Category: Writing

Thoughts On Jay Lake’s Continued Ass Showing

By:  TempestWriting

Late last week as I was getting settled in at WisCon couple of people brought this to my attention:

“I probably won’t ever be at WisCon again, sadly, as it used to be one of my favorite cons, but RaceFail has made it very unwelcoming and unsafe for me.” –Jay Lake

This was a comment on someone’s LiveJournal in response to their post on the panels they’d be doing at WisCon. Why Jay felt the need to express this sentiment at that time in this journal, I couldn’t tell you. But the comment had the predictable effect on me.

I made some snarky tweets at Jay on Twitter (hilariously getting his Twitter name wrong twice) and went on to spend a lovely weekend with fine people and free liquor. But then I read more of the conversation on that blog1 and saw a little of Jay’s post on the subject and then this going on in yeloson’s journal and I just…. smh.

So here’s the thing. I will say that I probably should have written an in-depth teardown of Jay’s crazypants instead of just snarking on Twitter. I just don’t like to give that dude any more time than he’s worth. But if his requirements for criticizing him must include having read the things he’s written, then obviously I’m the person for it. Because I was once Jay Lake’s friend.

I met Jay in 2003, I started following his blog shortly after, we always hung out at conventions whenever possible, we chatted and emailed and became good buds. He was at various times incredibly awesome to me. And at various times I stood up for him to people who had Things To Say just as I’m sure he may have done for me without my knowing.

But then.

Okay, the POC reading this will know what I’m talking about, and probably the allies will, too. Because we have all had that friend who is well meaning and smart, but who says problematic things about race (or gender or religion or whatever) and because they are otherwise awesome you engage with them on a good faith basis and try to get them to understand where they’re mistaken, how their problematic words are hurtful, and how they can possibly do better. When a friend tells you that you’ve got your skirt stuck up in your pantyhoes, you might be embarassed for a bit but you’re grateful a friend was there to tell you, right? Right.

But then the hits just keep on coming, and pretty soon you feel more ragey or just plain annoyed than you feel in kinship with this person. And then one day you have enough.

So this is pretty much what went on with me and Jay. He would say incredibly problematic stuff, I would attempt to untuck his skirt, and he would say thank you and profess to do better. Thing is, he didn’t. It was Lather, Rinse, Repeat every time. Finally I reached the point where I’d had enough.

The nature of the lather, rinse, repeat on issues of race, at least, was that Jay would use the same two nuggets of his existence as a shield against accusations that he was not as enlightened as he purported to be. One was that he’d been raised (partially) in foreign countries where whites where in the minority in the population (though not in terms of power, necessarily), and this gave him a better understanding of priviledge and of otherness than the average American white guy. The other nugget is that he has a Chinese daughter, and therefore he Knows, Man.

Setting aside the sketchiness for a sec, both of these elements can indeed lead someone with privilege to examine it, work against it in their sphere of influence, and come to deeper understandings of the workings of racism in our society in order to be a good ally and maybe change things. Unfortunately for Jay Lake, this doesn’t seem to have quite happened.

I’m going to go on another tangent — it’s related, so bear with me. This weekend at WisCon I was explaining to people at the Dollhouse panel that there are many levels to privilege and understanding and such. Down on the bottom level you have the folks who are just racist or sexist or whatever and haven’t ever examined anything and don’t want to for various reasons.

But then up higher is the level where people agree that racism is bad and wrong, we’re all equal, and everyone should just stop being so mean. Na’amen helpfully labeled this the Kumbaya level, because it’s that kind of surface, touchy-feely non-racism that doesn’t actively engage with people of color or any oppressed people.  Nor does it work to change things for the better because, hey, aren’t things just great now?

While the Kumbaya level is much better than just plain racism, people on this level often really frustrate us because they are resistant to acknowledge that they still have work to do. They don’t wear white hoods so they can’t ever say or do things that have a basis in racism. Not that they are racist, but they aren’t helping, which is bad enough.

This is where Jay Lake is right now. And he’s a walking cliche of Kumbayaness. He uses those two nuggests about himself not as a way to grow, but as a sheild against accusations of problematic behavior or speech. Literally. You can’t have a conversation with him about this stuff without him bringing up “but I have a Chinese daughter” as if that gives him special cred or insight. I can point to the words of many transracial adoptees to show that just because a white person adopts a child not of their race, they do not automatically have some special insight or are any less prone to fail. This situation most certainly can produce this result, but it is not a given. So no, no one is going to give him a pass for that.

