Obscure and Fabulous Bookiness

[scribblemyname]

From anghara:

"sartorias suggested that she at least might be one of the people who might be interested in reading a list of this ilk, as opposed to "This Is A List of All The Popular Kids" which keeps on circulating in blogland. So, then. How about I start the ball rolling, right here?

What is the best book you've read recently (or the best book you've read NOT so recently) by a writer whose name does not immediately start ringing bells?

One of the people who started this discussion, [Bad username: beth_bernobich"], has put up a blog post which puts forth her (enviable) writing credentials and is pretty much a holler of "hey! Over here!" So she headlines this list, right here. I think that perhaps fewer people that I might like would have put ME forward for such a list, so I shall shamelessly add my own name to it. I might also add the name of Andrea Hairston, who I think is basically very well known in some circles and not at all in others and who deserves a wider audience.

So, then. Let's make it a game. Pick this up, add a name, pass it on. Let's have a list of folks whom you think need to have a wider audience. That's three names you have right there - Beth Bernobich, Alma Alexander, Andrea Hairston. Over to you. Let the list grow. Repost. Retweet. Let's see how many writers are out there whose books and stories you've read, and you think other people might WANT to read..."

---

So the scribbler adds four... [linked to LJ or Goodreads]

The List

Beth Bernobichbeth_bernobich
Alma Alexanderanghara
Andrea Hairstonsartorias
Jane Hamilton: The Guardian
Tracy Groot: The Brother's Keeper
Terry L. Fivash: Joseph
Zenna Henderson: Ingathering

Comments

[anghara.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[scribblemyname]

No problem. This is needed.

Just Read

[scribblemyname]

Chameleon by Beth Bernobich at Strange Horizons
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2001/20011112/chameleon.shtml

This is truly lovely, wonderful fantasy.

Re: Just Read

[beth-bernobich.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, GOOD thinking about Zenna Henderson!

[scribblemyname]

I truly love this woman's work.

[thebluerose.livejournal.com]

I cant find it but I am certain there was a post by Jo walton on Tor sometime in the last few months about this subject and there were many many replies with a long list of unappreciated authors in the SF/Fantasy genre.

Might be a good place to start from? If someone else (who isnt at work) has time to find it LOL

[scribblemyname]

I admit I just stuck to the original guidelines (and had to add more detail later :shakes head at self: ). this isn't at all genre-specific, so I figured each person who swipes and reposts this list can add the books that mean something to them.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I was surprised to see Zenna Henderson missing from the recent meme-list of women writers who were first published in the 70s .... so I googled and found she'd been mostly published in the 1950s-60s. I just *read* them in the 70s (my mom likes Henderson too).

[beth-bernobich.livejournal.com]

james_nicoll has been building a series of lists of women SF writers, based on the decade when they were first published. Unfortunately, the 70s list is the only one that's getting copied around, so people are missing on the rest of the wonderfulness. (I've discovered a number of new-to-me writers, not to mention being reminded of writers I'd read ages ago, and lost track of.)

If you go to James's LJ and search for his posts with the titles starting "Please jog my memory", you can add more names.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Thanks - and now I understand what your name had been left out of (I came to this post via anghara's response to it. I've been trying to remember authors who might have been omitted from his list; I will go and check for names like Elizabeth Goudge (The Little White Horse, Linnets and Valerians) and Margaret Lovatt (The Great and Terrible Quest). No idea when they first published but I'm sure Wikipedia can help with that.

[beth-bernobich.livejournal.com]

He's actively trying to add to the list, so if you find out the decade and leave a comment, he'll update the list in the post itself. He started the series in answer to the widely-held perception that women don't write much SF, or if they do, it's only in the last couple decades.

(He's since added me to the list. Just an oversight, I know. It's just that this came right after a couple other similar incidents. I was beginning to think that I had stumbled into an invisibility field.)

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I found his posts, and it was interesting to do the research anyway. So far I've added Goudge, Lovett, PL Travers (Mary Poppins!) and LM Boston.

I have a hunch that it was probably easier for women writers to break into children's fantasy. Or maybe it's that people found fantasy in general to be more of a kiddy thing until the 1960s or so? Because people like Edith Nesbit and Dodie Smith seem to have conbined fantasy for children with non-SFF works for adults. (Goudge did too, but she wrote a ton of books and I'm not sure if any of her adult ones are fantasy.)

[beth-bernobich.livejournal.com]

And yet, there were plenty of women SF/F writers who wrote adult SF before the 50s. Just check out this link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZoNDebTvUnsC&pg=PR11#v=onepage&q=%22table%201%22&f=false

And scroll down to page 317.

Unfortunately, the perception is that women don't write SF, and though people say, "Well, they write fantasy instead," those same people forget to include women writers when they make the fantasy lists, too. It's all what Joanna Russ described in How To Suppress Women's Writing. It's not deliberate, but that only makes it harder to eradicate.