In Their Own Words: Part 2
Kelley Eskridge: Science Fiction
When not working as a part-time go-go dancer at a lesbian nightclub, Kelley Eskridge is writing the screenplay for her first novel, Solitaire. On May 30, Eskridge will be at A Different Light Bookstore in West Hollywood, Calif., to read from her short-story collection, Dangerous Space, along with her partner, author Nicola Griffith.
AfterEllen.com: Name
one or more books or authors that inspired you to write in this genre.
Kelley Eskridge: J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert A. Heinlein and Harlan Ellison
most jazzed me when I was a teenager discovering science fiction/fantasy —
Tolkien for the huge feelings and the sweeping stories, Heinlein for the sexual
and emotional autonomy of the characters, and Ellison for take-no-prisoners
honesty.
And then I found James Tiptree, Jr. and Joanna Russ and Ursula K. Le Guin, and all the other marvelous women who showed me that science fiction was a place where I could explore my own truths, no matter how radical.
All these writers taught me that science fiction/fantasy is the playground of alternatives, where we can explore any human choice without pretense or apology. Where we can challenge any notion. And where we can tell stories that make people laugh and cry and fill them with wonder.
AE: What themes or
topics do you particularly enjoy exploring?
KE: Gender, sexuality and identity.
How we become ourselves — the small daily moments as well as the big dramas in
our lives. There are so many ways to be human, and they're all fascinating to
me.
All my interests as a writer come together in a character called Mars who appears in three stories in my collection Dangerous Space. Mars is a person of great longing, sexually expansive, with a complete disregard for gender roles — someone who I hope takes readers to unexpected places within themselves. Mars is the space where I'm particularly alive as a fiction writer right now.
AE: What is one of
your favorite quotes from a sci-fi novel? What makes it meaningful to you?
KE: "The king was pregnant."
— from The Left Hand of Darkness by
Ursula K. Le Guin.
This sentence still turns my head inside out. That's what the best science fiction does, right there in four words. Le Guin is one of the rockingest writers on the planet.
AE: Recommend a few
science-fiction novels that relate to a single subject of personal interest or
expertise.
KE: My favorite stories are about
brave people and big feelings. I don't care so much whether the writers or
characters are women or men, queer or straight — I just want the people to feel
so real to me that their hopes, fears and joys become mine. Here are five
big-feelings books.
· J.R.R. Tolkien – Lord of the Rings. The ultimate quest story, brave enough to explore the consequences of doing what must be done. I love this book because there is so much joy in it.
· Robin McKinley – The Hero and the Crown. A girl who slays dragons, and that's just for starters. A marvelous book about guts and stubbornness and finding one's own strength. Give this to your favorite young woman.
· Emma Bull – Bone Dance. Urban science fiction at its best — real and gritty and full of beautiful, broken people, with the compelling character of Sparrow at their center.
· Kristopher Reisz – Tripping to Somewhere. Young-adult speculative fiction (witches in Atlanta!) with a gutsy and vulnerable teenage lesbian protagonist. The magic (literally) of our first experiences with sex and love …
· David R. Palmer – Emergence. A 12-year-old genius girl survives the apocalypse. I am a complete sucker for this kind of thing, and have loved this book since I was a teenager.
AE: Do you have any
suggestions for women aspiring to write in this genre?
KE: Science fiction and fantasy are not the shallow end of the pool.
Some people think that "genre" means crap writing, cardboard
characters and comic-book plots. But if you want to be taken seriously, the
quality of your work counts.
Write beautifully. Create compelling characters and put them into situations that matter. And write fearlessly. If you're ever going to play with the idea that you think is too risky or too outrageous or "can't be done," science fiction is the space to do it.
The best science fiction isn't about rocket ships or ray guns, and it's not about aliens. It's about being human.
Read part one of this article for interviews with Amy Bloom on short stories, Nancy Garden on YA fiction, Ariel Schrag on graphic novels, Joan Larkin on poetry, Charlotte Mendelson on contemporary British fiction, and Karin Kallmaker on romance.
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Comments
Wow!
Awesome piece of work! Just read both parts to this - thank you so much for bringing us this article. I'm sure it will point a lot of readers to discover new writers. I have to say this feels pretty thrilling: while I have read many of these authors, there are titles and authors I didn't know and now look forward to discovering.
I thought it was also inspiring to hear several of the authors make it quite clear that in the UK, at least, these women are first and foremost mainstream celebrated authors, and not 'lesbian celebrated authors'.
As an FYI, the Laurie R. King link seems broken.
