[direct from the iPad: a drawing by Raeli of Alisa at the TPP dealer's table]

memorable moment: Mondy staring at Aifin after about 10 minutes intense conversation about iPad sleeves and suddenly announcing, “Hang on, are you THE PRODUCER?”

many other memorable moments: Alex, expecting to be completely anonymous at this con, being faced by various people saying “are you ALEX FROM MELBOURNE?”

drink of the convention: the purple daiquiris at the Voyager 15 party.

frocks of the convention: Alex, Alisa & Terri at the Hugos.

book of the convention: THE LITTLE PINK ONE.

You can find a video here of Tony C Smith’s live broadcast of his reaction to the Hugo awards. About 40 mins in, he finds out he won the Best Fanzine for Starship Sofa and explodes with joy. It’s also a nice little visual of what it’s like to be following award ceremonies (as I usually am) via the internet.

Blindmouse’s con report (including a well thought out response to my disastrous female superhero panel)
Random Tangent has some great, detailed reports about panels attended. My favourite of course is Day 3 which refers to my feminism in fantasy panel!
Megan with glorious enthusiasm about her first ever lit panel.
Catherynne Valente documents how it feels to lose a Hugo.
Gary Kemble has gathered some links.
Voyager on the inaugural winner of the Norma K Hemming Award (THE NORMA!!!), Maria Quinn.

Tehani’s con report.
Flinthart’s con report
Mondy on life after Worldcon.

I’ve spent a lot of the weekend so far reading the comments from this great blog post by Yarn Harlot, about the double standards inflicted on female vs. male parents, especially when it comes to travelling for work. It took me a little time to realise why I was particularly entranced by this feminist rant out of the many feminist rants I read each week – but of course, I have Aussiecon coming up, at which I will be trying to balance the needs of my family with the needs of my career, with an added bonus guilt portion that comes from the fact that the “needs of my career” also happens to be, you know, awesome fun times.

That, and I’ve been starting to think of the actual practicalities of going to Swancon next year on my own…

Anyway, the post is great but the comments are even better. I am delighted to hear so many women (and some men) being vocal about having “non-traditional” family and work arrangements, about the negotiations that go with balancing domestic and paid and family work, and acknowledging just how hard all this stuff is, even with partners who are pro-feminist and supportive.

Some other links that caught my eye over the last few days include Kate Elliott on Authoral Intent in which she sensibly lays out the role of the reader vs. the role of the writer in fiction, in a post which has sparked off some great recent conversations. I particularly enjoyed Sarah Rees Brennan’s response on Twitter a few days ago, where she laid out the various “stories” people read in her Demon series, depending on their priorities as a reader.

It reminded me very much of a dialogue that went around the blogs earlier in the year, about how the reader’s default vision of who characters are and what they look like can often outweigh not only the author’s intent, but the author’s own words. This is particularly the case where characters are often assumed to be white unless the author beats their non-whiteness over the heads of the readers – but I’m sure there are lots of other examples of this happening!

The “women authors speak out about male privilege in literary reviews” story continues to spread, with Jezebel doing a piece on it. Nicola Griffith weighs in with a post about Books and Girl Cooties, discussing how her own work has been packaged and marketed.

And finally, my mother Jilli made a rare appearance on the blogosphere this week, showing off her garden as part of the World Kitchen Garden Day held in the little town of Cygnet last weekend. Checkout her homemade milestone, a replica of the one that sits outside her home town in Lancashire, only with a lot more miles on the clock.

This wasn’t going to be a themed link post and then at the last minute I looked at the list of links and – well, yes!

NK Jemesin is interviewed for Locus.
This is only a taste of the full interview which I really enjoyed reading from the paper version of the magazine last week. The last pullquote on this page is particularly good but I liked the expanded version better where she discusses some of the amazing roles women and people of colour have had in history, that are often forgotten about by people reproducing “history” in their fantasy novels. This is a call to arms for better, more diverse fantasy and if you can get hold of the magazine, it’s well worth reading the whole thing. Makes me very excited to read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms which is currently climbing to the top of my To Read pile and waving a bunch of flags at me.

Karen Healey, meanwhile, is guestblogging at The Book Smugglers, a blog with I have to say the best header banner ever! Karen is talking about awesome female characters, and why she prefers that phrase to “strong female characters” and why cheerleaders are particularly excellent. Karen also talks about Teal Sherer, the actress who plays the fabulously evil Venom in The Guild and yes, does use a wheelchair in real life. (but hopefully is less SCARY MEAN than Venom in real life). As if that isn’t enough for a blog post, Karen also recs a whole bunch of cool girl books, some of which I agree with wholeheartedly (The Demon’s Covenant, Moonshine & Princess Ben), some I’ve been meaning to read (Girl Overboard) and many, many, many I have never even heard of but now am piling on to my Buy After Worldcon list.

