Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen

So!  The pictures are rolling in for the Do It Like A Delm Challenge.  You can see the first gold contestants at this link.

Wanna play?  Here's the link to the rules.  Steve and I look forward to your entry -- and remember!  Every week, one lucky entrant will win a coupon from Baen, for a free ebook of the winner's choice.

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For those who haven't seen it, Judith Tarr did a guest post on Charlie Stross' blog regarding the [insert tongue in cheek] lack of women writers in the genre of science fiction [remove tongue from cheek, save for later use].  Here's the link.

Now, honestly, when I saw the topic, I thought something along the lines of Oh, please, there cannot be a single person connected to the internets who doesn't now know that women write SF.  Why are we having this discussion, again?  But, you know what?  The commenters pretty much prove that this is a discussion we still need to have.  My favorite comments are the ones stating that the female experience, while interesting, really has nothing to do with them* (because they know no women?); and the ones that state categorically that any book with a woman's name on the cover is, ipso facto, a feminist rant, and therefore of no interest to the reader.

So now my question is -- How do you inhabit a universe wherein there are No Women Writing Science Fiction?  Do you never visit a bookstore?  Do you instruct your bookseller to put a monthly bundle of books together for you that only have masculine names on the cover -- and no initials, either!  Sneaky things, initials; you never know who's behind lurking behind initials.

I can't even.

Mind you, this is not my fight -- I'm invisible to the no-women side, and to the all-men-all-the-time side, because I have a male co-author (worse! I have a husband co-author, of many, many years standing.).  The worst hassle I've gotten was the guy who thought it was "nice" that my husband let me put my name on his books.  Steve's worst, I think, was the guy who chastised him for not asserting his rights as The Man in the partnership and allowing his wife to drip Romance all over what ought to be SciFi books.

But, still, I wonder, how the hell you find, and continue to live in, this particular cocoon.  Women have been writing science fiction since before there was science fiction.  And it seems the more that proposition is put forward, the more -- rather than the less -- resistance it generates.

I used to be a fan of the internet; I used to think the internet would foster understanding between diverse peoples and viewpoints.

Yeah. . .too naive to live.

Today's blog post comes to you from Woody Guthrie by way of Ramblin' Jack Elliott, "Pretty Boy Floyd."  Here's your link.

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*Mind you, I read SF books from the male viewpoint for years, and years, and years, and years.  I credit this circumstance with teaching me how to write believable alien characters.  So, yanno, it can be a good thing to read about an experience that's different from your own.