The #Nebula eligibility cumbia

I've written already about the SFF short stories and novelettes written by others that I think are fantastic and deserve to be nominated for Nebulas, Hugos, any other awards you can think of ... if you missed that post, read it here. When I wrote it, I couldn't remember the title of a wonderful story by Kai Ashante Wilson, "The Devil in America," but it definitely belongs on my list.

As it happens, three of my own short stories were published this year and are eligible for Nebulas/Hugos/what-have-yous. If you've read them, and liked them, please consider including them on your list of nominations:

• "The Dance of the White Demons," in the anthology Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History

• "The Bar at the End of the World," in the anthology The Many Tortures of Anthony Cardno

• "Skin in the Game," which was just published last Wednesday at Tor.com

No matter what ends up on the ballot, having a long list of good stories to read is a victory for all of us, and worth a celebratory dance.

Looking for the best Speculative fiction of 2014 in expected, and unexpected, places (#SFWApro)

It's that time of year again — people are beginning to compile lists of favorite stories for  "Best of" compilations for 2014. Selfishly, I hope people keep looking well into December since I have a story set to be published in early December ... but being the very impatient sort myself, here are some of the short stories (in a year with a bumper crop of incredible stories) that I love best.

In no particular order:

Lorca Green by Gina Ruiz (in Lowriting: Shots, Rides & Stories from the Chicano Soul, Jan. 8, 2014)

The Oud by Thoraiya Dyer (in Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, Jan. 30, 2014)

Collected Likenesses by Jamey Hatley (also from Long Hidden)

Lone Women by Victor LaValle (also from Long Hidden ... and let me say there are a lot of other great stories in there that fall just shy of making it onto my list — yes, it is that good a collection).

A Cup of Salt Tears by Isabel Yap (Tor.com, Aug. 27, 2014)

The Litany of Earth by Ruthanna Emrys (Tor.com, May 14, 2014)

Anyway, Angie by Daniel José Older (Tor.com, March 26, 2014)

Santos de Sampaguitas by Alyssa Wong (Strange Horizons, Oct. 6 & Oct. 13, 2014)

The Clockwork Soldier by Ken Liu (Clarkesworld, January 2014)

Shedding Skin by Angela Rega (Crossed Genres, April 2014)


I remembered the following favorites as being 2014 but, alas, they are 2013 and so not eligible for any awards ballots you may be compiling, but they are really worth reading:

La Santisima by Teresa Frohock

Maquech by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (from This Strange Way of Dying, 2013)

Baggage Check by Shay Darrach

Pancho Villa's Flying Circus by Ernesto Hogan (from We See a Different Frontier, 2013)

The History of Soul 2065 by Barbara Krasnoff (from Clockwork Phoenix 4, 2013)


Oh, I know I'm forgetting and leaving out so many worthwhile stories ...

Go to, read! Thank me later.

And quite suddenly, I'm in love with Filipin@ speculative fiction (#SFWApro)

Photo: Pixabay

This is not a list.

This is a bit of a love letter.

I do this every so often. Fall profoundly in love with works of fiction that are rooted in the earth of a particular country. When I was in my early formative years as a writer, it was Argentina. Now, staring down the beginning of what in Spanish is called la tercera edad (the third age), it's Philippines. I don't think the age of discovery is a coincidence (more on this later).

In any case, starting at the end of 2013 and at regular intervals during 2014, I started noticing that many of the stories that I kept returning to, and lingering over, in anthologies and magazines were written by Filipin@ speculative fiction writers: Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Alyssa Wong, Isabel Yap and Michael Janairo.

There are a lot of reasons for this. The most straightforward is simply the quality of the work. Three of the writers whose work I was belatedly discovering are Clarion graduates; another has not only an MFA in creative writing but years under his belt as a working journalist. I find myself drawn first to the music of the language in a story, and one of the things these quite distinct stories have in common is that they play with cadences masterfully.

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz's Of Alternate Adventures and Memory (Clarksworld, issue 87, December 2013) is a far-future sci fi story structured to replicate the way memory organizes itself even as the storyline explores the idea of recovering memory, of becoming living memory for what no longer wholly exists.

