Nicola Griffith

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• Commented on Some notes on the worst-case scenario
  Hey, Charlie, you forgot 'able-bodied.' The hammer often falls on crips first....
• Commented on Policy change: future US visits
  You actually don't know what I think. Or the research I've done. Nowhere is particularly safe right now. As for resisting fascism as a member of many vulnerable groups I feel perfectly comfortable with the notion of fighting from a...
• Commented on Policy change: future US visits
  I'm a dual US/UK citizen in Seattle. I'm seriously considering Canada......
• Commented on The present in deep history
  A lot of earlier birth control didn't, IMO, work that well, and the abortifacients could be dangerous (and also unreliable). Gender relations are a historically cyclical thing but with reliable birth control women have a fighting chance to break the...
• Commented on The present in deep history
  I'd go for sewage treatment and birth control....
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  I hear you. Any protagonist who has transitioned and identifies as a woman or man is a woman or man, not 'Unsure.' Unsure just meant, Blimey, I've no idea how to label that! E.g. an AI in a human body...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  Adrian, yes. Start simple and build. That's my plan (insofar as I have a plan.). We do have a data journalist in the group, though, so, hmmm......
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  Ashley, I'm jealous of the wines :) I hear you on data, statistics, and hypotheses. Thank you. My (self-appointed) job is to point things out and say, "This looks as though it could be a problem," then step back while...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  Gordy, that looks like an incredibly useful tool, thank you!...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  Our group has been looking at another award set, this time in more depth—longlist, shortlist, winners of the last 15 years—and I'm seeing a pronounced and progressive winnowing of women's voices at each level. I'd love to produce an infographic...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  Thanks for that quote. I wasn't familiar with it, but that's certainly the sense I took away from the novel....
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  I have admired that Minard chart since I first came across it more than 20 years ago. I just wish I could make something like that myself....
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  Gnod and Amazon API... You have officially blown my mind wide open. Give me a few hours to wrap my head around this......
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  I still think pie charts are useful when the disparities are so huge as to be easily discernible. But enough people have sighed at them that I'm beginning to get the message :) We're also putting together a database and...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  The ISBN tip is a good one, thank you....
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  The business changed. A flurry of corporate consolidation led to scarcity: of publishing slots, places at the front of store, independent bookshop buyers, review slots in broadsheets, etc. I don't have data for this but (I really should make a...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  None of the novels you mention fit the stated parameters: Hugo award-winning novels 2000 - 2014. But if it would amuse you to blow holes in pie charts then, hey, have fun!...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  Don, we have some preliminary numbers on the Edgars but haven't yet translated that into graphics--partly because as say in #134, I think we can do better than pie charts :)...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  Susan, sadly this skewing seems to obtain for many genres. My approach is to assemble enough numbers that the skewing is documented (and we can compare and contrast genres if desirable). And then start to experiment and see what makes...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  Your data, despite the shouting of some, seem to support your supposition that stories about men are more likely to win awards than stories about women. Your sectioning for your pie charts doesn't make that the most obvious thing, but...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  I'm doubtful about the quality of the awards data as a representative sample and have made a number of suggestions for expanding the data set to get better data, as have others. (BTW Nicola and Eric, feel free to use...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  I'm not sure how clear my post here was, so a clarification: I worry about the relative lack of women's voices. That is, stories written by women about women. Stories help us empathise (there's a lot of research e.g. this)....
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  SFWA is interesting: I would be curious to know what the international demographic is (English speaking or otherwise). At some point I'd love to talk to SFWA about what kind of data they do/n't have. I think it would prove...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  Interesting results about the Hugo winners. At this stage they don't show whether the bias is at the Hugo selection stage, the publishing stage, or the submission stage. Teasing that out will require more data, which will take a lot...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  Thanks, all, for the thoughtful comments so far. I have a morning full of appointments but I should be back in a few hours to respond properly. Meanwhile, Eric, the compiler of the interesting Hugo running average data, might step...
• Posted Data, books, and bias to Charlie's Diary
  In May, I posted on my blog brightly-coloured pie charts presenting some data about literary awards. They weren't the most gorgeous graphics ever, but they conveyed my point: that the more prestigious the prize, the more likely the subject of...
• Commented on Wag that puppy
  @erebung I've read them. They can be fun but nope, not even remotely realistic fighting. In my opinion....
• Commented on Martial arts and the cycle of bullshit
  Eh, some of them are :) But some, not so much......
• Commented on DO YOU 'LIKE' THE SUN? The Content Casino vs. the Long Game
  Marketing. I've just written an essay about that and have the sinking feeling that it might be the first of a short series. (Heavy sigh...) I'm one of those who chose to follow Path 2: few but focused. Cash flow...
• Commented on Martial arts and the cycle of bullshit
  I liked this post a lot! Thank you. (I studied martial arts then studied and taught women's self-defence for years.) I was nodding all the way through. But what really caught my eye was: You have someone teaching you (allegedly)...