Arts
Deborah Ross AKA Deborah Wheeler and Connie Wilkins AKA Sacchi Green join me to discuss the Lambda Awards ceremony.Deborah was nominated for Collaborators. The Lambda Literary review is here. Connie won for Wild Girls, Wild Nights: True Lesbian Sex Stories. The Lamba Literary review is here.The interview is very pleasant, but it does mention Marion Zimmer Bradley. In the interim between recording the interview and today, there has been a lot of online discussion of Bradley and her role in enabling abuse and abusing children herself. This is a very fraught emotional topic for many people in the SF, SCA, and QUILTBAG communities because many people looked at her as a role model and influence, and loved her books and/or or made their first sales to her. Here are some links collecting responses to the whole thing. Please note that the materials about MZB and her ex-husband, Walter Breen, are extremely disturbing. Proceed with caution, especially if rape and abuse are trigger topics for you.*Rape, Abuse, and Marion Zimmer Bradley is a links roundup and response by Jim C. Hines, who is a rape crisis counselor. *Silence Is Complicity is another links roundup and response by Natalie Luhrs, who has been actively calling out bad things in the SF community for quite some time. *On Doing a Thing I Had to Do is a post by Janni Lee Simner, an author who made her fist sale to MZB, and who has decided to donate her proceeds to RAINN. *Rachel Manija Brown's post is a personal response from someone who has been abused about the importance of making this visible. *Regarding the Marion Zimmer Bradley Abuse Story is Deborah's personal response, apologizing for an earlier tweet.While I do think it's important to acknowledge all of this, the podcast episode itself is only a tiny bit about MZB, and mostly about The Lambda Awards, and other awards and projects. Here are the episode specific links:*Here's the picture of Connie winning her Lambda Award. *Here's a picture of Cecilia Tan and Mary Anne Mohanraj (in the red sari Connie and Deborah both admired) at the Lambdas.*The Nebula Award winners list. Congratulations to Ann Leckie, Vylar Kaftan, Aliette de Bodard, Rachel Swirsky, Nalo Hopkinson, and Samuel R. Delaney!*Congratulations to Sarah Pinsker for winning the Sturgeon Award! *The Bisexual Book Awards winners are here. Congratulations all, especially Cecilia Tan, Laura Lam, Malida Lo, and Zan Christensen!*The Ditmar Awards were announced at Continuum in Melbourne. Congratulations all, especially Kirstyn McDermott, Sean Wright, Tehani Wessely, David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and all of the Galactic Suburbia and Galactic Chat crews!*Jim C. Hines's Continuum GoH speech. *Congratulations to Cecilia Tan and Mary Robinette Kowal for winning RT awards!And finally, two currently active IndieGoGo campaigns you might like to contribute to:*Gears for Queers is the San Francisco Steampunk community's fundraiser to support the GLBT National Help Center. There are 12 more days to order awesome steampunk items and support a good cause. *Interfictions Online is fundraising to bring us all more excellent interstitial content. They have 19 days left in their campaign, and are working towards some exciting stretch goals.