;-)

xoxo

And congratulations on the soon-to-be addition to your family!

Emily

i don’t care at all whether an author is a man, a woman, or transgendered; what matters is the work. and in my experience when the work is good one can’t tell the author’s gender; quality of imagination, research, and craft transcends gender. i boggle at people who think it matters — nobody expects that somebody who writes insightful, terrifying stories about serial killers be a serial killer.

with low quality work i _can_ often tell (especially when it comes to erotica), because there are some gender-based types of mistake made by people who think they can write erotica without having done much research or for that matter even just speaking with people of the sex they’re portraying.

i like gender-ambiguous pen names. i am slightly less fond of people whose pen names pretend they’re of another gender than they are. which is interesting, because i don’t actually think an author’s gender is any of my business. ambiguity fits right with that, it even underlines it. but pretense to be something specific feels like i am being lied to, just a little (it’s not like a pen name is something about which i’d feel betrayed, so it’s not a big deal; just a twinge — and i am not sure i ought to feel this way at all).

but i don’t think it’s about shame. i think sometimes it’s about marketing, or even about acceptance — used to be that female science fiction writers didn’t have much of a chance unless they wrote under male pen names. that’s a sad commentary — not on the authors, but on society.

As for pen names. Fan can go overboard when they love you and know where you are. One of my favorite SciFi/Fan authors had some fan show up at his house with a case of books to be signed.

Another fav said to never write under a name where fans can look you up in the telephone directory.

Personally, I have two pen names but both start with Gina, which is my real name. That way I’ll respond when someone calls to me if I ever get big enough to go to siginings :)

I like blogs. I forget to visit all the time but when I do I usually go back to where I was last.

I haven’t been to any conventions. I’m sure that will change some day but for now, no conventions :(

I like to lurk. I guess I shouldn’t but I belong to so many groups I run out of time too.

Discussion group? I haven’t been there yet.

I guess I like to know what you’re doing, when the next book of my favorite characters is coming out, how you’re doing and what’s happening next. Since I don’t travel (conventions), I’ll get it any way I can online.

I just wonder sometimes why someone would feel they needed to search the internet to find out an author’s gender with the express intention of “exposing” them, as if it was some big secret in the first place. That’s just mean-spirited.

It’s not my place to go into details, but it happened recently to Chris, who makes no secret of her gender, thankyouverymuch. The very idea that she would be ashamed of being a woman is outrageous and I have no idea where this reader could have gotten such an idea.

And, anyway, you just don’t mess with people I care about without some consequence. ;-)