So I tried to register a domain name for this blog and I got an error message.
So then I backed up, tried to redo the process and it said it couldn't do it because the domain name was being used and that I needed to login via Google Apps.
So then it said I needed a Google Apps account.
So I signed up for a Google Apps account and it automatically gave me a business account. Which I didn't want, so I removed it.
So then it automatically gave me an Educational account... which I apparently didn't qualify for so now my Google Apps account is in limbo.
I also changed the settings for my blog, checked the settings on Enom, and everything on the Blogger and Enom side of things is hunky dory and perfectly fine.
The problem is that Google Apps and Blogspot apparently both use the same server settings: ghs.google.com and the same IP addresses.
So Enom is operating correctly and going to the right place, but Google Apps is usurping the domain name and sending it in that direction instead of to Blogspot where I want it to be.
*serious freaking headache here*
So... how do I fix this? The Enom support guy says I everything done correctly on my side, the Blogspot website is likewise fine... but Google Apps is dug in like a tick. When I was going to the domain name it was auto-redirecting to a Google Apps page... (Right now it doesn't go anywhere, it just says it doesn't exist.)
The Enom guy also said I may need to wait 24-48 hours for things to start working... but at this point its already pretty obvious the whole attempt was botched because of Google errors.
Now I am thinking maybe I should start over and get a different domain name. And wait a year for the one I wanted to expire.
Kathrine Switzer - Historic Icon
It was a historic moment for female athletes.In 1967, Kathrine Switzer entered and completed the Boston Marathon in 1967, five years before women were officially allowed to compete in it. She was the first woman to run the Boston marathon and was registered in the race. (The first unregistered person was Bobbi Gibb in 1966.) She registered, collected her numbers, put them on and started the race.
After realizing that a woman had somehow registered and was running, race organizer Jock Semple chased after Switzer shouting: "Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers."
Switzer’s boyfriend and other male runners provided a protective shield during the entire marathon and she was able to outpace Semple. The photograph above was taken during the incident and made world headlines.
Her finishing time of approximately 4 hours and 20 minutes.
Kathrine later won the 1974 NYC marathon (women's category) with a time of 3:07:29.
Her personal best time for the marathon distance is 2:51:37, at Boston in 1975, where she took 2nd place.
She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2011 for creating a social revolution by empowering women around the world through running.
In 1997 Kathrine wrote Running and Walking for Women over 40. She released her memoir, Marathon Woman in April 2007 on the 40th anniversary of her first running the Boston Marathon.
Hello World!
Hello World!
This is my new blog.
I am starting it in an effort to promote my writing career.
Tada!
This is my new blog.
I am starting it in an effort to promote my writing career.
Tada!
Feminist Book Reviews
To all my loyal readers...
Are you also a feminist writer in addition to reading feminist blogs?
Well here is your chance to get a free book review of your feminist book. Just send a PDF of your feminist book to suzannemacnevin@gmail.com and I will review it on Feminist Truths and post a copy of my review on Amazon if you so desire.
In the meantime I highly recommend the book "Introducing Postfeminism". If you visit the Amazon page you will find my review on there. :)
Are you also a feminist writer in addition to reading feminist blogs?
Well here is your chance to get a free book review of your feminist book. Just send a PDF of your feminist book to suzannemacnevin@gmail.com and I will review it on Feminist Truths and post a copy of my review on Amazon if you so desire.
In the meantime I highly recommend the book "Introducing Postfeminism". If you visit the Amazon page you will find my review on there. :)
The Truth about British Female Fantasy Writers
What I find interesting about this topic is that when you delve into their books their female characters are often feminists in one form or another and their antagonists are often depicted as patriarchs...
One might even call it "feminist fantasy".
And this concept isn't limited to female fantasy authors either. Male writers such as George R. R. Martin and Charles Moffat have also had their characters described as feminist.
When you consider that being a writer used to be considered a male dominated field you also realize you'd have to be a bit more uppity to want to enter a career of writing, and with respect to fantasy writing, a field that is largely dominated by Conan the Barbarian-esque characters which are often rescuing damsels in distress instead of fighting alongside them.
There are literally hundreds of female fantasy authors out there (in many languages) and so to narrow the list down I am only including British fantasy authors in the following list. I recommend you check out a few of them the next time you are looking for a book to read.
21 Biographies of British Female Fantasy Writers
Catherine Banner (born 1989) is a British fantasy author, living in Cambridge, England. She gained international attention with her first book, The Eyes of a King, which she began writing when she was fourteen and still a school student. In October 2008 Banner began her studies in English literature at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. She is currently writing a third part of her series The Last Descendants, The Heart at War. The sequel to The Eyes of a King, Voices in the Dark, was released on September 22, 2009. In 2012 will the series be completed.
Georgia Byng, (b. 6 September 1965), is a British author of children's books. She went to The Central School of Speech and Drama but gave up acting to write. Her first writing was in comic strip. Byng illustrated too. Her first published book was a comic strip story - The Sock Monsters. Byng's best known work is Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism, about a girl who finds a book about hypnotism and learns how to hypnotise people. In the books that follow, Molly Moon's powers grow. In 'Molly Moon Stops the World' Moon learns how to stop time. In 'Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure' Moon time travels to nineteenth century India. In 'Molly Moon, Micky Minus and the Mind Machine' Moon goes to the future and learns to mind read. In 'Molly Moon and The Morphing Mystery' Moon shape shifts.
Moyra Caldecott (June 1, 1927) is a British author of historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction and non-fiction. Her works include "Guardians of the Tall Stones" and The Egyptian Sequence. Moyra Caldecott was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and moved to London in 1951. She has degrees in English and Philosophy and an M.A. in English Literature. In 2000, Moyra Caldecott became one of the earliest proponents of commercial e-books, when she contracted with Mushroom eBooks to re-publish most of her titles in electronic formats.
Louise Cooper (29 May 1952 - 21 October 2009) was a British fantasy writer who lived in Cornwall with her husband, Cas Sandall. Cooper was born in Hertfordshire. She began writing stories when she was at school to entertain her friends. She continued to write and her first full-length novel was published at the age of twenty. She moved to London in 1975 and worked in publishing before becoming a full-time writer in 1977. She became a prolific writer of fantasy, renowned for her bestselling Time Master trilogy. She published more than eighty fantasy and supernatural novels, both for adults and children. Cooper gained a great deal of writing inspiration from the coast and scenery, and her other interests included music, folklore, cooking, gardening and "messing about on the beach". She was treasurer of her local Lifeboat station; she and her husband both sang with the shanty group Falmouth Shout. Cooper died aged 57 of a brain haemorrhage on 21 October 2009.
Maggie Furey was born in Northeast England, UK, in 1955. She is a qualified teacher but has also reviewed books on BBC Radio Newcastle, been an advisor in the Durham Reading Resources Centre and organized children's book fairs. She now lives in County Wicklow in Ireland. She is a well-known fantasy author, especially for the Artefacts of Power tetralogy, is centred around the lead character (and first novel namesake) Aurian, which were published as paperback originals in the United States.
