Of Crossed Genres, SFF Portal and good reviews

Dear blog reader:

You've stood with me through a lot of posts that outline the difficulties, the heartbreak, the stories of deportation and detention and immigrant lives shrouded in shadow. You've hung in there as I've railed and cried about the legislative failures surrounding the revision of existing, broken immigration laws and visa quotas. You've read about the DREAM Act and Arizona's anti-immigrant/anti-Hispanic law and efforts to repeal the 14th Amendment (more about that later). You've commented and sent me personal messages ranging from "now that's a downer - LOL - good post" to "Amen."

You deserve a happy post from me. So here it is -- my first in 2011 (and I hope that bodes well for the year).

If you're a regular reader of this blog you know that occasionally -- more occasionally than I'd like, anyway -- I ask you to follow a sort of Ariadne's thread of links, to sites deep in the labyrinth of web that have published my poetry or my speculative fiction. Tonight I'm sending you to a site that reviews just such work. If you click here, you'll get to read a review of the anthology that includes my story "Flying with the Dead."

Writers like me don't get a lot of chance to hear what readers think of their work. Not everyone who reads this blog comments on it, for example. It's tough sometimes to believe -- despite what Blogger and Lijit stats tell me -- that anyone's reading at all. Same thing with the poetry and fiction.

Except then somebody will comment on a post.

Or, in this case, someone will write a lovely review of my story and I'll sit at the computer reading -- with gratitude, and some wonder too, in my heart. Because just like all the immigration advocacy and stories I subject you to here -- the fiction too is really a conversation with whomever reads the story. And I love when it is reciprocal.

And, yes, even in fiction you don't get away from my focus on the lives of immigrants: "Flying with the Dead" has its fantastical elements, but its bones are real.

I'd love it if this blog post and the review I've linked would provide the impetus for you to purchase the Crossed Genres Year Two anthology (it's for sale at Createspace and Amazon) or to support online magazines like Crossed Genres and The Portal. Small, indie magazines like these are a lot like immigration advocates -- they work very hard to widen the variety of voices we get to hear -- and they deserve support.

Plus, they make me dance a jig.

Next post: Did you know 7 states are targeting birthright citizenship? (Click here to read.)

By the way, the great photo at the top of this post has nothing, whatever, to do with fiction or immigration. I just like it because it is so evocative. It comes straight out of CS&T photographer Sarah Webb's portfolio of images. Lovely, isn't it? Check out her photos at cst-phl.com.