Having spent many years reading Jay’s blog and talking to him personally on these issues, I feel I am qualified to say that he is a Kumbaya, not an ally. That his views and words are deeply problematic for many reasons. And that he constantly weilds his privilege like a bat instead of examining it deeply. He may know what privilege is and understand how it works, but that does not mean he isn’t guilty of still being mindlessly mired in it. After all, take the statment that started all of this. How he feels “unsafe” at WisCon because people there might make him uncomfortable. The privilege dripping from that whole mindset is staggering.

I meantioned that I used to be Jay’s friend and that one day I couldn’t take all of this any more. Here’s how we became unfriends: After years of being one of the people untucking his skirt from his pantyhose only to find it stuck there again the very next day or week or whatever, I finally said to Jay that in further discussions of racism, he could no longer use those nuggets I mentioned as sheilds, because that was problematic and unhelpful. If he needed me to explain why that was, I would do so.

His response? Silence. He unfriended me on all social networks where we were connected and hasn’t spoken to me since. I wasn’t too surprised at this. I’d avoided saying these things to him so bluntly before because even though Jay says that he wants his friends to be truthful and honest with him about his own behavior, he didn’t model that mindset, ever (or, at least, in the scope of my hearing/seeing/reading). People who criticized him professionally were “jealous of his success” and so forth. But there comes a time in every POC’s life where they have to lay it all out for that Kumbaya-level white friend. It either means that you and the friend come to a better understanding of stuff, or you lose that friend2. You already know how this story ends.

The bottom line is this: I have read Jay’s words, his fiction, and have enjoyed a friendship with him for a time. So I feel I’m qualified to say that, yes, Jay Lake’s ass is showing, and in a big way, and more often than not when it comes to issues of race. He is not a racist, but he sometimes says racist things and holds some sketchy ideas in his head about race that he then articulates and wonders why people find it a problem. He does not model good ally behavior, he seems unable to truly examine his own privilege as a man and as a white person, and because of this he takes up the “Everyone is mean to me just because I’m white and male!” cross at every opportunity. The people who buy this act? Other Kumbayas.

The only thing Jay isn’t safe from at WisCon or any other SF event is people who don’t agree with him3. Does feeling uncomfortable = unsafe? I’m going to go with: No. But you see, Jay has the privilege of sailing through life without ever having to purposefully encounter those that bring up uncomfortable thoughts around these issues. And if he chances upon them, he runs back to the comfort of those who are so very willing to prop up his privileged notions. If these are the only notions he has of safe and unsafe, he’s a lucky guy. A lot of us have to deal with real unsafeness.

And that’s what pissed me off the most about his bullshit. That he would use the language of safe space/not safe space in the context of a feminist event to justify his unwillingness to not be beloved by all. Yes, I know he said “Oh, I misspoke” and claimed “chemo brain” for the slip. And I would totally be willing to give him a pass on that if not for two things. One: that statement is of a piece with how he’s been since before he had cancer. Two: his comments on yeloson’s blog were long after he claimed to have misspoken.

Someone needs to pull his skirt down. Thank goodness it doesn’t have to be me, anymore.

Footnotes

  1. The comments have now been erased or screened so you won’t see anything at the link. There is a screencap here — thanks gem225! — so his words are preserved forever and ever, amen. [⇧]
  2. Though the latter is more often the result in my experience, I can say that since RaceFail I have had more conversations that ended up with a happier ending. [⇧]
  3. Just like in life! [⇧]

5 Links Make Up for Radio Silence

By:  TempestNews

I know you all think I’ve dropped off the face of the Earth. Maybe what I need to do is promise a post a day with interesting links. That would at least be something.

