New episode is up! You can download it from iTunes or our website.

In which we admire our Hugo pins, discuss the narrative around bestseller authors like JK Rowling, and take on the idea of what a Best Of anthology actually means.

News

HUGO PINS

Trifle Club

The Casual Vacancy released – are you going to read it?

Giveaway from ages ago – copy of Showtime goes to Terry Frost for Joshua York from George R R Martin’s Fevre Dream

New Giveaway for Kaaron Warren’s Through Splintered Walls. Tweet, comment, email or Facebook us about your favourite Australian ghost story OR your favourite female vampire.

Paul Kincaid in the LA Review of Books suggests that SF is tired. Reviewer, heal thyself? He also talks on this subject at the Coode Street Podcast.

Aurealis Awards reminder: submit your books and stories now.

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Proud of my state and my premier this week, for creating legislation that brings gay marriage a little closer to Australia. Same sex marriage laws have passed the Tasmanian Lower House as of yesterday and now have to face the legislative council. It will be a hard road ahead but it’s about time someone in power took a stand. Check out Lara Giddings’ speech, which goes a long way to addressing so many of the issues concerned with allowing this important civil right to same sex couples.

Also on a smaller but still awesome scale, I am so proud of Galactic Suburbia and of Alisa, Alex, Finchy & myself getting our very first Hugo nominations in the brand new Fancast category. It finally feels real – and Julia Rios emailed us today to let us know she HAS OUR HUGO PINS which made my head explode a little bit. A Hugo pin. Every time I start feeling sorry for myself about maybe not achieving as much as I wanted to this year, I need to stop and kick myself in the ankle and remember that a Hugo nomination is one hell of a step up the career ladder.

I’m especially proud of Alisa this week who got over her stress and anxiety about public speaking to make a speech at the National Council of Jewish Women Australia WA evening for Women’s Achievers, and they gave her an award! Considering how rarely she stops to consider everything she’s achieved over the last few years, I’m always glad when other people point it out to her. Some excerpts of her speech here.

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The new episode is up! You can grab it off iTunes or directly from our Podbean site.

In which we suffer post-Olympics slump but make up for it by talking about sport in SF/F: from coyote baseball, holodeck racquetball and the points system of Quidditch to the history of sport in Doctor Who. And don’t forget that Buffy was a cheerleader!

News

World Fantasy ballot released.
Mythopoeic Awards include Delia Sherman and Lisa Goldstein

New Science Fiction Awards Database Website by Mark R Kelly (Locus)

Kirstyn McDermott makes Jason Nahrung a mug based on Alex’s GS review of Salvage

New Galactic Chat: Sean interviews Trudi Canavan

Readercon Apology sets the standard.

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The new episode is up! Download it through iTunes or from our Podbean site. 65 is a really big number, you guys!

In which we discuss gender at the Olympics and sexual harassment policies at conventions, fight about whether we should read the comments, and Alisa reads more novels than Alex & Tansy PUT TOGETHER.

NEWS:

Readercon harassment discussion:
Masterlist & timeline of links
Cheryl looks at the practical side of developing harassment policies for conventions

Translation awards winners

Travel Fund Mark II sends two Swedish authors to WFC.

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Alisa: Earthly Delights by Kerry Greenwood, Naked in Death by J D Robb

Alex: Stargate Universe season 1; Ashes to Ashes season 3; Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M Valente; Birds of Prey: Death of Oracle

Tansy: X-Men S.W.O.R.D No Time To Breathe; Uncanny X-Men: Dark Phoenix (The Ultimate Graphic Novels Collection, not Marvel Masterworks as I said in the podcast, worth also noting that the US are more than 20 issues ahead of Australia); Besieged, Rowena Cory Daniells

For next episode: send us your favourite examples of sport in SFF.

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

The new episode is up! Check it out on our Podbean site, or download it from iTunes!

In which we talk Smurfette, gender bias on Wikipedia, Redshirts, Regency magic and Captain Marvel. Also, Tansy turns the microphone off a lot so you can’t hear her sneezing. You have much to thank her for.

News

Shirley Jacksons! Winners announced.

A new Sleeps With Monsters column by Liz Burke: The Smurfette Principle – We Can Do Better

How Kate Middleton’s wedding gown reveals the gender bias in the Wikipedia system.

Journey Planet Issue 13 – specifically special section on gender parity for con panels including our own Alisa

The ComicCon Batgirl returned to SDCC this year, asking DC Comics about why Stephanie Brown has been removed from the Smallville comics.

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Quite a lot of these, because I kept forgetting to blog all the me-centric links – first the recent ones:

Rowena Cory Daniells interviews the Galactic Suburbia team, including our silent producer.

A lovely review of Love and Romanpunk at Goodreads that made me smile.

And a few older ones:

The Australian Spec Fic Snapshot roundup of links – amazing work we managed this year, thanks largely to a much bigger pool of volunteers, who donated massive amounts of time and energy to pull it off. Hooray, especially to Tehani & Kathryn for organisation.

I reviewed Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan over at Last Short Story.

For those who missed it, Kirstyn McDermott of the Writer and the Critic produced this brilliant Twelve Planets podcast at Embiggen Books during the Continuum 8 convention weekend.

Far more likely to have been missed is this article on gender & genre in Australian publishing – a bunch of us female writers & editors in the Australian spec fic scene contributed to the article, which then appeared right when most of us were at the convention and thus forgot to link to it or plug it to our readers.

Meanwhile, on Pinterest, I’ve been curating up a storm, and am particularly proud of these recent boards:

Witches
Rogues Gallery (Villains Galore)
Labyrinth
Houndstooth
Because Blake’s 7
and many more…

In which we report live and punchy (not enough sleep to be sassy) from Day 2 of Continuum 8: Craftonomicon, Natcon 2012 in Melbourne Australia. Download it IF YOU DARE

NEWS
The Con so far: panels, parties, yarn and cupcakes…

What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alisa: Deadline by Mira Grant
Alex: Game of Thrones s1; Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency; The Courier’s New Bicycle, Kim Westwood (YES ALRIGHT AT LAST)
Tansy: Timeless by Gail Carriger, Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

[Photo credit: Cat Sparks]

It’s hard to imagine that there’s anything on the internet except the Aussie Spec Fic Snapshot right now – I’m so proud of the team for being prepared for once (more than a month’s solid work has gone into this year’s effort) and for providing space for so many different voices (all screaming out at once… no wait, that was a different movie). Hooray to Tehani & Kathryn for the organising, and all of our new interviewers. A special big HOORAY for the kind and thoughtful Ben Payne who twigged early on what element was missing from the Snapshot, and provided several-times-daily summaries of the 2012 Snapshot AS – IT – HAPPENED.

My own snapshot appears here on Random Alex’s blog. And incidentally a blast from the past turned up in my RSS feed, which threw up this old post of Alex’s talking about OMG OUR FIRST PODCAST. I haven’t dared follow the link to find the artefact itself. Dare you?

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The new episode is up! Grab it from our site, or download it from iTunes!

In which we celebrate our 60th episode and Peter McNamara Award for Excellence win with cake, yarn and superheroes. For best results, consume this podcast with fabulous cake and/or sock yarn.

News

Nebula Awards

Aurealis Awards:

Sturgeon shortlist

2012 Mythopoeic Awards

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In which the boob window is explained. Don’t say we’re not educational! You can download the new episode through iTunes or here on our website.

News

Drink Tank loves us! Download their Hugo shortlist commentary here.

Mondy loves us too! He makes us go awww.

James Tiptree Jr finally in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and about time too.

Talking to Alistair Reynolds: he defends the idea that science fiction has a limited number of plots

Locus Award Finalists

Clarke Award

Women in (Japanese) Comics: Cheryl Morgan reports; Anime News Network

Some kickstarter stuff:
Feminist Historical Anthology from Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

Scalzi on Amanda Palmer and how she worked hard for 10 years to get her “overnight success”

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