Jane Gaskell is a British fantasy writer. Gaskell was born in 1941. She wrote her first novel Strange Evil, when she was 14. It was published two years later. In 1970 she received the Somerset Maugham Award for her novel A Sweet Sweet Summer (jointly with Piers Paul Read who received it for his Monk Dawson.) She later became a professional astrologer. Her Atlan saga is set in prehistoric South America and in the mythical world of Atlantis. The series is written from the point of view of its clumsy heroine Cija, except for the last book, which is narrated by her daughter Seka. China Miéville lists Strange Evil as one of the top 10 examples of weird fiction. John Clute called it "an astonishingly imaginative piece of fantasy by any standards."
Mary Rosalyn Gentle (born 29 March 1956) is a UK science fiction and fantasy author. Mary Gentle's first published novel was Hawk in Silver (1977), a young-adult fantasy. She came to prominence with the Orthe duology, which consists of Golden Witchbreed (1983) and Ancient Light (1987). The novels Rats and Gargoyles (1990), The Architecture of Desire (1991), and Left to His Own Devices (1994), together with several short stories, form a loosely linked series (collected in White Crow in 2003). As with Michael Moorcock's series about his anti-heroic Jerry Cornelius, Gentle's sequence retains some basic facts about her two protagonists Valentine (also known as the White Crow) and Casaubon while changing much else about them, including what world they inhabit. Several take place in an alternate-history version of 17th century and later England, where a form of Renaissance Hermetic magic has taken over the role of science. Another, Left To His Own Devices, takes place in a cyberpunk-tinged version of our own near future. The sequence is informed by historically existing ideas about esotericism and alchemy and is rife with obscure allusions to real history and literature. Grunts! (1992) is a grand guignol parody of mass-market high fantasy novels, with orcs as heroes, murderous halflings, and racist elves. Her novel Ash: A Secret History (published in four volumes in the US) was a long science fantasy epic that won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2000. Gentle has since published Ilario, set in the same timeline.
Geraldine Harris (born 1951), aka Geraldine Harris Pinch, is an author (of both fiction and non-fiction) and Egyptologist. She is a member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford. Her works include the Seven Citadels quartet and numerous information text books about Egypt.
Rosemary Jeanne Harris (born 1923, London) is a British writer of fiction for children. Harris attended school in Weymouth, and then studied at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, the Chelsea School of Art and the Courtauld Institute. She served in the British Red Cross Nursing Auxiliary Westminster Division during World War II, and has worked as a picture restorer, a reader for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and a children's book reviewer for The Times from 1970 to 1973. She won the Carnegie Medal in 1968 for The Moon in the Cloud. This book was the first in a trilogy set in ancient Egypt. The subsequent books were The Shadow on the Sun and The Bright and Morning Star. The book was also the basis for a 1978 episode of the BBC series Jackanory. Other books dealt with topics as diverse as terrorism, magic and futuristic totalitarianism.
Mary Hoffman is a best-selling British author and critic, born in 1945. Mary Hoffman won a scholarship to James Allen’s Girls’ School in Dulwich, which she describes as “an exercise in punctuation in itself.” From there she went to the University of Cambridge to study English at Newnham College and then spent two years studying Linguistics at University College London. Since 1998 she has been an Honorary Fellow of the Library Association in 1998 for her work with children and schools. She worked at the Open University for nearly five years, contributing to courses for teachers on reading, language and children’s literature. For eighteen years she was Reading Consultant to BBC Schools TV’s Look and Read series and wrote the teaching scripts. She has been a freelance, self-employed professional writer and journalist since the mid-90s. She has been nominated for the post of Children's Laureate, 2011–2013.
Roz Kaveney (born 9 July 1949) is a British writer whose work includes both fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and editing. She was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford. On her website Roz says: "I was reared Catholic but got over it, was born male but got over it, stopped sleeping with boys about the time I stopped being one and am much happier than I was when I was younger." She is working on a memoir. Roz was a core member of the Midnight Rose collective. She is perhaps best known for her critical works about pop culture. Her review of Little, Big was appended to the 2002 Harper Perennial reprint of the novel. Kaveney is a regular contributor to The Independent, The Guardian and Times Literary Supplement. She appeared as one of the numerous commentators in the BBC television documentary (May 2008) about the idea of parallel worlds as used in science fiction. She is also a founding member of Feminists Against Censorship; a former deputy chair of Liberty; and a transgender rights activist .
Elizabeth Kay, born July 9, 1949 in London, is an English writer. She is the author of The Divide trilogy, a series of children's fantasy novels, originally published by Chicken House Press, then picked up by Scholastic Books. Before going to art school she attended Nonsuch High School for girls in Cheam. Then went to art school and in her mid-twenties started writing radio plays, which were broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She also wrote stories which were published in newspapers and magazines and broadcast on Capital Radio in London. Kay has an MA (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, and has taught both Creative Writing and Art for a number of years. She has illustrated several books and produced nearly all the artwork for her own website. An avid wildlife enthusiast, she has travelled extensively to places as diverse as the Ivory Coast, Borneo, Iceland and India. She has won several awards, including the Cardiff International Poetry Competition for a sestina "Pond Life" and the Canongate Prize for her short story "Cassie". A chapbook of poetry, The Spririt Collection, was published in 2000. The Divide, her first book for children, was published in 2003. She was a keynote speaker at Accio 2005, the Harry Potter conference, and spoke at a children's book conference in Ukraine in 2007. She has appeared at other literary events, including the Cheltenham and Edinburgh festivals. She has had three shorter books for children published by Barrington Stoke. Fury, in 2008, Hunted in 2009 and Lost in the Desert in 2011. The Tree Devil, for reluctant readers, was published in 2010 by Eprint. A novella for adults, Missing Link, was published in October 2009.
Tanith Lee (born 19 September 1947(1947-09-19)) is a British writer of science fiction, horror and fantasy. She is the author of over 70 novels and 250 short stories, a children's picture book (Animal Castle) and many poems. She also wrote two episodes of BBC science fiction series Blake's 7. She was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award best novel award (also known as the August Derleth Award), for her book Death's Master (1980). She also writes under the pseudonym Esther Garber
Geraldine McCaughrean (pronounced "Muh-cork-run") (born 6 June 1951) is a British children's novelist. The youngest of three children, McCaughrean studied teaching but did not like it, and found her true vocation in writing. She claims that what makes her love writing is the desire to escape from an unsatisfactory world. Her motto is: do not write about what you know, write about what you want to know.
