Escapade 2007 Femslash Panel Report

[rsadelle]

Femslash: The Other Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name actually made it onto the main track this year. On the one hand, that's good. On the other hand, I'm fairly sure it only made it because there weren't very many panels suggested.

As usual, attendees were enthusiastic and excited to talk about girls, and as soon as I very loudly announced that the femslash panel was starting, the folks from the previous panel skedaddled.

As promised, I took home the flip chart paper we used (complete with alternating colors - a good charting habit) to type up. (typhoidk says, "That's what we like about you. We don't have to take notes.") I also remember some of the other things I and other people mentioned. If you recced/talked about something I neither wrote down nor remembered, please feel free to comment with whatever it was!

From the flip chart paper:

• Some kind of Valentine's Day femslash challenge on LJ. I think it was probably the femslash_today v-day porn battle (Part 1, Part 2).
  
• femslash_today for multi-fandom listings of fic and girls_today for HP fic listings.
  
• sg_femslash for Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis femslash.
  
• girls60 for Studio 60 femslash.
  
• Passion and Perfection, a multi-fandom femslash archive. (One I'd never even heard of. Ooooh. D.E.B.S. fic. I wonder if it's any good...)
  
• stargateficrec for, uh, Stargate fic recs.
  
• Yuletide, a rare (for large values of rare) fandom challenge thing. Apparently there's Fried Green Tomatoes femslash that's good, although I think I remember someone saying it's not explicitly sexual.
  
• crack_van for multifandom recs. (People mentioned it in this panel, so it must have some femslash recs too.)
  
• Circlet Press, which someone mentioned has good variations of erotica.
  
• "Are You Sweet On Your Sister," a Kara/Vala fic that hederahelix posted a fic search for during the panel.

Other Things I Mentioned

• Substitute For Love by Karin Kallmaker, which I brought up as an example of bad lesbian romance novels. You can read more of my thoughts on this here. (Wow. That was over four years ago, and I'm still mad about it.)
  
• Hunter's Way by Gerri Hill, which was an example of a better lesbian romance novel despite the fact that they always eat cheeseburgers and never eat the birthday cake. (And Molly caught that they misstate the number of victims in one place.)
  
• The Woods, which is mostly terrible despite the presence of Patricia Clarkson. (Why, Patricia, why? You're so much better than this movie.) We don't recommend the movie, but it does have a very nice Heather (Agnes Bruckner)/Marcy (Lauren Birkell) falling in love (although they never explicitly say that's what's going on) montage set to Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me." And you know how I like a good montage.
  
• Bandidas, which you may be tempted to watch because it's Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek robbing banks. Don't be taken in by that. It's bad, and they're cast against type (Penelope is the populist peasant girl and Salma is the European-educated Don's daughter) to the movie's detriment.
  
• "Parts" by reremouse, the Spike and Xander both get turned into girls and have sex story that's the only femslash I've read in a long time.
  
• Rode Hard, Put Away Wet: Lesbian Cowboy Erotica - the lesbian cowboy erotica collection I mentioned working my way through. (I can't believe no one else had even heard of it.)

Other Things Other People Mentioned

• Sarah Waters novels. I think we specifically mentioned Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet.
  
• Um... You all will have to fill in here. I know there was some BSG and SGA talk I didn't understand, but I don't remember what else people said.

Comments

[ceciliatan.livejournal.com]

* Rode Hard, Put Away Wet: Lesbian Cowboy Erotica - the lesbian cowboy erotica collection I mentioned working my way through. (I can't believe no one else had even heard of it.)

The editors of RODE HARD, Rakelle Valencia and Sacchi Green also did another anthology of lesbian erotica called "HARD ROAD, EASY RIDING" with a biker/motorcycle theme, published by the same publisher (Harrington Park Press, under their Alice Street Editions imprint). Harrington/Alice Street has some other lesbian erotica books, too. I'm in one that has a sf/f themed-one coming up, edited by lynnejamneck entitled Periphery.

A cute interview with Sacchi and Rakelle is up at Suspect Thoughts: http://www.suspectthoughts.com/greenvalencia.html

I wish I could have been at the panel!

[rsadelle]

Thanks for adding to the list!