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Culture Shift is a weekly newsletter curated by the HuffPost Culture writers and editors.

This week we're talking about women who write sci-fi, a transgender artist channeling her mother, the book about sex that doesn't talk down, what a robot learned after binge-reading romance novels, the feminist artist who wants you to love your body hair, a photo series dedicated to African women and their ancestors, and the beach bods of art history (spoiler: yes, all bodies are beach bodies).

Women Sci-Fi Writers Are Reaching New Heights, In Spite Of Prejudice

Earlier this week, a rousing headline shot at warp-speed across browsers and Twitter feeds: Women Swept The 2015 Nebula Awards, taking home the prestigious science-fiction and fantasy prizes in the categories of Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story and Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy work.

The news might've come as a surprise to — or, at least, to the chagrin of — a boisterous group of science fiction writers and fans who've taken up the cause of restoring the genre to its tenants of yore: lighthearted adventure that's sleek, zippy, fun, and — oh yeah — comprised of shelves' worth of white male writers.

The ostensible platform of the Sad and Rabid Puppies, whose name is meant to mock heartfelt liberalism, is meant to support action stories sans political or moral message. And the cost? Last year, they rigged the voting for a similarly lauded set of prizes, the Hugo Awards, favoring white male writers and effectively quelling women and authors of color. Unlike the Nebulas — which are voted on by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, an organization comprised not just of writers but editors and publishers — the Hugos are controlled by readers, so the Puppies were able to leave their mark.

They didn't succeed entirely. The categories they stocked with their own nominees received "No Award" due to voters rejecting their white male nominees. But for writers whose books were unfairly overlooked, the damage was done.

This year, the conversation howls on, especially in light of the woman-centered Nebula slate. Nnedi Okorafor, who won for her novella Binti, an interstellar story about a girl who leaves her people to attend the prestigious Oomza University, worlds away from her home, says she's thankful that issues of prejudice in the industry are being discussed.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Okorafor said, "Honestly, I love hearing people arguing out in the open, not hidden away in their own echo chambers. That's what I want to see more of: Dialogue." (Read more here)

Artist Vivek Shraya Channels Her Mother In Stunning Recreated Photos

"My story has always been bound to your prayer to have two boys," artist Vivek Shraya writes in an essay titled "Trisha."

"Maybe it was because of the ways you felt weighed down as a young girl, or the ways you felt you weighed down your mother by being a girl," Shraya continues. "Maybe it was because of the ways being a wife changed you. Maybe it was all the above, and also just being a girl in a world that is intent on crushing women. So you prayed to a god you can't remember for two sons and you got me."

Shraya wrote the essay to accompany her photography project, also dubbed "Trisha," a nod to her mother's affection for the name. If she'd had a girl, Shraya notes, her mother would have named her Tricia.

In the photos, the transgender artist recreates old images of her mother with herself as the subject, wearing clothing and occupying spaces similar to the wardrobe and settings featured in her mom's vintage shots. "While I have been transitioning, I see so much of my mother in my face," Shraya explained to The Huffington Post. "The idea for this project came from wanting to capture this similarity."(Read more here)

A Book About Sex That Doesn't Talk Down To You

The epigraph for Action: A Book About Sex comes from St. Augustine of Hippo's Confessions: "Love, and do what you will." On the next page, author Amy Rose Spiegel explains her connection to this philosophy, and one other tenet Augustine held dear: "the pursuit of sex."

This combination of ideas — starting with love and kindness while maintaining a focus on sexuality — is an apt beginning. The Action chapters that follow offer a singular exploration of what it means to be a human who has sex, with how-to sections that cover everything from hand-job techniques to boosting self-confidence and surrounding oneself with a life they love.

Spiegel inserts her own narrative within the instruction, which makes the book less like a textbook and more like it's a long, handwritten letter covered in cool stickers from a best friend or older sister. Throughout, Spiegel remains thoughtful, informative and sensitive, writing in a way that invites any reader, regardless of gender identity or sexuality, to take part. (Read more here)

Feminist Photographer Wants Women To Love Their Bodies, Hair And All

Most women have, at some point in their lives, looked in the mirror, isolated a specific "troublesome" body part, and prayed for divine intervention. Loving your body doesn't come easily, especially in a culture that conditions young women to shrink, primp and smooth their parts until every hair, bump, wrinkle, and other wayward sign of being a living, breathing human being has been blurred or eliminated.

Photographer Ashley Armitage, for one, has had enough. Enough of patriarchal culture capitalizing on women's insecurities. Enough of the mainstream media — and history of art — churning out images of bodies too perfect to occur in real life. Enough of women deeming themselves less than for happily inhabiting the skin they're in. (Read more here)

Here's What A Robot Learned After Binge-Reading Romance Novels

Romance novels aren't known for their fresh metaphors. The genre is meant to be palatable and easy to enjoy even if your critical thinking skills are disengaged. Not that there's anything decidedly unsexy about a knotty metaphor (Ha! Ha!) — it's just that parsing out the symbolism of an hour-long thunderstorm won't get the job done as quickly as, say, comparing a woman's "deep gaze" to the "midnight sky."

So if you're looking to spruce up your language use, adorning it with novel comparisons, romance novels might not be the best place to start. But Google, hoping to elevate the conversational skills of its Artificial Intelligence, thought otherwise. (Read more here)

Modern African Women Don Their Ancestors' Clothing, Because The Past Matters

"Resilience is the ability to return to the original form after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity," photographer Joana Choumali told The Huffington Post."The ability to recover readily from adversity."

This idea of strength in plasticity is at the core of Choumali's photography series "Resilients." The concept was inspired by her grandmother, who passed away two years ago. The artist realized upon her grandmother's passing just how much of her story had gone with her.

She resolved to embark on a project that would document young, contemporary African women and their relationships to past generations. Through the photos, Choumali hoped to convey that the past is never truly lost. "I was hoping to convey the fact that African women mutate through the generations while remaining anchored to their roots and traditions, able to remain true to themselves, just like the earth from which they came," she said. "Elasticity that turns into resilience." (Read more here)

These 28 Nudes Are Here To Assure You Every Body Is A Beach Body