Hooray for Linda Addison, whose How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend received a Bram Stoker Award from the World Horror Association!

The ToC for Steampunk Revolutions!

More discussion of Hunger Games (the last link is to a review that focuses on the movie from an indigenous, social justice oriented perspective)

Here’s a link to “The Inconstant Moon” by Alaya Dawn Johnson.

Now, onto the review.

Neesha  Meminger’s Into the Wise Dark focuses on the adventures of Pammi, a girl who lives in the in-between spaces of several worlds. She’s Indian and American; she’s had a stint or two in the mental health system before being judged “well”; she’s a high school graduate planning to start a year-long volunteer program before going off to college. She also, psychically, travels between her present and the past world of Zanum, the home of her ancestors, where she’s got a boyfriend, a grandmother-figure, and is loved. In order to get to Zanum, she travels through the Dark.

Pammi normally keeps Zanum a secret; after all, her telling others about her experiences there led her mother to put her into therapy. So, when she discovers that her summer internship involves mentoring girls who, like her, have hidden powers, and who believe her when she talks about Zanum, it seems like a dream come true… until Pammi discovers that her travelling between worlds may have put Zanum (and her new friends) into danger. What follows is a multitemporal story of friendship, featuring psychic powers, trust, and love, all told in Pammi’s wry, sometimes cynical, voice.

What I especially enjoyed about this work is the casual diversity of the characters; not only is the narrator South Asian, the other characters she knows who are South Asian reflect the reality of that diaspora. Plus, the girls at the center are ethnically diverse as well, in a refreshing break from the white monochromaticism of much supernatural YA… particularly because Meminger’s characters emerge as distinct, off-beat, charming individuals, whose quirks move the story further and really show the kind of world-building superhero YA is capable of. Meminger’s teen girls sound like teen girls, not like the lifeless caricatures you see in movies like Twilight. Plus, the teen girls at the center have been through the wringer; the adults in their lives have, in many ways, abandoned them. They’ve now turned to each other for support, and Pammi’s struggle to earn their trust (something difficult for her to do since she’s new, she’s got a cushy life, and her mom loves her) feels real. Moreover, it feels worthwhile, like the friendship of these girls can and ought to mean something. It’s this friendship that drives Pammi’s struggle to save Zanum, and gives this heroine’s quest vitality.  

Fans of Meminger’s earlier work will note that this Pammi is a secondary character in Jazz in Love. 

I Got Your Book: Into the Wise Dark -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

This children’s bookstore needs a makeover!

Nnedi won a BEST NOVEL World Fantasy Award for Who Fears Death!

Andrea Hairston is WisCon Guest of Honor AND a Tiptree Award winner!

Nisi Shawl has several short stories and articles out that are available online. These are:

• “Honorary Earthling” at Expanded Horizons
• “Black Betty” at Crossed Genres
• “The Pragmatical Princess” at Fantasy Magazine
• “Race, Again, Still” at Strange Horizons

I Got Your Book: REVENGE OF THE BOOK -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Ahem!

Delux_Vivens linked to Inside the Favelas

Linda Addison has a new collection out, entitled How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend

Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop continues to wow 

Nisi Shawl gets interviewed

Amal El-Mohtar has both an interview and a story up. 

Clockwork Fairies stars a woman of color character in a steampunk-y universe. 

Here’s a review of Samuel R. Delany’s On Writing

Nalo Hopkinson will be GOH of Darkovercon 2012

Nick Wood wrote an article on a 1970s South African comic book hero 

An Alice Walker documentary?? Sign me up!

Plus: THIS BOOKSTORE NEEDS YOUR HELP TO ROCK!

I Got Your Book: Signal Boosts -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Tobias Buckell is looking for help to fund Apocalypse Ocean, a Sly Mongoose novel.

Ephemere is nearly done with Kandila 

An excerpt from the horror collection Let’s Play White

A series of SF short films 

Lisa Suhair Majaj has been featured on Split This Rock 

 Next time? We’ll have a review of Moondancer’s Drake’s Natural Magic. 

I GOT YOUR BOOK: Post the First -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I meant to post this yesterday, but work things got in the way. Then the ever-wonderful Cleolinda posted the long, long post I was going to write and said everything I was going to say. So I’ll keep mine short. I suggest you click over to Cleolinda’s blog for the full story. Seriously.

A few days ago Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith wrote a guest post for the Genreville blog over at Publisher’s Weekly about their experience with an unnamed agent who asked them to make changes to their YA manuscript to erase the fact that a main POV character was gay. At least for the first book in the series. The pair went on to say that they’d heard that this thing with erasing gay characters in YA was something other authors experienced and thus they felt the need to write about it and bring the overall issue to light.

