Tiptree Symposium, Dec 4-5

Most of you have probably already heard that the University of Oregon Libraries will be hosting a symposium later this week to honor Alice Sheldon/James Tiptree Jr. on the centennial of her birth.
The symposium will kick off with a keynote talk by Julie Phillips, author of the biography: James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice Sheldon (St. Martins, 2006), and will also feature a panel discussion with other writers who carried on lively and engaging correspondence with Tiptree, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Suzy McKee Charnas and David Gerrold. I'll be participating myself, as a panelist on feminist sf publishing with co-panelists Jacob Weisman of Tachyon Publications and Gordon Van Gelder.

The symposium will take place in the Lillis Auditorium, Room 182. Admission is free, however please RSVP here. An exhibit based on the Tiptree Papers will be in Knight Library, first floor, and in Special Collections and University Archives.

Aqueduct Press will be there, as well as numerous Aqueduct authors. We'll be set up in the lobby alongside the University of Oregon Bookstore. We'll be bringing books we've published by attending authors as well as all our Tiptree Award-honored books. Kath made up a list of them (in reverse chronological order), to make sure we didn't miss any, and it's damned impressive, if I do say so myself:

Tiptree Award Winners:

Ancient, Ancient, Kiini Ibura Salaam, Co-Winner, 2012

Redwood and Wildfire, Andrea Hairston, Winner, 2011

Filter House, Nisi Shawl, Co-Winner, 2008

The Marq’ssan Cycle, L. Timmel Duchamp, Awarded Special Honor by 2009 Tiptree Jury

 Writing the Other: A Practical Approach, Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, Special Mention, 2005

Honor List: 

 

Elysium, Jennifer Marie Brissett, 2014

Big Mama Stories, Eleanor Arnason, 2013

The Receptionist and Other Tales, Lesley Wheeler, 2012

"The Nones of Quintilis," in Never at Home, L. Timmel Duchamp, 2011

The Universe of Things, Gwyneth Jones, 2011

The Secret Feminist Cabal:  A Cultural History of Science Fiction Feminisms, Helen Merrick, 2010

Distances, Vandana Singh, 2009

Dangerous Space, Kelley Eskridge, 2007

Mindscape, Andrea Hairston, 2006

Life, by Gwyneth Jones, 2004  (short list)

Love’s Body, Dancing in Time, L. Timmel Duchamp, 2004 (short list)

Jackie Hatton's Flesh & Wires

I'm pleased to announce the release of Flesh & Wires, a debut novel by Jackie Hatton, in both print and e-book editions. (Jackie read from the novel with other Aqueduct writers at the last WisCon.) Following a failed alien invasion the world left is sparsely populated with psychologically scarred survivors, some of them technologically-enhanced women. Lo, leader of the small safe haven of Saugatuck, find their technological enhancements put to the test when a spaceship arrives bearing two men with both wonderful and terrifying news. Is this the beginning of a new era of reconstruction — or the start of a new battle for survival? Not everyone in town wants to fight every comer. Not everyone in town shares Lo’s mistrust of outsiders. This is the story not only of Lo’s battle to protect the safe isolation of her unique community, but also of her struggle to come to terms with a constantly changing and uncertain world.

Publishers Weekly writes: “Hatton creates an unusual, almost entirely Sapphic culture, and the futuristic technologies she introduces are inventive and terrifying. Her prose style captures the peculiarities of this altered world with broad brushstrokes.”

“Jackie Hatton has taken familiar science fiction tropes – alien invasion, the destruction of most of Earth, advanced technology so incomprehensible that it might as well be magic – and turned them into a story that transcends the genre. Instead of the usual tale of evil villains, weak humans, and one brilliant hero, we get complicated human and alien characters dealing with messy situations: that is, real life in dangerous times. There’s plenty of action, but it rarely solves things in the way that the characters, or readers, expect. If, like me, you’re tired of stories with predictable outcomes, this book is for you. “—Nancy Jane Moore, author of The Weave

“In Flesh & Wires Jackie Hatton shows us real women in extreme circumstances: survivors of disaster, traumatized and divided among themselves, with superhuman powers and all-too-human hearts. As they confront change, we witness their desperation, their hope, their need to discover the full range of their powers. A provocative and exciting debut.”—Julie Phillips, author of James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice Sheldon

Flesh & Wires raises questions about community, colonialism, immigration and basic human rights and challenges our assumptions about the ties and obligations of family, community and society in a crisis. You can purchase it now through Aqueduct's site.