Category: Events

Calling All Artists!

By:  TempestEvents
Calling All Artists!

You’ve been waiting for weeks, and now the official announcement can be made: The Interstitial Arts Foundation is holding another auction to benefit the Interfictions anthologies.  Yes, that is plural, because Interfictions 2 will be out this winter.  The auction will coincide with the publication of the book, allowing us to create an artistic celebration and event for a book that does not exist in the world yet.  I know, awesome, right?

The IAF is looking for amazing artists, crafters, musicians and people who love to create to donate portable/wearable/singable art and music based on the stories in Interfictions 1 and 2. Yes, 2!

But how, you ask, will we base creations on that which we have not read?  Excellent question!

If you visit the IAFAuction Call to Artists you will see short excerpts from stories in Interfictions 2 floating around the page.  Read them, flip through them (there are about 30 in all), find one that grabs you, inspires you, makes you want to read more.  Then scroll down the page and fill out the participant form.  There you can tell us about you and your art, tell us which story you like, and request that we send it to you.

Yes, that’s right.  Participating artists get to read one story from the anthology long before it comes out.  All you have to do is promise to donate the art or music you create based on that story to the auction. (Artists who participated in last year’s auction get a special surprise — email me!)

You can also base your art/music on fiction from the original anthology (available in fine bookstores and as a Kindle download).

See the website for more details and to ask questions.  If you are not inclined to participate, please help us spread the word!  We’d love to get submissions from artists and musicians of every kind, interstitial or not.

Jill Sobule + NYC + Tempest = Best Night Evar

By:  TempestEvents
Jill Sobule + NYC + Tempest = Best Night Evar

One of my favorite singers, Jill Sobule, is performing in NYC on the 14th of April. Only one show announced so far and I definitely want to go. I’ll go by myself because I love her that much but I would love to have some company.

Tickets are $18 and the concert is at Joe’s Pub, which means you aren’t guaranteed a seat unless you also make a dinner reservation which carries a $12 minimum (I know, they suck, and I would not put up with it except it’s Jill….). Anyway, I already made a reservation for two. If you buy a ticket, you can join me!

Any takers?  She’s really awesome… :)

Raise Your Hand If You’ve Ever Been Mistaken For Nalo (or Chip, or Octavia…)

By:  TempestConventions
Raise Your Hand If You've Ever Been Mistaken For Nalo (or Chip, or Octavia...)

I was just reading this excellent entry by Pam Noles. There’s a rather long sidetrack in there about being mistaken for Whoopi Goldberg often and in public and also being mistaken for Nalo Hopkinson at SF cons/events. There’s some verbiage in there about why the latter ends up being more annoying than the former.

Whenever I go to a con, I can usually count on at least one person mistaking me for some other black person, be they Nalo or just some black woman who is also at the con. Apparently at last year’s World Fantasy people kept confusing N K Jemisin with Alaya Dawn Johnson and Doselle Young with David Anthony Durham.

Yes, I am being serious.

I find this equal parts funny and annoying. Some days I just laugh, some days I’m like, “Really, people? REALLY?”

Anyway, I fall on the side of being slightly amused by this today, so I wrote a silly poll (ETA: poll taken down because the plugin is ass). Just how widespread is this phenomenon? How many people experience it, and where? Who do they think you are if they don’t think you’re you?

And also, when Nalo is around, who do they think she is?

WisCon Netbook Meetup

By:  TempestConventions

So, over at my tech blog, Victoria mentioned that she wanted to have a netbook panel at WisCon.  I know she’d talked about this before, but I didn’t see it on the programming form.  I suggested that we have a luncheon or something similar where people who have netbooks can gather to talk about how awesome they are and people who are interested in netbooks can come, ask questions, and actually touch some of the beasts.  I’ll do my best to bring more than one, myself (though I don’t know if I will be allowed to do so).

Does this sound like a good idea to anyone else?  Shall we do it in an overflow room, head to Michaelangelo’s, or option C to be named in comments?  I think it could be a lot of fun.

So this is my week to get everything wrong on the internet!  :)  I think I will now just go to bed and not blog anymore for a while.  But yay netbook panel.

WisCon Readings

By:  TempestEvents
WisCon Readings

So since I have several stories coming out this year, I think I should get to do a reading at WisCon.  Hopefully others will agree.  Who wants to do a reading with me?  We’d have to come up with a theme of some sort.

Let’s see, I have a mythic story coming up based on Orpheus and Eurydice, an SF story about dead mothers, an SF story about aliens… yeah, that’s it for non-reprints.  Any theme suggestions, interested co-readers?

WisCon Panel Brainstorming Post

By:  TempestConventions
WisCon Panel Brainstorming Post

A few days ago WisCon opened up the panel suggestion form.  Yay!  I love suggesting panels.  Since the brainstorming post last year was a big hit and led to many good things, I thought I would host another.  Everyone is welcome to contribute.  If you have just an inkling of an idea or a well-formed one but don’t know how best to put it into words, post!  People will hopefully help you flesh ideas out, find new, interesting directions, or lend their wordsmithyness to your existing ideas.

Might also be fun to suggest some different styles of panels.  I know last year they were trying to get some debate-style things going on.  I would love to see suggestions of ways to shake up the panel format instead of it just being 6 people talk at you for 45 minutes.

KGB Photo For The Win!

By:  TempestEvents

Almost all of my favorite pictures of myself have come out of KGB readings lately. Here’s one from this past week (by Ellen Datlow, as always):

Tempest @ KGB by Ellen Datlow

There were a bunch of other great shots, too. Evidence at this link.

I used to hate having my picture taken. I still kinda do, but I have now been working on how to minimize the things that I dislike about pictures of myself. I am almost an expert at tilting my head in useful ways. I am also practicing “looks”. Though no matter what I do, I look awesome in this shirt and always will:

High Tea; Tempest vs. Minz

Pretty Things

By:  TempestEvents
Pretty Things

Last week at KGB I came down (almost) directly from work, so I had work clothes on.  The shock on people’s faces at seeing me in something other than jeans and a t-shirt was hilarious.  Nora actually said, “Oh Jesus what happened to you!?” and I believe Genevieve’s exact words were, “You’re secretly a call girl now, aren’t you?”

Jim Patrick Kelly and Tempest Bradford

Do you see why I never bother to dress up?  Sheesh.

Anyway, I did stop by my apartment to drop off my bags and laptop and decided to finally wear the lovely necklace you see around my neck for the first time.  It was a gift from the very talented JoSelle Vanderhooft and is based on Black Feather.  I nearly fainted from the vapors when she first gave it to me.  And it looks just as awesome on as it does in my little hands.

Here are some more shots of me in my shocking state of prettiness.  This will have to tide you all over for another year or so, cuz if the faces of surprise people pull is going to be normal, I might as well spare people heart attacks!

Tempest Bradford and Susan Groppi

Tempest in profile

See more KGB photos here. All taken by Ellen Datlow.

I Have Not Even Begun To Be Angry

By:  TempestConventions
I Have Not Even Begun To Be Angry

I’m at the airport now and can’t make a proper post about the shenannigans on Something Awful surrounding WisCon but this post may help.  I checked out this fucking thread of ignorance and can’t believe some of the bullshit.  On about page 2 or 3 they start pulling images from the WisCon Flickr feed and making fun of the people (mostly women) for being fat, ugly, stupid, and more.  They even make fun of people’s kids.

Oh, fuck that.

I have a lot of words to say and some actions to do, but I want to say this one thing.  I was scrolling through the thread and looking at the pictures and, instead of being ashamed that I associate myself with such people (horrors!), I couldn’t help but think of how beautiful all those images are.  They are pictures of beautiful women of all sizes smiling, having fun, loving where they are and what they’re doing.  These are the poeple I go to WisCon to be around.  And nothing those half-brained monkeys on that forum say can make me feel any different.  You wanna call me out as a fat loser?  You go right ahead.  But it’s plainly evident that I not only have more class than you, I also have a better life and better friends.  All the evidence I need to support that statement is my lack of time spent on the internet trolling for pictures of people I don’t know in order to make fun of them for arbitrary reasons.

Get a life, you losers.  And coming from a Star Trek fan, that’s fucking sad.

(p.s. Rachel Moss just better be glad I am not still in Madison right now.)