{"id":6019,"date":"2011-05-09T06:00:33","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T14:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aidanmoher.com\/blog\/?p=6019"},"modified":"2012-09-08T19:03:57","modified_gmt":"2012-09-09T03:03:57","slug":"guest-post-is-it-cos-i-is-a-girl-by-elspeth-cooper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanmoher.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/articles\/guest-post-is-it-cos-i-is-a-girl-by-elspeth-cooper\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post | “Is it cos I is a girl?” by Elspeth Cooper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Songs<\/a>I was in hospital recently (my gallbladder and I were in the middle of an acrimonious break-up) and as you do, I got chatting with my fellow inmates.<\/p>\n

\u2018So, what do you do?\u2019 asked the woman in the opposite bed, in the pink bunny slippers.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m a writer.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Oh!\u2019 Her eyes lit up. \u2018Romance, is it?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Er, no.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Crime?\u2019<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t mind Val McDermid\u2019s sales<\/em>, I thought. \u2018Actually, I write fantasy.\u2019 I held up my copy of The Name of the Wind<\/strong>. \u2018Like this.\u2019<\/p>\n

My interlocutor peered at the cover, but obviously didn\u2019t recognise the name. \u2018Is that like that Twilight<\/strong>, then? All vampires and werewolves and stuff?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Not really. It\u2019s more sword and sorcery.\u2019 In the face of her blank expression, I fumbled for the one name I was sure she would have heard of. \u2018Lord of the Rings<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

The shutters of indifference came down with a near-audible clang. \u2018Oh. Stories for boys.\u2019<\/p>\n

I did try to explain, but apparently because I didn\u2019t write about oversexed earls in pursuit of fluttering virgins, or ghastly Yakuza executions in grim grey cities, I was now off the lady\u2019s literary radar. What she would have made of the longsword hanging up in my office I do not know.<\/p>\n

The doctor who came to draw some blood asked me the same question, in a hearty, take-your-mind-off-what-I\u2019m-doing-with-this-needle voice, whilst prodding my inner elbow for a vein.<\/p>\n

\u2018So, what do you do?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m a writer.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Historicals?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018No, fantasy. Ow.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018My son\u2019s into all that whatchamacallit, Assassins\u2019 Creed<\/strong>, on his X-Box. I\u2019ll get some gauze to wipe that up.\u2019<\/p>\n

A year previously, I\u2019d had a similar conversation with my publisher. She\u2019d just had a meeting with the fiction buyer from Waterstones, and the author gender vs target readership issue had reared its ugly head: boys won\u2019t buy books written by girls, and it can affect sales by as much as ten percent \u2013 the horror! My publisher and I even went so far as to toss around some gender-neutral pen names like Alex Cooper before she decided that female was the new black for fantasy writers, and that was that.<\/p>\n

Clearly, the publishing industry is well ahead of the curve here; for the rest of the population, fantasy is just not something that girls do. It is still perceived as a very male-dominated genre, the province of geeks and gamers and lank-haired Lurches in Slipknot hoodies. The likes of Jemisin, Downum, and Cashore have not yet penetrated the wider public consciousness. Meyer has, Charlaine Harris has, but we can\u2019t all have big-budget TV shows and movies and enough with the damn vampires already! You\u2019re giving us girls a bad name.<\/p>\n

I was rather hoping that the Game of Thrones<\/strong> mini-series would start a few more cracks in the genre glass ceiling; if anything it seems to be reinforcing it, but that\u2019s another issue, being debated elsewhere by minds more articulate than mine.<\/p>\n

So, a question for the floor: if a woman tells you she\u2019s a writer, do you assume that because she\u2019s a woman, she won\u2019t be writing about sharp edges, harsh realities? Does the gender of the author alter your perceptions of a book as you\u2019re browsing in the store, and make you more likely to pick it up, or less?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was in hospital recently (my gallbladder and I were in the middle of an acrimonious break-up) and as you do, I got chatting with my fellow inmates. \u2018So, what do you do?\u2019 asked the woman in the opposite bed, in the pink bunny slippers. \u2018I\u2019m a writer.\u2019 \u2018Oh!\u2019 Her eyes lit up. \u2018Romance, is… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[133,38,60,44,4],"class_list":["post-6019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-elspeth-cooper","tag-fantasy","tag-gender-issues","tag-tor","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n