Here’s a list of bookish links from this week that you might find interesting.
- At LambdaLiterary, Victoria Brownworth takes on male/male fiction, The Fetishizing of Queer Sexuality: “If you aren’t familiar with M/M fiction here’s what it is: Straight women fetishizing the lives of gay men […] fetishizing the sexuality of others is still a blatant form of sexism, homophobia, racism. When you fetishize another’s sexuality, you make them less than. You make them Other.”
- Publishers Weekly asks Is Alyson Close to Sale? “The financial troubles at gay and lesbian house Alyson Books have been quietly bubbling up over the past few months as stories of unpaid advances and never published books circulated on blogs and in publishing circles. That quiet was officially broken Wednesday when Michael Musto published a piece in the Village Voice about his book being taken “hostage,” as he put it in his headline, by the publisher.”
- GalleyCat provides a Facebook page to publicise your new book. “Using this Facebook page, we will assemble a weekly list of all the major fiction and non-fiction releases, a recurring feature that will help us alert our readers to new books and help us cope with the overwhelming flow of publicity materials we receive […] Authors, publicists, editors, and readers can all make use of this new section of our Facebook page–posting about new and upcoming books. Just add a brief description of the book and link so readers can find the book online.”
- At E-Reads, agent Richard Curtis asks, Author, What’s an Author? “Can you produce a vook? What skills will you require to make one? And will you be more of a writer when you finish it?” What do you think?
- From Mike Shatzkin, publishing consultant, comes The printed book’s path to oblivion. “Nicholas Negroponte made headlines last week when he was quoted as saying that the printed book would be “dead” within five years. A deeper dive into what Negroponte actually said clarifies that he doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be any paper books anymore after 2015, but that the ebook would become the “dominant” form by then. I think even that might be going too far […] But for those who question the idea that the switch from paper to screens will ultimately be just about total, let me offer a way to think about it.”
- The Guardian has been running a Summer Fiction Special, short stories from some of the big names of contemporary fiction: Hilary Mantel, Roddy Doyle, Téa Obreht, David Mitchell, and more. I haven’t read any yet; I’ve been saving them for this weekend. If you enjoy any of them, let me know.
- Via Lisa Gold, researcher extraordinaire, the BBC’s archive of audio and video interviews with and insights from the true giants of British literature: Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, PG Wodehouse, EM Forster, William Golding… A true treasure chest.
- The Orbit Books blog has been running a nifty rundown of changing fashions in fantasy novel artwork. Dragon colour this year? Green. Fantasy heroines? Abs in, stilettos out.
- And over at Sterling Editing we have our usual weekly links of interest to emerging writers. My favourite is probably Sugar’s post: “So write… Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Like a motherfucker.”
Have a fine weekend.
Nicola Griffith 
Hmm, I read Brownworth's article and had some serious qualms about it. I think what she is taking on here is primarily published M/M fiction by female authors, not internet-published slash fiction. However, that's not entirely clear. And, that said, I find her definition of M/M fiction deeply problematic. The ethnographic work on the slash community, at any rate, is actually quite revealing of the falsity of so many of our assumptions. A researcher looking at Due South slash for her PhD, for example, got results from self-identified slash writers and fans that were (I'm rounding, due to not having the figures to hand): about 45% straight-identified women, about 35% lesbian-identified women, about 15% bisexual women, with the remaining 5% made up of women who identify as asexual, gay men, and a few straight men. In addition, I think the assumption of fetishization, which is clearly a real problem in some instances, is also itself problematic insofar as it ignores the issue of cross-identification. My friend, the journalist Cynthia Browse, who died earlier this year, wrote extensively of her own interest in slash and of her cross-identification with gay men and long term, but asexual, love affair with a gay male friend. I feel the need to credit her for her often painful honesty in the face of something that “normal” people can so easily dismiss — and diss. In fact, I found something very queer in that honesty and I have also found that some of the stories which I have read (admittedly selected for their quality of writing, primarily) have also been deeply respectful of queer relationships and often written by queer, but not gay male, people.
In sum, I think it's much more complicated than this article would suggest.
Yes. And yes again.
Hmm, in my copious spare time (snark), I think I might write a rebuttal to this. Think LLF would be interested in it…?
I think so, yes. But you'd have to write to Antonio (agonzalez at lambdaliterary dot org) to be sure. I would most certainly be interested.