They did not name the agent or agency. They moved on from their specific example to the broader issue. They pointed out that this seemed to come from a concern over market forces rather than labeling anyone Homophobic or Gay Hating. If you don’t believe me, go read the original.

The post sparked a big conversation about the issue and I saw in the comments and on blogs and social networks that several other authors, published and not, talk their stories of having agents and/or editors tell them to remove gay characters from their YA.

Then Joanna Stampfel-Volpe, an agent with Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation, posted on Colleen Lindsay’s blog, The Swivet, outing her agency as the one in question (though claims she is not the specific agent in question) and essentially called Rachel and Sherwood liars. Under the guest post part, Colleen added this:

FACT: Both these writers already have their own agents. At least one of those agents reps YA books. So what does it say when the respective agents for both these well-established writers advise them to find a different agent for the book in question because neither of them wanted to rep it themselves?

It tells me that homophobia was most likely not the reason that this book has thus far not found representation.

And that made me see red because that just looks like a personal attack and an attempt to dismiss what Rachel and Sherwood said by saying that their book is no good. Further, on my Facebook page, Colleen claimed that she knew other agents who turned the book down because it had structural issues.

I like and respect Colleen a lot, but I’m calling bullshit on this. Though she says she didn’t mean for the above words to be an attack, that’s what it looks like. And, even if other agents passed on the book for structural reasons, that does not mean that the conversation as represented by Rachel and Sherwood didn’t happen. One does not preclude the other.

Putting that aside, at this point we’ve reached He Said/She Said, and it comes down to which side you believe. Stampfel-Volpe said that at no time did they say they wanted to eliminate the character because of the gayness. Rachel and Sherwood maintain that this is indeed what was said.

For my part, I believe Rachel and Sherwood. My main criteria being that my interactions with Rachel online and the interactions and friendships she has with people I know and trust do not lead me to believe she would lie in this way. I don’t know Sherwood well, but nothing I have ever heard from her good friends leads me to believe she would perpetuate a hoax for publicity or lie for profit.

Rose Fox of Genreville apparently felt the same way. Colleen mentions something about how the piece wasn’t fact checked, but how was that supposed to happen? The agency wasn’t named. And even though there are claims that the gossip identified the agency, the majority of us wouldn’t know without their self-outing. These are not the kind of “facts” that can be easily checked because the other party can say “That didn’t happen” and they could be lying just as easily as the authors. Rose used her judgment based on what she knows about the two women and, so far, I haven’t seen any reason for her to have doubted that.

Additionally, Stampfel-Volpe’s post is filled with the kind of red flags I see every day as an anti-prejudice activist. The tone is too defensive¹ and unconvincing. Plus, what exactly do you expect the agency to say? “Yes, we did that”? No. Hell no.

Think about it. If they did request the changes Rachel and Sherwood claim and did so because of market forces and such, they wouldn’t admit to it especially if they aren’t homophobic themselves. It’s just like the whole cover controversy with Justine Larbalestier’s Liar. I’m sure that her publishers are not racist people, but they put a non-black person on the cover of her book at first because they assumed that systemic racist attitudes would hurt sales. That is not something you want to admit in public, because it’s gross. It happens, though. We all know it happens. And thanks to #YesGayYA we know that the erasure of gay characters in YA happens, too. And it’s still gross.

No one wants to admit when they give in to prejudiced bullshit.

The other reason I just don’t believe Stampfel-Volpe is that she made this whole thing personal:

One of our agents is being used as a springboard for these authors to gain attention for their project. She is being exploited. But even worse, by basing their entire article on untruths, these authors have exploited the topic.

Someone explain to me how the agent in question is being exploited when he/she wasn’t named. Also, bringing a topic to light is not exploitative. The kind of people I see using language like that are the folks who try to tell me that by bringing up racism or “inventing” it when it’s not there, I am the one being racist. This is a classic defense. It may even be on the BINGO card. When I see people using this kind of language, I immediately distrust what they have to say. I’ve been on the receiving end of this too often to not recognize it.

I suggest you read the original Genreville post and the other excellent links at Cleolinda’s blog before you come down on one side or the other, especially if you don’t know any of the people involved. The readiness of some people to immediate jump to HOAX! based on absolutely nothing but one person’s word would astonish me if I didn’t already have plenty of experience watching people readily dismiss real prejudice that exists right in front of them as not-prejudice. It’s so much more comforting to think that someone is just a lying liar than that there’s a serious problem to tackle.

Tackling problems requires thought, effort, and often sacrifice. Who wants to deal with that?