  1. Today at Tor.com you can see the latest installment of Tech News For Nerds, a weekly thing I’m doing over that way. This one is all about cell phones and wireless technologies. Netbook fans should take special note of the smartbook section.
  2. My dear friend John Klima is raising money for a new genre magazine showcasing underrepresented cultures. Go vote for his idea and help him win $25K to get started. (Yes, you need money to start a magazine, people. And John is good at it.) It’s a great way to stick it to Norman Spinrad.
  3. Did you know that I’m in an ultra-cool non-fic anthology called Chicks Dig Time Lords? I so am. It’s such an amazing book and filled with all kinds of smart writers and fans and actors and Doctor Who goodness. Women talking about their fan experience across time (and space) and being very smart about what they love and don’t love about the show and fandom. I, of course, wrote a controversial essay on Martha Jones. I know Paul Cornell has the book, I just hope he doesn’t hate me for what I said about Human Nature. Go buy Chicks Dig Time Lords right now and then go listen to the podcast of Hour of the Wolf featuring several contributors and read about our shenanigans the night before.
  4. Speaking of books, remember the list of eReaders I said people should be on the lookout for? Several of them now have full reviews, including the Alex eReader, which is my favorite. If anyone asked me right now which eReader they should buy, I would say the Alex without hesitation. The list of other eReaders is on Tor.com as well.
  5. This weekend I watched the BBC miniseries Lost in Austen and have the following things to say about it: (a) When did it become okay to present fanfic as legitimate television? (b) Does the BBC have only 20 actors? Because I have seen a third of this cast on every show I’ve watched. (c) After the clusterfuck that was Hex, Jemima Rooper and Christina Cole shouldn’t be allowed on screen together again nor should they be allowed psuedo-lesbian encounters because they wouldn’t give them to us on that horrendous show. (d) Jemima is awfully hot. (e) Judging from the 700+ comments for this movie on Netflix, I’d have to say that it’s successful insofaras it’s made people feel strongly that it’s the best thing ever or a piece of crap. (f) Where can I get a job writing badfic for money?

Now back to my regularly scheduled seclusion.

Hugo Nominations

By:  TempestMy Fiction

First, a reminder. Hugo nominations close this Friday. If you are eligible to nominate, you should. You can nominate if you were a member of last year’s WorldCon or if you are a member of this year’s already. If you don’t know how to nominate, go here.

That said.

There were many fine stories and novels and novelettes and such published last year. I hope that if you read one you liked you will nominate it. Even if you didn’t read every story ever, you should nominate. And, if you are so inclined, I would not object to you nominating one of my stories.

I am not smooth at all, but whatever.

If I were to choose one story that I would ask people to consider it would be Elan Vital from Sybil’s Garage no 6. I personally think it’s the best short story of mine published last year, though I am excessively fond of Enmity and Different Day as well. It’s up to you to make that choice.

Also, I am eligable for Fan Writer. Just so you know.

Now I will stop my shameless plugging and get back to my regularly scheduled programming.

A Review of My Electric Velocipede Story

By:  TempestMy Fiction

Oddly, I haven’t seen too many reviews of EV 17/18, which is a sadness! But apparently Tangent Online did a review of the entire issue, including my story Enmity. Check it:

…a cerebral exploration of the creation story, spanning ancient Greek mythology, Christianity, and probably some other sources I haven’t picked up on too.

…Now, my knowledge of classical civilisation is limited at best, so it took a great deal of Wikipedia research even vaguely to understand what was going on here. Poor Eurydice goes from creator of the world, to Adam’s Eve and back again. She dies, lives, creates and destroys, all with little idea of who or what she really is, and by the end of it all I felt just as mixed up as Eurydice herself. In that sense, Bradford did well to carry me through the narrative as well as she did, but there is no real plot to speak of. I think the ‘point’ of this piece is to portray the eternal, cyclical relationship between good and evil, and to demonstrate how it transcends theology.

My intent was less good and evil but women and men. Perhaps I tripped over my own subconscious there.

People often run up against the same issue the reviewer did when it comes to my mythpunkish stories — I pack in a lot of mythology, some recognizable by folks with a passing knowledge, some not. Apparently my target audience consists of people who have not only read a lot of mythology and folklore from various ancient civilizations but who’ve also delved into the cultural forces that shaped those mythologies and, perhaps, have also done some research into how folklore and mythology change as the socio-cultural landscape of a region or a people change.

In other words, me, Veronica Schanoes, and Helen Pilinovsky. It’s a narrow audience.

Still, I’m glad the reviewer liked it despite the confusion. Though I wonder why she objects to the line “Rape is a metaphor. And it also is not”? There’s more to the review, so click over and read the rest. And, if you haven’t read the story yet, it exists online.

Hey, Henry Blodget, Blogger at Silicon Alley Insider, Screw You!

By:  TempestThe Publishing Biz
Hey, Henry Blodget, Blogger at Silicon Alley Insider, Screw You!

I’m a little surprised that a respectable news outlet like Business Insider puts up with screeds the likes of which Henry Blodget spewed all over Silicon Alley the other day. It’s shocking to me that not only is the post chock full of whiny, entitled, angry foot stomping, but also wrong information. I know blog posts aren’t fact checked or anything, but hasn’t someone come along from higher up in the editorial chain to even question the bullshit he just dumped all over a supposed business site?

