so shelly mazzanoble was interviewed recently, & there were some things brought up that i sort of mulled over myself. see, shelly wrote confessions of a part-time sorceress: a girl's guide to the dungeons & dragons game, which, as you can probably tell from the title, is all about introducing the hobby to potential female gamers. i'm all about it. the more rolling the bones, the better. i say rolling the bones, but largely out of a joyful sense of geeky camaraderie, 'cause i'm all about the post-modern storytelling aspect of the thing, in the most pretentious way possible. okay, but back to the article, & what it addresses. there is mention of a feminist back-lash, & i have to sort of think about that. because the hairs on the back of my neck were raised in a few places. it isn't that it is "girly-girl." i'm not saying your can't femme it up; go ahead! make it pink! throw in tons of shopping references! fine. but see, that sort of gets away from girl's guide & towards, well girly girl's guide. which is what i'd rather it was called. maybe that isn't the best marketing play, though. there are, in some places, an implicit assumption that girls are, well..."girly." which i don't jive to. apart from statements like women are natural story-tellers, or whatever. i don't like it when pop wisdom is dropped like it is evolutionary psychology. that might be my issue, but it might be an issue others share. teeth were gritted. all that said, i really liked the book. if i wanted to get a girly-girl (what a weird phrase to bandy about, as though it meant something. it must though, right? you know what i mean when i say it, right?) to understand the game, i'd give it to her. i find miz mazzanoble, who i met at book expo, to be charming & engaging. so i'm not throwing shade. it was something that was on my mind as i read, though, & seeing it brought up in the above article made me think about it.in other news, our pitch to fix heroes involves caveman jesus & space dragons.
