Having my first official author event for Ruby Finley at Powell’s Books in Cedar Hills Crossing. Very exciting! I’ll do a very short reading, then have a talk with my friend and fellow kidlit author Tina Connolly followed by some Q&A, then a signing.
Powell’s will ship you a signed book from the event if you can’t come. It won’t be personalized, though.
Bring your kids! I’ll have some exclusive Ruby merch for them.
When: November 28 @ 7PM
Where: 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd, Beaverton, OR
For the past few weeks I’ve been turning up to bookstores that have copies of Ruby Finley vs the Interstellar Invasion to sign them! I also very much enjoyed meeting the booksellers along the way. Below is a list of stores where I’ve signed stock. Most only had one or two copies at the time, so they may be gone. Perhaps you’ll get lucky!
If you happen to drop by to get a signed copy, make sure you tell them you came specifically for that! It helps when they know.
Not in any of these cities? Never fear, you can still get my book online or from your local indie bookstore. Click here to find it in your area.
It’s getting toward the end of the year and that means it’s time for sales because capitalism! While I would not blame you for not wanting to participate in said capitalism, if you are going to buy gifts for yourself or your loved ones, let me help ease the burden on your wallet.
Starting today through December 20 all items in Ruby’s Merch Shop and in my online bookstore, Tempestuous Books, are on sale. Plus, I am offering up a limited number of signed, personalized, custom Ruby Finley bookplates.
I lowered all the prices in my Redbubble shop by 15%. Plus, Redbubble is offering 25% off everything if you buy today. If there are any more sales later or any coupons you find, they’ll apply on top of my discount. No matter what, you can get all the t-shirts, backpacks, journals, notebooks, and stickers for less until December 20.
I added almost all of the books I’ve written, contributed to, or appeared in to my online bookstore. Most are only available in print, some in eBook. All of them are available for 20% off with coupon: holiday2022 – good until December 20.
This is ongoing but I figured I’d mention it again! Use code TEMPEST to get 30% off the audiobook on Libro. You should check out Libro in any case because they’re so much better than Audible ;) This code is good until December 31.
I designed a Ruby-themed bookplate for sending to folks who can’t get their books autographed in person. If you’d like to get one for your own copy or to put in a book for someone else for the holidays, you can order them through my Gumroad store. They cost $2.50 (this includes shipping). I’ll sign each and personalize it with up to three names.
Only 50 available!
Today Eventbrite announced the ten finalists for their RECONVENE Accelerator program to help emerging creators build community and shape culture. I’m one of them! And if I win I get $10,000 to put on an event.
I want to launch a BIPOC Book Fair in the Pacific Northwest. Sounds awesome, right? Guess what: you can help make it happen! Two of the five winners will be chosen by popular vote. Voting is open from June 21 to 29 and anyone can cast a ballot. You can vote once every day, in fact. And each time you vote I get one step closer to making my dream event a reality.
This week The Brown Bookshelf and the Highlights Foundation announced the inaugural Storyteller Cohort for their Amplify Black Stories initiative. And if you look reeeaaallly close at the image there you’ll see me! In company with 23 other Black writers of kidlit! It’s a wall of Black Excellence! And I’m so honored to be part of it.
The program is focused on supporting Black storytellers, confronting industry challenges, and fostering change. In addition the work the storytellers are doing, the Brown Bookshelf and Highlights will be conducting seminars and talks with the publishers involved with the same goals. It’s really important that all the work isn’t put on authors since we’re not the ones with the marketing departments and ability to allocate marketing funds.
Continue reading “Amplify Black Stories Storyteller Cohort 2021”
The Willamette Writers community recently announced the lineup of teachers and keynote speakers for their conference this summer, and for the first time I’m one of them! There are a ton of amazing writers, editors, and agents on that list and I’m honored to be listed alongside them. Plus, I’ve been hearing wonderful things about this conference for a while and I’m excited to attend and absorb some knowledge myself.
The conference takes place July 31 – August 2, 2020 and currently the in-person event in Portland, Oregon is still happening. However, there is now a virtual option for the conference and, if need be, the event will go full virtual.
Here’s the list of my Master Class, Panel, and Workshops:
Master Class: Describing the “Other”
Three Sessions: Monday – Wednesday, July 27-29, 5-7 PM Pacific
Writers who want to create fiction with characters from different identities, cultures, and backgrounds often grow anxious when it comes time to describe people from marginalized groups. They wonder which words and phrases they should avoid and which words to use instead. In this Master Class, writers will learn how to avoid these description pitfalls. Through lecture and writing exercises, we’ll go beyond the basics of eliminating food metaphors and other tired/inaccurate clichés and explore how to make conscious, respectful, and inclusive language choices. Writers will come away from the session with a set of resources to help them avoid descriptions that unwittingly reveal or perpetuate bias and oppression. Bring your computer, tablet, or pen and paper for hands-on exercises.
