Carrie Fisher

I don’t know why the death of Carrie Fisher has hit me so hard. Maybe it’s that in the last two years, she seemed so much larger than life: unruly, unabashed, and unapologetic, an icon I was looking forward to see puncture the hypocrisies of Hollywood and how the world treats women for the next twenty years.

Her outspokenness about mental illness, her gifts as a writer and a public figure, and her utter willingness to give the world the finger – when it deserved it or just because she felt like it – were an inspiration.

And she gave us Leia Organa. She made that role what it is: Senator, Princess, Rebel, General. Her red pen is on the script of The Empire Strikes Back.

I don’t think I can express what it meant to me, to see Carrie Fisher as General Leia. Oh, I came to Star Wars through the novels, and later met Leia staring down her torturers on the screen: the woman who sees her entire world die and still doesn’t break. Who carries the men around her when they falter and digs deep and finds the strength to keep going.

General. Forty years on, brother vanished, son a traitor to everything she worked for, lover running from responsibility, and still the backbone of a movement. Still fighting: choosing again and again to stand for what she believes in, in a galaxy where doing that has already cost her everything. And yet still able to be generous, still choosing to welcome Rey, to hold out hope and an open hand.

General Leia is not all that Carrie Fisher was – she might be the least part of a complex comic genius. But the woman Carrie Fisher and the character Leia Organa are each in their own way inspirational figures, and the character is what she is because of the woman behind her.

To Carrie Fisher: drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.

May her memory endure forever.

I have finished my third week at a RealJob. The paycheque is nice, but I woke up this morning sick as a dog. Ah, well. It could be worse.

There’s a lot of news to catch up on. In my case, the most exciting piece is that, along with Mahvesh Murad, I’ll be editing Speculative Fiction 2016:

Call for Submissions: What You Need to Know

The Speculative Fiction series is a not-for-profit publication. All net proceeds will be going to charity.
The anthology seeks non-fiction reviews and essays (“works”) specific to some aspect of Speculative Fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, and everything and anything that falls under the broad genre umbrella), including but not limited to: books, movies, tv shows, games, comics, conventions, genre trends, and so on. No short stories or original fiction, please.
The works MUST have been originally published online during the calendar year 2016.
Any pieces chosen for the publication will be paid a flat fee of $10 per work (in lieu of payment, contributors may choose to donate their fee to charity in their name).
Nominations are accepted for works published by anyone online. (This includes bloggers, friends, bloggers who are friends, authors who blog, bloggers who are authors, alien life forms, cats, etc…)
People may submit their own work or someone else’s.
People may submit as many works as they like. (There is NO limit on submissions!)
Submitted works ideally should be between 800 and 1500 words (but that’s not mandatory, we may consider longer and shorter pieces).
While submitted works can be from anywhere in the world, although we do need an English translation for consideration.
Submissions are open through December 31 2016.

Submit your nominations here. Deadline is 31 December 2016.

There are some links hanging out in my tabs:

The Church’s Lingering Shadows On Sex Work In Ireland.

Jane Austen to Cassandra.

Lesbians of 1916 are the Rising’s “hidden history.”

Carrie Fisher interviews Daisy Ridley.

Wonder Woman, Amazons, armour and history: the best thing on Tumblr.

Poem: “Questions to Ask Yourself Before Giving Up.”

Database of Public Monuments in Roman Greece. Lovely searchable database.