As a sci-fi author, I wrote a world of characters who disagree with each other about what gender is, but all think that our gender binary is illogical. This drives some real world cisgender people wild. “But isn’t dividing into men vs. women natural?” they argue. “Humans only have two reproductive roles. Defining gender based on who has a penis versus who has a vagina just makes sense!” (Pointing out the existence of intersex people makes a remarkably small dent in this logic. Instead, intersex people get shuffled off as a minor exception to an otherwise logical system grounded in the fundamental facts of reproductive biology.) Many trans activists and theorists have countered this argument far more eloquently than I. However, I would like to take a moment to respond to this argument purely from within the experience of a cisgender straight person. Even the cis people most wedded to conventional divisions of gender fail to take those professed beliefs seriously. From the standpoint of its own professed logic, the gender binary is incoherent.
Continue reading “The Biology (or Lack Thereof) of Gender”Author: EEM
A Christmas Carol: For White Authors Who Don’t Want to be Scrooge
ACT 1
The curtain opens on a darkened office. One lamp casts light onto the face of the White Author, who is sitting at a desk hunched over a laptop looking at Twitter. Whispers start. At first, the words are too faint to make out, but gradually occasional whispers become audible, making it clear that the White Author is reading comments about their recently published book. The word “racist” is heard with greater and greater frequency. The White Author straightens and starts typing frantically.
WHITE AUTHOR: What! How dare you say my book is racist! I’m not racist! You’re racist!
The White Author raises their hand, about to strike the “Enter” key angrily. Behind them, Ghost 1, a semi-transparent white man wearing a top hat and coat, materializes.
GHOST 1: Wait!
WHITE AUTHOR: (turning and lowering hand) Who are you?
GHOST 1: The Ghost of Racism Past.
Continue reading “A Christmas Carol: For White Authors Who Don’t Want to be Scrooge”The Accidental Cover
Huh. I appear to have accidentally made myself a book cover.
Honest, I was trying to get over my extreme tendency to do everything myself. I really and truly intended to hire a professional for this. I still do. But I was playing around with some concept art for the cover and it kept being almost right, so I kept tweaking it, and before you know it… three days of no writing and bam, a book cover. The control freak in me says, “YES! ALL THE EDITING POWER IS MINE!!!!” The part of me that is attempting to learn that getting help from other people frequently makes for a better product is retrenching at editors. Negotiations continue.
Credit to Gianella Castro, Anne Nygard, and Vinicius Amano on Unsplash for the images used.
Fun with Author Photos!
Getting official author photos done is also known as… time to haul out my favorite dress I ever sewed! This is one of the things I miss about teaching. Chaperoning prom is one of the only opportunities for adults to wear super fancy dresses. I had a blast getting these done.
Draft 2 Outline Done!
Finally! The expanded outline to turn the first draft of Through The Mirror into a full series is done! It even meets in the middle, which is always a plus. Below is a picture of the initial stage of the outline.
Through The Mirror serialization
Can’t wait for release day? The first half of the book will be serialized here. Starting about six weeks before publication, expect a new post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until launch!
Content advisory: explicit consensual sex, dubious consent, and sexual assault. No bloodshed.
- Chapter 1
- Ch 1.1
- Ch 1.2
- Ch 1.3
- Chapter 2
- Ch 2.1
- Ch 2.2
- Ch 2.3
- Chapter 3
- Ch 3.1
- Ch 3.2
- Ch 3.3
- Chapter 4
- Ch 4.1
- Ch 4.2
- Chapter 5
- Ch 5.1
- Ch 5.2
- Chapter 6
- Ch 6.1
- Ch 6.2
- Ch 6.3
- Chapter 7
- Ch 7.1
- Ch 7.2
- Chapter 8
- Ch 8.1
- Ch 8.2
- Discuss the Rest! (spoilers)
Book Launch expected mid 2020!
Childbirth and the christmas story
As a child, I gave little thought to Mary’s birth experience in the Christmas story that I heard. She shows up on the donkey, beds down in the manger for the night, pops out the Savior, and shortly thereafter kneels in a neat and tidy manger scene wearing white without a hair out of place.
It was not until I gave birth to my own child that I came to appreciate the audacity that this telling of the Christmas story displays. In a holiday where childbirth is literally the main event, the actual labor and delivery is erased. After going through one of the better childbirth experiences myself – thirty-two hours of no sleep, waiting impatiently until the contractions finally became unspeakably painful so I could go to the hospital for actual labor, six hours of excruciating physical exertion, the usual amount of tearing and stitching, and the standard several weeks of postpartum bleeding – I had a few questions about the details of this story.
Continue reading “Childbirth and the christmas story”First draft of through the mirror done!
For both the first and probably the last time in my life, I finished a task ahead of when I expected to! And not just a little bit early, but almost a month and a half early! With any luck my original estimate of early 2020 for the release will continue to be on target. At least until the inevitable unforeseen delays catch up.
“he” and children’s literature
It’s always a bit of a shock to realize that social problems I think I’ve overcome still have their hooks in deep. In my case, this realization came as I was at my in-laws’ house watching my mother-in-law teach my two-year-old son about pronouns. Pronouns are inherently tricky. Simply sorting out when to use “I” versus “you” is a monumental cognitive task, and the inevitable errors in the process are normally sources of amusement and amazement for me. This day’s pronoun errors – less so.