First, the cost to make an eBook — whether you’re just publishing an eBook or one alongside print books — is not “pretty much zero”. It’s just not. Second, if Macmillan, or any other major publisher collapses, someone else is not just going to pick up and publish the books they can’t and someone else isn’t going to just hire all the people that would put out of work. And that someone else is definitely not going to be Amazon. Because, despite the Digital Publishing Platform and Amazon Shorts, Amazon is not a publisher in the way Macmillan is a publisher.

Amazon as publishing entity is about on the same level as iUniverse, Lulu, and anyone with a blog and a decent shopping cart system. I could start selling eBooks tomorrow and those eBooks may even be written by someone who is not me. That doesn’t make me a publisher1.

But then that is part of the problem with Henry’s post — he doesn’t understand, at all, what it is publishers do, what Amazon does, and how all of these issues affect writers and consumers. Yes, an consumers. Henry says “we” don’t want to pay $15 for an eBook. Fine. Then “we” won’t. Consumers will spend what they spend any way they choose to spend it. If Macmillan or anyone else wants to price their books high then find out down the line that it means fewer sales, how does that hurt Henry or the rest of us?

Oh right, because then Henry can’t get what he wants when he wants it at the price he wants it. And for some reason he can’t just not buy an eBook, he wants to insist that eBooks sell at the price he’s willing to pay for it. Fine, I insist that the Kindle cost only $9.99 so that I don’t have to spend so much on it. What’s that you say? Amazon has to cover the cost of manufacturing and designing and maintaining and updating the Kindle? I don’t fucking care, do you understand? I want what I want when I want it at the price I demand.

Also, I want a pony.

Look, the idea that books, even electronic versions of books, are easy and free and don’t cost anything and amount to just a bunch of bits is, #1: stupid and: #2 dangerous. The idea that you can toss aside the fact that someone worked very hard to write that book (in most cases) and some other people took the time to edit, proofread, copyedit, design, market and promote that book is in essence saying that none of those people matter. If you really think that, you probably: #1: don’t read very many books, #2: have never met a writer or anyone involved in book publishing, #3: place a poor value on art and entertainment, #4: should be shoved off the nearest cliff.

Just try reading only self-published books for a year or two and then come tell me how all those people aren’t necessary. You will likely find a well-written, awesome book, maybe even two. Only if you read more than 100, though. Have fun reading 100 really shitty books, I’ll be over here laughing at you.

Finally, Henry, don’t even try to pretend like what Amazon is doing is good for writers. Just don’t. Because you’re wrong. You act like by giving publishers less money Amazon is somehow giving authors more. How exactly do you think this whole money flow works, son? If Amazon sells a book for $5 and they take 50%, that means $2.50 goes to the publisher. The publisher THEN pays the writer out of that $2.50. The publisher is going to get a larger chunk of that money than they give the writer, but in the end everyone but Amazon gets less.

You can’t paint the publisher as an evil entity who should get less money without saying that the writer will get less money, too, because that is what will happen. So stop trying to pretend like you’re on our side.

The side you’re on is the entitled asshole side, and that’s not a side most people would want to publicly associate with. You’re not even on the consumer’s side, because consumers have a wide array of choices, and one of those choices is not to buy things. People who bought Kindles already narrowed their choices to just Amazon, which is fine, but don’t then whine and cry when you can’t get cheap books for your expensive eReader. If you somehow feel it’s not fair that you paid so much money for the thing and yet still have to pay money for the books, I have two words for you: Google Books. And I have two more: Project Gutenberg.

Those aren’t good enough for you? Tough. Can’t get that new Stephen King release for just $10? Neither can those who buy it in hardback. Ever think that maybe your major problem is not that someone wants to sell an eBook for the outrageous price of $15 but rather that you are completely unaware of how minor a thing the price of a luxury item is when compared to the damage entitled people like you do to those who actually worked hard to create that item? Never given that any thought, huh?

Why am I not surprised?

(P. S. Will someone please stop folks who are supposedly “insiders” in Silicon Valley from acting as if the eBook reading landscape is Kindle and iPad only? I mean, really, how ignorant can one be?)