Also, over on Alas! A Blog which reposted my Joanna Russ review, I was pointed towards this article about women of the Literature genre complaining publicly about the difference in review coverage between male and female authors in the field. I really don’t approve of the title because “all the sad young literary women” sounds awfully weak and disempowering when the article is really about some literary powerhouses such as Jodi Picoult getting vocal on Twitter about some really important issues of gender imbalance. They’re not being sad, they’re being ANGRY.

Over here, Margaret Atwood discusses her latest spec fic novel, “The Year of the Flood” and talks about science fiction, climate change and some other things, generally managing to sound about 10 times smarter than whoever it is interviewing her.

Angela Slatter includes me in her drive-by interview series.

New Power and Majesty reviews at ASiF and Fangtastic Fiction.

The recently relaunched Galaxy Bookshop blog asks me some crunchy questions about books and hosts a guest post from me about the writing of Power and Majesty.

I also wrote a post for the Voyager blog, about how I created the place names for my fantasy city.

One last reminder about the Tansy podcast goodness for this month: I read “Fleshy” for TISF, Tehani Wessely reads my story “Relentless Adaptations” from the upcoming suburban fantasy anthology “Sprawl,” and I chat with Alisa and Alex about boots and many many et ceteras over at Galactic Suburbia Episode 12.

I have a new podcast already – yes, I’m fickle! In this case it’s Will Write for Wine, a brilliantly funny, giggly chatcast starring romance/paranormal/women’s fiction writers Lucy March and CJ Barry. It’s the closest thing I’ve found to Galactic Suburbia – only about a completely different genre. And you know, they drink while podcasting. We so couldn’t do that – we’d end up with every episode FOUR hours long.

I started with Episode 62, in which Lucy & CJ relaunch the podcast after nearly a year away, having both changed the names they write (and podcast) under. Along with fun regular segments like ‘guess that word’ and ‘latest obsessions’ they have a fantastic crunchy discussion about the pitfalls, benefits and psychological confusions that come from reinventing yourself as a writer, and writing under more than one name. The other eps are good too, I am very addicted now. Mango mimosas for everyone!

Jeff VanderMeer blogs about the 50th bookiversary of the very awesome Aqueduct Press and asks that press’s supporters to reblog that link. I’ve been so impressed with the Aqueduct books I have ordered and read over the last year or two – The Wiscon Chronicles, Writing the Other and The Secret Feminist Cabal. (I just searched my whole blog to discover I haven’t actually reviewed this properly, how dreadful! Possibly I was too busy telling everyone how awesome it was on a one to one basis) So yes, Aqueduct Press is brilliant, I can’t go to their website without finding a huge list of books I NEEEEEED, and their shipping to Australia is swift and reliable. Go. Get books. Or at least read this great interview with L. Timmi Duchamp.

Elsewhere on the internet, Pub Rants talks about the problem of e-books and regions, particularly about how hard it is to access US-English editions outside that country.

Genevieve Valentine, meanwhile, documented the experience of seeing the Eclipse movie, so the rest of us don’t have to.

Gah, it’s been one of those days. The kind that makes you wish you had the kind of life where staying in bed all day was actually possible. Still, I have the recording of Galactic Suburbia tonight to cheer me up!

Over at the Voyager blog, I talk about my favourite fictional cities, and ask what your favourite SF/fantasy city is!

Someone on my LJ (hello anonymous person!) sent me an awesome link to this great “redesign Wonder Woman’s costume” art contest.

I also found (via @thirtysix on Twitter) a brilliant essay on the incidental misogyny in cyberspace, and the way that gaming businesses have failed their female customers. It’s an incredibly intelligent piece which includes a historical perspective on gaming & female characters in games, from the POV of a woman.

Over at Twelfth Planet Press, Alisa unveils two of the beautiful books she has coming out in time for Worldcon, with design by the ever talented Amanda Rainey: Bleed by Peter M. Ball (the sequel to the hugely successful fantasy noir Horn) and Glitter Rose, a boutique collection by Marianne de Pierres, the queen of Australian science fiction.

I’ve spent the day ripping central chapters out by their roots and replacing a whole bunch of madeyuppy rubbish with saner, cleaner, sexier narrative. It hurts, my brain, it hurts.

So all I can offer in the way of useful bloggage are some good things that other people have been writing:

Tehani interviews Malindo Lo (check out the Fablecroft blog for some other great interviews this week)

Kaaron Warren talks about getting ideas for endings, while Catherynne Valente talks about the importance of the opening paragraph

Why the Dove Movement is bad for your daughters (via Copperbadge/Sam Storyteller)

Stephanie Gunn responds to our latest (tenth!!!) Galactic Suburbia podcast, talking about her early experiences in reading genre.

A powerful post about what it can be like bringing a second baby into your family.

And Alisa has posted her list of Twelfth Planet Press eligible works and eligible artwork for the Ditmars that are currently open for nominations. This is convenient for me because all my eligible stories were published by Twelfth Planet Press!

That is:

“Like Us,” Shiny Issue 5 – short story
“Prosperine When It Sizzles,” New Ceres Nights – short story
Siren Beat – novelette

When my brain is together enough to sift through old recs posts I will put up a list of Australian stuff I liked in 2009! It seems so very long ago, doesn’t it?

In closing, Tehani pointed me at this announcement that 69 year old Wonder Woman has finally been allowed to swap the flag-bearing minidress/shorts for some sensible threads. I’m dubious about the Superman-style alternate version of her backstory, but I do like the mature, Black Canary style costume. And Issue 600 of her monthly comic (amazing what people will do to hang on to a franchise) is definitely something to be celebrated.

Cat Valente talks about That Twist Ending (with spoilers for Lost, The Sixth Sense) and how much of a letdown it can be.

Tehani talks about Judging Books by their Cover, specifically at Australian SF and fantasy of 2009 and 2010. I particularly like this bit about Power & Majesty: “Power and Majesty is not only already receiving rave reviews – promising to be one of the hottest fantasy novels of the year – but it has the most gorgeous cover, ensuring it will fly off bookstore shelves.”

Mari Ness writes a brilliant snark version of the new Robin Hood movie.

Lucy Knisley on Live Nerd Girls.

Mary Anne Mohanraj’s excellent WisCon GOH speech about heroism. Her descriptions about the hardships of looking after a small baby, and balancing traditional women’s work with your own professional work, which can be struggle even with an enlightened feminist partner, hit home for me in particular. She also talks about educating people on the internet through 101 and RaceFail type discussions, and how hard and painful that can be to do.

An article about the parental leave payments in Sweden and how they are still working to enact social change. I wasn’t going to read this article when I first saw it widely linked because, let’s face it, do we need another article about how great parental support is in Sweden? I was glad I finally did, though, because it addresses some aspects I didn’t know about, and shows that yes, you can make social change that genuinely improves the life of both genders. Though as always, there is the question of choice, and I do wonder if the changes (potentially making up to 4 months of the 12 months parental leave payments compulsory for men to take) are going to reduce benefits for single women. There isn’t a mention of non-nuclear-families in the article at all. One thing that genuinely shocked me that I didn’t know about Sweden is that they also have a system for paid leave days for sick children – what a difference would that make to working parents around the world!

Finally, a great post at Tor.com about the importance of accepting criticism in order to improve your writing. This is of particular interest to me this week because, you guessed it, it’s editing time! My structural edit for Book 2 of the Creature Court (which will not now be called Cabaret of Monsters, though we don’t have an alternative yet) has arrived, I’ve discussed it with my editor, and as soon as the school holidays end, I’ll be digging into that for three weeks. The reward at the end of it will be a) a better book, obviously b) it next goes to my favourite freelance editor for the copy edit, she only being available in July and c) once it’s done I can go back to finishing Book 3! Hooray! My reward for work is more work!

In the mean time I have been utterly spoiled on Twitter by a whole bunch of my favourite people finding my book “in the wild” or indeed “in captivity” and sending me a series of pics of Power and Majesty on shelves across the country. Very exciting! Even nicer is to hear word of shops where it is already sold out. Still no word yet on anyone from outside the country managing a successful purchase. Where did you get YOUR copy?

I have recently ordered Alaya Johnson’s new book Moonshine, and there is a new book trailer circulating which is very cute and fun. Is it too soon to be excited that between this, and Libba Bray’s upcoming series, and the Speakeasy anthology coming out from TPP next year, we might have a different spec fic/historical movement on our hands? More 1920’s fantasy goodness please!

Grant Watson, aka  angriest has joined the podcast revolution! His Bad Film Diaries podcast has its first episode up. I always enjoy hearing Grant talk about films – his Bad Film Diaries column was my favourite thing about Borderlands, and I look forward to seeing how this podcast develops.

Also, you’ve all see the periodic table of women in SF literature, right? I saw the pdf printout and went ‘oh, cool’ but only just realised there’s also a great YouTube vid up which gives a little bit more context to those names, with book covers and a snappy beat, plus some funny commentary (James Tiptree Jr was a spy – not a guy!). Can I say how much I love that Diana Comet herself (heh well, Sandra McDonald cos apparently Diana Comet is a fictional character) does not present this as a periodic table of women in SF lit, but as “75 years of great writers” or “117 writers”? Yes, I would never have clicked on the link if someone hadn’t told me it was all about women, but I do kind of like that the gender aspect is not emphasised in the title. There’s also a meme going around – how many of the periodic table have you read?