Linkspam: Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction Personal Essays...

[davidgillon]

"Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction Personal Essays Editor Nicolette Barischoff Wants Your Essay Pitches!

As you know, the Hugo Award-winning Uncanny Magazine is taking over the Destroy series from Lightspeed Magazine. The current plan is to run the Kickstarter for Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction in July 2017. The issue will be written and edited entirely by disabled people.

Personal Essays Editor Nicolette Barischoff is currently looking for short personal essays (ideally between 500-800 words) to run during the Kickstarter and eventually be included in the special issue. These pieces will explore the writer’s connection to disability and genre fiction in a deeply personal way, as a writer, an editor, an activist, or a consumer. We’re defining these terms (connection, genre) as broadly as possible to give you as much space as you need to tell your story.

Uncanny is offering a flat $15 on acceptance for these short essays. If you’re interested, please email Nicolette Barischoff and Editor-in-Chief/Nonfiction Editor Elsa Sjunneson-Henry at uncanny@uncannymagazine.com with your idea for an essay as soon as possible. If you have any questions, you may tweet them to @NBarischoff and @snarkbat. The deadline for completed essays is July 17th. We are particularly looking for disabled writers of color."

Comments

[sovay]

Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction Personal Essays Editor Nicolette Barischoff Wants Your Essay Pitches!

Just tell me you've already sent in your own pitch. Or fiction, if that's the way you're leaning on this one.

[davidgillon]

All of the above. Or I will have before I go to bed, because Nicolete Barischoff just announced that tomorrow is the last day for pitching personal essays

Planned pitches:
Why Helva isn’t good for Disability, or SF/F

So What Do I Call You?

Stop Trying to Cure Me of Being Me!

[sovay]

All of the above.

+1.

Or I will have before I go to bed, because Nicolete Barischoff just announced that tomorrow is the last day for pitching personal essays

Also, yikes.

The first and third of your planned pitches sound best to me, but I would be happy to read any personal essays from you, so I hope Barischoff feels the same.

[davidgillon]

The first and third are the ones that appeal most to me too, and I shifted them to be first and second, but Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, who's editor in chief for the non-fiction stuff, actually noted in a tweet to me "I certainly hope that someone submits an essay on the term crip and the language of disability", so I thought I'd better cover that base.

I may actually have strayed a little too far from the 'personal essay' brief into overtly political, but I'd happily settle for sticking ideas in their heads as they work on this.

[sovay]

I may actually have strayed a little too far from the 'personal essay' brief into overtly political, but I'd happily settle for sticking ideas in their heads as they work on this.

The personal is political You sound like you are very good for the brainstorming.

[yhlee]

I would read any of these.

I will own that I liked Ship Who Sang and its sequels when I read them in middle school, because McCaffrey is good at writing about love of music; but yeah, those books are pretty terrible on the disability front. :/

[davidgillon]

That's sort of the focus the half-written essay takes - I was noodling on it when I saw the tweet about the deadline. Everyone sees Ship who Sang as kids and thinks of it as some sort of utopia. Unless they come back and read it as adults, with some sort of understanding of disability, they end up never realising it's a dystopia for disabled people and they keep on recommending it as a really good book for kids with a positive message about disability.

[sovay]

Unless they come back and read it as adults, with some sort of understanding of disability, they end up never realising it's a dystopia for disabled people and they keep on recommending it as a really good book for kids with a positive message about disability.

Real question: do disabled people who encounter the book young come back to it with the same kind of double vision, or do they flag earlier that there are problems with a narrative that, despite what I assume were its best intentions, categorizes them as "things"? [edit] I encountered things that were hella misogynist as a child and in some cases it took me decades to notice, but I don't know that this happens along all axes. Stuff I encountered as a child that was anti-Semitic, I generally noticed, even if the definition of "noticed" was sometimes "felt weird about and years later went aaaaagh."

[davidgillon]

That's a really good question. Most of my friends are 'born disabled, but didn't realise til adulthood' so don't fall into that category. I'll have to ask around to see who does and what they think.

[sovay]

'born disabled, but didn't realise til adulthood'

I hope people are writing about that, too. That sounds valuable to discuss, especially since it's not actually the same thing as becoming disabled as an adult.

I'll have to ask around to see who does and what they think.

If you can't sell this essay to Disabled People Destroy . . ., please get it published somewhere, because I really want to read it.

[sovay]

but yeah, those books are pretty terrible on the disability front.

Plus the romance has been eaten by a grue.

[yhlee]

I sort of have a vague memory of there being a romance, but that wasn't the part I was interested in so it's very hazy. I just cared about the singing. :]

[sovay]

I just cared about the singing.

Legit! Singing is important. I am just bitter about the romance because I can remember liking the romantic hero, then I bit the bullet and re-read the book and it turned out he has no concept of boundaries, which interacted especially poorly with the book's handling of disability. I recognized it was partly a romance convention of the time and partly I think a dynamic that worked for McCaffrey, but I still felt burned.

tangent

[yhlee]

Not a disability story as such, but I remember revisiting McCaffrey's Dragonquest--I first read it in 4th grade, and back then, I really liked Brekke, and I liked F'nor. It was only upon revisiting the book years later that F'nor's treatment of Brekke seemed creepy. So it does seem to have been a pattern with her. (I do feel conflicted, because I'm happy to read noncon fanfic.)

Re: tangent

[davidgillon]

Yeah, I remember seeing discussions of the issues with the dragonriders stuff and thinking 'whoops, that went right over my head', but I've never actually gone back to re-read.

Re: tangent

[yhlee]

I completely missed the whole things where apparently greenriders are "made" gay or something? (It's been a while, can't remember exactly.) But then, I first encountered Pern in fourth grade so the whole mating flight business made zero sense, which may have been just as well.

There was a Yuletide fic some years back that did revisionist Pern in a really delightful way--not everyone's cuppa, but it was very well done. I'm not really sure there's any way to revisionist Ship Who Sang, though.

Re: tangent

[davidgillon]

That sounds right, but like I said, never went back to check.

Re: tangent

[sovay]

(I do feel conflicted, because I'm happy to read noncon fanfic.)

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. It's totally possible, and I don't think all that uncommon, to read and enjoy certain directions of dubcon/noncon and have others stick weirdly. Or not to mind them personally, but still recognize that they'll make other people twitch. Like any other set of tropes. Helva/Niall just turned out to be one of the ones that, on re-read, had been smoldering merrily from its dumpster for some time.

[davidgillon]

Niall Parollan? 'Hey, I'll just violate your person to have a genetic simulacrum made of what you'd look like if you weren't so ickily disabled.'

I'll guess I'll have to re-read it again to do the essay justice.

[sovay]

I'll guess I'll have to re-read it again to do the essay justice.

*sends alcohol*

[davidgillon]

You understand me well ;)

[sasha_feather]

Hi, could you post this at access-fandom? If you are not comfortable doing so, can i post a link to your post? thanks!

[davidgillon]

It's too late for it, unfortunately. As I noted in a later post, Nicolette Barischoff announced late on the 27th that the 28th was the last day for submissions. It would be confusing to put it up now, but I'll bear access_fandom in mind when they make any further announcements.

[davidgillon]

And just got a rejection all four pitches, I'd actually assumed they weren't sending rejections as the kickstarter is imminent.

OTOH the rejection made sense 'we want short and punchy, these all sound like they should be long form.'

And they sound like long-form because I was hoping to catch @Snarbat's attention with an idea that would work better at long-form ;)

Clearly too clever for my own good.