The Cascadia Subd uction A LITERARY Z QUARTERLY on January 2014 X Vol. 4. No. 1 e ESSAY Feminist World-Building: Toward Future Memory by L. Timmel Duchamp POEMS Down Seventh Street Road by Anne Sheldon Coral Bleaching by Alicia Cole IN THIS ISSUE GRANDMOTHER MAGMA Occupation Walk to the End of the World by Suzy McKee Charnas BOOK REVIEWS The Waking Engine X by David Edison Kest istin Kr Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie Dangerous Women edited by George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois The Constant Tower by Carole McDonnell The XY Conspiracy “Since its launch in 2011 The Cascadia Subduction Zone has emerged as one by Lori Selke of the best critical journals the field has to offer.” h Jonathan McCalmont, February 18, 2013, Hugo Ballot Nomination FEATURED ARTIST Kristin Kest $5.00 Managing Editor Lew Gilchriist Reviews Editor VOL. 4 NO. 1 — JANUARY 2014 Nisi Shawl ESSAY Features Editor Feminist World-Building: Toward Future Memory L. Timmel Duchamp by L. Timmel Duchamp h 1 Arts Editor Kath Wilham POEMS Down Seventh Street Road $5.00 by Anne Sheldon h 4 Coral Bleaching by Alicia Cole h 19 GRANDMOTHER MAGMA Walk to the End of the World by Suzy McKee Charnas by Nisi Shawl h 8 BOOK REVIEWS The Waking Engine by David Edison reviewed by Victoria Garcia h 10 Dangerous Women edited by George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois reviewed by Cat Rambo h 12 Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie reviewed by Karen Burnham h 14 The Constant Tower by Carole McDonnell reviewed by Michael Ehart h 16 The XY Conspiracy by Lori Selke reviewed by Cindy Ward h 18 FEATURED ARTIST Kristin Kest h 20 Subscriptions and single issues online at: To order by check, payable to: www.thecsz.com Aqueduct Press Print subscription: $16/yr P.O. Box 95787 Print single issue: $5 Seattle, WA 98145-2787 Electronic Subscription (PDF format): [Washington State Residents $10 per year add 9.5% sales tax.] Electronic single issue: $3 In This Issue Cover banner collagraph of the Cascadia subduction zone by Marilyn Liden Bode Feminist World-Building: Toward Future Memory y by L. Timmel Duchamp During the 1980s, feminists active in ited a long, emotional phone call from the 1960s and ’70s became aware of pat- the editor, who persuaded me to agree terns of forgetfulness that have repeat- to a “compromise” version. Neither of edly rendered the accomplishments of us was happy with the result. Instead of women and the process of feminism the positioning it as the keynote essay, the My own thought, in 1986, work of Sisyphus. They learned, contrary editor placed it at the back of a double was that feminists must to received wisdom, that women artists issue packed with celebratory pieces, an include women of all gen- and writers had all along been producing isolated oddity, while I thought of it as erations, classes, and brilliant gems, either to be minimized, an embarrassment to be banished from races, and that they must misattributed to men artists and writers, active memory. In forgetting it, I also actively recruit younger or otherwise “forgotten.” And they had forgot my insight that feminism need- women — and treat them begun, also, to uncover a long history ed younger feminists, with all that that as equals. of feminist and protofeminist struggle meant. I did not recollect it even when a that had all but vanished from the his- decade later generational issues became torical record, sometimes only a handful bitterly prominent (and notorious) in of years afterward. Several works early the academy. Recalling it now, though, in the decade, notably Rozsika Parker I realize that my insight clearly informs and Griselda Pollack’s Old Mistresses: my joy that WisCon has been growing Women, Art, and Ideology (1981), Joanna both younger and more diverse since at Russ’s How To Suppress Women’s Writ- least 2000. Along with maintaining ing (1983), and Dale Spender’s Feminist Along with maintaining continuity continuity across genera- Theorists: Three Centuries of Women’s Intel- across generations, another important tions, another important lectual Tradition (1983), raised the ob- means for safeguarding us from losing means for safeguarding vious question of how so much artistry, consciousness of the history we need to us from losing conscious- i intellect, and political work could have thrive is that urged by Liz Henry during ness of the history we so thoroughly slipped from collective a WisCon panel in 2006: “Document, need to thrive is that 1 memory again and again. And many of document, document.” This exhortation urged by Liz Henry during us began to think about how we could a WisCon panel in 2006: planted the seed from which grew the prevent this from recurring. For by 1985, “Document, document, WisCon Chronicles, now up to seven the backlash had arrived, and feminists document.” volumes, and its urgency