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, (born 31 July 1965), better known as J. K. Rowling, is a British novelist, best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, sold more than 400 million copies to become the best-selling book series in history and been the basis for a popular series of films, in which Rowling had overall approval on the scripts as well as maintaining creative control by serving as a producer on the final instalment. Rowling conceived the idea for the series on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. Rowling has led a "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on social security to multi-millionaire status within five years. As of March 2011, when its latest world billionaires list was published, Forbes estimated Rowling's net worth to be US$1 billion. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in the United Kingdom. Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007, and Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fans. In October 2010, J. K. Rowling was named 'Most Influential Woman in Britain' by leading magazine editors. She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, and Lumos (formerly the Children's High Level Group). On 12 April 2012, Rowling announced that her new adult novel The Casual Vacancy would be published in the UK by Little, Brown & Company on 27 September 2012.
Jessica Rydill is a British fantasy author from the West Country. She was born in 1959. She studied at King's College, Cambridge and the College of Law, working as a solicitor for 13 years. Her travels have provided some of the inspiration for her writing. She was a founder member of the Write Fantastic writers' group together with authors including Juliet E. McKenna and Sarah Ash. Her interests include collecting Asian ball-jointed dolls, Sasha dolls, myth, and East European music. Her short story My Brother Jonathan was short-listed for the Ian St James award in 1999 and she appears in The New Writer magazine Roll of Honour. Her first novel Children of the Shaman was published by Orbit in 2001, and was short-listed for the Locus magazine best first novel in 2002. A sequel, The Glass Mountain, appeared in October 2002. A short story, The Anniversary, was published in an anthology printed by NewCon Press in 2010 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of The Write Fantastic. In 2006, Rydill married Stephen Saunders, a writer and designer. Her sister Sarah Ash, author of the Tears of Artamon trilogy, is also a fantasy novelist.
Jan Siegel is a pseudonym of Amanda Hemingway (born 1955 in London, England). She is a British author of fantasy novels, best known for the Fern Capel series.
Dr. Alison Louise Spedding (born 22 January 1962) is a British anthropologist and fantasy author. Spedding studied Archaeology and Anthropology and later Philosophy at King's College, Cambridge, receiving her BA degree in 1982. She received a PhD from the London School of Economics in 1989. She wrote a trilogy of fantasy novels, set approximately in the time of Alexander the Great. In the novels, Alexander dies, and the female protagonist, Aleizon Ailix Ayndra, goes on to fulfil Alexander's destiny. In 1989, Spedding moved to Bolivia and lectured at San Andres University in La Paz. While there she published the academic work Wachu Wachu. Cultivo de coca e identitad en los Yungas de la Paz (1994) and Kausachun-Coca (2004). She is the author of three novels in Spanish: Manuel y Fortunato. Una picaresca andina (1997), El viento de la cordillera (2001), and the sci-fi, anarcho-feminist novel De cuando en cuando Saturnina (2004). She is also the author of a book of short stories, El tiempo, la distancia, otros amantes (1994) and the play Un gato en el tejar, the latter published under the pseudoym Alicia Céspedes Ballet. In Bolivia she became an outspoken critic of the government's policy of cracking down on peasant coca farmers. In 1998, she was arrested on drug charges, having been found with 2 kg of cannabis in her possession. Although she claimed the cannabis was for personal use, she received a 10 year sentence for trafficking. Academics widely considered the arrest was politically motivated and campaigned for her release. She was released in 2000 on payment of a surety.
Mitzi Szereto is an author, blogger, and web TV entrepreneur. She has written novels and short stories, edited fiction and non-fiction anthologies, has her own blog "Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto's Weblog", and is the creator/presenter of "Mitzi TV," a Web TV channel that covers the quirky side of London, England. Her published books to date have been focused on erotic literature, multi-genre fiction, and fiction and non-fiction anthologies. She has also written under the name M. S. Valentine. She makes a cameo appearance portraying herself in the British mockumentary Lint the Movie. Szereto was born in the United States, but lives in the United Kingdom and has UK Citizenship. She holds erotic writing workshops in the UK and Europe. She appears at book and literature festivals, and gives talks on such topics as social media, women's publishing, and erotic writing. She has performed readings of her work in Europe and the United States.
Freda Warrington is a British author, known for her epic fantasy, vampire and supernatural novels. Four of her novels (Dark Cathedral, Pagan Moon, Dracula the Undead, and The Amber Citadel) have been nominated for the British Fantasy Society's Best Novel award. Dracula the Undead won the Dracula Society's 1997 Children of the Night Award. Her novel, Elfland, won the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award in the Fantasy Novel category for 2009. Warrington has also seen numerous short stories published in anthologies and magazines. Born in Leicester, Warrington grew up in Leicestershire. After completing high school, she trained at the Loughborough College of Art and Design and afterward held a job at the Medical Illustration Department of Leicester Royal Infirmary. She eventually moved to full-time writing, pursuing a love she had had since childhood. In addition to her writing, Warrington works part-time in the Charnwood Forest. Some of her books are set in Leicestershire, such as the recent Aetherial Tales series, depicting the lives, loves and adventures of magical people living hidden in this region, passing for - and sharing many cultural traits with - ordinary English people.
Jane Welch (born 1964) is a writer of fantasy short stories and novels. Jane Welch was born in Derbyshire. After school she worked as a bookseller before going for five years to Soldeu, Andorra in the Pyrenees as a ski teacher. Jane Welch wrote three consecutive Trilogies. The second (The Book of Önd) plays 3 years after the first (Runespell Trilogy) with nearly the same protagonists. The last (The Book of Man) is around 15 years later and is also about the next generation.
One might even call it "feminist fantasy".
And this concept isn't limited to female fantasy authors either. Male writers such as George R. R. Martin and Charles Moffat have also had their characters described as feminist.
When you consider that being a writer used to be considered a male dominated field you also realize you'd have to be a bit more uppity to want to enter a career of writing, and with respect to fantasy writing, a field that is largely dominated by Conan the Barbarian-esque characters which are often rescuing damsels in distress instead of fighting alongside them.
There are literally hundreds of female fantasy authors out there (in many languages) and so to narrow the list down I am only including British fantasy authors in the following list. I recommend you check out a few of them the next time you are looking for a book to read.
21 Biographies of British Female Fantasy Writers
Catherine Banner (born 1989) is a British fantasy author, living in Cambridge, England. She gained international attention with her first book, The Eyes of a King, which she began writing when she was fourteen and still a school student. In October 2008 Banner began her studies in English literature at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. She is currently writing a third part of her series The Last Descendants, The Heart at War. The sequel to The Eyes of a King, Voices in the Dark, was released on September 22, 2009. In 2012 will the series be completed.
Georgia Byng, (b. 6 September 1965), is a British author of children's books. She went to The Central School of Speech and Drama but gave up acting to write. Her first writing was in comic strip. Byng illustrated too. Her first published book was a comic strip story - The Sock Monsters. Byng's best known work is Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism, about a girl who finds a book about hypnotism and learns how to hypnotise people. In the books that follow, Molly Moon's powers grow. In 'Molly Moon Stops the World' Moon learns how to stop time. In 'Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure' Moon time travels to nineteenth century India. In 'Molly Moon, Micky Minus and the Mind Machine' Moon goes to the future and learns to mind read. In 'Molly Moon and The Morphing Mystery' Moon shape shifts.
