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Guest Post: Kyle Winter on The Power of Passive Representation

Treading the waters of diversity is tricky because we never want to disrespect the struggles that women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, or others have had to endure. As writers, we often want to include people like this in our stories because their stories are powerful and can make a difference. This sometimes manifests itself as ‘the gay friend’ or ‘the black friend’ or if you’re really batting for a home run ‘the gay black friend’. This character is great for diversity. He shows that those people exist and that we shouldn’t be afraid of them. But over time, if we see the gay black friend over and over it creates a subliminal message that all gay black men behave a certain way, and that can damage the community. I think we should allow those characters to break the mold and keep it to themselves.

Gender identity, skin color, and sexual orientation don’t affect your ability to do things. Period. There’s no reason a gay man can’t be a hardened combat veteran and there’s no reason a straight man can’t enjoy ballet. The fact that we use these stereotypes reflects our perceptions of society. It acts as a shorthand for the reader / viewer to go “Oh, he’s the gay guy, I get it!” and we can immediately paint a picture of who that person is without digging any deeper. While it’s great to include someone like this in your story, you may actually do more harm than good by treating them this way. Why? Because you’re adding to society’s confirmation bias. If every time someone sees a gay man on TV or reads about them in a book and they behave like a giddy teenage girl, then we will continue to think that’s how all gay men behave. Not that there’s anything wrong with a flamboyant personality, but it can be an oversimplification of the gay community.

What if, instead, we put a gay man in a position of power? The NBC show Brooklyn 99 does this with the character Captain Raymond Holt. He’s a stoic, calculating man that comes off cold but everyone loves him anyway. Just because he lacks flamboyance doesn’t make him any less gay. He still has a pride flag on his desk and there are many episodes with his husband, but he’s not treated any different because of his sexual preference. Yes, there are some episodes about his struggles as a gay black man in the NYPD because that is a story worth telling, but his skin color and sexual orientation never interfere with his ability to perform his duties. That’s because they literally have no bearing on his performance, and his entire team treats him the same as they treat everyone else. Imagine the impact that has for people who have never met a gay man like him. For some people, it never occurs to them a gay man could behave that way. For some people, that character is eye-opening and possibly life-changing.

Wizards of the Coast, a gaming company that owns Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering (among others), often portrays people of color as their flagship heroes. They even have several prominent non-binary characters, which they’ve supported despite friction from some members of the community. Imagine the impact when someone who’s never played one of these games, in an industry that has traditionally been dominated by white dudes, thumbs through one of the rule books and sees a heroic character that looks like them. The imagination stirs as we consider the possibilities of being that character. It makes us feel like we could be part of that adventuring group, part of the epic story that will be written as a legend in years to come. All because of some simple artwork!

Placing these characters front and center, without necessarily making their differences the focus of the narrative, can have a profound effect on society. By having these characters represented in our stories we are saying, “This is how life is, these people exist and they don’t need to be treated any different than you or I.” This silent diversity becomes powerful representation for these communities. It reinforces the idea that we are all equal. If a child sees a hero that looks like them on the cover of a book, or on a movie poster, it tells them they could be that hero. It tells them there are other people with their unique traits in the world and that those people can accomplish great things. It tells them they aren’t alone.

Does this mean you can’t tell a story about a person of color’s struggles? Of course not. Am I suggesting that a woman’s climb to the top of her field isn’t worth hearing about? No. I’m saying that if we fast-forward through the struggles these people face every day and portray them as successful heroes then maybe society will treat them like heroes. In the end, we all want equality. We want a world where our gender identity, skin color, sexual preference or any other part of our being is accepted without a second thought.

Why not nudge society in that direction by telling stories where that is already true?