informs many of had become easy objects of public ridi- my publishing decisions. cule and opprobrium, as they had appar- Among its various missions, academic ently become in the 1930s, once women had achieved the vote in both Britain feminism, one of the most successful in- and the US. stitutions in the US arising from 1970s My own thought, in 1986, was that feminism, importantly aims to maintain feminists must include women of all continuity across generations and to pre- generations, classes, and races, and that serve the history of women’s activities they must actively recruit younger wom- and accomplishments. I recall attending meetings in the mid-1970s, as a graduate I recall attending meetings en — and treat them as equals. I wrote an in the mid-1970s…for the essay on the subject, at the invitation of student, for the formation of a women’s studies program at the University of Illi- formation of a women’s an academic journal’s board inspired by studies program at the nois. I could not then have imagined the the comments I’d written on my renewal University of Illinois. subscription form at the very moment extent the influence of such programs, I could not then have they were planning the issue commemo- springing up across the continent, would imagined the extent rating their tenth anniversary. The editor come to have — nor even that any of them the influence of such told me it would be the keynote essay would have taken such deep root in the programs, springing up opening the issue. As submitted, how- academy as to be thriving forty years across the continent, ever, my essay reportedly caused dis- later. And I certainly couldn’t have imag- would come to have …. sension among board members and was ined myself participating in the fortieth returned to me in a nearly unrecogniz- anniversary celebration of the Univer- able form. My letter withdrawing it elic- sity of Oregon’s Center for the Study of Cont. on p. 2 n Feminist Women in Society, as I did in Eugene in vast understanding that shines through World-Building November 2013. their eyes but only occasionally expresses (cont. from p. 1) From the vantage of 2013, however, itself in fragmented gems, usually pun- the most remarkable aspect of the cel- gent and often humorous. Such women ebration in Eugene was its deliberate tend to speak with delightful, sometimes joining of a feminist vision of its own devastating frankness as their growing (feminist) past to a feminist imagination indifference to social pressure results in of (feminist) futures. The celebration was the reticence of middle age falling to the accordingly organized into two sympo- wayside. Ursula’s wisdom and frankness, I certainly couldn’t have sia, one sampling the CSWS’s past work, though, is even more potent for having imagined myself partici- one sampling the visions of fsf (feminist emerged from the forge of her years of pating in the fortieth an- science fiction) and the possibilities for thinking and writing, many of those as niversary celebration of preserving, reading, and understand- a conscious, questing feminist. She is our the University of Oregon’s ing those visions through the rich, ac- wise elder, par excellence. Center for the Study of cumulating papers of fsf writers within The feminist sf symposium consisted Women in Society…. the University of Oregon’s special col- of four panels and a reading by Molly From the vantage of lections.* It opened Thursday afternoon Gloss. Opening the symposium, Carol 2013, however, the most with a showing of Agents of Change: A Stabile observed that feminist sf pro- remarkable aspect of the legacy of feminist research, teaching, and vides feminists with the space to imagine celebration in Eugene was its deliberate joining of activism at the University of Oregon, a alternatives. The first of the four panels a feminist vision of its documentary film by Gabriela Martinez, drew attention to the University of Or- own (feminist) past to a followed by a reception attended by so egon’s feminist sf archives, which hold feminist imagination of many WisCon regulars it carried, for the papers of Ursula K. Le Guin, Mol- (feminist) futures. me, a whiff of WisCon. The first sym- ly Gloss, Kate Wilhelm, Suzy McKee posium, “Women’s Stories, Women’s Charnas, Suzette Haden Elgin, Vonda Lives,” followed on Friday, organized N. McIntyre, and numerous other fsf roughly by decades. The second sym- authors. Laura Strait, a graduate stu- H posium, “Worlds Beyond World,” took dent, read Ursula’s correspondence with place on Saturday. On Friday evening, at Eleanor Cameron, discussing Cam- 2 the mid-point of the conference, Carol eron’s conflict with Roald Dahl (par- Stabile, Director of the CSWS, present- ticularly vis-a-vis the racism in his work ed the Le Guin Feminist Science Fic- for children), for insight into Cameron’s tion Fellowship to Canadian scholar and intentions.