My Thoughts On The Latest #YesGayYA Developments -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Footnotes

1. Especially the parts added by Colleen, who emphatically claims that the agent is a good friend and not homophobic, even though Rachel and Sherwood didn’t say he/she was. A person might not be personally homophobic, but still perpetuate the idea that mainstream readers are too homophobic to deal with gay charcaters. It’s a systemic problem, and one need not be personally prejudiced in order to bow to the system.

In the wake of the Fuck You Jim Butcher post a lot of the “It’s fantasy, don’t get offended” rhetoric is circulating again. Nothing new, but I’m a little perplexed by the argument that using real racial slurs (like Injun or Tar Baby) for fictional characters means that those real slurs are somehow neutered. That using real cities as backdrops and rewriting them to erase millions of people of color doesn’t mean anything…because it’s fiction. That including real sexist tropes & real rape culture is somehow a-okay because…it’s fiction. Fiction that is built on real racism, real sexism, & real classism is likely to be real offensive.

No one is saying that authors must write books that please everyone. That’s impossible. Fiction is supposed to be an escape for readers, (that is especially true of genre fiction) and when you use real social issues in your work you need to be aware of that fact. After all when your idea of an escape is a world where those social issues are present and often unaddressed or poorly handled? That says something about you. Don’t like what people think it says or that they’re angry when they discuss it? Might be time to examine your work and yourself a little more closely. Among other things, ask why your fiction needs to be rooted in real ‘isms. And just what are you & your readers trying to escape?

Fantasy, Reality, & ‘Ism’s -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Newer readers of this blog may not be aware that, in addition to being angry and black and female, I also write fiction. Science fiction and fantasy, in particular. Several years ago I attended a 6-week intensive writing workshop called Clarion West, which is an organization that brings together promising new writers with amazing and talented established writers so that the former can learn from the latter. It was a wonderful experience and I learned a lot. In fact, my experience at CW planted the seed that would eventually grow into this blog, though in a very circuitous way.

The workshop is a non-profit effort, and though students do pay tuition, it doesn’t cover all expenses. So every year they host a write-a-thon to raise money.

For those of you who don’t know, a write-a-thon is a lot like a marathon. Instead of sponsoring a person per mile, you sponsor them per week. If the sponsored reaches their writing goal for the week, you pledge to send a certain amount of money. There are six weeks of write-a-thoning to mirror the six weeks of workshopping at Clarion West, so it’s also a bit of a nostalgia trip for those of us who went in years past.

Why am I raising money for CW (besides the fact that I went)? Three big reasons.

1. As I said, my time at the workshop was wonderful and I want to do my part in supporting an organization that has supported me. The opportunity afforded to students who attend a Clarion-style workshop goes beyond just having 6 stories critiqued. It’s also about meeting people in the genre community who are generous with their support, friendship, and talent. Just as with any other profession, networking is important for writers who aspire to become working professionals.
2. The board and administrators of the workshop are dedicated to increasing diversity in the genre by attempting to make sure writers from all backgrounds are aware of Clarion West and aware that there is financial aid for those who need it. Entrance into the workshop is by merit, but CW understands that if you throw the net wide and do your best to get applicants beyond the white, male, and upper class majority, then the cream of the crop will naturally end up being more diverse.
3. Clarion West tuition is high. An anonymous donor paid my way the year I went. I do what I can to repay the generosity of that person by paying it forward and supporting the workshop and its students.

Now for the part when I ask you for stuff. I’m in the process of gathering sponsors right now. This year I’m focusing on getting a lot of micro sponsors — people who can’t afford to donate a lot of money but care spare something small. Do you have $5 or $15 you can give? Can you pledge $2/week? $10/week? Every bit helps. If you’d like to sponsor me, please click here to let me know and read all the details.

If you’re a writer (in any genre, including non-fiction), you can also participate in the Write-a-thon. If you do sign up and you get three sponsors or raise $100/week, you’ll be entered into a drawing for an eReader. Details about all that here.

The write-a-thon begins on June 19th. Stick around the blog and I’ll let you in on exactly what I intend to write….

Clarion West Write-a-thon 2011 -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

(crossposted from my personal blog)

The Safer Space for POC at WisCon 35 is a room set aside for con attendees of color to have in-group discussions about issues surrounding speculative fiction, feminism, fandom, and convention-going. By issues I do not mean “problems” (just to be clear). There are some conversations that need to happen within a group that only concern the group, and for the second year in a row WisCon is officially acknowledging this need and providing official space for it.

The Safer Space for POC is located in the Solitaire Room — just off the lobby behind the restaurant. The location is marked in the Program Book.

Con attendees of color are free to use this room as a lounge/chill space, just as with last year. Come hang out when you’re not attending a panel, between panels, during lunch, whenever. This year the hotel is providing coffee and tea service throughout the day.

In addition to the lounge aspect, I’m also encouraging people to use the Safer Space as a place for breakout sessions, standalone discussions for small groups, and post-panel de-pressurization. Is there a conversation you’d like to have with other POC about an issue relating to SF, feminism, fandom, media, or literature? Would you like to continue a panel with a smaller, POC-only group? Then I encourage you to use the Safer Space, because this is exactly the reason it exists.

If you already know that you’d like to use the space, great! Please go to my personal blog and leave a comment with details (what your discussion/breakout session is about, time) and be sure to let people at the con know. Flyers are useful. Even if you don’t have an idea now, you may get one at the con. If so, just invite folks to the room. Even if there are already folks inside, there will probably be enough room.

This isn’t a super structured effort, just a way to ensure that people know that they can use the room for these purposes. There are no hard and fast rules. Just that the space is reserved for POC.

I’ll update that post with activities and there will be a list in the room at the con.

[WisCon 35] POC Safer Space Breakout Sessions and Discussions (crosspost) -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Brazilian fantasy action flick Besouro available to watch at this link

If you need a reminder… the story goes… As essentially an action movie set in 1920s Bahia, and based on the life of a legendary capoeirista from Bahia who uses the power of Candomble to fight the harsh conditions which, even post-abolition, the black population endured in Brazil, Besouro, tells the fantastic story of a young Afro-Brazilian man who became a symbol throughout all of Bahia for his bravery and loyalty, in defending the persecuted and oppressed.Watch Besouro now

Via the same blog Shadow and Act comes news of this webseries OSIRIS

“OSIRIS” Series Teaser Trailer (HD 1080p)

“Osiris” is a new 10-episode action/thriller Web Series featuring mystery, espionage and gritty crime fiction. The series follows the title character “Osiris”, a man with an eternally extended warranty on life. He can never stay dead. If killed, he resurrects in EXACTLY 37 minutes, every time. Each episode features a jaw dropping cliffhanger in the vein of classic shows like True Blood, Lost and 24!

They got vlogsPart One: Introduction, Part Two: Influences, Part Three: Casting, Part Four: Questions

And: xposted from racebending

Future states tv has a web series in which people make short films based on what they think the US will be like in the future. Tons of poc as actors AND directors.

From Season Two:

Digital Antiquities Directed by JP Chan

By 2036, data loss has become a thing of the past. All digital media is instantly uploaded to the internet and permanently stored in the cloud, safely backed-up on servers scattered around the world. Only a handful of small businesses in the world have the expertise to recover data from pre-cloud devices. On a hot summer day, a young man named Kai visits Digital Antiquities, a store in eastern Pennsylvania specializing in data recovery and sales of vintage electronics. He shows Cat, the store’s only employee, an old compact disc left to him from his deceased mother and asks her to recover its contents. Will Cat help him find a working CD reader? And what will they discover among the contents of the disc?

Spring of Sorrow Directed by Suzi Yoonessi

Sisters Lily and Isabelle live a nomadic life, displaced by global warming. Trapped in the desert in the midst of a water shortage, Isabelle offers hope to her younger sister by telling a whimsical fairytale that allegorically explains how this tragic world came to be. When Isabelle falls ill, Lily embarks on an imaginative journey in a magical paper cut-out forest to find the mythical Spring of Sorrow, an everlasting spring of fresh water. Along the way, she forges a friendship with an eccentric florist, creates flowers and animals, and learns a valuable lesson about environmental responsibility.

Beholder by Nisha Ganitra

Beholder takes place in the biosphere-protected Red Estates, a gated community with a socially conservative political majority. At a clinic where patients can genetically engineer their children, Sasha, the wife of rising political star Bobby Aryana, is informed that her baby carries the genetic marker for homosexuality. By the laws of Red Estates, this is an aberration that must be dealt with immediately, and Sasha must decide between staying faithful to the love of her life or risking everything. Touching on issues of race, sexual orientation, and conformity, Beholder examines the notion of identity and the costs of belonging.

That Which Once Was Kimi Takescue

In the year 2032, Vicente, an 8-year-old Caribbean boy, has been displaced by global warming and fends for himself as an environmental refugee in a hostile Northern metropolis. Orphaned and without connection to family or friends, Vicente now lives in a children’s shelter on the fringes of the city, and struggles with anxiety, rage, and disturbing memories of the tragedy he fled. On a hot summer day, Vicente sits outside the shelter and sees a mysterious man smashing large chunks of ice against the pavement. Thus begins an unexpected friendship between Vicente and Siku, the ice carver: two people from different worlds who have both experienced tremendous loss. Through their bond, Siku ultimately helps Vicente confront his past and understand the value of memory.