More literary news? kthanks.
This is such a great article! Thanks LeeAnn Kriegh, Contributing Writer. As an aspiring writer myself, it is great to see women (out women no less) succcessful at exactly what I want to do. For being pretty submerged in the literary world, it is hard for me to find any novels with strong lesbian characters. Drop the "strong" adjective actually. Any lesbain characters at all. I'm going to start with these and I wish afterellen.com had more on lesbian fiction!
loving what you ladies do!
kate.
Feels like i've been run over in traffic...
winterson and othering
but where is jeanette winterson in this series? a very, very excellent series, i might add. i hope you do more of these in the future. as a writer myself, it helps me identify and connect with fellow lesbian writers out there. it's also good to know what they are working on now. i just hope you also put some information as to where we could access/buy their materials outside their home countries, especially those that are not available on amazon.
i'm just a bit iffy on the "international fiction" label, though. i feel it is some form of "othering" if you label a non-western based/descended writer as "international" because that's basically the whole lot of us who are not in the west. as an asian writer based in asia, this feels weird to me.
I had similar thoughts about
I love this
I now have a whole page of new fiction and non-fiction I want to read...arrrrrrr, not enough hours in my life!
I'm definitely going to be tracking down 'Dangerous Space'..Eskridge sounds cool. I love this quote, "Le Guin is one of the rockingest writers on the planet"...right on!...lol.
Thank you for this great two-parter...it's wonderful to hear from such intelligent, creative and inspirational women who are also out. Cheers.
_____________________________
Arrr, let's goooooo...
I have to agree with libay
WHERE IS JEANETTE WINTERSON? and Emma Donoghue, and Joanna Brisco (partner of Charlotte Mendelson)
How about a part 3 of this series, with interviews of above suggestions.
And you know what? The scoop, if you can get hold of her is Carol Anne Duffy - critically acclaimed poet in UK for the past 20 year. Her poerty is studied in schools in the UK, and there is a strong possibility that she may imminently become the next poet Laureate in England. Her best include The World's Wife, Rapture and Standing Female Nude.
Carol Anne Duffy
Re: Carol Anne Duffy
Hi there.
I'm an English teacher and I'd love to know what your teacher did to 'ruin' such great poetry. I hope I don't do that to my pupils!
Thank you for a very
Thanks
Thanks
This has been a great series...I'm so inspired. I'll definitely be checking out their reading recommendations.
Also, Rebecca Walker. ::swoon::
-----
Geoffrey: You fool! As if it matters how a man falls down.
Richard: When the fall is all that is left, it matters a great deal.
- The Lion in Winter
Thanks
Books to read by those authors mentioned above
re "scary" Carol Anne Duffy
Response to Ellen. Try Carol Anne Duffy's Rapture, a book of poems which exquisitely chronicles the whole narrative of a relationship, from begining to end. Here's a snippet from the begining:
Falling in love
is glamorous hell;
the crouched, parched heart
like a tiger ready to kill;
a flame's fierce licks under the skin.
Into my life,
larger than life,
beautiful, you strolled in.'
ps...thanks
For all the great questions you asked them. I also loved finding out who they enjoy reading, and now have an even longer list of writers to discover, from such a range of genres!
Thank you
Just to echo some of the comments made hear so far, this has been one the most enjoyable article on AE. I recentley started reading Val McDermid novels after resisting for so long.My problem is that once I find an author that I like, I have to read all their work.
So thanks Lee Ann Kriegh for a great article and for adding more names to list of author I need to discover. Hope to read more of your work.
Loving This!
I'm so glad that this was written!! It's amazing. I was so excited when I got to the end of the first part and found out that an interview with Sarah Waters was going to be in this one. I thought it was fantastic.
Thank you!
I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art. - Madonna
Thank you so much!
I wanted to echo what everyone has been saying to thank you for this article. I am grateful that afterellen covers all flavors of media, not just television (although I am a TV addict). I'm in a lesbian literature book club and a few women at the last meeting were asking if we were going to run out of books soon and I thought, wow! There was a time when we might have, but look at all this...
My one wish would be to see Allison Bechdel on there. There was an excellent interview with Emma Donoghue on afterellen a few months ago but I would realy like to hear from Bechdel. Dykes to Watch Out For is the only comic I have ever read with a dictionary in my lap.
Thank you again!
More interviews
This is a great topic and
This is a great topic and I've already discovered a few new authors and/or books to explore.
One comment however: In regard to the U.K. writers whose books are considered mainstream and not tagged as lesbian...
