Enmity Online

By:  TempestNews

No, this is not about online fights.

As many of you know, I have a story in the latest issue of the Hugo award-winning zine Electric Velocipede. The editor asked if he could put my story online in its entirety to tempt people into buying the whole issue. I said yes immediately because I heart having my stories both online and in print.

Today it went live, so you can check out Enmity on the EV website. I hope you enjoy. This was my first Mythpunk story (before I even knew what Mythpunk was!). I was inspired by the stuff I learned in my creation myths class. Like Black Feather, I drew from many different versions of myths and many different myth traditions. It’s pretty cool the connections you can find by just looking for common elements and symbolism.

2009 Clarion West Write-a-thon wrapup

By:  TempestWrite-a-thon
2009 Clarion West Write-a-thon wrapup

So the Write-a-thon ended over two weeks ago and I haven’t said anything about it on the blog. I suck, I know. But here I am to do so now!

I was able to complete revisions on all 6 stories, though 3 of them needed to be sent to beta readers or my crit group before actually going out into the world. Still, I have 3 stories in circulation that were not before. And I even broke down and sent one of them to Asimov’s.

I am working this weekend to get all of the books sent out to Bronze level sponsors and, since I didn’t do so while the WaT was going on, I have to create some earrings and other jewelry based on these stories. There were only two Silver sponsors, though, so I suspect it won’t be hard.

All of the donations are not in yet, but with the addition of a late pledger, I will probably have raised over $1,900 for Clarion West and the Butler Scholarship. YAY! This is way above what I initially set out to bring in.

I’m taking down the dedicated WaT page until next year, also the sponsors on the sidebar. But I will re-list their names under the cut for posterity. Thank you, again, those who are listed and those who aren’t for your generosity and support.

Since it all ended I’ve been taking a fiction break. But this weekend I am back on the horse — I have a novel to write.

Continue reading “2009 Clarion West Write-a-thon wrapup” →

This is why I don’t go to WorldCon

By:  TempestConventions
This is why I don't go to WorldCon

I used to go to WorldCon every year without fail, kind of like the way I go to WisCon now. But long ago WorldCon chafed on me, and I realized that it was far more expensive than other cons and more of a trip to see my friends than an enjoyable con experience. Beyond that, though, it got to be more than a little annoying to deal with the cluelessness around race. WorldCon is big — not Comicon big, but big. Therefore you cannot predict from what quarter the crazy might come at you and thus avoid it.

So when I read posts like Karnythia’s about her first WorldCon experience, it just reinforces my conviction that being there would not be healthy for me. That’s a big ball of fail right there.

I know that I will go back to WorldCon someday. When I have a book out I’ll need to promote it. And when I’m nominated for a Hugo I want to be on the scene in case I win. And I acknowledge that the entire con is not some huge, writhing mass of fail. Like anywhere there are good parts and bad parts and neutral parts and there’s usually a squid, too. But for the amount of money it costs, plus the energy it drains, I’m better off making WisCon and World Fantasy my must-go conventions with a happy dash of ReaderCon on the side.

Creating Better Magazines

By:  TempestNon-Fiction Publications

Yesterday at Tor.com I nattered on about what it takes to create better magazines. Was at work when it went up, so I didn’t get a chance to post about it. The conversation in comments is actually interesting, though there does seem to be one person determined to make me out as a person who hates white people! Or something.

Also, Mike Ashley STILL hasn’t answered my open letter! Sadness.

2009 Hugo Award Night of Win

By:  TempestNews
2009 Hugo Award Night of Win

Though I am not fond of WorldCon, I do wish I could be there tonight to party with the Hugo winners. Many people I know and love to pieces won tonight:

  • BEST NOVELLA: “The Erdmann Nexus” by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)
  • BEST SHORT STORY: “Exhalation” by Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two, also: audio version)
  • BEST RELATED BOOK: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008 by John Scalzi (Subterranean Press)
  • BEST EDITOR, SHORT FORM: Ellen Datlow
  • BEST SEMIPROZINE: Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer & Stephen H. Segal
  • BEST FAN WRITER: Cheryl Morgan
  • BEST FANZINE: Electric Velocipede edited by John Klima
  • BEST FAN ARTIST: Frank Wu

I seriously don’t think I’ve ever seen a Hugo winner list made of more win. Special congrats to Weird Tales for breaking the million-year Locus winning streak and to my main man, John Klima, for his fanzine win. I am dancing in my living room and singing at the top of my lungs in praise of all y’all.

