Wow! I really thought it was more even nowadays too. Shows how much *I* know. Maybe it's because I read so many women authors in the first place that I didn't notice the difference...

Huh.

Thanks for posting that. (Interesting how there seems to be much less disparity in the Nebulas than the Hugos.)

Other side of the coin -- what percentage of high-level editors and agents are women? Not saying this balances out, just mentioning another strange gender skew.

On the other hand the numbers show steady progress toward more equality in a genre where male READERS may well still outnumber female readers.

Also I rarely hear younger men say things these days like "I don't read stuff written by women" (used to hear that fairly often).

And locally here in Minnesota it seems to me that I see more women than ever before at cons and author signings and in SF/F bookstores.

So it is far from good enough, and there are still without a doubt prejudices against women in SF/F, but I think the people who would like to go back to the day's of SF/F being a boy's club are completely out-of-luck at this point.

I'm joining Broad Universe at Wiscon this year. I think they do good things to promote women in the field.

I was aware, but only because I naturally gravitate toward women writers, and I know what a small percentage of the overall shelves in most bookstores feature their work. Quasi-related, this is rather akin to my frustrations about the almost total absence of lesbians portrayed in SF/F. In a male-dominated genre...

I am staggered by the statistic that indicates that women account for only 38% of sales in the Romance genre. I had no idea there were that many men writing Romance!

I looked at the hugo list, and only one of them was even worth the trouble as far i felt. yes it was a man, but it was Neil Gaiman so there ya go. One of my fave sci fi writers has not written a book for years, i think 1993 was her last one, was a rare hugo winner who was a woman, Sydney J. VanScyoc. Most people have not even heard of her. She's a good writer, but she's a complete unknown to most, even after a Hugo win, that speaks volumes of the inequality.

Hmmm....I'm imagining a ConBust 2008 panel: "Hugo -- NOT!" Or at least a subtopic in another "Women in the Industry" panel.



By the way, I am Lori Snowden, fiancee to "the great and very erudite George Claxton."

Until about 10 days ago, I had never read any of your books. But I've spent the past week and a half devouring first The Bone Doll's Twin, then Hidden Warrior, and finally The Oracle's Queen -- which I finished this morning.

I found them all very engaging and the conclusion satisfying. Your characters are 3-dimensional and likeable, the world and cultures rich, the personal and political relationships complex and believable, and the plot tight and well-developed. The blend of gothic horror and high fantasy works wonderfully. (While I was reading Bone Doll, I told George that it was like Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan...except not boring.) And yes -- "I laughed, I cried."

Kudos!

And now I have to get back to all the packing and cleaning I should have been doing instead of reading your books.

I guess it's too much to hope for that women are just less interested in writing and editing? Yeah, right. There's a glass ceiling in every profession it seems.

Hi! I went to your website and saw that you had a LiveJournal, so I thought I'd leave you a message here. I've just read the Nightrunner books and I wanted to thank you for writing the most wonderful novels I've read in my whole life. The story is enthralling, full of details, and the characters are so well-developed that they sound alive.

But what touched me most is Seregil and Alec's love developing along the books. Those two are perfect for each other and I enjoyed every minute of their relationship. I hope to read more about them in the future and I can tell you that your novels are very popular in the French yaoi community.

Would you mind if I friended your journal?