F&SF

[ksmith]

Much discussion about why more female authors aren't published in the magazine F&SF. I haven't delved into all the discussions, so maybe someone has already brought this up, but has anyone crunched the numbers in order to determine whether more/fewer women were published when Kris Rusch was editor? Were more/fewer women publishing at that time overall? Is the tone of the magazine different under GvG than it was under KKR?

I haven't attempted to publish much short stuff over the years--have never sub'ed to any of the SF/F mags, that I recall--so I don't really have an opinion.

Comments

[affinity8.livejournal.com]

The study I've seen only went up to 2001, which is about the time I started to submit, so I'm only interested in the last 5 years anyway.

As I posted elsewhere, the "why" of fewer female authors in F & SF isn't as interesting to me as remedying the problem, if it's a problem at all. The "why" is probably something that can never quite be determined. But it seems to me F & SF could encourage more subs by women, if they wanted to.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

The study I've seen only went up to 2001, which is about the time I started to submit, so I'm only interested in the last 5 years anyway.

Yeah, but I feel that pub rates during KKR's era matter, because they may indicate whether there are fewer/more women submitting to the mag now compared to then, if there was always a bias toward male authors or a particular type of story or some other tic, and whether we're dealing with editor bias or writer bias or a combination of both. Did it make a diff when a woman made the buying decisions? Because it seems to me that this is one of the underlying questions.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

But it seems to me F & SF could encourage more subs by women, if they wanted to.

Which raises the question of why they want to, particularly. F&SF is in the business of buying stories that it believes its readers will like enough to keep them renewing their subscriptions. I would expect the process used in choosing those stories to be gender-blind.

Granted, the editor can only choose from the stories which have been submitted. But nothing stops women -- even more women -- from submitting to F&SF, and thus upping the chances of more women getting published in its pages.

I say this having never sold a story to F&SF, and not for lack of trying, under three editors, including Kris Rusch. I ascribe this to my not writing the sorts of stories F&SF was/is looking for (since, yanno, that's what the rejections said), and not to my gender.

...when kinzel and I were reading for Low Port, we got more submissions from male writers. My impression was that the submissions we had from women, while fewer, tended to be more finished and of a higher general quality. In other words, guys seemed more willing to send out a story they deemed was "good enough," while woman seemed to be taking extra time to polish and make sure the submission was as good as they could make it.

This is, obviously, anecdotal. And, for the record, there were twenty stories Low Port, and eleven were by guys. I note that, of the women published, several had gender-non-specific names, such as Chris, Lee and Ru, who might be counted as guys by a statistic-seeker not familiar with those authors.

A number of the stories that we had to, regretfully, reject, later sold to other publications. They were not bad stories, they simply did not meet the conceit of our particular anthology.

[affinity8.livejournal.com]

I am all for F & SF picking those stories that it best feels meets the needs of its audience, regardless of the author's gender. For any editor doing that. And if circulation and sales support those choices, then the publisher is happy and the readers are happy and ad-buyers (if any) are happy, and the publication stays in business. Authors often go on to sell their work to other markets, which makes them happy (and perhaps a little smug, but what works for one editor doesn't work for another, and vice versa, and that will never change.)

We know, however, that publication is not a gender-blind business, hence male authors sometimes writing romance novels under female names, and women sometimes using male or gender neutral names to break into sf. We also know that the pro markets are suffering a decline in circulation, due to any number of factors including overall reading habits and distribution chains. But women do read fiction, enormous amounts of fiction, gigantic amounts of fiction, when they find what they like.

In the end, I can only speak for myself. As a writer, I'm frustrated but not yet defeated in my efforts to break into that particular market. As a feminist, I'm dismayed that they publish so few women. As a reader, I let my subscription lapse, because the quality of stories was often mixed, with the same authors appearing over and over again.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

We know, however, that publication is not a gender-blind business, hence male authors sometimes writing romance novels under female names, and women sometimes using male or gender neutral names to break into sf.

I believe that you may be confusing reader perception with editorial choice, here. Certainly, I would expect women to be somewhat wary of buying a Romance with a man's name on the cover, so a female pseudonym makes sense from a marketing/sales standpoint. But I don't expect that the author is using a pen name to fool the editor.

In SF, yes -- CJ Cherryh is a gender neutral name, as is Andre Norton; and James Tiptree Jr. was a woman, despite Robert Silverberg. And it may be that those names got their stories more attention than they would have had, submitted under a female name (considering when Andre and Alice were writing, this probably was a factor for them) -- the first time.

After that, the editors dern well knew that they were dealing with women. The reading public may not have known, but that's a different thing, unrelated to editorial choice. Not to say that an editor won't say to Jim Jones, "I love your book, but we know that Romances written by men tank, so you might want to consider becoming Jessica Jones." Because that's marketing, and both editors and writers want to sell books.

I have heard many many people earnestly argue that there is a bias against women writers in SF. I don't argue that this may once have been so. But I honestly don't think it's so any more. I know I'm reading mostly women in SF nowadays, basing my choices on what kind of story pushes my sensawonda buttons. A scan of the shelves in my local bookstore would support the theory that it's hard for men to break into SF right now.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

I don't read F&SF. If I read a fiction mag, it's Analog (miss having a subscription to it rather desperately). I've seen it on newstands (!) but it's never drawn me in as a reader. So, if I *did* write, I'd be unlikely to try there until I'd tried magazines I like better.