Headshot of Kyle WinterBIO: Kyle Winter is an author who is terrible at writing about himself, especially in the third person. He considers himself a genre-fluid author, dabbling in science-fiction, fantasy, pulp and others. He is an avid gamer, whether it be video games, tabletop RPGs, miniatures, board games or card games nothing is safe. For the past nine years he has routinely gotten beat up at his Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes and enjoys every second. You can visit his website www.TheKyleWinter.com or connect with him on Twitter @TheKyleWinter.

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines. Or if you’re looking for community from other F&SF writers, sign up for the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers Critclub!

This was a guest blog post.
Interested in blogging here?

Assembling an itinerary for a blog tour? Promoting a book, game, or other creative effort that’s related to fantasy, horror, or science fiction and want to write a guest post for me?

Alas, I cannot pay, but if that does not dissuade you, here’s the guidelines.

Guest posts are publicized on Twitter, several Facebook pages and groups, my newsletter, and in my weekly link round-ups; you are welcome to link to your site, social media, and other related material.

Send a 2-3 sentence description of the proposed piece along with relevant dates (if, for example, you want to time things with a book release) to cat AT kittywumpus.net. If it sounds good, I’ll let you know.

I prefer essays fall into one of the following areas but I’m open to interesting pitches:

  • Interesting and not much explored areas of writing
  • Writers or other individuals you have been inspired by
  • Your favorite kitchen and a recipe to cook in it
  • A recipe or description of a meal from your upcoming book
  • Women, PoC, LGBT, or otherwise disadvantaged creators in the history of speculative fiction, ranging from very early figures such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Wollstonecraft up to the present day.
  • Women, PoC, LGBT, or other wise disadvantaged creators in the history of gaming, ranging from very early times up to the present day.
  • F&SF volunteer efforts you work with

Length is 500 words on up, but if you’ve got something stretching beyond 1500 words, you might consider splitting it up into a series.

When submitting the approved piece, please paste the text of the piece into the email. Please include 1-3 images, including a headshot or other representation of you, that can be used with the piece and a 100-150 word bio that includes a pointer to your website and social media presences. (You’re welcome to include other related links.)

Or, if video is more your thing, let me know if you’d like to do a 10-15 minute videochat for my YouTube channel. I’m happy to handle filming and adding subtitles, so if you want a video without that hassle, this is a reasonable way to get one created. ???? Send 2-3 possible topics along with information about what you’re promoting and its timeline.

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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."

~K. Richardson

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Guest Post: Food and SF in Jewish Australia - Part 3 by Gillian Polack

Part Three

The recipes in The Wizardry of Jewish Women are Jewish food, but not as most people know it.

In the novel, two sisters (Judith and Belinda) are sent boxes that were stored in a garage for two generations. One box is full of culinary recipes from their great-grandmother Ada. The other box is also full of recipes, but for spells.

Belinda, the cook, takes the box with the recipes. She sends food parcels to Judith as she tests the recipes. In one of the parcels is feminist biscuits, because Belinda believes profoundly in teasing her feminist sister. The recipe box was terribly important. I wanted to show readers that lost culture could be fascinating and familiar. Also, I wanted to balance magic with memory.

Ada’s recipes are mostly from Belle Polack, my grandmother, because Ada and Belle are from near-identical cultural backgrounds. Jewish cooking followed a really interesting historical path from London to Australia and that is the path I used for Ada’s recipes.

Now for some recipes. First, the feminist biscuits (which would probably be called “˜cookies’ in North America) and then, some of my grandmother’s recipes.

Anglo-Jewish Australian cooking has some significant differences to other Jewish foodways. Ask me sometime, because this is one of my favourite subjects. I often start by saying something like, “My people cook, but we have no family bagel recipe.” The family lost many recipes for a generation. Only my first cousin believed we had family recipes for Christmas until my grandmother’s notebook was found hidden in my father’s study after he died.

The only metric recipe is the one for feminist biscuits, because it’s the only modern recipe. All the other recipes use British Imperial measurements. The cups are pre-metric Australian cups: a cup of sugar is 6 ounces and one of flour is 4 ounces. Here is a conversion tool for some of the rest.

