The Ink-Stained Amazon Presents in Seattle

Today I got to see a friend - Jennifer K. Stuller - read and talk on her book, The Ink-Stained Amazon. She's a pop-culture feminist historian - kind of a non-fiction version of what I do with poetry - whom I got to know online and then got to meet at Wondercon this year in San Francisco. Particularly memorable was an awesome video on female heroes in pop culture over the last thirty years.

A fun thing about this reading was its location, a secret Seattle Geek hangout called The Wayward Coffeehouse in Greenwood owned and operated by the terrific Bronwen with decor that I would call "Whedon-chic" and a tall stack of sci-fi books on the shelves. Now I want to do a reading there! (Plus they had gluten-free cookies.) See? I had lived in Seattle ten years but never been to this awesome little coffee house (did I mention they screen movies - currently "Joe Versus the Volcano," one of my all-time favorite movies - there too?) Seattle is a town full of neighborhood surprises that you might never find unless someone you know happens to tell you about them.

Right now I am warming up in front of a fire, I have my new Buffy comic, a couple of books of poetry, and I am feeling terrifically geeky in a town friendly to geeks.

Strong Female Character Flow Chart

Many good thing should be said about the following flow chart - funny and all-too-true:

http://www.overthinkingit.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Overthinking-It-Female-Character-Flowchart.png

Lost Team on a Fairy Tale themed series with a Female Lead

Are any of you feeling like me, a little disillusioned and "meh" about most of the television on right now? Well, here's the best television news I've had in a while: the Lost team is getting together to start a Fairy Tale themed series with a female lead. Are you guys looking for writers? Because I know fairy tales and I would be a fantastic female writer for your show! Call me! Seriously!
Anyway, this will perhaps fill the gap of inspiring female-centric shows...

We Who Are About to Die, Nikita Reboot, Asteroids

This guy at We Who Are About to Die talks about female comic book superheroes and poetry. It doesn't happen all that often, so I thought I'd link to it!

The Nikita reboot on the CW a few days ago seemed okay, the kind of thing we've seen before, but worth watching for maybe another episode or two.

Did you know this last week two asteroids came close to hitting the earth? No? Well, it's all over now - the earth is safe!

In case I haven't mentioned it here...

I loved the movie Kick-Ass. I thought it was much better than the last Terminator, the last Batman, and every other action movie I've seen in the last year put together. I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats, etc.
One thing critics complained about was the violence and cursing from the young actress that played HitGirl. I wondered if they would have complained if it had been a ten or eleven-year-old boy instead of a girl. Frankly, as an eleven-year-old girl, it would have been nice to see an empowered girl kicking ass instead of being the constant victim (as in many other movies where it's just fine that eleven-year-old girls are terrorized, but not okay when they're the heroines.)And as a thirty-seven-year old, I'd much rather see a little girl kicking ass than various "action heroes" like Bale or Stallone or whatever.
And I'm not just saying this because they gave me a HitGirl t-shirt at WonderCon. Or because the fight scenes were like an awesome combination of moves from Buffy and the Matrix. Another thing critics complained about the huge violence, but I found it less gruesome than, say, The Watchmen, or even the latest episode of House, as the violence shown was very 'cartoony.'

Gossip From Comic-Con

I'm not there, but the gossip is seeping in from Comic-Con, so I thought I'd make a quick report of salient points:

--Joss Whedon is officially directing The Avengers movie. He says this will delay or possibly exclude the possibility of a Dr. Horrible sequel.

--Some of my favorite actors, including Angelina Jolie and Tiny Fey, made appearances.

--J.J. Abrams said he was happy with The Lost ending. Something about his new spy series, The Undercovers (which looks mildly good. As good as Alias? One can hope.)

What else? If you've been, leave a comment and fill me in! What was the awesomest thing there?

New Futurama, Covert Affairs, New Book

Lots of news since last I posted!

--Happy news! Kitsune Books, a speculative literary publisher out of Florida, has agreed to publish my next book, "She Returns to the Floating World," a book about girls who turn into foxes, women who disappear, and heroines in anime.

--Sad news: the new Futurama episodes have been...not so great. Although I saw they had a female writer on one of the episodes. Way to let a girl in the room, Futurama! On the other hand, way too much "fan service" involving Leela and Amy. Maybe those censors were realllly important to the quality of Futurama jokes.

--In between: New spy-girl series "Covert Affairs" is a complete ripoff of Alias, right down to Piper's Sydney Bristow-esque voice inflections and facial expressions. Yet, fun to watch - thanks, USA, for providing an empowered heroine that none of the major networks can manage.