Footnotes

  1. And can I also point out that writers who sell their books to major publishing houses do not hire freelance editors unless they hired said editor before they sold the book in order to make it good enough for the publishing house, which is really not the same thing at all as saying that writers can just go it alone on this whole publishing thing. What moron farm did you wander off of, Henry? [⇧]

eBooks, eReaders, and why you need to keep up with the tech

By:  TempestThe Publishing Biz
eBooks, eReaders, and why you need to keep up with the tech

I would normally post something like this on my tech blog, but I feel like this is more of a writer issue than a tech issue, though tech is a big part of why I’m writing this post. I’ve been pondering this for a long time — and a few inklings have come out in past posts — but the recent resurgence of AmazonFail and the reactions to it made me think it was a good time to share my thoughts on this.

As many of you know, I work for a technology magazine and part of my job is to keep up on news about gadgets and another part is actually reviewing them. Because I have interest in books and am a fiction writer besides, I ended up as the go-to person for eReaders. Last month I covered eReaders at the Consumer Electronics Show and got to see several devices that will be on the market in the next few weeks and months. I must say, there are a LOT of eReaders out there, folks.

To go along with these eReaders, many companies are also setting up online bookstores, kind of like Sony did back in the day. However, there are some differences in the way things are now. First, almost every device coming to market will have the ability to read EPUB books. EPUB is becoming the standard eBook format (spearheaded by Sony), thus the books you want should be readable on the Nook or the iRiver Story or the Alex eReader regardless of where you buy them. In theory.

The logistics of this are a bit gray right now — for instance, it’s not clear if you can buy a book from Sony then load it on the Nook, or buy a book from Barnes & Noble then load it on the Alex. I chalk this up to the general messiness in the eBook area at the moment. Eventually these issues are going to have to be sorted out. In the meantime, a lot of the smaller eReader vendors/eBook sellers are touting that the titles you buy from them can be read on any device, though they’d be happy to sell you their own.

Contrast this with Amazon, whose eBook format is proprietary and therefore can only be read by Kindles and Kindle apps for smartphones and computers. If a Kindle owner decides they like the Nook better, they can say goodbye to their eBook collection. To be fair to Amazon (I know, I know, but bear with me) this was status quo for a long time in the eBook world. Sony only recently started selling EPUB books — before they had their own format for their own readers. And the EPUB as universal format is a fairly new movement. So naturally newer eReaders are poised to take advantage of it.

Regardless of what Amazon is doing, the rest of the industry, including Apple, is going with EPUB and building their own online eBookstores to sell them. Will all of these individual stores survive? Most likely not, especially if the devices they’re attached to don’t do well. It also depends on what the DRM situation is with books bought from bigger players like B&N. But I’m sure eventually some eBook selling entity will arise from all of this and become the default store multiple devices attach themselves to. iBook might be that store, or something scrappier will come along.

So, why is all of this important to you, the folks reading this who are likely to be writers and/or book industry professionals? It’s important because a big part of the future of eBooks isn’t being shaped by publishers and booksellers wrangling with each other over percentages, it’s going to be driven by the devices consumers choose to consume the books.

While I do not agree that the iPad will CHANGE EVERYTHING ZOMG and that it will destroy all stupid eReaders1, there are plenty of devices and technologies on the horizon that could change the landscape drastically within the next year or two. I’m talking way cooler than the iPad (and much more useful). Here’s a really brief overview:

Footnotes

  1. The reasons for this are many, but it boils down to this: eInk screens were invented for a reason. And no matter how much some people think it won’t be a big deal to read a book on an LCD screen because they spend all day in front of one, I bet they change their tune the first time they attempt reading full screen black text on a white background and nothing else. [⇧]

Hey People In SFWA

By:  TempestWrite-a-thon

I’m only going to say this once and then shut up about it until next year: I wrote some stuff between July 2008 and December 2009 and it’s pretty darn good. And a lot of it is available for free and junk.

I have no reciprocal nominations or votes to offer you, though1. Despite the fact that I’ve sold many stories which earned me 5 cents per word, many of them aren’t eligable under the current SFWA rules. Funny that.

Footnotes

  1. kidding. I know people don’t play those games anymore. right? [⇧]

A Cold Day In Hell: I’m Actually On FOX’s Side For Once

By:  TempestNon-Fiction Publications
A Cold Day In Hell: I'm Actually On FOX's Side For Once

Over on Tor.com I’ve got a piece up priasing FOX for its decision to cancel Dollhouse. I know, a bunch of you will disagree. A whole bunch of you won’t, though! I hope you’ll join me in supporting FOX at this difficult time. I wonder if I should grab up the URL dontsavedollhouse.com? Because there are already campaigns to save it. For once, I think we need a strong anti-campain so FOX won’t start to second guess itself. Down with bad television!

