It's definitely making me feel better about the Ritas. For all the debate and controversy over the categories and judging system that crops up in RWA almost annually, they're at least extremely difficult to game. (Any author with a qualifying novel or novella that year can enter, and in the first round each book is scored independently by 5 judges. I think good "typical" books tend to get awarded over more innovative, niche-y work, but I don't think that's unique to the contest or the genre, and I can't imagine anyone being able to push crap with a political agenda into the finals.)
You know, I just... I woke up, and I looked in the mirror, and I thought, hey, what's with all the sin? I need to change. I'm... I'm dirty. I'm, I'm bad with the... sex and the envy and that, that loud music us kids listen to nowadays.
Buffy ,'Lessons'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Susan W. - Apr 11, 2015 12:42:41 pm PDT #23183 of 28342
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights
Strix - Apr 11, 2015 2:29:07 pm PDT #23184 of 28342
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
Barb won a RITA!
Susan W. - Apr 11, 2015 3:01:34 pm PDT #23185 of 28342
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights
I know, and that book is awesome! There are definitely plenty of exceptions to my good-but-typical comment--it's just a general trend I've seen, particularly in the romance subgenres I read most frequently.
Consuela - Apr 12, 2015 9:21:33 am PDT #23186 of 28342
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix
Sherwood Smith has a great essay here on the difference between Austen and Heyer: [link]
And I learned a new thing!
Consuela - Apr 12, 2015 9:22:50 am PDT #23187 of 28342
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix
Also, if people like Regency romances, Sherwood's two latest novels, Rondo Allegro and Danse de la Folie are both very good, although I liked Rondo Allegro better.
hippocampus - Apr 12, 2015 1:38:27 pm PDT #23188 of 28342
not your mom's socks.
hippocampus - Apr 12, 2015 1:38:51 pm PDT #23189 of 28342
not your mom's socks.
Consuela, I was just coming in here to post Sherwood's essay. I love it so.
So many great things being written on awards right now. Among them, the fact that Kit Reed (one of Joss Whedon's teachers) and many other female writers and writers of color have gone for much longer than since 2009 without receiving a shiny rocket... and kept writing. Kit pointed out somewhere recently that if she'd written with an eye to awards, she would have buried her typewriter by now.
And the amazing Michi Trota said something I've been thinking about more and more. Awards are great for the extended reading lists -- and reasons to read -- that they provide. This year's reading list (I've given it a crack already, as I'm determined to give everything at least a paragraph to win me over) is differently shaped and I am missing a lot of new voices that emerged in 2014.
It's harder for me now to make public reading lists, but I'd love to keep one somewhere -- maybe here? I don't know, I'm mostly musing.
Amy - Apr 12, 2015 4:17:26 pm PDT #23190 of 28342
Because books.
It's harder for me now to make public reading lists
Why?
hippocampus - Apr 12, 2015 5:08:39 pm PDT #23191 of 28342
not your mom's socks.
Why?
Last list of novels I posted, I got asked why I hadn't included x book, by its author.
Strix - Apr 12, 2015 5:40:10 pm PDT #23192 of 28342
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
Whut?!
Dang, Sox, that's just...wow. One should be able to write a list of books one recommends without a frigging legal disclaimer attached to it. @@