I wish I could send the first few essays to all my friends. They are specifically about writing and being a writer, but Hurley’s pragmatic views seem transferable to most endeavors. Find you voice, speak up, learn, practice and be persistent.
For a variety of reasons, I ended up listening to this as an Audible book, but I would recommend it most as a hard copy. I didn’t love the narrator and as a book of essays, I think it would work best as something you pick up piecemeal.it also feels more repetitive if you listen to it, because her essays are about the different layers of the same thing – being a woman in the sci-fi world.
Kameron Hurley is writing what she knows, being a large, queer, woman, writer and consumer in Sci-if. Her essays are about writing, voices, representation, being privileged and being marginalized, revolution, toxic masculinity, and change. She ends with her most famous essay – “We Have Always Fought: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative.”
One of the gems from the essays are Hurley’s thoughts on being fat in public
As a woman, you are always going to be fat. People are always going to trot that one out to try to insult you, like taking up more space in the world, as a woman, is the absolute worst thing you can do.
Being a woman means at some point someone has probably tried to invalidate your opinion by calling you fat. So if you are called fat regardless of your size, then what does your size matter? And if you are not called fat, you will be accused of having a vagina. So again, if your opinion will be rejected simply because you have a vagina, why not go ahead and state it? Why not go ahead and speak the truth you see? Some people will dismiss you whether you speak or not. So raise your voice and see if there is someone listening.
Another on the pile for 2017.
Yay! I think you’ll like it.
Adding to my 23-page to read list!