Guest Post Roundup, and Phase 2

[jimhines]

I want to once again thank everyone for the guest blog posts last month. They were amazing and powerful and thought-provoking. I know that you got me thinking about things I hadn’t considered before, and judging from the comments, I wasn’t the only one. Here’s the full list of posts:

• Parched – Mark Oshiro
• Boys’ Books – Katharine Kerr
• Clicking – Susan Jane Bigelow
• The Princess Problem – Charlotte Ashley
• Autism, Representation, Success – Ada Hoffmann
• Gender in Genre – Katie
• I Don’t See Color – Michi Trota
• Evil Albino Trope is Evil – Nalini Haynes
• Options – Joie Young
• Representation without Understanding – Derek Handley
• Non-binary and Not Represented – Morgan Dambergs

There were several other posts I wanted to mention in this roundup.

• Aging Children, I am one, by M. Fenn
• Lesbian Genre Fiction: The Importance of Having All 31 Flavors, by Heather Rose Jones
• The Power of Representation: SFF Saved My Life, by Nonny Blackthorne
• Spending Time with Old Sci-Fi, by James Ebert
• Disabilities in the Media and the follow-up post, Confession: I’m Part of the Problem, by Datista

The frustrating thing about blogging is that, for the most part, any given blog post has a very short lifespan. They get their moment in the spotlight, and then wander backstage to the archives. I wanted to find a way to keep these essays alive for anyone who wanted to read and share them. Which is why I spent the weekend sending contracts out to my guest bloggers and a couple of additional individuals for Invisible, an electronic anthology that will collect these essays in a more permanent form. I’m still working out the details, but each contributor will receive a token payment for their essay, with the rest of the profits going to Con or Bust. The essays will remain online for free, but the anthology will be $2.99, which seemed reasonable for a collection of this length. Here’s the cover I’ve been working on. Feedback is very much welcome. The contributor names are pixellated out because I haven’t received all of the contracts back yet. I’m excited about this. If all goes well, I’d love to make it an annual thing, both the guest blog posts and the electronic anthology.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Comments

[catsittingstill]

This strikes me as a cool idea.

To be frank, I looked at the pictures first (what can I say?) and the pixellated-out names struck me as continuing the theme of lack of representation.

In real life it's probably not a good idea--the names are part of what sells the collection. But it was an interesting first impression.

[jimhines]

I hadn't thought about that, but I like it. I agree, it probably wouldn't work from a commercial standpoint, but interesting to think about.