Part of my commitment to stop ignoring my poor blog and get on livening things up around here is a reassessment of some design aspects of the blog, including ads. Currently there are three places I’d marked for ads: the top left, lower down on the right, and the bottom of the RSS feed. The later two are Project Wonderful ads, the first one is from BlogHer.

For various reasons, I’ve decided to drop Project Wonderful. I think it’s a great idea, but for this blog we weren’t really making enough money from it to justify the space it took up. The BlogHer spot brings in more money. But since the code there is a little nanky, I don’t want to put two on every page. I’m taking ads off the feeds completely since they didn’t do much for anyone, anyway.

Instead of a Project Wonderful ad, I’m going to sell space on the right sidebar directly. Rates will be low, ad design will be subject to my approval, and at least some of the time I will offer the space for no charge to causes, non-profits, etc. My goal is to place ads that I think will interest readers, not annoy anyone, and won’t make you run for the hills instead of visiting the site.

Hopefully this arrangement will work out for everyone. But if you have any issues or questions or comments on the state of ads here, please let me know in comments.

Here’s the page that describes the advertising scheme in-depth.

Ads on the ABW -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t been around much, lately. Life stuff, work stuff, you know the drill. But this weekend at the WisCon feminist SF convention I and the other Angry Black Women promised unusualmusic that we would return from our life implosion-based quietness and begin contributing again. Not that she hasn’t been doing a fabulous job here. I don’t tell her enough how much I appreciate her hard work.

So, the first step on my end is to get back into reading blogs again on a regular basis. But since I’ve been out of the habit I only have a few core blogs on my list when I know that I used to read more. Plus there are new blogs that I haven’t come across but I’m sure are wonderful. So I’m humbly asking for your suggestions.

Tell me what blogs you read and enjoy or that make you think or even that make you angry. I’m looking to add blogs that deal with race and/or gender, but those blogs don’t have to be political (often they are, but it’s not a requirement). Group blogs, individual bloggers, the whole gamut. And, of course, political blogs. Also, art, music, or writing blogs by people of color and/or women.

Leave suggestions in the comments, and don’t be afraid to suggest your own blog. There’s nothing wrong with self-promotion!

What Blogs Should I Read? -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

As I am about to embark on my Great West Coast Adventure (starting with a three day cross-country train to Vancouver, would you believe it), I must bid farewell to the ABW. It’s been an educational experience, to say the least. I don’t know if I really have the constitution for regular blogging, but it was a privilege to get to write about issues that are important to me, and engage with all sorts of readers and fans and curious individuals about them.

If you have found this blog (and my posts about the POC!Bechdel test and Supernatural) though external links, a few things of note. I am not the Angry Black Woman. The Angry Black Woman is a friend of mine and asked me to guest post on her blog. I was happy to do so and I’m grateful to her for giving me this opportunity. My name is Alaya Dawn Johnson, I’m a writer of speculative fiction, and you can find out more about me on my website.

If you happen to be based out in LA, you can catch up with me on October 4th at the West Hollywood Book Fair, where I will be presenting on an all-star panel about vampire fiction (my book MOONSHINE, which is coming out in February, is a 1920s vampire novel).

Otherwise and in any case, my thanks for all your thoughts, opinions and perspectives and maybe we’ll see each other again later.

so long, and thanks! -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Hello, ABW readers!

I’m Alaya, as the Angry Black Woman already said, and though I read plenty of blogs, I don’t blog myself. I hope to make the most of this opportunity!

Here’s some of what particularly interests me:

• Literature, in pretty much all genres (I write fantasy and science fiction, mostly, but I will read almost anything). I have this wacky idea that perhaps one of the things I will do is re-read, or read for the first time, a lot of those classics of African American literature that most of us encountered in high school or college: Their Eyes Were Watching God, Beloved, Invisible Man, The Color Purple, Go Tell It on the Mountain, Native Son. If you have other suggestions, let me know in the comments.

• Television, but only certain shows. I don’t watch very much, but when I do, the obsession flower has its full bloom. Past favorites include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Veronica Mars and X-Files. My current obsession is Supernatural (and I will argue with all comers about how good it is). Being a socially conscious person pretty much guarantees that I find some aspects of all these shows problematic (and I’ll probably post about why), but each of them has enough stuff that I love to make me overlook the questionable decisions.

• Japan. I majored in East Asian Languages and Cultures back in college and I still love and am interested in most things Japanese. I also lived there for four months. I started my love with Sailor Moon (also a great show! Don’t pay any attention to the dub!) and still watch anime occasionally. Favorites include Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo (the best hip-hop/Samurai mashup ever made) and Kareshi Kanojo no Jijyo (His and Her Circumstances).

• Music. I grew up on blues and R&B from the fifties and sixties. When I was in high school, my parents had to talk me out of singing “Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On” for the school-wide talent contest. I have also had long arguments with my mother about how Poison Ivy isn’t actually about, uh, poison ivy. I have lately come to love rock and some modern alternative, but in general, I always have something playing in the background. My favorite musician of all time is Stevie Wonder.

