Joanna Russ (1937-2011)

I found out recently that on April 29, Joanna Russ died.  Joanna was an amazing science fiction author, and a woman who used science fiction in part as a way to work through her feminist politics.  She's probably best known for her novel The Female Man, but Conseula and I were interested in her because she was the first person to write a feminist assessment of slash fiction, her 1985 essay, “Pornography By Women For Women, With Love."  As some of you will remember, Conseula and I flew to Tucson in 2007 to interview Joanna, and in March (2011) our interview was published in the Journal of Popular Romance Studies.

In the time since we interviewed her, Conseula and I have both been pen pals of Joanna's, enjoying the chatty letters she typed (on a typewriter!) and sent us, and in return sending her gossipy letters of our own along with pictures of our families (she always asked about our kids).

I'm really sorry she's gone. 

Thanks to the bloggers at Teach Me Tonight for their shout-out to Conseula's and my interview in their post about Joanna's death.