"I am calling in a favor.
I need your help.
Remember the bonds we share.
Remember.
Remember.
Remember. 

Adventure Boy understands what those words mean now. He understands why he cannot allow the erasure of accumulated memory. No matter how insignificant or how unimportant those memories may seem, no matter that Metal Town is deemed obsolete, he can’t allow those memories or those dreams to vanish without a trace."

Loenen-Ruiz punctuates the narrative with passages cited from ads and promotional copy, and these serve as the backbeat of the story — regular — until Loenen-Ruiz speeds their intrusion, and changes the tone from promo to edict to personal recollection. As she does, what is framed by these breaks changes too. 

In her critical work Loenen-Ruiz frequently examines the costs of colonialism and imperialism. Her fiction does that as well. Toward the end of the story, the punctuating passages are news report — part reclamation, part promise — as flawed and incomplete as history.

I found myself reading portions of Loenen-Ruiz's story out loud for their music. It is not something I usually do — except to test the cadences of my own work in progress — but I found myself doing that with Isabel Yap's piece, A Cup of Salt Tears (Tor.com, Aug. 27, 2014) as well.

"Your hips are pale like the moon, yet move like the curves of ink on parchment. Your eyes are broken and delicate and your hands are empty (...) Your hair is hair I’ve kissed before; I do not forget the hair of women I love."

There is a danger in describing a story as poetic because so often that word is applied to grossly overwritten pieces that somehow manage to be filmy and leaden at once. But Yap's story is poetic: sultry and beautiful, deceptively bare but with lines that make you catch your breath. Yap keeps the pacing unhurried, the cadences like music in a minor key — descending, dissolving.

It is the story of a woman striking a deal with a legendary river being. A simple premise, but there is nothing simple about the story.  Like Loenen-Ruiz's story, this is about recovering what is lost, and it too has everything to do with memory — unreliable, desirable, mutable. Anyone who has ever been the caregiver of a loved one with Alzheimer's (or any progressive terminal illness that makes us wish for the magic to restore) will, despite the story's beauty (or perhaps more so because of it), find this a haunting read.

Alyssa Wong's Santos de Sampaguitas (Strange Horizons, Oct. 6 and 13, 2014) and Michael Janairo's Angela and the Scar (Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, Jan. 30, 2014) feature beings from folktales as well, and while that is nowhere near the whole of the enchantment they exert, it is a part. Kappa, kapfre, manananggal, aswang ... the supernatural beings in the Wong, Janairo and Yap stories are unfamiliar to me and intensely compelling.

As is the language with which they evolve on the page.

In Wong's Santos de Sampaguitas, the lines between supernatural and natural power are blurred so effectively I'm not sure even now I could tell you which of her characters are wholly human — if any. Wong's language reminds me of the nickname given to blues musician Albert King — the velvet bulldozer — because it is both muscular and richly textured.

"I would give you the gift of transformation. Pledge yourself to me and I will teach you to wing about the night, unhampered by human concerns. I will show you the secret banana groves where your mother hid her legs, deep in dreamland and Bicol's jungles. [...] I offer you knowledge of charms and spells, enchantments that will guarantee your household safety, recipes to keep the curses of other aswang away."

The story is long (it was published in two parts in separate issues of Strange Horizons) and creates a richly complicated sense of place, but Wong keeps it moving at a clip and when the end unfolds you feel like your time with Tín has ended too soon.

Janairo's story is historical speculative fiction set in Ilocos Norte Province of Philippines in 1900, his protagonist a child, and his fantastical being the gigantic, cigar-smoking kapfre.

"Treetops shook as they sailed across the forest. The giant leapt from tree to tree, his feet barely touching a branch as he landed and pushed off again. They rose and fell as if riding waves, carried at treeswift speed, the forest canopy a blur below."

Janairo writes about Philippine history with the economy of a good journalist. While the story is about the indigenous resistance to a second set of cultural and economic invaders (from a child's point of view) the story really lives in Janairo's depiction of the kapfre and the forest it inhabits. They are both big, extravagant, a triumph of nature and of imagination.

Not surprisingly, given the fact that we share a Spanish colonial history, I find a lot of commonality between Filipin@ and Latin@ speculative fiction — the bittersweet sense of being separated (exiled?) from yourself (and the land that is part of the self) for one. For another, the way even the youngest writers seem to have a profound understanding of aging — its peculiar concerns, sorrows, recriminations. The complicated, multiple strands of family. The living landscape of folk tales, lore, belief. Its literary accomplishment. Its assurance with both sci fi and the fantastical.

But the music I hear underpinning these stories is nothing at all like the Spanish, Spanglish and Caló I am more attuned to hearing when Latin@s write in English. This music is —paradoxically — beautifully leisured and still staccato; soft and steely; and above all else, sticky. I can't stop hearing it. I don't want to stop hearing it.

I know this is a tiny sampling of stories. I know that not only have I discovered Filipin@ speculative fiction late, but also very incompletely. I'm not sure but I think, for example, that all these writers live in diaspora (or are first- or second-gen Americans), and I wonder as I seek out Filipin@ writers who live on the islands if the differences (and similarities) will be as clearly marked as they are between U.S. Latin@ writers and those living in Latin America.

In any case, I have the strong feeling that Filipin@ spec fic is going to  transform mainstream SFF. In fact, I think it already is.

Five days left to fund this kickstarter for an anthology of Latin@ speculative fiction

Hey folks, there are five days left on the Latino/a Rising kickstarter and they're just over half way there. Please, if you haven't yet, support this anthology which is the first of its kind and which is really needed to change the perception that Latinos don't write (or read) science fiction and fantasy.


Junot Diaz and Ana Castillo will be included in the anthology, as will be Nesto Hogan and Daína Chaviano, among many others (including me!) and they are still open to submissions.


At a $50 donation level, you'll get a cool Latino/a Rising postcard and equally cool print by Javier Hernandez, a Latino/a Rising Tee-shirt, and the book in two ways: ebook and the print copy signed by the editor and one of the authors.


If it would be an incentive for you to go support it at the $50 level, I'll offer any of you who do (and come back here and tell me in the comments that you have pledged $50 between now and Oct. 31) any one of the following:


1) I'll tuckerize you (name a character after you) in an upcoming story.


2) I'll send you a link to a soon-to-be-written storymap or gigapixel piece of fiction with visuals, links and maybe even audio or video.


3) I'll write a piece of flash fiction (1,000 words max) to your prompt.


Yeah, it means that much to me.


I love that the anthology We See a Different Frontier had three fabulous stories by Latin@ writers in it (Fábio Fernandes, Ernest Hogan and Silvia Moreno-Garcia), but it was the exception — most anthologies have one, if any. The Latino/a anthology will be an eye-opener about the scope and range of Latin@ speculative fiction. Please help make it happen.

Three Latin@ writers, three reasons to support the Latino/a Rising kickstarter

Three Latin@ writers, three reasons to support the Latino/a Rising kickstarter!

You've got three more days to help make SFF better ... and keep Crossed Genres going

Actually, writing isn't hard. It is mostly a goofily joyful experience.

Getting published, on the other hand, can be all kinds of miserable. Especially, if you happen to write speculative fiction that doesn't adhere to beloved (and worn threadbare) tropes, or if your writing style and protagonists are far from the default that the dominant culture assumes. Latino writer Daniel José Older has written eloquently about this and related topics on Salon and Buzzfeed.

As it happens, fairly early in his career, Older was published in the first iteration of Crossed Genres magazine, and subsequently the book side of CG published his acclaimed collection of short stories, Salsa Nocturna.

That first iteration of Crossed Genres magazine also published early work by Chinese-American SFF writer Ken Liu, whose work has gone on to be recognized with Nebula, Hugo and World Fantasy awards.

While Older and Liu may be some of the best-known of the magazine's alums, CG has a rare eye for talent, and many emerging writers have been published in the pages of its anthologies, its first magazine, and the newer version of Crossed Genres magazine (which is a Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America professional qualifying market), including Teresa Jusino, Priya Chand, Anthony Cardno, Shay Darrach, Athena Andreadis, A.J. Fitzwater, Kelly Jennings, Ibi Zoboi and many others.

All distinct and distinctive writers with one thing in common: they knock the default right out of speculative

by challenging expectations.

The thing is, it's not by chance that Older, Liu and the rest of the CG cohort have been published by the small, Boston-based press. Publishers Kay Holt and Bart Leib are committed to running a magazine and press that reflects the true breadth and range of today's speculative fiction. Because of Holt's and Leib's outreach to QUILTBAG, trans*, writers of color, international and non-Anglophone writers, CG has been labelled by some genre purists as "destroying SFF."

That alone is enough to endear them to me for the next several hundred years. But, the truth is, I'm already forever indebted to them. The first speculative fiction story I sold, Flying with the Dead, was to CG (version 1). Other stories appeared in their anthologies Fat Girl in a Strange Land, Menial: Skilled Labor in Science Fiction, and the upcoming Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, which will launch in May. They also published my novel, INK — half magical realism, half immigration-based political dystopia — written by an older Latina writer whose publication credits at the time were solely in journalism.... ¡Híjole! It still boggles the mind that they took the chance.

So, anyway...

Crossed Genres has three days to go on a Kickstarter campaign that will enable them to continue publishing the pro-rate magazine for another year and become self-sufficient. I don't tend to enjoin my friends and readers to support kickstarters, but I believe speculative fiction needs magazines and presses exactly like CG — you know, the ones that see the past, present and future with you and me in it.

I plan to support Crossed Genres and I really hope you will too. (Need that kickstarter link again? Here you go.)

Cover of Long Hidden anthology (and ToC) released

Cover by Julie Dillon

Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction From the Margins of History, edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, and published by Crossed Genres Publications, will be released in May.

I'm thrilled to be included in this table of contents:

“Ogres of East Africa” by Sofia Samatar
Kenya, 1907
illustrated by GMB Chomichuk

“The Oud” by Thoraiya Dyer
The Shouf, Ottoman Empire, 1633
illustrated by Janet Chui

“Free Jim’s Mine” by Tananarive Due
Georgia, U.S.A., 1838
illustrated by Alice Meichi Li

“Ffydd (Faith)” by S. Lynn
Wales, 1919
illustrated by Daria Khvostova

“Across the Seam” by Sunny Moraine
Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 1897
illustrated by Eric Orchard

“Numbers” by Rion Amilcar Scott
Maryland, U.S.A., 1919
illustrated by Alice Meichi Li

“Each Part Without Mercy” by Meg Jayanth
Madras, India, 1746
illustrated by Kaysha Siemens

“The Witch of Tarup” by Claire Humphrey
Tarup, Denmark, 1886
illustrated by Daria Khvostova

“Marigolds” by L.S. Johnson
Paris, France, 1775
illustrated by Daria Khvostova

“Diyu” by Robert William Iveniuk
British Columbia, Canada, 1883
illustrated by GMB Chomichuk

“Collected Likenesses” by Jamey Hatley
New York City, U.S.A., 1913
illustrated by Nilah Magruder

“Angela and the Scar” by Michael Janairo
Ilocos Norte Province, Philippines, 1900
illustrated by Eric Orchard

“The Colts” by Benjamin Parzybok
Hungary, 1514
illustrated by Sasha Gallagher

“Nine” by Kima Jones
Phoenix, U.S.A., 1902
illustrated by GMB Chomichuk

“The Heart and the Feather” by Christina Lynch
Austria, 1589
illustrated by Janet Chui

“A Score of Roses” by Troy L. Wiggins
Memphis, U.S.A., circa 1968
illustrated by Eric Orchard

“Neither Witch Nor Fairy” by Nghi Vo
Belfast, Ireland, 1895
illustrated by Kaysha Siemens

“A Deeper Echo” by David Fuller
Winnipeg, Canada, 1919
illustrated by Aaron Paquette

“Knotting Grass, Holding Ring” by Ken Liu
Yangzhou, China, 1645
illustrated by Jennifer Cruté

“Jooni” by Kemba Banton
Jamaica, 1843
illustrated by Nilah Magruder

“There Will Be One Vacant Chair” by Sarah Pinsker
Ohio, U.S.A, 1862
illustrated by Kaysha Siemens

“It’s War” by Nnedi Okorafor
Aba, Nigeria, 1929
illustrated by Esme Baran

“Find Me Unafraid” by Shanaé Brown
North Carolina, U.S.A, 1905
illustrated by Kasey Gifford

“A Wedding in Hungry Days” by Nicolette Barischoff
Shandong Province, China, 1900
illustrated by Eric Orchard

“Medu” by Lisa Bolekaja
Kansas, U.S.A., 1877
illustrated by Esme Baran

“Lone Women” by Victor LaValle
Montana, U.S.A, 1914
illustrated by Eric Orchard

“The Dance of the White Demons” by Sabrina Vourvoulias
Guatemala, 1524
illustrated by GMB Chomichuk

Nuestras Voces, Our Voices: Emerging Latina writers talk about their work - Lisa Bradley

Editor's note: this is the 13th in a monthly (sometimes twice-monthly) series of guest blog posts in which emerging Latina writers talk about their work, their process and what inspires them. 

Lisa M. Bradley writes speculative fiction and poetry. She has work forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Stone Telling, and Mythic Delirium. Originally from South Texas, she now lives in Iowa with her spouse, child, and two cats. Her latest project is a weekly blog series, "Writing Latin@ Characters Well." She listened to "Why We Build the Wall" (from Anaïs Mitchell's album Hadestown) nonstop as she wrote the following essay.

Borders

I think about borders. A lot.

It's probably natural, considering I grew up in South Texas, just minutes away from the international border. Once when I was young and living with my grandparents, a couple of men came to our door. Wet, ragged. Exhausted, wary. I fetched Gram and after speaking with them for a few minutes, she went to the kitchen and put together leftovers in aluminum foil for them, then tersely sent them on their way. I remember being surprised that my grouchy grandmother was giving food to apparent strangers. She didn't even like it when I served myself too large a glass of milk. I asked her who those men were, and she said they'd just crossed the river. She was pensive the rest of the day.

"The river" was, of course, the Rio Grande. I was amazed that the men had crossed a river without a boat, that they were on the run. I tried to imagine how scared and excited they were to be in another country, to be doing something illegal. I hoped they got away.

Another time, I went to Bentsen State Park with my family. The river runs right alongside the park, and when I looked across the sunny water, I saw sparse trees, some happy, relaxed goats, some people. I remember thinking, "That's Mexico. Those are Mexican goats. Those are Mexican people." I had to tell myself, because otherwise I wouldn't believe. The land over there looked exactly the same as on the American side. So did the goats. So did the people. We waved to each other. "That's Mexico" I told myself, trying to make it real. Trying to believe.

Living in Iowa hasn't diminished my interest in borders. If anything, the physical distance has brought the concept of borders into sharper focus. The novel I'm revising now is set in a west Texas town that's been quarantined after an industrial accident. The town is surrounded by watchtowers, an electrified fence, and a trench. The residents trapped inside protect themselves from violent neighbors by building barricades and booby-traps. Before long, it's impossible to tell who is fenced off and who is trapped inside, who the walls protect and who they keep out.

Even when I'm not writing about physical or geographic borders, I'm thinking about the hazy lines that divide one community from the next, one cause from another, one persona from the multiple voices inside our heads. I like to find chinks in the fences. My blog series "Writing Latin@ Characters Well" is an attempt to help non-Latin@ writers nudge under the fence of Thou Shalt Nots that discourages them from writing the Other.

A friend asked me to write specifically about the differences between what (conversations) the Latin@ community shares among themselves and what it shares with outsiders. This is the kind of question I love, but perhaps I am the wrong person to answer it. After all, I am so fond of transgressing. Is there anything I keep solely to mis compadres? Or even mis comadres? And if I can't keep private matters private, am I likely to be trusted by the community I seek to represent?

In How to Tame a Wild Tongue, Gloria Anzaldúa wrote, "being Mexican has nothing to do with which country one lives in. Being Mexican is a state of soul — not one of mind, not one of citizenship. Neither eagle nor serpent, but both. And like the ocean, neither animal respects borders."

By this definition, I am Mexican through and through, from one liminal "end" to an infinite number of other quasi-endpoints. My fascination with gaps in the walls, with crossing rivers fences laws, is not a barrier to but an illustration of my belonging to this group.

So maybe I'm a fine person to ask "what is shared and what kept hidden in Latin@ communities?" I'll poke at the question the same way I do all the fences blocking my view. I may not find an answer, but man…

It'll be fun tearing down the wall.

Collateral Memory at Strange Horizons and, for a night, at NYRSF

At New York Review of Science Fiction Reading
June 11, 2013

My short story "Collateral Memory" is the current fiction selection at the wonderful online speculative fiction magazine Strange Horizons fiction

I was honored to be asked by Jim Freund to read at the New York Review of Science Fiction reading series on June 11. Terence Taylor was the host, Barbara Krasnoff was my co-reader (she read her story "The History of Soul 2065" which will be released in Clockwork Phoenix 4 in July), and a really lovely and supportive group of people came out to the reading. 

Go read the story, and tell me what you think. And if you are in the NYC area, check out NYRSF's upcoming readings.

  

Nuestras Voces, Our Voices: Emerging Latina writers talk about their work - Julia Rios

Editor's note: this is the seventh in monthly series of guest blog posts in which emerging Latina writers talk about their work, their process and what inspires them.

Julia Rios is a writer, editor, podcaster, and narrator. She hosts the

Outer Alliance Podcast (celebrating QUILTBAG speculative fiction), and

is one of the three fiction editors at Strange Horizons. Her fiction,

articles, interviews, and poetry have appeared in Daily Science

Fiction, Apex Magazine, Stone Telling, Jabberwocky, and several other

places. Her website is www.juliarios.com, and she's @omgjulia on Twitter.

Embracing diversity

My father came to the United States from Yucatán, Mexico when he was a teenager. My earliest memories are filled with his melodious voice, deep and still bearing an accent that marked him as different from my mother's WASP family. Though he spoke English fluently, and even got a PhD in Psychology from the University of Southern California, his English speech patterns remained slightly off. He never taught me Spanish, but I managed to absorb some of his foreign markers all the same. To this day, I sometimes use the wrong prepositions, or not quite usual English constructions when I'm tired. "Put it in the table," I'll say. "Close the lamp."

Most of the time when that happens, it amuses me, but sometimes it makes me angry, or profoundly sad. My father wanted me to be proud of my heritage. More than once in mid-September, he took me to Mexican Independence Day celebrations on Olvera Street in Los Angeles, he made sure I knew Cinco de Mayo was not "Mexican 4th of July" like many advertisers claimed, and he shared stories and food from his home with me in between our infrequent visits to his family. But for all that, the reason my father didn't teach me Spanish was because in Southern California, Latin@s abound, and unfortunately, so does racism. My father wanted me to pass for white, to assimilate, and to have the privilege accorded to people who didn't speak Spanish at home.

As an adult, this push and pull of pride vs. shame is still confusing, and I spend a lot of time thinking about who I am, which communities I belong to, and why. I realized a few years ago that as a child I loved the show I Love Lucy, because it presented a comforting family structure. There was a white mom and a Latino dad who had an accent, yelled a lot, and also liked to sing. It was very similar to my own home. When I asked my sister if she liked it, too, she was surprised and said yes, and that it was weird we'd both liked it because it wasn't a particularly new or popular show during our childhood. It should be obvious though that there's nothing weird about us wanting to see ourselves reflected in our media.

Because of that, I have been paying more attention to what I put into my fiction lately. I started out writing with default straight white viewpoint characters, because that was what I'd understood was "normal" in commercial narratives. Now not everything I write includes Latin@ content, but I've issued an open invitation for those aspects of my background to come out and play. I think about all the other people out there who long to see representations of themselves, and I take that as challenge to embrace my own diversity.

I'm not just a Latina. I'm Mexican. I'm American. I'm bisexual. I'm a feminist. I'm left-handed. I love cats. All of these things are part of me, and none of them alone make me who I am. My story "Oracle Gretel" recently appeared in PodCastle and is forthcoming in Heiresses of Russ 2013 edited by Steve Berman and Tenea D. Johnson. It features a bi protagonist and a talking cat. My story "Love and the Giant Squid" will appear in July in Pen-Ultimate: A Speculative Fiction Anthology edited by Lisa J. Cohen and Talib Hussain. It features a character who has a lot in common with my own father, though he's very much a fictional person. I don't know what the future will bring for my writing, but I do know that all of it will be in some way Latina, because it all will come from me. If I want to encourage my Latin@ peers to stretch out and embrace their full identities, whatever they may be, I guess first I must start with myself.

Reading at NYRSF in NYC on June 11

The New York Review of Science Fiction Readings present:

Barbara Krasnoff

Sabrina Vourvoulias

Guest Host

Terence Taylor

WHEN:
Tuesday, June 11th
Doors open at 6:30 -- event begins at 7

WHERE:
The SoHo Gallery for Digital Art
138 Sullivan Street (between Houston & Prince St.)
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=138+Sullivan+St.+New+York+NY+10012

HOW:
By Subway
6, C, E to Spring St.; A, B D or F to West 4th; 1 train to Houston St; or R, W to Prince St.

There are many convenient bus lines that come within a couple of blocks of the gallery. Use the link above for an interactive transit map.

Sabrina Vourvoulias was born in Bangkok, Thailand—the daughter of a Mexican-Guatemalan artist and an American businessman. She grew up in Guatemala and moved to the United States when she was fifteen.

Sabrina is the managing editor of Al Día News, Philadelphia’s leading Spanish-language newspaper. Her editorials and columns appear there and at www.pontealdia.com in Spanish and English. Her blog, Following the Lede was nominated for at Latinos in Social Media award in 2011.

In addition to journalism, she writes speculative poetry and short and long-form fiction. Her poetry has appeared in Dappled Things, Graham House Review, Scheherezade's Bequest at Cabinet des Fées, La Bloga's Floricanto, Poets Respond to SB 1070, and upcoming in Bull Spec; her fiction in Crossed Genres Issue 24, in the Crossed Genres Year Two, Fat Girl in a Strange Land and Menial: Skilled Labor in SF anthologies, and upcoming in GUD magazine and Strange Horizons.

Her novel, Ink, was published by Crossed Genres Publications in October 2012, and she is currently working on a novel length collection of linked stories that ask the question: Do monsters cross borders with the immigrants who believe in them?

She lives near Philadelphia, with her husband and daughter. Follow her on twitter @followthelede.


Barbara Krasnoff's short fiction has appeared in the anthologies Memories and Visions (Sturgis, ed.), Such A Pretty Face (Martindale, ed.), Escape Velocity: The Anthology (Nelder and Blevins, eds.), Descended From Darkness (Sizemore and Ainsworth, eds.), Clockwork Phoenix 2 (Allen, ed.), Crossed Genres: Year Two (Holt, Jennings, and Leib, eds.), Broken Time Blues (Holt and Gates, eds.), Subversion (Leib, ed.), Fat Girl in a Strange Land (Holt and Leib, eds.), and Menial (Jennings and Darrach, eds.). Her work has also appeared in the publications Amazing Stories, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Descant, Weird Tales, Sybil's Garage,Escape Velocity, Behind the Wainscot, Doorways, Apex, Electric Velocipede, Space and Time, Crossed Genres, Atomic Avariceand Cosmos. Most recently, her story "The History of Soul 2065" is appearing in Clockwork Phoenix 4 (Allen, ed.) while "Under the Bay Court Tree" will be in an upcoming issue of Space and Time. Her poem "Memorials" appeared in Poetica.

Barbara is also the author of a YA non-fiction book, Robots: Reel to Real (Arco, 1982), and is currently Sr. Reviews Editor for Computerworld. She is a member of the NYC writers group Tabula Rasa, and lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her partner Jim Freund. Her online home is at

http://brooklynwriter.com/


Terence Taylor is an award-winning children's television writer whose work's appeared on PBS, Nickelodeon, and Disney, among many others. After a career of comforting young kids, he's ow equally dedicated to scaring their parents. His short horror stories have been published in all three "Dark Dreams" horror/suspense anthologies. His first novel, Bite Marks: A Vampire Testament, came out in September of 2009. Blood Pressure: A Vampire Testament, second in the opening trilogy of the continuing Vampire Testaments, was released in March, 2010.

The New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series provides performances from some of the best writers in science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, etc. The series usually takes place the first Tuesday of every month, but maintains flexibility in time and space, so be sure to stay in touch through the mailing list, the Web, and Facebook.

There will be a raffle for all who donate for admission.

After the event, please join us as we treat our readers for dinner and drinks nearby.

Jim Freund is Producer and Executive Curator of The New York Review of Science Fiction Readings. He has been involved in producing radio programs of and about literary sf/f since 1967. His long-running live radio program, “Hour of the Wolf,” broadcasts and streams every Wednesday night/Thursday morning from 1:30-3:00 AM. Programs are available by stream for 2 weeks after broadcast. (Check http://hourwolf.com/, follow @JimFreund, or join the Hour of the Wolf group on Facebook for details.)

The SoHo Gallery for Digital Art (www.sohodigart.com) is dedicated to re-establishing SoHo as an international center for the development of new artistic forms, concepts and ideas. A screens-instead-of-canvases approach allows a wide selection of art from around the world which would otherwise never make it to the City. The SGDA is available for private gatherings and events of all kinds. For bookings call (800) 420-5590 or visit http://sohogallerynyc.com/.

LINKS:
http://hourwolf.com/nyrsf
http://www.facebook.com/groups/157561920945872/

Fox News Latino: Sabrina Vourvoulias releases novel Ink

Thrilled to have Fox News Latino showcase my novel, INK! Read about its immigration theme, its link to Guatemala and my love of magical realism:
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2012/11/01/sabrina-vourvoulias-releases-new-novel-ink/

Advanced Reading Copies of INK are in the house

Well, not my house — but at Crossed Genres Publications. I'll get to see my first perfect bound copy at Readercon 23 (where I'll be part of the Crossed Genres reading on Saturday at noon).

Excited doesn't even begin to cover how I feel...

For review copies of INK please contact publicity @ crossedgenres . com  

Format: Paperback (240 pp.) & Ebook
Release date: Monday, October 15, 2012
ISBN: 0615657818 / ISBN-13: 978-0615657813
Cost: $13.95 (print) / $5.99 (ebook)

Beta-readers

 

A thank-you for a pretty thankless job. =)

INK: Of butterflies, and my novel's due date

Advance Reading Copies of my novel, INK, set to be released by Crossed Genres Publications on Oct. 15, will be available soon... I know, because I just read through the final before it goes to proof.

In a word: Aieee! Excited and terrified at once.

Despite the photo at the top of this post, INK has nothing to do with butterflies (but certainly started producing that fluttery feeling in my stomach as soon as I saw the ARCs).


Here's a synopsis of the novel:

What happens when rhetoric about immigrants escalates to an institutionalized population control system? The near-future, dark speculative novel, INK, opens as a biometric tattoo is approved for use to mark temporary workers, permanent residents and citizens with recent immigration history — collectively known as inks.

The main characters grapple with ever-changing definitions of power, home and community. Relationships reshape their lives in ways they don’t fully understand. Magic and “the other” breach borders, both personal and public. In this world, the protagonists’ magicks serve and fail, as do all other systems — government, gang, religious organization, news media and Internet — until two things alone stand: love and memory.

Despite its political underpinnings, INK is primarily a story about relationships: ink and non-ink; history and future; stories and life; and the magic that attends all of them.

INK will be published by Crossed Genres Publications Oct. 15, 2012.

Interested in reading for review? Email me at svourvoulias(at)yahoo(dot)com, and let me know.

Launch date for INK is October 15!

So, the official launch date for my novel, INK, is October 15!

I'll post the cover as soon as it's set, and will post any info about a launch party (thinking, thinking).
Also, I'm definitely planning to be at Philcon. (Am also planning to go to Readercon, but only as a participant since my book won't yet be out).

More deets about everything to follow....