Moyra Caldecott (June 1, 1927) is a British author of historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction and non-fiction. Her works include "Guardians of the Tall Stones" and The Egyptian Sequence. Moyra Caldecott was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and moved to London in 1951. She has degrees in English and Philosophy and an M.A. in English Literature. In 2000, Moyra Caldecott became one of the earliest proponents of commercial e-books, when she contracted with Mushroom eBooks to re-publish most of her titles in electronic formats.
Louise Cooper (29 May 1952 - 21 October 2009) was a British fantasy writer who lived in Cornwall with her husband, Cas Sandall. Cooper was born in Hertfordshire. She began writing stories when she was at school to entertain her friends. She continued to write and her first full-length novel was published at the age of twenty. She moved to London in 1975 and worked in publishing before becoming a full-time writer in 1977. She became a prolific writer of fantasy, renowned for her bestselling Time Master trilogy. She published more than eighty fantasy and supernatural novels, both for adults and children. Cooper gained a great deal of writing inspiration from the coast and scenery, and her other interests included music, folklore, cooking, gardening and "messing about on the beach". She was treasurer of her local Lifeboat station; she and her husband both sang with the shanty group Falmouth Shout. Cooper died aged 57 of a brain haemorrhage on 21 October 2009.
Maggie Furey was born in Northeast England, UK, in 1955. She is a qualified teacher but has also reviewed books on BBC Radio Newcastle, been an advisor in the Durham Reading Resources Centre and organized children's book fairs. She now lives in County Wicklow in Ireland. She is a well-known fantasy author, especially for the Artefacts of Power tetralogy, is centred around the lead character (and first novel namesake) Aurian, which were published as paperback originals in the United States.
Jane Gaskell is a British fantasy writer. Gaskell was born in 1941. She wrote her first novel Strange Evil, when she was 14. It was published two years later. In 1970 she received the Somerset Maugham Award for her novel A Sweet Sweet Summer (jointly with Piers Paul Read who received it for his Monk Dawson.) She later became a professional astrologer. Her Atlan saga is set in prehistoric South America and in the mythical world of Atlantis. The series is written from the point of view of its clumsy heroine Cija, except for the last book, which is narrated by her daughter Seka. China Miéville lists Strange Evil as one of the top 10 examples of weird fiction. John Clute called it "an astonishingly imaginative piece of fantasy by any standards."
Mary Rosalyn Gentle (born 29 March 1956) is a UK science fiction and fantasy author. Mary Gentle's first published novel was Hawk in Silver (1977), a young-adult fantasy. She came to prominence with the Orthe duology, which consists of Golden Witchbreed (1983) and Ancient Light (1987). The novels Rats and Gargoyles (1990), The Architecture of Desire (1991), and Left to His Own Devices (1994), together with several short stories, form a loosely linked series (collected in White Crow in 2003). As with Michael Moorcock's series about his anti-heroic Jerry Cornelius, Gentle's sequence retains some basic facts about her two protagonists Valentine (also known as the White Crow) and Casaubon while changing much else about them, including what world they inhabit. Several take place in an alternate-history version of 17th century and later England, where a form of Renaissance Hermetic magic has taken over the role of science. Another, Left To His Own Devices, takes place in a cyberpunk-tinged version of our own near future. The sequence is informed by historically existing ideas about esotericism and alchemy and is rife with obscure allusions to real history and literature. Grunts! (1992) is a grand guignol parody of mass-market high fantasy novels, with orcs as heroes, murderous halflings, and racist elves. Her novel Ash: A Secret History (published in four volumes in the US) was a long science fantasy epic that won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2000. Gentle has since published Ilario, set in the same timeline.
Geraldine Harris (born 1951), aka Geraldine Harris Pinch, is an author (of both fiction and non-fiction) and Egyptologist. She is a member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford. Her works include the Seven Citadels quartet and numerous information text books about Egypt.
Rosemary Jeanne Harris (born 1923, London) is a British writer of fiction for children. Harris attended school in Weymouth, and then studied at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, the Chelsea School of Art and the Courtauld Institute. She served in the British Red Cross Nursing Auxiliary Westminster Division during World War II, and has worked as a picture restorer, a reader for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and a children's book reviewer for The Times from 1970 to 1973. She won the Carnegie Medal in 1968 for The Moon in the Cloud. This book was the first in a trilogy set in ancient Egypt. The subsequent books were The Shadow on the Sun and The Bright and Morning Star. The book was also the basis for a 1978 episode of the BBC series Jackanory. Other books dealt with topics as diverse as terrorism, magic and futuristic totalitarianism.
Mary Hoffman is a best-selling British author and critic, born in 1945. Mary Hoffman won a scholarship to James Allen’s Girls’ School in Dulwich, which she describes as “an exercise in punctuation in itself.” From there she went to the University of Cambridge to study English at Newnham College and then spent two years studying Linguistics at University College London. Since 1998 she has been an Honorary Fellow of the Library Association in 1998 for her work with children and schools. She worked at the Open University for nearly five years, contributing to courses for teachers on reading, language and children’s literature. For eighteen years she was Reading Consultant to BBC Schools TV’s Look and Read series and wrote the teaching scripts. She has been a freelance, self-employed professional writer and journalist since the mid-90s. She has been nominated for the post of Children's Laureate, 2011–2013.
Roz Kaveney (born 9 July 1949) is a British writer whose work includes both fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and editing. She was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford. On her website Roz says: "I was reared Catholic but got over it, was born male but got over it, stopped sleeping with boys about the time I stopped being one and am much happier than I was when I was younger." She is working on a memoir. Roz was a core member of the Midnight Rose collective. She is perhaps best known for her critical works about pop culture. Her review of Little, Big was appended to the 2002 Harper Perennial reprint of the novel. Kaveney is a regular contributor to The Independent, The Guardian and Times Literary Supplement. She appeared as one of the numerous commentators in the BBC television documentary (May 2008) about the idea of parallel worlds as used in science fiction. She is also a founding member of Feminists Against Censorship; a former deputy chair of Liberty; and a transgender rights activist .