My personal opinion on that is that this is due to the quality of those books and authors as opposed to a cultural difference. There are some American lesbian writers whose books can be found in the general fiction and literature sections, but they're not the ones who write those lesbian romances that probably only appeal to lesbians who are desperate for whatever they can get in the way of lesbian fiction.
Go to Amazon.com and search lesbian fiction and you'll find that 99.99 percent of what comes up are those books that are published by lesbian presses and/or online publishing presses which get a lot of their writers and books from the world of online fanfiction.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy fanfiction from a variety of fandoms, and think some of it is extremely well-written. But the majority of these books are truly lesbian genre, be it romance or mystery or sci-fi, and deserve to be labeled for a lesbian audience, in my opinion. If I weren't gay, I don't know that I would want to read many of them. And rarely do I find one that makes me want to read it a second time, which is kind of my standard for books.
If we want American lesbian fiction and writers to get more respect and a more universal audience, then frankly I think we should demand more from a lot of them. The standards of a lot of lesbian publishing seem rather low.
Interesting Thoughts....
I have to say that I feel quite conflicted on this topic. While I would agree with you that there are many lesbian novels that leave a lot to be desired, I also believe that there are even more mainstream novels that are in dire need of a re-write. So, this begs the question, should only bad lesbian fiction be labled strictly under the lesbian genre? If so, then should should bad straight fiction be labled the same, only leaving good lesbian and straight fiction to have reputable publishers and be labled under the mainstream fiction genre?
That said, I have to say that I think, for visibility sake, that any lesbian fiction author who is willing to put in the time and effort to get a book published under any label, should do so. However, I also believe that the reason for the lesbian fiction label is so that we can find novels where we are represented and can have that emotional connection to the characters.
One more point, I SWEAR! :-) Actually, it is more of an FYI. I can see why only the great lesbian novels are listed within mainstream fiction. Quite honestly, I don't mind reading hetero-fiction, so long as the story is good. And I think that straight people (who have an open mind) probably feel the same way. So, I recommend three categories at the book store, LGBT Fiction, Recommended Fiction, and Straight Fiction.
Sorry for the rambling...
Totally forgot Emma
Ah, a sea of whiteness
I both adored this article and was irritated by it. As a bookworm with very basic cable, it was great to be introduced to new authors and read great internviews with favorites. But where are the non-white writers?!?! How ironic is it that Trish Bendix critiqued the NY Times Magazine for only including 2 women of color in their article, when this story only included 2 writers of color as well. It was both weird and frustrating. There are fantastic les and bi women of color in every genre featured. What about Abha Dawesar, Erika Lopez or Jewelle Gomez? I'm a sci fan and can't believe Kelley Eskridge would both a) not mention Octavia Butler and b) recommend the painfully racist and sexist (in my opinion) Lord of the Rings. Arrgh.
I love Sarah Waters tho, she almost makes up for not getting more Emma D.
Loved it...
Thank you for both articles! I had never heard of Joan Larkin and now want to read her poetry, along with all the mysteries Val McDermid listed, and so much more. Everyone had something good to offer. It's fabulous to have all of this information collected in one place. For my money, that's what AE should be all about -- introducing us to books and shows and music we wouldn't hear about otherwise, and giving us insight into them.
As for diversity, the articles feature several British women and Americans plus young authors like Ariel Schrag and older women like Lillian Faderman. There are two women of color and at least a couple Jewish women. There are lesbians and bisexual women, and of course everyone represents a different genre so there's diversity in the type of writing they all do as well. I would've loved to see even more, including interviews with Jeanette Winterson, Allison Bechdel, Dorothy Allison, Ali Smith, Emma Donoghue and a bunch of others, but really how many pages do we have available? This is a great compilation of 12 very different women who are all among our best writers. I'm really thankful for it.
In the list of Val McDermid's
In the list of Val McDermid's favorite mystery novels, I have read
Blue by Abigail Padgett
Hen's Teeth by Manda Scott
Idaho Code by Joan Opyr
The Blue Place by Nicola Griffith
and I quite enjoyed reading them.
Others also mention some of my favorite books in the interview, but they're more familiar to the readers.
Moar plz
Excellent article series, good authors, and a great set of questions.
I won't exactly echo the comments of some that you "forgot" such-and-such (because how many authors can you nab and include in a specific article?), but if you get to interview more lesbian/bi authors, I have a list of requests too:
Manda Scott
Melissa Scott (no relation)
Nicola Griffith
Stella Duffy
Dorothy Allison