Once More, With Feeling: Intersectionality

By:  TempestThe Publishing Biz
Once More, With Feeling: Intersectionality

Or: why the Male Only Table of Contents issue is about both Gender and Race

So over on Marguerite’s blog editor Mike Ashley of the Mammoth Book of White Men Fail Mindbowing SF explains that the stories he was looking for, those that blew his mind with science, aren’t usually written by women, and therefore that’s why he couldn’t find any to include. Women are writing about people, you see, not necessarily science. Whatever. But, as I pointed out there, even if this was a valid excuse for an all-male TOC, that does not explain the lack of POC. A white male friend then pinged me, privately, to say: but isn’t that confusing the issue? Are you criticising him for having only men or no POC? And the answer is: both. And, not surprisingly, the two issues are intertwined.

To wit: when anthologies like this hit the Internets and we look at the TOC it’s very easy to notice that there are no women. It is therefore very easy to comment on and get angry about this fact. It is also easy for editors to come along and address only this exclusion, usually by saying “I didn’t pay attention to the bylines” and “women don’t write the kind of stories I was looking for” or “I don’t want to include them just as tokens”. Because at that point editors can pass it off as taste, and not even one based on gender, but on types of fiction.

But.

When one notices that these anthologies also don’t include any writers of color, either male or female, that complicates the issue, doesn’t it? It’s no longer just about whether men write these kinds of stories and women don’t. Because men of color write science fiction, too. Are we then going to even begin to say that they write more about people and not about science? Of course not. Stupid people are more likely to whip out, “But their stories are about race and only black people care about race!” Those people are wrong on both counts.

The same mindset is at work in both cases. It’s not “women/POC don’t write the kind of stories I was looking for,” it’s: I only like/read/understand/connect to/care for stories about white, male concerns.

That is a problem. Because SF, be it mammoth or mindblowing or sciencey, is not just about white, male concerns. And any anthology of SF or fantasy or horror that essentially posits the white male concerns as representative, normal, baseline, or default is an anthology made of fail. Because that is not what the genre is right now. Maybe 20 years ago. Hell, maybe 10 years ago. But not now. Not in the future.

As I said at Readercon, the future of this genre is women, people of color, people of different classes, people outside of the default American culture, people outside of America, period. When people ignore or suppress or marginalize this truth, be it intentionally or through laziness of mind, as appears to be the case here, you are In The Wrong in every way imaginable.

Understood?

Two Things Make a WIN

By:  TempestNews
Two Things Make a WIN

These two things have nothing to do with each other, I just happen to be posting about them at the same time.

1 — io9 reviewed Federations and Charlie Jane liked it quite a lot. She had nice things to say about my story specifically:

There are also a few delightfully snarky stories which deconstruct, and in some cases satirize outright, the idea of a civilization made up of civilizations, and these are among the book’s standout stories. … K. Tempest Bradford’s “Different Day” imagines the Earth being contacted by not just one, but three different alien races within the same interstellar group, each with its own agenda.

I think I will make a button that says “delightfully snarky.”

2 — Also, the World Fantasy nominees have been announced and you should just click here to see, because the awesome on this list is very strong. I will call out some things I’m particularly happy to see: Filter House, Paper Cities, and “A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica”. Yay for Nisi and Ekaterina and Catherynne, but they are not the only ones. The special awards pro and non-pro have some really, really extraordinary names competing.

This ballot is something to get excited about, unlike certain others I could name.

And… that’s it!