Elizabeth Kay, born July 9, 1949 in London, is an English writer. She is the author of The Divide trilogy, a series of children's fantasy novels, originally published by Chicken House Press, then picked up by Scholastic Books. Before going to art school she attended Nonsuch High School for girls in Cheam. Then went to art school and in her mid-twenties started writing radio plays, which were broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She also wrote stories which were published in newspapers and magazines and broadcast on Capital Radio in London. Kay has an MA (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, and has taught both Creative Writing and Art for a number of years. She has illustrated several books and produced nearly all the artwork for her own website. An avid wildlife enthusiast, she has travelled extensively to places as diverse as the Ivory Coast, Borneo, Iceland and India. She has won several awards, including the Cardiff International Poetry Competition for a sestina "Pond Life" and the Canongate Prize for her short story "Cassie". A chapbook of poetry, The Spririt Collection, was published in 2000. The Divide, her first book for children, was published in 2003. She was a keynote speaker at Accio 2005, the Harry Potter conference, and spoke at a children's book conference in Ukraine in 2007. She has appeared at other literary events, including the Cheltenham and Edinburgh festivals. She has had three shorter books for children published by Barrington Stoke. Fury, in 2008, Hunted in 2009 and Lost in the Desert in 2011. The Tree Devil, for reluctant readers, was published in 2010 by Eprint. A novella for adults, Missing Link, was published in October 2009.
Tanith Lee (born 19 September 1947(1947-09-19)) is a British writer of science fiction, horror and fantasy. She is the author of over 70 novels and 250 short stories, a children's picture book (Animal Castle) and many poems. She also wrote two episodes of BBC science fiction series Blake's 7. She was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award best novel award (also known as the August Derleth Award), for her book Death's Master (1980). She also writes under the pseudonym Esther Garber
Geraldine McCaughrean (pronounced "Muh-cork-run") (born 6 June 1951) is a British children's novelist. The youngest of three children, McCaughrean studied teaching but did not like it, and found her true vocation in writing. She claims that what makes her love writing is the desire to escape from an unsatisfactory world. Her motto is: do not write about what you know, write about what you want to know.
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, (born 31 July 1965), better known as J. K. Rowling, is a British novelist, best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, sold more than 400 million copies to become the best-selling book series in history and been the basis for a popular series of films, in which Rowling had overall approval on the scripts as well as maintaining creative control by serving as a producer on the final instalment. Rowling conceived the idea for the series on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. Rowling has led a "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on social security to multi-millionaire status within five years. As of March 2011, when its latest world billionaires list was published, Forbes estimated Rowling's net worth to be US$1 billion. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in the United Kingdom. Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007, and Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fans. In October 2010, J. K. Rowling was named 'Most Influential Woman in Britain' by leading magazine editors. She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, and Lumos (formerly the Children's High Level Group). On 12 April 2012, Rowling announced that her new adult novel The Casual Vacancy would be published in the UK by Little, Brown & Company on 27 September 2012.
Jessica Rydill is a British fantasy author from the West Country. She was born in 1959. She studied at King's College, Cambridge and the College of Law, working as a solicitor for 13 years. Her travels have provided some of the inspiration for her writing. She was a founder member of the Write Fantastic writers' group together with authors including Juliet E. McKenna and Sarah Ash. Her interests include collecting Asian ball-jointed dolls, Sasha dolls, myth, and East European music. Her short story My Brother Jonathan was short-listed for the Ian St James award in 1999 and she appears in The New Writer magazine Roll of Honour. Her first novel Children of the Shaman was published by Orbit in 2001, and was short-listed for the Locus magazine best first novel in 2002. A sequel, The Glass Mountain, appeared in October 2002. A short story, The Anniversary, was published in an anthology printed by NewCon Press in 2010 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of The Write Fantastic. In 2006, Rydill married Stephen Saunders, a writer and designer. Her sister Sarah Ash, author of the Tears of Artamon trilogy, is also a fantasy novelist.
Jan Siegel is a pseudonym of Amanda Hemingway (born 1955 in London, England). She is a British author of fantasy novels, best known for the Fern Capel series.
Dr. Alison Louise Spedding (born 22 January 1962) is a British anthropologist and fantasy author. Spedding studied Archaeology and Anthropology and later Philosophy at King's College, Cambridge, receiving her BA degree in 1982. She received a PhD from the London School of Economics in 1989. She wrote a trilogy of fantasy novels, set approximately in the time of Alexander the Great. In the novels, Alexander dies, and the female protagonist, Aleizon Ailix Ayndra, goes on to fulfil Alexander's destiny. In 1989, Spedding moved to Bolivia and lectured at San Andres University in La Paz. While there she published the academic work Wachu Wachu. Cultivo de coca e identitad en los Yungas de la Paz (1994) and Kausachun-Coca (2004). She is the author of three novels in Spanish: Manuel y Fortunato. Una picaresca andina (1997), El viento de la cordillera (2001), and the sci-fi, anarcho-feminist novel De cuando en cuando Saturnina (2004). She is also the author of a book of short stories, El tiempo, la distancia, otros amantes (1994) and the play Un gato en el tejar, the latter published under the pseudoym Alicia Céspedes Ballet. In Bolivia she became an outspoken critic of the government's policy of cracking down on peasant coca farmers. In 1998, she was arrested on drug charges, having been found with 2 kg of cannabis in her possession. Although she claimed the cannabis was for personal use, she received a 10 year sentence for trafficking. Academics widely considered the arrest was politically motivated and campaigned for her release. She was released in 2000 on payment of a surety.
Mitzi Szereto is an author, blogger, and web TV entrepreneur. She has written novels and short stories, edited fiction and non-fiction anthologies, has her own blog "Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto's Weblog", and is the creator/presenter of "Mitzi TV," a Web TV channel that covers the quirky side of London, England. Her published books to date have been focused on erotic literature, multi-genre fiction, and fiction and non-fiction anthologies. She has also written under the name M. S. Valentine. She makes a cameo appearance portraying herself in the British mockumentary Lint the Movie. Szereto was born in the United States, but lives in the United Kingdom and has UK Citizenship. She holds erotic writing workshops in the UK and Europe. She appears at book and literature festivals, and gives talks on such topics as social media, women's publishing, and erotic writing. She has performed readings of her work in Europe and the United States.
Freda Warrington is a British author, known for her epic fantasy, vampire and supernatural novels. Four of her novels (Dark Cathedral, Pagan Moon, Dracula the Undead, and The Amber Citadel) have been nominated for the British Fantasy Society's Best Novel award. Dracula the Undead won the Dracula Society's 1997 Children of the Night Award. Her novel, Elfland, won the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award in the Fantasy Novel category for 2009. Warrington has also seen numerous short stories published in anthologies and magazines. Born in Leicester, Warrington grew up in Leicestershire. After completing high school, she trained at the Loughborough College of Art and Design and afterward held a job at the Medical Illustration Department of Leicester Royal Infirmary. She eventually moved to full-time writing, pursuing a love she had had since childhood. In addition to her writing, Warrington works part-time in the Charnwood Forest. Some of her books are set in Leicestershire, such as the recent Aetherial Tales series, depicting the lives, loves and adventures of magical people living hidden in this region, passing for - and sharing many cultural traits with - ordinary English people.
