FEMSPEC
An interdisciplinary feminist journal dedicated to science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, surrealism, myth, folklore, and other supernatural genres.
Femspec Books and Productions
Femspec Books and Productions is the publishing imprint of Femspec, the renowned academic journal. We publish feminist works of criticism, poetry, science fiction, fantasy, surrealism, magical realism, speculative fiction, and other genres of relevance to our mission.
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Why are feminist science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, magical realism, surrealism, myth, and other supernatural genres so important?
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Because we still live in a patriarchal world and the stories we tell ourselves daily about our reality continues to reinforce this paradigm. Even as some women are making their way up the corporate and political ladders, both men and women still play into a dynamic that gives power to the dominant status quo.
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In order to revision a different future, we need stories that feed our imagination, our psyches and our hearts with a different paradigm. All of the above genres break up the mold. At Femspec, we would even be so bold to say that feminism cannot exist if we didn't have new myths and stories that reinvent, revision, and explore all the possibilities of our world both as dystopias to warn, and utopias to dream.
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Without new stories women will never be able to hold their place with equal partnership among men and hold joint responsibility for the destiny of humankind. We need these feminist stories, now more than ever, in these very scary changing times.
Available for Purchase
Using Palmistry to Change Your Life. A CD by Batya Weinbaum, PhD. $15.00
A writer since the 70s, Batya started channeling when writing fiction. She studied mediumship at Lilydale and was initiated into palmistry by a Czech Roma in Tepotzlan, MX (where Keroauc wrote) in 1990 and has since been studying palmistry worldwide. Her basic premise espoused here is that the beliefs most people hold about palmistry are based on superstition and derived from a negative veneer painted over the practices of wise women similar to what happened to witches and midwives during the Burning Times.
Opening Palms Third Edition. Batya Weinbaum, 2019. $15.00
Batya Weinbaum wrote a column based on her innovative, transformative approach to palmistry in the Santa Barbara Independent between Feb 5, 2007 and May 23, 2008. This third edition of a collection of those columns and then some including travels interviewing Hindu palmists in India. An appendix is included on palmistry in the Judeo-Christian traditions. 142 pages.
Opening Palms Vol II. Batya Weinbaum, 2013. $20.00
Picking up her Independent column again in 2001-2012, this collection continues Batya's journey on the "palmist's road" interviewing palmists and reading palms in Mexico, Argentina, and India again, where she also visits a face reader. Along the way she interviews a television palm reader, a confused seeker, street vendors, queer tango dancers, and many more exploring topics such as the meaning of circles on heart lines and the colllision of astrology and palmistry. 196 pages.
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New Sun Tarot. Batya Weinbaum. $60.00
NEW SUN TAROT is a 78 card tarot deck made from original art by Dr. Weinbaum on the theme of the free spirit of the inner child. Each card has written words of interpretation so ideal for beginners. For more sample images see the Tarot Art tab at goddessvibe.org.
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About this Deck:
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I love the deck’s size … perfect for traveling (not that I travel much) and perfect for smallish hands like mine. Most decks are oversized … And the whimsical drawings are light and cool. Plus having key words written on the cards is ingenious. I’ve been reading tarot on and off since college (52 years ago) and I still have a difficulty remembering what the cards signify!So great idea. Congrats on this original Tarot deck.
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—Charlot Redor
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Toward Utopia: Feminist Dystopain Writing and Religious Fundamentalism in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Louise Marley's The Terrorists of Irustan, and Marge Piercy's He, She and It. Naomi Mercer. $24.95
Mercer contends that feminist utopian and dystopian writing transgresses not only genre but also master narratives of Western culture by examining and warning against religious fundamentalism and theocratic governance. Mercer's book brings to our awareness how religious themes have been left out of the narrative of science fiction when religious archetypes are the underlying control mechanism of patriarchal technological civilization. She points out that feminist utopias and dystopias are not just written for fictional pleasure, but as texts to guide us on the path to a fairer society that honors the wisdom and power of women. 224 pages.
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Making Meaning: A Memoir by Batya Weinbaum.
$30 (domestic), $40 (international)
A glimpse into the book:
When packing out of Amazonia, at that time my home for 24 years in Cleveland Heights, OH, I thought about writing a memoir. By the time I had climbed halfway up my mosaiced stairs, an art project I had finished during Covid, I had talked my 71 year old version of myself out of the project—who would read the story of my life? A midwestern childhood in a small town in the fifties? Teenage years in the sixties? A front-line view of the women’s liberation movement
of the seventies? Life off the grid pursuing a musical career in the eighties? Single motherhood and academia in the nineties? Founding and keeping up a radical feminist journal for 25 years? Having started a memoir many times, I got hung up on the same issue. What about the times of which I was ashamed?
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About the author:
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Batya is a super talented multi disciplinary artist. She has travelled and spent time making art around the world from India to Mexico and all over the USA. She also edits Femspec a journal she is actively worked at for some years and reads her work at festivals and open mic sessions. She has travelled as far as Leeds my home town in England. Bayta is involved in many artistic communities and a popular face at festivals where she gives tarot, psychic readings and makes art. She has a number of books she has published and she also teaches. She is an artist I admire hugely and has immense energy and continues to explore her creativity.
—Ansuya Patel
Domestic rate: $30
International rate: $40