Remigration Directed by Barry Jenkins

Upon returning to their countryside cabin one day, Kaya, his wife Helen, and their daughter Naomi are confronted by two suited men: representatives of the San Francisco Remigration Program. The men explain that San Francisco is now occupied entirely by the wealthy class. But stoplights still burn out and trains occasionally jump their rails. Blue-collar labor isn’t obsolete, but it’s scarce. The city has created a program to “remigrate” long-gone working class families from their inland homes back to the city that once pushed them out. Kaya, Helen, and Naomi return to San Francisco and join a handful of other potential remigrants for a tour of what can be expected in their new lives. But can they learn to trust their old home once again?

White Directed by Sayeeda Clarke

It’s another 120-degree day with five more days to Christmas and hot is the only season left in New York City. Global warming has accelerated and the sun has become a tangible threat to survival. Bato and his wife Gina are expecting a baby, but they weren’t expecting it so early. Although they planned to have the baby at home, Gina now requires the services of a clinic for the premature delivery. With no money for the clinic, Bato enters into a race against the sun, the birth, his community, and even his own identity to save his family as he is forced to sell the new currency of this world.

Worker drone Directed by Sharat Rajue

Rahul’s days blend together. GlobeCom India, his employer, specializes in remote systems operation. When Rahul leaves his dungeon-like GlobeCom office, he goes to his dungeon-like living quarters in Technology City. But things change when an American contractor announces a new partnership with GlobeCom — Planet Dogstar, a massive multi-player online flying combat simulator where players shoot down targets on an alien planet. GlobeCom is hired to operate and manage the game. To decide who will lead and manage the operation, the company organizes an office showdown: whoever shoots down the most targets wins the promotion as well as a one-week furlough to leave Technology City. Can Rahul beat his coworkers to win the game?

Exposure By Mia Trachinger

Roxanne is a government agent who works as a live body contagion to immunize urban populations. Jesse is an anti-contagion activist, whose office is breeched by Roxanne’s team. Led by Roxanne, the contagions try to contain the workers inside the building, chasing them down in an attempt to mass-inoculate, while Jesse, caught in a cycle of fear and illness, soon learns that there are no easy answers.

And of course go watch the other two: Asparagus which has gorgeous cinematography, and Dig and then when you are done, go check the First Season and watch all of those too!

So there you are! Cool stuff to watch all over the place!

Entertain us!!! -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

People often tell me that they had no idea from reading posts here on the ABW that I also write fiction and have a secret second life. And I often forget that people here may not even follow my other blog, so I don’t always cross post certain news that I really should. In an effort to end this silliness, here are two bits of news you may enjoy knowing about.

You may have missed it amongst all the footnotes, but I am a contributor to Chicks Dig Time Lords, which was nominated for a Hugo.

My essay is on Martha Jones and how much I love her and how I felt that she was ill-used by the show and its creators. I poked over to Amazon recently to read the reviews and saw this:

…the meta I most loved was K. Tempest Bradford’s “Martha Jones: Fangirl Blues”, which utterly glows with its love for Martha, and its rage at the unfolding of her story. Reading it made me want to dance, first with the book, and then with my Martha doll. That alone was worth what I paid for the book.

Squee! I’ve gotten some really wonderful feedback from fans on my essay, and it warms my heart every time. I loved many of the other essays in this book and I hope if you’re a Doctor Who fan you’ll pick it up. I also hope if you’re a Hugo voting type you will throw some love our way (if you feel it is deserved, of course).

One side note: I was talking to Lynne’s husband at last year’s WisCon and he said he owns all or nearly all non-fiction that’s ever been published about Doctor Who. He informed me that he believes I may be the first person of color to have published a non-fiction piece about the show. This could be completely wrong, but what if he’s right?

Don’t worry, Karnythia and I have hatched plans to ensure that I am not alone for long.

Another bit of excellent news: one of my stories is being reprinted in this book:

Happily Ever After, edited by John Klima. Click here for the full TOC and you’ll see why I’m double excited to be in this. So many amazing, amazing fantasy writers are in here as well. People I’ve admired and been influenced by and had the pleasure to meet and, in many cases, become friends with. It’s awesome to be in such company. Also: fabulous cover, just like Chicks!

Also, if you’re ever interested in reading my fiction, my bibliography is here. There are several stories available for free online. And, if you’re feeling adventurous, I have a self-published novelette on my site now that’s only 99 cents (it’s an eBook).

Random Bits Of Excellent News -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman