play that introduced me to the traditions of commedia del arte, and I also remember going to a performance of Oliver there, where the audience were actually served hot sausages and mustard during the Food, Glorious Food song.

Last night’s performance was wonderful. You never quite know what you’re getting with a local troupe, and while we have a lot of talent in Hobart, it’s not unusual to have some of the cast show demonstrably better skills than others. But everyone was GOOD in last night’s play! The chorus were fabulous, especially the beautiful all-shapes-and-sizes women in their 30′s underwear, dancing with impressive skill in what must have been quite gruelling routines. The simple design of the set worked very well, and I really appreciated that the orchestra were raised above the stage rather than sitting in the pit, as it was fun to watch them being part of the show. We got the impression they enjoyed it too, as they kept playing reprises long after the curtain calls.

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I had a whale of a time last night on Edge Radio, chatting with Joseph about books and writing, reading a Boy Poet section of Book 3, and even getting to provide my own music for the hour – I brought in the Waifs and Kate Miller-Heidke, from the brief period in the last 5 years when I was actually buying CDs instead of inhaling music from iTunes. Great fun all around!

And the added bonus of, as we left, walking through the empty university campus, talking about zombie invasions, as you do.

This morning, my mother took me to a styling session (oh yes darling) at TS-14 to get something glam for the upcoming Aurealis Awards, which will be close enough to my birthday that it counts as a present. Well, um. Possibly about FOUR birthdays worth of presents.

I have shoes with heels, which I haven’t worn since I was nineteen, I have a dress so fancy that we have been calling it ‘the Logie dress,’ and several other semi-formal options, all designed for someone with my shape (tall AND round in most directions) instead of someone else’s. Which feels pretty good. Plus two necklaces.

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Kirstyn McDermott confesses to being a bad feminist… which brings home how very hard women can be on themselves! Sometimes allowing yourself to be imperfect is in itself a feminist achievement. On the other hand, it never hurts to reassess, and try harder. As long as you take care of yourself before you start helping others with their oxygen masks…

Foz Meadows expresses frustration at how heavily books (especially those aimed at teens these days) appear to be gendered, when they really don’t need to be. So does Seanan McGuire. This is a thing. I’ve had a similar conversation with about six different people in the last fortnight, including my seven-year-old! She likes to read books that aren’t girl books or boy books but KID BOOKS. It’s a pink glitter jungle out there.

Tehani Wessely provides some gender stats on the Aurealis Awards.

Mari Ness raises her eyebrows at a list of great YA girl characters from books that aren’t necessarily YA…

Mary Robinette Kowal is an astoundingly good sport about the fact that her new novel Glamour in Glass (sequel to the awesome Shades of Milk and Honey) is being published without its first sentence. I would be on the floor in pieces. She has devised a clever bookmark, a sticker, a plan for writing it into your book at formal signings, and a cool quiz. I scored 9/10!

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I reviewed Kirstyn McDermott’s debut novel Madigan Mine at the Australian Women Writers Challenge blog, with particular reference to how clever she is, and my new appreciation of gothic tropes. I have kind of missed writing book reviews, maybe I should do more of it instead of saving it up to blather once a fortnight on Galactic Suburbia.

Kirstyn liked my review! Always a relief when I think I’m spotting something clever and turn out to be right.

Over at Doctor Her, I interview Lynne M Thomas and Deborah Stanish about Chicks Dig Time Lords and the series of books it developed into. Chicks Dig Comics is out this week, people! And it’s wonderful!