More James Tiptree, Jr. symposium
Dec. 5th, 2015 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeToday I missed the publisher panel and the authors’ panel, but I arrived in time to hear interesting stories by Jeff Smith, Tiptree’s protege and literary executor, the man who’s making the donation of her archives to our university. Then we listened to three audio-recordings, which was special because very few living people have heard her voice, and these were accompanied by a slide show from throughout her lifetime. The first recording was her critique of Heinlein’s I Will Fear No Evil (“a terribly embarrassing work,” “done with a good deal of horrible skill”). Then came her thoughts on being married to someone very different from herself, and finally some ideas on a scale of pain to use in a story and the pleasure of talking to her therapist. (I want the actual text of the latter – very useful for one of my projects!) Her biographer then answered more questions, based on thoughts the recordings had prompted – especially interesting, I thought, was the idea of upper-class identity being always contingent on performance, and how much Sheldon’s parents had made her perform as a child. Her socialite mother had even written two very embarrassing books about her young daughter as a white child in “darkest Africa”: Alice in Jungleland and Alice in Elephantland.
During the break I went out and bought two books from a man who turned out to be David Gerrold (!!!, as in “The Trouble with Tribbles”). I mentioned how much I’d liked When HARLIE Was One as a teen, and he seemed delighted to have it remembered. I then bought an interesting-looking anthology on Writing the Other by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, and Nisi signed it for me.
Then came a panel on the history and process of the Tiptree award. A large number of audience members had been on Tiptree juries! I got to feel like an insider just for showing up! (And before I forget to mention it, a woman named Maureen is writing an opera of Sheldon’s life story!) The award was pretty fascinating to hear about, and apparently it’s a whole lot of fun to receive. They even have the audience sing along to a song written for the occasion, and in honor of this, we all sang a typical song set to the tune of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” with Nisi providing the beautiful, what would you call it, the counter-melody? Not sure.
At the end, the conference organizer announced that she’s decided to make this symposium an annual event! Next year it will focus on Joanna Russ, and the following year, on Suzy McKee Charnas (who was present).
During the break I went out and bought two books from a man who turned out to be David Gerrold (!!!, as in “The Trouble with Tribbles”). I mentioned how much I’d liked When HARLIE Was One as a teen, and he seemed delighted to have it remembered. I then bought an interesting-looking anthology on Writing the Other by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, and Nisi signed it for me.
Then came a panel on the history and process of the Tiptree award. A large number of audience members had been on Tiptree juries! I got to feel like an insider just for showing up! (And before I forget to mention it, a woman named Maureen is writing an opera of Sheldon’s life story!) The award was pretty fascinating to hear about, and apparently it’s a whole lot of fun to receive. They even have the audience sing along to a song written for the occasion, and in honor of this, we all sang a typical song set to the tune of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” with Nisi providing the beautiful, what would you call it, the counter-melody? Not sure.
At the end, the conference organizer announced that she’s decided to make this symposium an annual event! Next year it will focus on Joanna Russ, and the following year, on Suzy McKee Charnas (who was present).