I admit, I use a table at the back of a 1970s cookbook when my memory fails me, or I do conversion using my family’s classic “By guess and by G-d” technique.    

 

Feminist Biscuits

Ingredients

  • 150 g butter or equivalent amount of oil
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 small cup sugar
  • 1 cup self raising flour
  • 1 drop vanilla (optional)
  • Desiccated coconut
  • Green food colouring
  • Purple food colouring (red and blue combined)  

Method

Melt butter. Add everything except the food colouring. Mix well. Swirl the food colouring through the mix. Drop a teaspoon at a time on well-greased trays. Bake in a moderate oven for 10-15 minutes. Try not to eat them all at once.  

 

Christmas Pudding

This is my grandmother’s recipe, transcribed. I haven’t modernised it or translated it at all. I did, however, add a comma. Note: Do not even think of making the milk variant of this Jewish Christmas pudding for anyone who keeps kosher.  

(Medium Rich) 1 lb suet, ¾ lb fine breadcrumbs, ¾ lb brown sugar, ¼ lb flour, 1 lb sultanas, 1 lb currants, ¼ lb mixed peel, ½ teaspoon mixed spice, a good pinch salt, 1 lemon, 4 eggs, ½ pt beer or milk, ½ gill brandy. Prepare all the ingredients. Sieve flour & mix with crumbs & finely chopped suet. Add fruit & chopped peel & grated rind of lemon & sugar. Mix in the beaten eggs, beer or milk. Stir well. Cover a clean & put away until next day. Add the brandy, turn into greased basins & cover with the greased paper & pudding cloths. Boil for 8 to 10 hrs. Remove the paper & cloths, let puddings cool & recover with fresh paper & dry cloths. Store in a cook, dry place. Boil for a further 2 hrs before serving.  

And now for a few more less contentious recipes.  

 

Belle Polack’s Honey Cake for Jewish New Year  

Ingredients

  • 1 lb honey
  • 1 ¼ cups plain flour
  • 1 small cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 small cup oil or melted butter
  • 1 tsp cocoa
  • 1 tsp mixed spice
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • a heaped tsp bicarbonate of soda  

Method

Melt the honey and sugar over a low flame. When they are cold, add the eggs (which should be well-beaten first””a form of domestic discipline), the oil and the remaining ingredients. Put the bicarbonate of soda in last.

Pour into a well-greased cake tin and bake in a moderate oven for 1 ½ hours.    

 

Madeira Cake  

This cake is from Belle’s maternal grandmother who left London in the 1860s.  

Ingredients

  • 5 oz butter
  • 6 oz sugar
  • 6 oz self raising flour
  • 2 oz plain flour
  • 2 eggs
  • ½-1 cup milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla  

Method

Cream butter. Add vanilla. Beat in eggs well, one at a time. Add flour then milk and vanilla. Bake for 1 ½ hours in a moderate oven.


BIO: Dr Gillian Polack is a Jewish-Australian science fiction and fantasy writer, researcher and editor and is the winner of the 2020 A Bertram Chandler Award. The Green Children Help Out is her newest novel. The Year of the Fruit Cake won the 2020 Ditmar for best novel and was shortlisted for best SF novel in the Aurealis Awards. She wrote the first Australian Jewish fantasy novel (The Wizardry of Jewish Women). Gillian is a Medievalist/ethnohistorian, currently working on how novels transmit culture. Her work on how writers use history in their fiction (History and Fiction) was shortlisted for the William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review.


If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines. Or if you’re looking for community from other F&SF writers, sign up for the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers Critclub!

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Guest Post: Andrew Hiller Finds "˜S Wonderful at the Baltimore Faerie Faire

What fun! I really didn’t know what to expect when I accepted the Author of the Year recognition from the Baltimore Faerie Faire, but there was belly dancing, big bands, folk music, a hoard of really cool/fun people”¦

AND I was given a key to the Faerie Kingdom!

It all started when I received a random Facebook friendship invite. I checked out their stream before accepting (My sister taught me to do this.) Happily, the person passed the spam test so I clicked “approve.” Almost immediately I received an IM.

My newest friend started off by thanking me, and launched into how much she loved A Halo of Mushrooms. She’d picked up a copy at Mars Con in January, devoured it, read passages to her husband, and brought it to the attention of her reading group. I felt flattered and thanked her. Then, she added that she was one of the organizers of the Baltimore Faerie Faire and not only wanted me to come, but to be their author of the year.

Swim, small fish, swim!

I got the details, checked out the website, and said, “Yes.”

It turns out the Baltimore Faerie Faire is not only a warm community, but enough of a big deal to be included in the official state of Maryland’s tourism website. It took place over two days. On April 13th, they held the Masquerade Ball and on 14th was the Faire itself. My major duty was to step before the faerie court to ease the transition between the seasons and aid in the passing of the baton from the Winter Queen to the Spring. I also had a table for signings and some other authorly roles. Both Seelie and Unseelie.

The Ball was great. Spritely music played as professional burlesque dancers, belly dancers, and folk dancers twirled on the floor. In between, the attendees boogied”¦ or is that bogied.

When I was introduced during the Ball as the man of the hills and 2019 Author of the Year, they gave me a key to the Faerie City! Everything went as smooth as faerie dust. On the second day”¦ well, you know something always happens during live performance!

The second court began with the faerie queen of winter, the magpie, resisting her dethroning. This was planned and scripted. The crowd played along and tried to bribe her with shinies. After being mollified, I was introduced and began my speech. I glorified the magpie as someone who does not hoard, but protects and keeps safe our treasures from winter’s bite.Then, I pivoted to extol spring, that transition from gray and white, to green, red, purple, and new life. A time of blossom and seed. As I read, I spy the the organizer hurrying up to me. She stabs at my speech and whispers, “Don’t read that!” I look at her.

I’m not to introduce the Spring Queen?

It turns out that they couldn’t find their Queen. She got hung up in traffic or between dimensions or something. I finish, receive my applause, and recede back into the crowd, but after about ten minutes of music and funny schtick mainly about Winter not wanting to give up her crown, I return to my table.

Fifteen minutes later, they re-summon me to court. I sprint back and see the Queen of Spring waiting in the wings. I start thinking furiously. I’m not going to reread my speech. I don’t want to put the audience through that no matter how poetic and pretty it is. What can I say that I didn’t say the first time?

I decide that it would be fun to wink at the audience and talk about how sometimes Winter refuses to release its grip and Spring comes late.

It works. The crowd laughs. Spring smiles good-naturedly. I take a step back. Receive a gift from the Queen of Spring. Chapstick! Then, the organizer asks me to tell the Queen of Spring how wonderful she is.

What?

More?

Two things pop in my mind. I covered this already and the audience has already been asked to sit for far longer than anyone expected. What can I possibly say? And then it hits me”¦

Gershwin!

I belt out, “You’re wonderful!”

The crowd roars and the organizer says, “Yes! Like that! Tell her more!” So, I sing,

“You’re marvelous!”

Of the things I never expected to do as Author of the year, crooning old standards was probably high on the list, but as with all writing”¦ you go where the story takes you and do what the story demands!

Thank you to the organizers of the Baltimore Faerie Faire! I had such a great time. I am both humbled and honored that you embraced my work. I will remember this weekend for a long time.

Oh”¦ and for the record, I did eat faerie fare at the faire. Surprisingly, it tasted like chicken, Masala chicken to be specific.

Author Bio:

Andrew Hiller is the author of A Halo of Mushrooms, A Climbing Stock and the editor of Thursday Stories. Follow him on Twitter as @AndrewHiller.

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines

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