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On the Hugo Award unpleasantness.

The Rabid Puppy brigade have gamed the Hugos again. At least this time, there was some humor involved—see the Chuck Tingle entry. But for the most part, it’s underwhelming and sigh-inducing, rather than shocking and hateful. I’m reminded of a quote that Toni Morrison made about racism (see below), though you could substitute just about any bigotry/ism in for racism.

Morrison Quote

I’m just going to focus on creating my weird, diversity filled fictional worlds, and reading and supporting the same. The Puppies’ antics are just a distraction. So much good fiction—some of it written by Straight White Men, no less– is coming out now. We are in a Golden Age, with tons of stories and many unique voices being heard, both in the large and indie presses.

Let’s keep our focus there, and away from immature provocateurs.

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Interview with Matthew Kressel, Author of “King of Shards”

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My interview with Matthew Kressel, author of King of Shards, the first in a series of fantasy novels inspired by Jewish mythology, is now up at the Washington Independent Review of Books. Matthew has always been a cheerleader of my own work, so I was pleased to do the interview and give his book exposure.

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A signal boost for Rosarium Publishing

Mothership

There’s a lot of talk about diversity in publishing. Local-to-me publisher (in nearby Greenbelt, MD) Rosarium is actually doing it. In addition to publishing the critically acclaimed Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism & Beyond and Stories for Chip, (a Samuel R Delany tribute) anthologies they also publish comics and art books from a world-wide myriad of voices.

During my last appearance, at the CUNY Graduate Center, where I spoke about racism and homophobia in the speculative fiction community, I didn’t have a chance to highlight the various presses that are bringing diverse voices to publishing and speculative storytelling. Rosarium exemplifies that ideal.

In a few short years, Rosarium Publishing has produced some awesome and provocative material. They are currently running an Indiegogo campaign, which closes in 8 days, to raise the profile of the company and fund various exciting projects.

You can learn about it here.

 

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The Agony and the agony: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

A Little LifeA Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A tale of two novels

A Little Life starts out as a bildungsroman. Its milleu, of 4 highly educated, multiracial people more or less on the gay side of the Kinsey scale is witty and rings true. It’s a mélange of workplace struggles, fabulous soirees, bad apartments and sexual experimentation. Then, about 200 pages in, it turns into a Lemony Snicket-styled book for adults, full of abuse and suffering. The two modes of storytelling, however, don’t mesh. Yanagihara’s scene setting is so meticulous—down to describing what people eat and their apartments—that the intrusion of Dickensian (heading towards Grand Guginol) excessive suffering is odd.

****SPOILERS****

Mind you, the writing about self-loathing and self-harm is powerful and ghastly and gorgeous. It just doesn’t seem to belong to the first conception of the novel. Furthermore, the history of the lead character, Jude, is downright surreal. I had a hard time believing that a pugilistic lawyer who made enough money to live in a Soho warehouse with a private swimming pool, who was also a master baker and sang lieder and had a post graduate degree in pure mathematics came from such ghoulish circumstances—a foundling raised by pedophilic monks, then a child sex slave, then a teenage hustler, and finally, a victim of a Silence of the Lambs styled sicko. Oh, he also suffers from blistering pain that requires him to use a wheelchair sometimes, and he cuts himself to ribbons with regular frequency. My problem wasn’t with the hopelessness of the story, which some people call “tragedy porn”. It was with the logistics. The problem is, in Yanagihira’s complex, detailed novel, there wasn’t a single scene of Jude learning how to bake or being a lawyer, so you don’t really see how he is supposed to pull off the Tough Lawyer by day/wounded self-destructive boy with the thorn in side by night balancing act. Also unbelievable was the patience his enabling friends had for Jude. I know real life people who are a whole lot less damaged than Jude who try people’s patience. Only his friend JB is strong enough not to put up with his crap—and JB is painted in a bad light.

Despite the flaws, A Little Life did keep me reading. The prose was great if a little overwrought sometimes, and was even suspenseful. I think that there is a great novel within this messy first draft.