Panel: Current Themes in Science Fiction and Fantasy
Friday, July 31, 2020 9:00 AM-10:30 AM
The world of Science Fiction and Fantasy is imaginative, big, and wild. Join noted SFF authors as they discuss current themes that have found their way into SFF, and how the industry has changed in the last few years.
Workshop: Intersectionality and Characterization
Friday, July 31, 3:45 PM-4:45 PM
When writers first conceptualize characters, they often have one or two aspects of identity firmly in mind. In focusing on one particular aspect of identity – such as race or ability or sexual orientation – you can lose sight of the fact that there are always overlapping areas of identity that affect how a character moves through the world. In this workshop, we’ll discuss how Intersectionality can be used as framework for creating fully-dimensional characters, especially when those characters are from identities and cultures different from your own. There will be hands-on writing exercises, so bring your laptop, tablet, or pen and paper.
Workshop: Writing Outside of Your Experience: Characterization
Saturday, August 1, 10:45 AM-12:15 PM
Representation and creating characters that reflect the diversity of the world we all live in is fundamental to writing great fiction. But writers often find it difficult to represent people whose gender, sexual orientation, racial heritage, or other aspect of identity is very different from their own. This can lead to fear of getting it horribly, offensively wrong and, in the face of that, some think it’s better to not even try. But representation is too important to ignore. In this workshop, K. Tempest Bradford will give you tools and set you on the right path to writing characters who represent the “Other” sensitively and convincingly. There will be hands-on writing exercises, so bring your laptop, tablet, or pen and paper.
In addition, I will attend the Writers of Color Social on Saturday morning at 7:30 if there’s an in-person event.
You can find more details and register here. I hope I see some of you this summer!
A bit of awesome news! The folks running Big Bad Con have invited me to be part of their event, thanks to the efforts and introductions of the ever wonderful Ajit George. After hearing all about BBC from Ajit this past weekend at WisCon I got excited to be part of yet another convention that cares about inclusivity and works hard to make the space welcoming. So not only did I agree to come to the con, I also agreed to run a Writing the Other workshop there.
Doing events like this does take funds, and I’m happy to report that the Big Bad Con folks believe in ensuring invited guests don’t take on a financial burden in coming. Thus, they have Kickstarter stretch goals to pay for these things. They just added me as the final stretch goal (the campaign ends in just 5 days).
They are less than $5,000 away from bringing me in along with Ash McAllan (a cyberfemme anarchoqueer stream queen and designer) and Maury Brown (lead creative and co-founder of New World Magischola). If you look through the Kickstarter page you can see all the other great invitees who’ve been funded already. I cannot wait to meet these people!
I’m also looking forward to attending Big Bad Con’s first POC Dinner, organized by Ajit and inspired by the one we have at WisCon every year. I love that this idea keeps spreading (Isabel Schechter has brought it to at least 3 cons that I know of as well — yay).
The BBC Kickstarter page does a much better job than I can of explaining the event and making you wish you could come — and if you have the funds and availability, I encourage you to do so — so please check it out. And back it, if you can.
Thanks to all the folks working behind the scenes at Big Bad Con for welcoming me into the fold and making this the kind of con I’m suuuuuuper excited to attend. I can’t wait.
Things have been a bit whirlwindy in my life and thus I did not post here when I hit my initial funding goal for my trip to Egypt. BUT I DID, I DID, I AM GOING TO EGYPT! This all happened fast. One day I hit $3,000 and started preparing for the Gods of Egypt hatewatch and then BOOM, shortly after I was over $5,000. I have some amazing friends and family.
And, because I hit my initial funding, I am reaching for my first stretch goal: $6,000. This will give me enough extra money to stay in Cairo a few days after the tour ends and take a day trip to the Valley of the Kings so I can spend one full day at Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple taking pictures. I’m quite close to this second goal. Right now the fundraiser is at $5,6661, so I need just $334 more.
How to encourage a few more donations? I still owe my supporters this hatewatch…
At 12PM Eastern today I will watch Gods of Egypt with Scott Woods and we will give you our impressions of this mess in real time on Twitter. We’re using the hashtag #WhitesOfEgypt. Keep an eye on that to follow along.
