Engine Summer

When referring to me on the internet, please use either gender-neutral pronouns or no pronouns at all. I am fine with the first-person singular they. I would also strongly prefer people not mentioning my biological sex, especially in public venues.

If you absolutely cannot cope without gendered pronouns, I suppose I'd be all right with people using both of them in the same sentence in strict alternation, as long as you don't come down on one side or the other.

This does not apply
-- offline, although I certainly won't protest if you use neutral language then
-- if you are using my IRL name and not mentioning my username, as in those circumstances it is a lost cause
-- to my significant others (my wife has political reasons I consider valid to use gendered language about me).

I intend to enforce this in my own DW/LJ, and I would very much appreciate and be happy about people considering my wishes elsewhere. Questions about this will be answered if I feel like it, and not if I don't (which is likelier). Thank you.





Bryn Mawr College (which I loved madly) '04. Legally married in Massachusetts later that same year. I live in Cambridge with my lovely wife, two cats, and more books than the last time you read this sentence. My wife and I have a boyfriend who lives in Virginia being mysterious. My other partners include sovay. I have blue hair and brown eyes, which causes me to giggle while filling out silly forms.

Fiction sales: Not One of Us #34 (here) and Cabinet des Fees (the first print issue, here). Midrash, a Not One of Us Special Issue, here. I have poetry in Jabberwocky #1 (here) and in Mythic Delirium, issue #17. Criticism in the Internet Review of Science Fiction and in Greenwood Press's Encyclopedia of Women in Science Fiction. I've been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the British Science Fiction Award in the short story category, as well as the Speculative Literature Foundation's Fountain Award in 2006; my poem old storm shadow, from Jabberwocky, was an Honorable Mention in Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2005.

Staff reviewer at Strange Horizons since 2011, producing book reviews, media criticism, and occasional roundtables and suchlike. Staff reviewer at Publishers Weekly since 2014; please note that due to their strict anonymity policy, I can neither confirm nor deny having reviewed any specific work for them, ever. Don't ask and I won't have to glare at you.

Senior Fiction Editor at Strange Horizons as of February 2015. Nothing I say in this journal should be taken as in any way reflecting the opinions of the magazine in general unless I explicitly state that in so many words, but then, you didn't think it did anyway, did you?


Feel free to put me on f-lists without asking or telling me-- I try to remember to check my info every so often. I will probably reciprocally add you, but it may be slow, because I like to read people for a while before I add them and the list is getting big. Comment and it'll be faster, of course... In general, I love reading and meeting new people.

As of 08/08/07: In the past, anonymous people have given me paid journal time without telling me who they were. It was a very sweet gesture and I appreciated it, but please, *don't do it again*. I do not wish to be associated with giving any money to Six Apart in any way until they fix their allowable-speech policies. Until that time, I intend to use their service, take up space in their system, protest their position, and not give them a damn thing for it.