By popular request ...
Aug. 31st, 2007 07:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coalescentChance asked:
Have you ever examined how you stack up with regards to parity on people reviewed and people doing the reviewing?
The second "you" refers to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
sh_reviews. Several people said I should bump my answer up to a separate post, so here it is:
"As of tomorrow [now today], in 2007 Strange Horizons will have published 148 reviews (of 144 different things, due to "two views" pieces and other overlap) by 53 reviewers. Of the reviewers, 29 (55%) are men and 24 (45%) are women. That's where the good news ends. The 29 men account for 92 (62%) of the reviews, while the 24 women account for 54 (38%) of the reviews. Worse, of the 130 reviews of books (88% of all reviews), 93 (72%) are books by men and 37 (28%) are books by women.
I can tell you that this last figure roughly reflects the proportions of books we receive. At the moment, in on my list of books-we-have-that-I-would-in-principle-like-to-get-reviewed-sometime, there are 26 books; 6 (23%) are by women and 20 (77%) are by men. I haven't tried to count to see how this reflects sf publishing in general, though I'd love to know. I also haven't counted to see how SH compares to other reviews venues."
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jamiam said:
Maybe you could get someone who prefers reading women/authors of color/what-have-you to occasionally shoot you a list of the stuff they'd like to see reviewed? And use that to supplement your own list?
All recommendations are always welcomed. (Several people do, in fact, already send me recommendations, although not on a formal/scheduled basis.) I try to chase up pretty much every book by a woman or author of colour on any given Locus list of forthcoming books; I note that the current list is about 22% such books (38 of 173 -- this is a quick count, so I would expect to be out by a few), and that I've already commissioned (or published) reviews of about a third of them. I also note that I've commissioned about half a dozen reviews of relevant books not on the Locus list, and that these tend to be YA books or books from non-genre publishers.
I would be particularly glad to receive suggestions of authors for "feature weeks", where we publish several reviews of books by the same writer; previous author-focused feature weeks have been for John Crowley, Justina Robson, and James Tiptree Jr. (Not that I'm short of ideas, of course ...) The major criterion is that the author should have a new book coming out on which to hang the week. Preferably their other books should be in print, so that I can get them for reviewers -- although Aegypt isn't all in print, so that's not a fixed rule.
Any other questions?
Have you ever examined how you stack up with regards to parity on people reviewed and people doing the reviewing?
The second "you" refers to
sh_reviews. Several people said I should bump my answer up to a separate post, so here it is:"As of tomorrow [now today], in 2007 Strange Horizons will have published 148 reviews (of 144 different things, due to "two views" pieces and other overlap) by 53 reviewers. Of the reviewers, 29 (55%) are men and 24 (45%) are women. That's where the good news ends. The 29 men account for 92 (62%) of the reviews, while the 24 women account for 54 (38%) of the reviews. Worse, of the 130 reviews of books (88% of all reviews), 93 (72%) are books by men and 37 (28%) are books by women.
I can tell you that this last figure roughly reflects the proportions of books we receive. At the moment, in on my list of books-we-have-that-I-would-in-principle-like-to-get-reviewed-sometime, there are 26 books; 6 (23%) are by women and 20 (77%) are by men. I haven't tried to count to see how this reflects sf publishing in general, though I'd love to know. I also haven't counted to see how SH compares to other reviews venues."
jamiam said:Maybe you could get someone who prefers reading women/authors of color/what-have-you to occasionally shoot you a list of the stuff they'd like to see reviewed? And use that to supplement your own list?
All recommendations are always welcomed. (Several people do, in fact, already send me recommendations, although not on a formal/scheduled basis.) I try to chase up pretty much every book by a woman or author of colour on any given Locus list of forthcoming books; I note that the current list is about 22% such books (38 of 173 -- this is a quick count, so I would expect to be out by a few), and that I've already commissioned (or published) reviews of about a third of them. I also note that I've commissioned about half a dozen reviews of relevant books not on the Locus list, and that these tend to be YA books or books from non-genre publishers.
I would be particularly glad to receive suggestions of authors for "feature weeks", where we publish several reviews of books by the same writer; previous author-focused feature weeks have been for John Crowley, Justina Robson, and James Tiptree Jr. (Not that I'm short of ideas, of course ...) The major criterion is that the author should have a new book coming out on which to hang the week. Preferably their other books should be in print, so that I can get them for reviewers -- although Aegypt isn't all in print, so that's not a fixed rule.
Any other questions?
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Date: 2007-08-31 07:08 am (UTC)Almost all of Delany's fiction is in print in those cool Vintage editions. Plus, there's his On Writing...
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Date: 2007-08-31 07:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-08-31 07:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-08-31 07:24 am (UTC)(Actually, rewriting my SH review of the Slattery--almost finished, landing in your inbox any day now--for Lambda is giving me a bit of a headache, but that's mostly because the Slattery is not what I would call a queer book, so the review for Lambda ends up in great part about "Does just having queer characters who pay zero attention to the politics and societal wossname of their queerness make something a queer book? Should it?" while the SH review is mostly about all the different ways the book made me want to cry.)
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Date: 2007-08-31 07:41 am (UTC)More seriously, of course that would be great. Although equally, if you don't have time and just want to send me the titles of books you think SH should cover, that would be fine too.
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Date: 2007-08-31 10:29 am (UTC)Hurry up! :)
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Date: 2007-08-31 08:11 am (UTC)The in print aspect is another part of the problem, have you consider a 'forgotten gems' type section where the likes of Leigh kennedy, Josephine Saxton, Patricia Geary, might get covered? None of their work seems to be in print but copies are widely available on Amazon etc.
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Date: 2007-08-31 08:22 am (UTC)The problem with "forgotten gems" is that either SH or the reviewer has to pony up to get the book. Neither approach is ideal. This isn't to say it couldn't be done (probably should be done at some point), but I don't think it could be a regular feature.
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Date: 2007-08-31 08:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 08:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 09:40 am (UTC)Matter coming out, you haven't read Use Of Weapons, Banks underexposed in US.
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Date: 2007-08-31 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 12:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 12:46 pm (UTC)Failing that, you could always do an EA post :)
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Date: 2007-08-31 01:47 pm (UTC)Moar stats please! I want to know how it breaks down: is it that your male reviewers are averaging 3 books each while the females write 2 reviews, are there lots of women who only write one review, or do you have a core of reviewers who are writing lots of reviews which is predominantly male?
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Date: 2007-08-31 01:52 pm (UTC)Off the top of my head, I think it's a combination of (a) and (b): there are more women who have only written one review this year than men who have only written one review this year, and those women who are reviewing regularly are writing fewer reviews per unit time.
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Date: 2007-08-31 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 01:54 pm (UTC)There will be a World Fantasy Award novel overview sometime in the autumn.
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Date: 2007-09-01 08:17 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-09-07 06:30 pm (UTC)JEvUrZmSHo
Date: 2007-10-20 08:43 pm (UTC)LINKS
Date: 2007-10-28 10:20 am (UTC)LINKS
Date: 2007-10-28 12:33 pm (UTC)LINKS
Date: 2007-11-04 06:03 am (UTC)ZhZpHICXtJFwuSN
Date: 2008-01-21 08:58 am (UTC)fjBFTZRuzOzY
Date: 2008-01-28 11:30 am (UTC)