Jane Welch (born 1964) is a writer of fantasy short stories and novels. Jane Welch was born in Derbyshire. After school she worked as a bookseller before going for five years to Soldeu, Andorra in the Pyrenees as a ski teacher. Jane Welch wrote three consecutive Trilogies. The second (The Book of Önd) plays 3 years after the first (Runespell Trilogy) with nearly the same protagonists. The last (The Book of Man) is around 15 years later and is also about the next generation.
Moroccan child forced to marry her rapist
16 year-old Amina Filali was raped, beaten and then later forced to wed her rapist.
The only way she saw to escape this horror and her rapist turned husband was to kill herself.
Article 475 in Morocco’s penal code allows a rapist to avoid prosecution and a long prison sentence by marrying his victim if she is a minor. Since 2006, the Moroccan government has been promising to strike down this law and pass legislation prohibiting violence against women, but it has yet to happen because there hasn't been enough public pressure.
Hundreds of Moroccan protestors have taken to the streets demanding real reform, turning up the heat on the Moroccan Prime Minister and heads of other ministries, but like similar incidents in the past when the bad press dies down it is business as usual.
BUT YOU CAN HELP.
Sign the petition for a comprehensive law to stop violence against women in Morocco, including the repeal of Article 475. When it reaches 250,000 signatures local women's groups in Morocco will deliver it to decision-makers:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/forced_to_marry_her_rapist_b/?vl
Note: By the time I am writing this its already reached 639,000 signatures, so the new goal is 750,000.
When Amina was brutally raped, her family reported it to officials in their town of Larache. Instead of prosecuting the rapist, the court gave him the option of marrying his victim.
The government has issued a statement arguing that the relationship was consensual, but Amina's suicide indicates she was forced to marry him by the local government / police using Article 475. Women’s groups in Morocco have long fought this law, and it's time for the Moroccan legislature to renounce this wicked law and create new laws that protect the safety of women.
WANT TO HELP MORE? SEE THE FOLLOWING WEBSITES:
Morocco protest against rape-marriage law (BBC)
Morocco mulls tougher line against rape-marriages (Al Jazeera)
Protesters in Morocco demand reform of rape laws after teen girl's suicide (CNN)
Morocco: Amina’s parents contradict official account, insist their daughter was raped
Global Rights report on violence against women in Morocco
Facebook Group Page
The only way she saw to escape this horror and her rapist turned husband was to kill herself.
Article 475 in Morocco’s penal code allows a rapist to avoid prosecution and a long prison sentence by marrying his victim if she is a minor. Since 2006, the Moroccan government has been promising to strike down this law and pass legislation prohibiting violence against women, but it has yet to happen because there hasn't been enough public pressure.Hundreds of Moroccan protestors have taken to the streets demanding real reform, turning up the heat on the Moroccan Prime Minister and heads of other ministries, but like similar incidents in the past when the bad press dies down it is business as usual.
BUT YOU CAN HELP.
Sign the petition for a comprehensive law to stop violence against women in Morocco, including the repeal of Article 475. When it reaches 250,000 signatures local women's groups in Morocco will deliver it to decision-makers:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/forced_to_marry_her_rapist_b/?vl
Note: By the time I am writing this its already reached 639,000 signatures, so the new goal is 750,000.
When Amina was brutally raped, her family reported it to officials in their town of Larache. Instead of prosecuting the rapist, the court gave him the option of marrying his victim.
The government has issued a statement arguing that the relationship was consensual, but Amina's suicide indicates she was forced to marry him by the local government / police using Article 475. Women’s groups in Morocco have long fought this law, and it's time for the Moroccan legislature to renounce this wicked law and create new laws that protect the safety of women.
WANT TO HELP MORE? SEE THE FOLLOWING WEBSITES:
Morocco protest against rape-marriage law (BBC)
Morocco mulls tougher line against rape-marriages (Al Jazeera)
Protesters in Morocco demand reform of rape laws after teen girl's suicide (CNN)
Morocco: Amina’s parents contradict official account, insist their daughter was raped
Global Rights report on violence against women in Morocco
Facebook Group Page
Using Women to Sell Guns
FEMINIST - Nothing sells guns and ammo faster than women with guns.
Not to women of course!
To men who apparently have nothing better to do than blow their wad (literally and figuratively) on buying a bigger, more powerful gun.
The reason is obvious. Men are the ones with penis envy.
On the right female Russian soldiers ready their Kalashnikov rifles (also known as AK-47s) at a shooting range during the "Beauty in Epaulets" contest outside Moscow in 2003.
The Beauty in Epaulets is a beauty contest for women in the Russian armed forces. It is really just advertising for the military and to some extent advertising for Russia's most famous gun, the Kalashnikov assault rifle.
On a side topic the Kalashnikov assault rifle is going to be getting a modern redesign. The new model, dubbed the AK-12, will feature a sight and lamp and other detachable features and is part of a nearly $700 billion modernization of Russia’s armed forces.
However the original design by Mikhail Kalashnikov is the most popular assault rifle in history, and has been popular since 1947 (hence the name AK-47). Kalashnikov’s 1947 rifle is easy to use and cheap to manufacture, making it popular with mercenaries and freedom fighters alike. It has been copied many times too, making it the most copied gun in existence. It is estimated that millions of variants have been manufactured in numerous countries.
The AK-47 has become widely used by militias, armed gangs and rebels, and based on the number of deaths it has caused, it’s also known as the world’s most dangerous weapon. The gun can fire 400 rounds per minute and was the weapon of choice for gunmen in the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre, in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia.
In 2002 Mikhail Kalashnikov said that he is proud of his development. But he wished he could have invented something that makes life easier for farmers and regular people. “A lawn mower, for example.”
Now back to my original topic... selling guns using women as sex objects.
It is really no different than other advertising which uses female sexuality as the bait... the only real difference is that guns won't make you lose weight like exercise equipment, won't feed your sugar addiction like junk food, and won't keep you warm like clothing. The only purpose of guns is to kill something.
So the Russian military (or anyone else) using women to sell AK-47s, Colt Carbines, Desert Eagles or any other kind of weapon is really just using sex to sell violence.
Its exploitation of two of mankind's most animalistic emotions: Sex and Violence.
It is also metaphorical. Guns are very phallic based on their shape and design. There is no shortage of innuendos either.
I imagine (just a hunch) there is no shortage of men out there who like to strut around half naked with a gun in their hand. It becomes an extension of their penis envy and their ego.
And you can pretty much guarantee that the bigger the gun fanatic the more likely they are trying to compensate for something.
Ergo, most men who buy guns have small penises... therefore women in gun advertising is really like shooting fish in a barrel. Pun intended.
Men have basically just fallen prey to the most basic principle of pop psychology: Sex Sells.
Especially to men with small penises.
Not to women of course!
To men who apparently have nothing better to do than blow their wad (literally and figuratively) on buying a bigger, more powerful gun.
The reason is obvious. Men are the ones with penis envy.On the right female Russian soldiers ready their Kalashnikov rifles (also known as AK-47s) at a shooting range during the "Beauty in Epaulets" contest outside Moscow in 2003.