• And, obviously, writing. But you can find all that stuff on my personal web page.

So, pleased to meet you. Here’s hoping this blogging experiment works out.

Pleased to meet you (even with your black drawers on) -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Through the end of this month into August we’re going to have another guest blogger: author Alaya Dawn Johnson. You may remember Alaya from her guest post a couple of years ago during Black History Month.

Alaya’s first book, Racing the Dark, is available now in hardback and will be out soon in paperback. She also wrote a really cute Twisted Journeys book called The Goblin King and her next book, a vampire suffragette novel called Moonshine, is coming out later this year.

In addition to her books, she also writes some great short stories. You can find a complete bibliography on her website.

Alaya is an amazing writer but a very infrequent blogger. But as we always end up talking about race and gender foolishness in the science fiction and fantasy genre, I figured she would have no trouble finding things to post here for the next month and change.

Guest Blogger: Alaya Dawn Johnson -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I’m starting a new regular feature here on the ABW (and also on the Carl Brandon Society blog) wherein I list all of the SF/F/H short fiction by writers of color published each month.

We used to do a similar thing on the SFBookswap blog for women writers (online only, though) and I always wanted to do the same for WOC. There were some logistical barriers, mostly surrounding identification. Though it’s not completely accurate, you can usually tell female writers by name. In the case of initials or ambiguous names, the bio usually provided the necessary information. Not so much with WOC.

I’ve decided to try and get around this barrier by asking authors and editors to be a little proactive in the process.

Around the 15th of each month I’ll publish a list of all SF/F/H short stories by writers of color published in online, podcast, or print magazines and anthologies. Authors, editors, if you think a story you published/had published counts as speculative fiction and the author counts as a POC, then please give me a heads up. The deadline to be listed is the 12th of each month. If you had a story published in January – June 2009, please send those along, too. I’ll create some retro-posts. Eventually we’ll also get previous years in.

Fill out this form to get your fiction listed.

I’m going to post the list here, the Carl Brandon blog and appropriate wikis, etc.

I’m not going to do this for books just yet, but I may in the future.

Fictional Highlights -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

In an effort to give you as many ways of reading our awesome blog as is possible, we’re now also publishing a Kindle edition. You can subscribe to The Angry Black Woman for $1.99/month and it will be delivered wirelessly to your fancy Amazon-branded eReader. Now you can read ABW on the train home from work, in the bath, or while skydiving.

Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can go to the page on Amazon and write reviews of the blog. (Ys, I know, there’s much potential for foolishness. I’m counting on cool people to drown out the haters.)

Get ABW on your Kindle -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

As some of you have cottoned, the ABWs have found their way to Twitter. We’re tweeting under angryblackwomen because certain other names were taken by someone NOT us. I think we need to trademark or something.

Right now tweets mainly consist of blog post alerts and links. But I’m sure we’ll become much more interactive tweeters as we follow and are followed by more folks. As the name indicates, the account is for any of the bloggers here (though usually it’ll be me).

And again, there’s a FaceBook page you can Fan. Also, if you want to send us links for the sidebar and Twitter feed, you can join our network on Delicious and tag links for:theangryblackwoman. That’s actually far more effective than sending them through the Contact page.

Being Social -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Remember last year when I opened up the blog to several guest bloggers for Black History Month? That was so awesome. I enjoyed having new voices on the blog and the great conversations and thoughts they inspired. From that exercise we gained a new permanent guest, Karnythia, and it whet my appetite for more. So I’ve decided to do the guest thing more often and bring in a few more permanent fixtures around these parts.

As you know, I love literature and particularly science fiction and fantasy literature (as do Karnythia and Nojojojo), so many of the special guests are going to hail from that area of the world. We’re also going to seek out bloggers from outside the U.S. to provide a different view of the topics we discuss around here.

We’re also giving two new bloggers the chance to become permanent guests here. In the next two weeks they’ll introduce themselves and start their own posts.

Our first new guest will be Tiptree Award-winning author Nisi Shawl, who will introduce herself later today. Her short story collection, Filter House, recently won the james Tiptree Jr. award, something I’ll talk at length about tomorrow. Nisi is a sharp lady, an amazing writer, and one of the most intersting people I’ve ever met. I hope you’ll enjoy her posts.

Having Some Guests Over -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Now that we’re all settled in to the new blog space and I’m finally able to spend some time making things look more ABW-ish, I’d like to do something about our headers. Currently we have some rotating nature pictures which are pretty, but not very us. I could modify the old header and stick it up there, but what I’d really like is to have something new. Also, I want some new accent colors for the blog which will come from any new header we choose.

I know many of your are artistic and have Photoshop skillz and whatnot. If you’re willing to do us the favor of donating your time and skills to creating a new header or even throwing out some ideas of what we could put up there, we would really appreciate it. (And obviously you’d be credited.)

The header images are 1300 x 160 currently. If we have a header with a white background then the width does not matter. If it’s oging to be some other color or a pattern, then it should be at least 1300 pixels. Right now I’m very open as to theme, wording, graphics, etc.

Anyone have any ideas?

Help Us Choose A New Header -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman