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Columnists

Ana’s Spoons: Female Characters in Harry Potter

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Today is our monthly FF takeover of the QSF site. :) Here’s Ana‘s kick-off for the discussion today: I don’t like Harry Potter. No, that’s not exactly correct. I’ve read all of the books multiple times, visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, and indulged in some top-secret fan fiction involving Professor McGonagall and her cane. (I write kinky spanky stories, and the one after-the-fact mention of an expected caning fueled many a happy secret fantasy.) I love Minerva McGonagall. Plus, the woman can change into a cat and go where she wills. What’s not to love? … Read more

The Midweek Mingle: A Question of Barriers

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Just like last week, this isn’t going to be so much of me trying to give advice. This is something I hope we can talk about, and something I hope I can get people thinking about. I’ll return to your regularly scheduled programming after I get back from Sasquan (Wish me luck that I won’t die!). Now, I’m not exactly an old hat in the industry. I’ve been at it since 2010, and I’m embarrassingly young to be an SF/F writer (No exaggeration: it embarrasses me. I have to imagine most 23 year olds don’t just hope to suddenly be … Read more

The Midweek Mingle: Overcoming 3 Hurdles for Inclusive Writing

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When I first really started writing and publishing, I was pretty well convinced of a few things that I could and could not do with my books. Silly things, too. I won’t go into all of them here (we don’t have time for that, and it’s far too early in the morning for that much vodka), but I’ll touch on a few. Namely, a few relating to QUILTBAG+ representation in books. See, I don’t know if the environment is the same, but when I was starting, you didn’t do that. At most, you could have a romance heroine’s best friend … Read more

The Midweek Mingle: Hollywood Tokenism

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When it comes to diversity in fiction/cinema/whatever, we’ve come a long way. Like, a really, really long way, in a relatively short time. If the Supreme Court rules that same sex marriage is legal, pretty soon, we’ll have an entire generation who doesn’t remember a time when it was illegal. We already have a generation or two who won’t have to worry about getting their sexuality classed as a mental disorder. And already, QUILTBAG+ characters are hardly something to bat an eye at (Usually. I’ll touch on that further, promise.). Yay yay yay, more more more! However (there always seems … Read more