Last week I went to a fascinating lecture given by a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend (of-a-friend? Facebook connections, you know, weird and tenuous) in San Marino, on the grounds of the Huntington Library. I could talk about the Huntington for hundreds of words; it was so beautiful and interesting that I took Matt back the very next day and became a member to boot. But I want to talk about the lecture, instead. It regarded women writers in early pulp magazines, and the project this gentleman, Patrick B. Sharp of CSULA, is doing to preserve these early pulps (pre-1945). From where I live to the Huntington is about 45 minutes' drive with no traffic (and boy, is San Marino a completely different universe than the part of L.A. where I reside), but I decided I had to go anyway because, after all, I've just finished writing a book that has a female hero and no small connection to pulp.
Although women had a somewhat hard time getting published in genre fiction (then as now), there were a nonzero number of them writing, and Dr. Sharp discussed some of the stories they'd published. A few howlers appeared, including a weirdly constructed penis-vagina creature that kind of subsumed an astronaut who had to be saved by another, stronger dude. Stuff like that. In all I found it terrifically interesting context for what went on in sci-fi movies of the 50s and what still goes on in genre magazines and anthologies today.
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| Backstage at Clarkesworld |