As we watch you will start to feel sorry for us, because this movie is so racist it hurts. Every time you feel that pang of sympathy, consider dropping a few bucks in the tip jar.
I will Storify the tweets once we’re done for those of you who miss it (I’ll add to this post). And afterward Scott and I will do a video of our final reactions. Which will also be hilarious.
And after that I will no longer have to watch bad movies set in ancient Egypt and go back to reading good books about Egypt, instead.
…unless I don’t hit my stretch goal…
UPDATE! We did it and we survived. Click here for the Wakelet of all the tweets. And you can watch our reaction video below.
Got closer to my stretch goal but still looking for a few more dollars!
Thanks to my wonderful friends and fans I’ve raised half the money I need to go to Egypt! YAY! You are all so awesome and amazing and thank you so much! Here, have one more exclamation point!
Can’t stop pushing the fundraiser now, because there’s a big deadline coming up.
I need to pay the tour company on March 1 to ensure I have a spot (tour is in May). That means I need to get to $3,500 in the fundraiser since I have about $1,000 of my own money saved. Once I pay for the tour I can concentrate on raising the other $1,500 for flights and other needs.
So, another $1,000 in 20 days. Let’s do this.
My first goal is to get to $3,000. When I do I will finally do the thing I’ve been threatening to do since this adventure started: watch The Gods of Egypt.
I got through Exodus: Gods and Kings without too much lasting psychological damage, so I feel I can handle this. I’ll have help, though.
Poet and provocateur Scott Woods has agreed to do a livetweet watch of the movie with me. If you’re not familiar with Scott’s work, you should at least read his review of GoE, which I pointed to way back when I first posted about this garbage fire of a movie. If you read his piece and watch my video about it, you’ll get an excellent sense of what our color commentary is going to look like. You’ll also understand why doing this is a huge sacrifice. Bless you, Scott.
After we watch the movie, we’re going to do a reaction video wherein he will try to hold back laughter as I scream from my fetal position under a table WHY! WHY GODS WHY!?
You know you want to see this.
And you can once we hit $3,000. To make that happen faster you can donate to the fundraiser and/or you can share stuff about it all over the Internet. Either one helps!
The direct link to the YouCaring page is here: https://www.youcaring.com/ktempestbradford-1014406
Or you can share one of the videos I’ve made about the book or about the fundraiser, including this new one in which I sing:
Thank you again to all the folks who have already helped me get to this point. My first newsletter is coming this weekend, as well as backer rewards such as free fiction! Folks on Patreon: Same!
Four years ago I attended the Sirens conference for the first time and fell right in love with it. You can read a little about my experience here. The theme that year: Reunion. It was Siren’s 5th year and they were celebrating the fact that in those years a small but potent community had grown up around the conference.
I didn’t get to go to Sirens in 2014 or 2015 for financial reasons – it can be an expensive event – but in 2016 I got a scholarship to attend and this year I financed it in part via Patreon. I wanted to be there to celebrate my friends Kiini Ibura Salaam (one of last year’s guests of honor) and N. K. Jemisin (one of this year’s GoHs). And I missed that little but potent community of awesome people.
Next year, I get to go back! I’ve been invited to be a part of the Writing faculty for Sirens Studio, a workshop that takes place in the days right before the main conference starts. My workshop will be on description and writing inclusive fiction:
After characterization, the aspect of craft writers who aim to create inclusive, representational fiction are most anxious to get right is description. This can be particularly difficult for fantasy and science fiction authors, who must sometimes describe types of people who don’t yet exist. In this intensive we’ll use writing exercises to explore and practice the art of description, talk about bias language, and dismantle the idea of exposition as the enemy of good writing. There will be a mix of lecture, discussion, and exercises, and all participants will leave with a set of resources for further practice and deeper understanding.
I’m so pleased I get to go back, especially because next year’s theme is, once again, Reunion. This time it really will be a reunion for me. I’m also very excited about the guests of honor: Zen Cho, Kameron Hurley, Anna-Marie McLemore, and Leigh Bardugo. It’s going to be awesome.
If you are thinking about coming to Sirens, think harder! It’s still a small conference – this year they broke all previous records by having about 225 people all told – and it’s still more in the academic conference mold than the SF convention one. That’s what makes it great. There’s a concentrated amount of programming, there are panels and discussions and presentations, the attendees are all smart and love reading, and it isn’t primarily about writing and writers, it’s about reading and readers. If you love books, if you love fantasy, if you love fantasy books written by women, then then you will love Sirens. And you should come. Registration is open. See you there.