The Beauty in Epaulets is a beauty contest for women in the Russian armed forces. It is really just advertising for the military and to some extent advertising for Russia's most famous gun, the Kalashnikov assault rifle.
On a side topic the Kalashnikov assault rifle is going to be getting a modern redesign. The new model, dubbed the AK-12, will feature a sight and lamp and other detachable features and is part of a nearly $700 billion modernization of Russia’s armed forces.
However the original design by Mikhail Kalashnikov is the most popular assault rifle in history, and has been popular since 1947 (hence the name AK-47). Kalashnikov’s 1947 rifle is easy to use and cheap to manufacture, making it popular with mercenaries and freedom fighters alike. It has been copied many times too, making it the most copied gun in existence. It is estimated that millions of variants have been manufactured in numerous countries.
The AK-47 has become widely used by militias, armed gangs and rebels, and based on the number of deaths it has caused, it’s also known as the world’s most dangerous weapon. The gun can fire 400 rounds per minute and was the weapon of choice for gunmen in the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre, in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia.
In 2002 Mikhail Kalashnikov said that he is proud of his development. But he wished he could have invented something that makes life easier for farmers and regular people. “A lawn mower, for example.”
Now back to my original topic... selling guns using women as sex objects.
It is really no different than other advertising which uses female sexuality as the bait... the only real difference is that guns won't make you lose weight like exercise equipment, won't feed your sugar addiction like junk food, and won't keep you warm like clothing. The only purpose of guns is to kill something.
So the Russian military (or anyone else) using women to sell AK-47s, Colt Carbines, Desert Eagles or any other kind of weapon is really just using sex to sell violence.
Its exploitation of two of mankind's most animalistic emotions: Sex and Violence.
It is also metaphorical. Guns are very phallic based on their shape and design. There is no shortage of innuendos either.
I imagine (just a hunch) there is no shortage of men out there who like to strut around half naked with a gun in their hand. It becomes an extension of their penis envy and their ego.
And you can pretty much guarantee that the bigger the gun fanatic the more likely they are trying to compensate for something.
Ergo, most men who buy guns have small penises... therefore women in gun advertising is really like shooting fish in a barrel. Pun intended.
Men have basically just fallen prey to the most basic principle of pop psychology: Sex Sells.
Especially to men with small penises.
Native Girl in Wisconsin singled out in Catholic School
By Suzanne MacNevin - Chemistry Teacher.
RELIGION - Catholic schools are not exactly known for their tolerance and understanding, especially with respect to women and other cultures. As someone who has taught previously at Catholic schools I have a voice on this topic.
In January Grade 7 student Miranda Washinawatok, who will turn 13 at the end of March, was teaching her friends how to say several phrases in her native tongue Menominee. Miranda lives in Shawno in northeastern Wisconsin, just south of the Menominee Indian Reservation. (You would think people there would be used to hearing the language.)
Three little phrases in particular: I love you, hello, and thank you.
Nothing complex and completely innocent.
She spoke the words in Menominee and then translated for her friends.
However Miranda Washinawatok was reprimanded for speaking in Menominee by her teacher, Julie Gurta, who slammed her hands down on her desk and said she wasn’t supposed to be speaking Menominee because how would she know if Miranda was saying something bad.
Julie Gurta then reportedly asked Miranda: How would you like it if I spoke Polish and you didn’t understand?
During the next class Miranda was singled out and intimidated by the teacher who had apparently heard of the incident. Later the same day Miranda was benched rather than playing in that night’s parent recognition basketball game. When her mother picked her up after practice, Miranda told her mother she had been benched “for attitude issues.”
But when her mother, Tanaes Washinawatok, investigated school officials would not explain why her daughter wasn’t allowed to play in the game. None of them would give a straight answer and kept passing the buck.
The head coach claims he didn’t know anything about the decision to bench Miranda, and he should know, he is the coach. Neither did the assistant coach, the teacher and the principal would say who made the decision to punish the student.
“I was disappointed the faculty wouldn’t give me clear answers and kept passing the blame back and forth,” says Tanaes Washinawatok.
After the incident Washinawatok and a family elder, Richie Plass, who works across the United States on issues of racism, stereotyping and intolerance, met with school officials and representatives from the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay.
Plass well knows the sting of racism and is a veritable expert on the topic. In 1968 he was president of the senior class at his high school in 1968 when the principal asked him to be the mascot for the Shawno Indians basketball team. The memory of being a mascot still haunts him. “There is no honour at being laughed at, having food thrown at you and spat at,” he says.
“What’s become apparent to a lot of people in the diocese and the decision-makers especially is how much their staff and people flat-out don’t know when it comes to our culture. With this issue — and we don’t know what happened before now — to me I don’t think it was racist. I think it was ignorance. It’s ignorance and a form of intolerance,” says Plass.
The Diocese of Green Bay is now in full blown damage control and claims it now plans to begin a cultural and educational sensitivity training program about the native nations within the diocese later in 2012.
Julie Gurta, director of education Dr. Joseph Bound, assistant girls’ basketball coach Billie Jo DeQuaine and principal Dan Minter were all asked to write letters of apology.
The letters from the coach, principal and director were deeply apologetic, asking for the family’s forgiveness.
But Julie Gurta's letter wasn't really an apology, but instead blamed everything on Miranda and tried to justify her actions.
Gurta wrote: “In an academic setting, a student must be respectful of all of the other students — language and behaviour that creates a possibility of elitism, or simply excludes other students, can create or increase racial and cultural tensions ... My firm reactions to the behaviours of Miranda and the other two girls were not to single out Miranda or her Native language. Rather, disciplinary actions were taken in response to the disrespectful comments and behaviours exhibited by Miranda over the course of the entire day. Unfortunately, the actions of your daughter were not brought to your attention as quickly as they should have been, and for this I apologize.”
See what I mean? She claims it wasn't brought to her attention? Julie Gurta was the one who did the misdeed! There is nothing wrong with speaking in other languages. Elitism? Pfff. It was cultural elitism which led Julie Gurta to be such an ignorant b*tch in the first place.
Tanaes Washinawatok is now demanding that Julie Gurta be fired for her lack of a sincere and real apology and is asking the director not to renew her contract.
“The teacher’s letter is totally unacceptable,” says Tanaes. “It places blame on Miranda, saying there were several occasions of disrespectfulness and rude behaviour. This was all new to me. She had ample opportunity to notify me that this happened. I feel in this 11th hour, when we’re bringing closure to the incident, she wants to take away from the seriousness of her own actions.”
Claiming bad behaviour on the part of the student after the fact when its the teacher who has been caught doing something wrong just sounds like lies and hogwash to me.
As a chemistry teacher I've been teaching students in Britain and Canada for almost 10 years. If myself or a colleague did something like that our *ss would be out the door so fast it wouldn't be funny.
