Verb Noire Announcement (Call for Submissions)

So, as some of you may have noticed I haven’t been around overly much lately. It’s not that I don’t love you. It’s just that I’m in the middle of starting a small press with a friend. Verb Noire is intended to be a platform for all those stories that have been hidden for so [...]

What Is Cultural Appropriation?

A few years ago at WisCon (the feminist SF convention) there was a panel about Cultural Appropriation that sparked an online discussion about the topic that is generally referred to as the Great Debate of DOOM. This was partly due to the wide-ranging nature of it (over 20 blogs, I believe) and due to [...]

Inspired

Last year on the anniversary of 9/11 I was listening to NPR’s Morning Edition and their coverage of the memorial stuff going on at the WTC site.  I was struck by the structure of the ceremony — there wasn’t just the reading of the names, but also a bell rung at the moments when the [...]

Dealing with bigotry: an SF response

So apropos of one of my earlier posts, we’ve had another Incident in the SF community.
In a nutshell, the editor of a prominent fiction magazine sent a rejection letter to a hopeful writer which contained some blatantly bigoted statements against Muslims. The letter got out, a shitstorm erupted; the editor acted even more unprofessional, [...]

Clarion West Write-A-Thon (again!)

I’m participating in the Clarion West Write-A-Thon again this year, raising money for the workshop and for the Butler Scholarship. I’m in the process of finding sponsors to help me reach my goal of raising $1000 total.
For those of you who don’t know, a write-a-thon is a lot like a marathon. Instead of [...]

Co-opting pain for profit

I’m usually a political blogger in this space, but something has happened that aggravates me to no end and so I feel the need to share my anger with a wider audience. So, this woman writes a memoir about her life as a poor, half white, half NDN foster kid running drugs for the Bloods [...]

Just for fun

The ABW in me and the SF fan in me are both applauding.

For those of you who don’t know, that text is from the Sandman graphic novels.

“I’ve grown to love complexity”

It’s a common misconception that writers create characters or situations that have a direct parallel to their lives or the people they know. It’s not always that straightforward, and many times happens on a deep, unconscious level. For Black History Month, I’ve invited a few writers to explore how history — whether personal [...]

“I’m a die-hard multiculturalist as a result of my very existence”

It’s a common misconception that writers create characters or situations that have a direct parallel to their lives or the people they know. It’s not always that straightforward, and many times happens on a deep, unconscious level. For Black History Month, I’ve invited a few writers to explore how history — whether personal [...]

Blood Done Sign My Name

Review by transgressingengineer
First off, thanks to ABW for the invite to blog over in her neck of the woods. I am a big fan of her blog and have been looking forward to the opportunity to contribute to her blog with a (hopefully) meaningful post.
About two years ago, I read a book that [...]