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Sci-Fi Alien(ation): Diversity Under Attack Panel at CUNY Graduate Center

Photo by Sam J. Miller
Photo by Sam J. Miller

 

This past Friday, Dr. Andre Carrington, Jennifer Marie Brissett and I discussed the issues of racism, homophobia and diversity in the Speculative Fiction community on a panel at the CUNY Graduate Center. We covered the Hugo Award unpleasantness, access to publishing and instances of racism and homophobia both as authors and as fans. The classroom was full, and people had to be turned away! The audience and the panelists were lively and engaged. You can watch the video here. Thanks to people who came out and to Dr. Philip Kadish for arranging this panel!

 

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EVENT: Sci-Fi Alien(ation): Diversity and Bigotry in Sci-Fi/Fantasy–April 8, 2016

SciFi Event

I will be in a panelist for this event in NYC, on April 8. Dr. Philip Kadish will be moderating, and fellow panelists include Jennifer Marie Brissett (author of Elysium), and Dr. Andre Carrington (author of Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction). It will be held at the CUNY Graduate Center at 6pm.

A panel discussion with science fiction scholar Dr. André Carrington (Drexel Univ.) and science fiction/ fantasy authors Jennifer Marie Brissett and Craig Laurance Gidney, moderated by Dr. Philip Kadish (Hunter College) to celebrate diversity and dissect racism, homophobia, and sexism in the world of sci-fi publishing and fandom.  Special attention will be paid to  the highly-publicized hate campaign at the 2015 Hugo Awards. A group calling itself the “Sad Puppies” gamed the voting system to assure that most award nominees were white, male, and straight, voicing public statements about gay, black, and women’s themes and authors ruining the genre. This episode mirrors “gamer-gate,” where rape and death threats were made against women in the video game industry who have complained about sexism.

More information and free tickets are here.

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Pop Music & Magic in “Signal to Noise” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Signal to NoiseSignal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A charming slice-of-life magical realist book set in Mexico City in the late 80s and in 2009.
Late 80s Mercedes Vega (Meche) is a prickly, sarcastic 15-year old who has developed twin interests in pop music nerdery and spellcasting. She manages to combine the two, and becomes a sorceress who uses vinyl records as a focusing agent for her spells. She press gangs her two friends–bookish Sebastian and girly-girl Daniela–to form a makeshift coven. Mayhem, of the normal teenaged variety, ensues. Flash foward 20-odd years finds Meche, who’s moved to Oslo, is still prickly and sarcastic, still smarting from the fallout of her experiments in sorcery.

Signal to Noise is a gentle, character-driven novel, less about magic and more about the carefully crafted people Moreno-Garcia makes.
Fans of Jonathan Carroll and Mary Rickert would enjoy this book.

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2015 Roundup — Of Nectar and Awards

2015 was very productive year
Ups include:

–SKIN DEEP MAGIC was on a couple of college syllabi, and I got to do two author visits with college students, and it was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.
–BEREFT, my YA novel about bullying, racism and homophobia, won a Bronze Moonbeam and a Silver IPPY Award

–I got to assist with editors choosing the fiction in QUEERS DESTROY HORROR.
–I got to go to WORLD HORROR in Atlanta, which led to several professional friendships.
–My novelette THE NECTAR OF NIGHTMARES was published and illustrated got good reviews
–My first collection, SEA, SWALLOW ME & OTHER STORIES was turned into an audiobook.
All are bucket list accomplishments.

Downs include:
The death of Tanith Lee. We used to exchange emails and she was very supportive of all of my work. I only met her once. We had planned a visit before her illness. I dedicated THE NECTAR OF NIGHTMARES to her.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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“The Nectar of Nightmares” in Weird Fiction Reviews End of Year booklist

Weird Fiction Review did its annual End of Year Booklist, and one of the reviewers, Christoper Burke, said some lovely things about NoN. Tis an honor to have my work listed alongside Kelly Link, Angela Carter, Thomas Ligotti and Sofia Samatar.

The management reminds you that The Nectar of Nightmares is a limited edition illustrated chapbook. Over half of them have been sold. Copies are still available.

The Nectar of Nightmares