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One of the exciting things about moving on to the release-and-promotion stage of being an author is becoming part of a larger community of writers, reviewers, and readers. Through a chance intersection on Twitter, I met Tami Veldura when she was looking for an interview subject for an e-mail newsletter she writes for her fans. She writes in various intersections of the sets of fantasy, science fiction, and gay romance. If you enjoy the interview, please check out her blog and website and see if it's to your taste. The interview will be in the newsletter she sends out at the end of January but she gave me permission to post a copy on my own blog in advance.
Tami was delightful to work with on this interview -- I hope all my publicity contacts are as much fun.
* * *
Tami: Gender balance (or rather, the lack thereof) in all of our media forms is becoming a major discussion. Writing in the GLBTQ space tends to bring that into very stark relief. Have you ever found yourself correcting gender imbalance in your work? Has the awareness of a need for balance become stronger since you've started writing lesbian fiction?
Heather: I find as the years go by, I’ve become less and less interested in media (books, movies, etc.) in which women are not the primary focus. There was a time in my life when I wrote stories with male primary characters, but not anymore, and not in any of the stories that I’ve published. So there’s definitely gender imbalance in my work, but it’s an imbalance in favor of the feminine. It’s not that I don’t include male characters--in fact, if you count distinct named characters in Daughter of Mystery, there are 55 women to 90 men. But the women are primary. They are the protagonists, the key social context, the everyday antagonists and friends, the networks and hazards. This continues with the sequels (with one nearly finished in first draft and another handful sketched out hazily). One of the overarching themes of the Alpennian stories is women’s friendships and women’s bonds with each other: familial and social as well as romantic. The books in the series will be bound together, not simply by the carry-over of specific characters, but because each set of protagonists will be drawn into the story and drawn into each other’s lives via their ties to other women.
( Read more... )
Tami was delightful to work with on this interview -- I hope all my publicity contacts are as much fun.
* * *
Tami: Gender balance (or rather, the lack thereof) in all of our media forms is becoming a major discussion. Writing in the GLBTQ space tends to bring that into very stark relief. Have you ever found yourself correcting gender imbalance in your work? Has the awareness of a need for balance become stronger since you've started writing lesbian fiction?
Heather: I find as the years go by, I’ve become less and less interested in media (books, movies, etc.) in which women are not the primary focus. There was a time in my life when I wrote stories with male primary characters, but not anymore, and not in any of the stories that I’ve published. So there’s definitely gender imbalance in my work, but it’s an imbalance in favor of the feminine. It’s not that I don’t include male characters--in fact, if you count distinct named characters in Daughter of Mystery, there are 55 women to 90 men. But the women are primary. They are the protagonists, the key social context, the everyday antagonists and friends, the networks and hazards. This continues with the sequels (with one nearly finished in first draft and another handful sketched out hazily). One of the overarching themes of the Alpennian stories is women’s friendships and women’s bonds with each other: familial and social as well as romantic. The books in the series will be bound together, not simply by the carry-over of specific characters, but because each set of protagonists will be drawn into the story and drawn into each other’s lives via their ties to other women.
( Read more... )