Interfictions 2 Auction: My Favorites

By:  TempestWriting

This is my non-short and non-silly post about the Interfictions auction.

For those of you kind of new to my blog, I’m a member of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting and encouraging art and artists that exist outside of or between borders. I’ve been a fairly active member for a while, mainly because I once expressed a bit of interest and Ellen Kushner pounced on me. I am forever within her paws, but that’s okay because she is one of the more fabulous human beings on the planet, as is her wife Delia Sherman. So it’s all good.

I was lucky enough to have a story picked for the first Interfictions anthology. Then about a year later I organized an auction of jewelry based on the stories in Interfictions. It went so well that we immediately began brainstorming ideas for how we’d run the auction for the next volume of Interfictions. This time we opened it up to all manner of art, as long as it was wearable, portable, or at least easily mailable. The call went out, some free stories were distributed, a little over 40 artists took on the challenge and now we have just over 30 pieces of art to show for it.

The auction has been going on for a couple of weeks now. Sorry I have not posted about it before this. Like I said yesterday: awesome, but busy job. The pieces that are no longer available were beautiful and amazing, but there is definitely still time to bid on some awesome pieces.

You should go take a look at this gallery with images of everything, but I am going to walk you through my favorites.

Shatterglass Datakey is ending today (in about an hour, actually) and I wanted it then Ellen Kushner tried to take it from me then my friend Charlotte came along and tried to pretend like she was going to win it. I’m going to be evil and bid at the last minute. If you are evil, maybe you should as well. It’s a pendant that is a key that is wrapped in wire and beads that have writing on them and, people, it is awesomeness squared.

Everybody Knows is a hunk of handmade yard that incorporates bits of paper with the story it’s based on (Valentines by Shira Lipkin) printed on it. You need to just click here and read the artist’s statement, as I cannot do it justice. I really like this piece, but I kept wondering if it would be possible to actually DO something with that yarn. Like knit it into a scarf or something. So I asked the artist, the faboo Emily Wagner, and she said:

You can TOTALLY knit with it. I mean, the paper is going to be falling out, but the yarn itself should be pretty structurally sound. I soaked it and stretched it on my swift when I was done skeining it up, which took FOREVER, BTW. :) I think it would be a really cool textural scarf, with lots of dropped stitches to show it off.

And here’s the thing: whatever anyone makes from this yarn, it will also be interstitial art. And the fact that the bits of paper will fall away adds this layer of transience to it. Like, no matter what, the Valentines will continue to fall away, until all that’s left is the memory within the yarn itself, in the person who made the yarn, and in the person who knitted it. There are just so many layers of meaning inherent in this art — layers that reveal themselves over time — that I can’t believe more people are not bidding on this. If you knit, you must bid. Then you must show us all what you knit. I’ll post about it on the IAF’s blog myself.

The Animometer is a piece everyone always gasps over when they see it. I have an affinity for art made from the bones of objects, and who doesn’t love an antique pocket watch?

The Child Empress of Mars (doll). When I first opened the box this came in I was both entranced by its beauty and shocked by its alienness. As I’ve said elsewhere, this is probably the most evocative and striking piece in the auction. It’s visceral and perfectly embodied the story and beautiful but also makes you want to run away screaming. Can you imagine having this in your living room in a place where everyone who comes in would see it? That would be so awesome. I have no hope of owning it, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

Untitled is just a beautiful picture depicting a really, really strange scene. I love the colors, the way the brain is glowing but entrapped by and connected to all of those branches. It’s going up in a few days and is definitely on my want list.

I will post more favorites next week. In the meantime, you should go check out the auctions and this preview of all the pieces. There’s clothing and jewelry and funky barely classifiable items of amazingness. Also, if you have not already, you should check out the Interfictions 2 anthology. I’m lucky enough to have read all of the stories and can tell you that this antho is just as good as the first. My homie Alaya Dawn Johnson has a fantastic story within and my other homie Genevieve Valentine has a story in the online annex to the anthology. Eight stories that were so good that Delia and Chris (the editors) couldn’t bear to not buy them, so they published them online. You can read them for free.

Next week I will also probably post something about comparisons between pieces of art based on the same stories. It’s always cool to see different interpretations and which parts of the story speak to each artist.