Probably the most important blog post I read in the last week is the update from the long-missed Hyperbole and a Half about her depression. As ever, she slices through the hard and complicated issues with a sharp, dissecting knife, using humour and clever artwork to communicate something of deep value and significance. While I am sure that many who suffer from depression will find something powerful in this post, I think it may have particular relevance to those who never have felt the symptoms of clinical depression, and despite their best intentions have trouble understanding how it FEELS.

I have a horrible feeling that I have been, more than once, that gabbling friend trying to give helpful advice about a thing I know nothing about – and this post brought home exactly how little I know about this particular type of mental illness despite having many friends who have suffered from it in their lives. As with all great writing, this piece made me think differently about myself and the universe. Also, it’s horribly hilarious. Highly recommended, and I’m so glad to see H&aH back.

This sweet story is about a mother who decided to go beyond the ‘princess’ motif for her daughter’s fifth birthday commemorative photo, and dressed her up as a selection of feminist historical heroines.

A nice coda to the Hawkeye Initiative – how the genderflipping art project inspired an employee at a gaming company to take a stand and communicate a problem to her boss in a creative, classy way.

How Muriel Spark Saved Mary Shelley – the fascinating story of how “the canon” of literature really can be changed. Because, you know, it’s all about perception of value.

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Sorry!

The big talking point on social media this week is Maureen Johnson’s piece in the Huffington Post about gendered book covers, along with a highly entertaining challenge to genderflip covers from one ‘author’ to another and see what difference it makes.

May the 4th (be with you) brought its usual slew of Star Wars posts, some good, many bad or boring. But I did enjoy this piece about Leigh Brackett, and how her pulp SF fantasy writing (and not her long history of excellent screenwriting) led to her writing a draft of the much celebrated middle film, The Empire Strikes Back.

Bitch Magazine looked at how F. Scott Fitzgerald (and thus The Great Gatsby, and thus all the film versions of The Great Gatsby) completely missed the point of flappers.

My favourite new blog, A Song of Ice and Attire, looks closely at the costume choices of the female characters in Game of Thrones, and all the clever subtext that they convey. It’s brilliant stuff, and makes me look at the designers of the show in a whole new light.

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There’s a new Verity up – looking at Journey To The Centre of the TARDIS! Some great discussion. The nice thing about being part of this podcast is that I get to listen to it like an ordinary person on the weeks I don’t participate.

Cheryl Morgan writes about the future of gender and trans characters in science fiction at Autostraddle, paying particular note to the way that many of the most innovative and experimental stories about how gender changes/attitudes might happen in the future don’t actually reflect the experience of trans people now. (I’ve been guilty of this myself as a writer in the past so it’s a topic I’m quite keen to pass on to people)

Charles Tan responds to Julia Rios who asked people to create their personal SF/curriculum – very cool post! Try it yourself…

This story of a street photographer who captured all manner of amazing images of the 20th century really caught my attention this week – Vivian Maier worked as a nanny in New York City for most of her life, secretly photographing the characters of her city, but never showing her work. Now the treasure trove has been found…

A discussion on being paid to write – and the expectation (becoming more prevalent in these days of ebooks) that writers will provide their work for free – came up on Tumblr between Cassandra Clare, Holly Black and Sarah Rees Brennan – though unfortunately, Tumblr being what it is, it isn’t always obvious which of them is saying what in the posts. Luckily the three of them basically agree!

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Thanks to the Mary Sue I found this – Little Girls Are Better at Designing Superheroes than You, a Tumblr which takes examples of super cute superhero cosplay done by real little girls, and turns them into sketch designs for the superheroes themselves. What we get, refreshingly, is superheroes that are designed to be people, rather than sex objects. Hooray!

Who’s Afraid of a Pixie Cut? Bitch Magazine takes on the policing of celebrity hair, and particularly the way that a beautiful woman choosing a short haircut can create panic, suspicion and even suggestions of mental illness.

Strange Horizons looks at the breakdown of reviews, reviewers and gender in the SF community last year. They then updated to include a few more review sources. The commentary from i09 is also worth reading.

Peter M Ball tells you that you do not back up your work enough. He also gives some great advice on Going Into Business as a writer, over on David McDonald’s blog.

Speaking of writing advice, Tobias Buckell has some clever things to say about Rewriting and Reinvention.

The Australian Women Writers site – which has made for brilliant reading this year, I am loving the monthly updates about reviews – reports on the inaugural Stella Prize night.

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This has been, quite honestly, the most emotionally draining week in the history of forever, and yesterday was one of the most stressful days I’ve ever had. But it ended on a note of hope, and today is going to be better. Next week will be better still. One foot in front of the other and all that.

