Episode Details

In the Book Appreciation segments, our featured authors (or your host) will talk about one or more favorite books with queer female characters in a historic setting. This time we had so much to talk about we split it into two episodes.

In this episode we talk about:

• How the pricing structure of lesbian romance can form a barrier to general readers entering the market
• Decoding how to find books that hit your sweet spot when entering a new reading community
• How the history of lesbian small presses shapes price and content expectations
• Some comparisons between f/f and m/m book communities
• How latent sexism in the romance market affects the acceptance of f/f stories
• Popular m/m and m/f romance authors putting a toe in the waters of f/f romance--what does it mean for f/f-only authors?
• How do we overcome barriers to cross-promotion between siloed reading communities, when recommendation networks don’t overlap
• Lesbian publishing as a “walled garden”--the ups and downs of curated spaces
• Dealing with cross-gender motifs in historical fiction
• Complications of gender and sexuality in historic societies
• How to identify with characters without owning them--resource scarcity and contested spaces
• Three models for communicating queer content in books: the donut shop, the whisper network, and the detailed menu
• Fan fiction and learning acceptance of multiple readings of a text
• Gender dynamics in fan fiction and the distribution of f/f stories
• Envisioning independent women in history--how the sexism of popular media lies to us about the lives of historic women
• Fan fiction generations pre- and post-Xena
• Books and Resources Mentioned
  • ”That Could Be Enough” by Alyssa Cole
  • f/f fiction by K.J. Charles
  • f/f fiction by Jordan Hawke
  • The Ripped Bodice (bookstore)
  • Smart Bitches Trashy Books (website and podcast)
  • ”Black Widow, Scarce Resources And High-Stakes Stories” by Linda Holmes (NPR essay)
  • ”The Mazarinette and the Musketeer by Heather Rose Jones
  • Anna’s f/f fan fiction for Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs
  • Archiev of Our Own

A transcript of this podcast may be available here. (Transcripts added when available.)

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the A