Principal Minter is refusing to speak to the media on the topic of whether Julie Gurta will be fired.
When I was younger we had a problem with an English teacher once. She slapped a student for misbehaviour.
And by misbehaviour I mean he basically told her to take a hike.
The teacher later tried to apologize for her act and keep her job, but she was gone the very next day. Never to return.
But here is the thing. The student she slapped was Metis (half Native Canadian).
Now does it really matter whether the student was caucasian, Metis, Indian, African, Asian or mixed? No. It doesn't.
Doesn't matter whether the student was male or female either.
The short answer is YOU NEVER HIT A STUDENT.
And what is also true is YOU NEVER TAUNT, BELITTLE OR UNDULY PUNISH A STUDENT.
It is basically an unwritten code and Julie Gurta should know better.
And trying to lie and claim it was the student's fault? Especially when the teachers and staff were running around, passing the buck and changing their stories? That just proves that something wrong went down and they all know it.
Julie Gurta deserves to be fired and never allowed to teach again. End of story.
RELIGION - Catholic schools are not exactly known for their tolerance and understanding, especially with respect to women and other cultures. As someone who has taught previously at Catholic schools I have a voice on this topic.
In January Grade 7 student Miranda Washinawatok, who will turn 13 at the end of March, was teaching her friends how to say several phrases in her native tongue Menominee. Miranda lives in Shawno in northeastern Wisconsin, just south of the Menominee Indian Reservation. (You would think people there would be used to hearing the language.)Three little phrases in particular: I love you, hello, and thank you.
Nothing complex and completely innocent.
She spoke the words in Menominee and then translated for her friends.
However Miranda Washinawatok was reprimanded for speaking in Menominee by her teacher, Julie Gurta, who slammed her hands down on her desk and said she wasn’t supposed to be speaking Menominee because how would she know if Miranda was saying something bad.
Julie Gurta then reportedly asked Miranda: How would you like it if I spoke Polish and you didn’t understand?
During the next class Miranda was singled out and intimidated by the teacher who had apparently heard of the incident. Later the same day Miranda was benched rather than playing in that night’s parent recognition basketball game. When her mother picked her up after practice, Miranda told her mother she had been benched “for attitude issues.”
But when her mother, Tanaes Washinawatok, investigated school officials would not explain why her daughter wasn’t allowed to play in the game. None of them would give a straight answer and kept passing the buck.
The head coach claims he didn’t know anything about the decision to bench Miranda, and he should know, he is the coach. Neither did the assistant coach, the teacher and the principal would say who made the decision to punish the student.
“I was disappointed the faculty wouldn’t give me clear answers and kept passing the blame back and forth,” says Tanaes Washinawatok.
After the incident Washinawatok and a family elder, Richie Plass, who works across the United States on issues of racism, stereotyping and intolerance, met with school officials and representatives from the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay.
Plass well knows the sting of racism and is a veritable expert on the topic. In 1968 he was president of the senior class at his high school in 1968 when the principal asked him to be the mascot for the Shawno Indians basketball team. The memory of being a mascot still haunts him. “There is no honour at being laughed at, having food thrown at you and spat at,” he says.
“What’s become apparent to a lot of people in the diocese and the decision-makers especially is how much their staff and people flat-out don’t know when it comes to our culture. With this issue — and we don’t know what happened before now — to me I don’t think it was racist. I think it was ignorance. It’s ignorance and a form of intolerance,” says Plass.
The Diocese of Green Bay is now in full blown damage control and claims it now plans to begin a cultural and educational sensitivity training program about the native nations within the diocese later in 2012.
Julie Gurta, director of education Dr. Joseph Bound, assistant girls’ basketball coach Billie Jo DeQuaine and principal Dan Minter were all asked to write letters of apology.
The letters from the coach, principal and director were deeply apologetic, asking for the family’s forgiveness.
But Julie Gurta's letter wasn't really an apology, but instead blamed everything on Miranda and tried to justify her actions.
Gurta wrote: “In an academic setting, a student must be respectful of all of the other students — language and behaviour that creates a possibility of elitism, or simply excludes other students, can create or increase racial and cultural tensions ... My firm reactions to the behaviours of Miranda and the other two girls were not to single out Miranda or her Native language. Rather, disciplinary actions were taken in response to the disrespectful comments and behaviours exhibited by Miranda over the course of the entire day. Unfortunately, the actions of your daughter were not brought to your attention as quickly as they should have been, and for this I apologize.”
See what I mean? She claims it wasn't brought to her attention? Julie Gurta was the one who did the misdeed! There is nothing wrong with speaking in other languages. Elitism? Pfff. It was cultural elitism which led Julie Gurta to be such an ignorant b*tch in the first place.
Tanaes Washinawatok is now demanding that Julie Gurta be fired for her lack of a sincere and real apology and is asking the director not to renew her contract.
“The teacher’s letter is totally unacceptable,” says Tanaes. “It places blame on Miranda, saying there were several occasions of disrespectfulness and rude behaviour. This was all new to me. She had ample opportunity to notify me that this happened. I feel in this 11th hour, when we’re bringing closure to the incident, she wants to take away from the seriousness of her own actions.”
Claiming bad behaviour on the part of the student after the fact when its the teacher who has been caught doing something wrong just sounds like lies and hogwash to me.
As a chemistry teacher I've been teaching students in Britain and Canada for almost 10 years. If myself or a colleague did something like that our *ss would be out the door so fast it wouldn't be funny.
Principal Minter is refusing to speak to the media on the topic of whether Julie Gurta will be fired.
When I was younger we had a problem with an English teacher once. She slapped a student for misbehaviour.
And by misbehaviour I mean he basically told her to take a hike.
The teacher later tried to apologize for her act and keep her job, but she was gone the very next day. Never to return.
But here is the thing. The student she slapped was Metis (half Native Canadian).
Now does it really matter whether the student was caucasian, Metis, Indian, African, Asian or mixed? No. It doesn't.
Doesn't matter whether the student was male or female either.
The short answer is YOU NEVER HIT A STUDENT.
And what is also true is YOU NEVER TAUNT, BELITTLE OR UNDULY PUNISH A STUDENT.
It is basically an unwritten code and Julie Gurta should know better.
And trying to lie and claim it was the student's fault? Especially when the teachers and staff were running around, passing the buck and changing their stories? That just proves that something wrong went down and they all know it.
Julie Gurta deserves to be fired and never allowed to teach again. End of story.
Feminist Quotes about Truth and Justice
"The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off." - Gloria Steinem."Law and justice are not always the same. When they aren't, destroying the law may be the first step toward changing it." - Gloria Steinem.
"We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever." — Susan B. Anthony, Declaration of Rights for Women, July 1876
"My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong." — Mother Jones.
I also want to include this one just because its funny:
"If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?" - Gloria Steinem.
See 1001 Feminist Quotes for more.
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