My first book, The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction was originally my PhD thesis. It’s no exaggeration to say that researching and writing this book completely changed my life. Through it I met my husband, made many dear, dear friends and ended up becoming a freelance writer rather than an academic.
The book emerged from many years of research in dusty archives and smoky bars in Australia, Canada and the USA (almost all those bars are now smoke-free—Ah! The glories of progress). Before beginning this research I’d read hardly any science fiction written before the late 1970s, now Cyril Kornbluth, Alfred Bester and Pamela Zoline are some of my favourite writers.
Nor had I attended any conventions. Now I’m a WisCon regular and wish I could get to the Australian National Science Fiction Convention, ReaderCon, World Fantasy and WorldCon more often. (Not to mention all the great conventions I’ve never attended.)
Battle of the Sexes has been amazingly well-received, widely reviewed and was shortlisted for the Peter McNamara Convenors’ Award, the William J. Atheling Award and the Hugo for Best Related Book. It was listed by Locus as one of the 15 Top SF and Fantasy Anthologies, Collections, Non fiction books, and Art books of 2002 and was an editor’s pick at Fantastic Metropolis.