In the mean time, Friday Links why not?

This joke only makes sense if you’ve watched Downton Abbey & Season 2 of Game of Thrones but it blew my mind to realise this was the same actress.

MindMeld has taken on the topic of favourite female writers in genre – and I’m one of this week’s contributors!

Neil Gaiman urges publishers to make mistakes - it sounds like it was a great, inspiring and innovative speech, but my favourite part of this story is how he felt the speech had gone down “like a lead balloon” with the audience because of their lack of response, only to discover that they had all been busy tweeting like mad.

Rolf Dobelli tells the world that reading news is bad for you. This validates my life choices at least.

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This most excellent essay, A Sentimental Education: Sex and the Literary Writer, is fascinating in what it has to say about the attitude towards emotional writing in the Literary Sphere – and the association of sex/sentiment in fiction as being not only feminine, but lowbrow or worse, COMMERCIAL.

Speaking of commercial, Jared at Pornokitsch looks at Dragonlance, specifically the original Dragonlance Chronicles, and asks why no one will discuss/admit their massive influence on the fantasy genre. Leaving aside the fact that the writing is… well, not especially good, he does isolate several things that Dragonlance did that were either original or at least in strong opposition to the Tolkien school of fantasy – and suggests that some of the seeds of the grimdark genre can be found here.

I loved Dragonlance, for at least several months of my teen years. And at some point I think I’m going to have to write about the women in the series. Only… I might have to get myself drunk first, to reread the books. Hmm.

Jo Walton talks about escapist reading and why it’s awesome over at Tor.com.

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The fact that this isn’t the first time I have given this title to a Friday links post goes to show that it’s not too hard to make sure your superheroines are fully dressed, people! Not if an artist actually cares about the integrity of the character as well as the curve of their panty line.

As far as publishing goes, the big Nightshade Deal and the authors caught in the crossfire is everywhere today. Kudos to Tobias Buckell for summing up the situation and most of the current posts, so I don’t have to do it. Suffice to say, it’s a pretty crappy situation for most people involved.

Connected to this, I was quite sad to see today that Jonathan Strahan’s excellent magazine Eclipse Online (published on the Nightshade website) is closing for pretty obvious reasons. It was a great project which highlighted some very interesting stories and gave a great showcase to the artwork of Australian Kathleen Jennings, who illustrated every piece.

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As usual I have many favourite things on the internet this week, but one at the very top of the list is Anne of Cleves Gables, a Hark! a Vagrant retelling of the story of Anne of Cleves and Henry VIII as if she was Anne of Green Gables. It works surprisingly well and is both adorable and charming but honestly I had you at ‘Hark! a vagrant, right?’

There’s a new Verity! episode up. Erika, Deb, Kat and I look back on Series 7a in preparation for Series 7b which starts THIS WEEKEND!

The gorgeous Narrelle Harris has interviewed me – about a bunch of my work though she has particular interest in The Shattered City.

Bella Pagan of Tor.uk talks about the role of the commissioning editor in the new world of publishing social media.

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This image is one of my favourite things about the internet this week, perfectly summing up my feelings about action women on TV (and in comics) who don’t tie their hair back when they mean business. (Another reason to love Jo Lupo on Eureka – and EVENTUALLY Olivia on Fringe). Also omg Batman as the sassy friend is adorable.

In other inspiring and frustrating (frustrspiring?) online discussion, this commentary on an article made of stupid [Men Invented the Internet!] not only calls out the stupid but is matched with a wonderful series of tweets by people acknowledging women they know (moms in most cases) who were actively involved with the early computing industry.

It’s also mostly wonderful for this quote:

But eventually, I managed to put down my frying pan and unbunch my apron, and I sat down on my princess tuffet and asked a man to help me read the whole thing.

Ian McKellen is going to officiate Patrick Stewart’s wedding which is beyond adorable, though it does raise the possibility that the wedding is going to be invaded by giant robots or mutants out for revenge.

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Pope, what pope? There were two pieces of news past my Twitter feed yesterday: Google is cruelly taking Google Reader away from those of us who RELY ON IT AS OUR LIFEBLOOD, and Veronica Mars made a Kickstarter record by hitting its $2 Million target in 12 hours or so which means we get a movie. A MOVIE. A tenth anniversary Veronica Mars movie. So… emotions, all over the place!

(Also OMG run don’t walk to watch the fundraising vid it’s hilarious. NO SMOULDERING.)

In other news, this review of the new Tomb Raider game made me very, very happy. It’s long but worth reading for what it has to say about the role of the female protagonist in violent action games, and what THIS game is doing absolutely right.

What has changed for women in (literary) publishing since Virago Books was established 40 years ago?

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