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A Quiet Riot
First, congratulations to the Jackie Robinson West team for winning the 2014 US Little League Championship!!
They hail from Chicago, so go Chi-town! Next up is a formidable team from South Korea. All the teams should be proud of their sportsmanship, parental and fan support, and love for the game which was on full display.
I think this pic shows what else I’ve been up to:
This will be a continuing serial on my blog, but it won’t be set in Ferguson. It’ll be in a fictional town where everyone believes race is no problem, until it is.
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Waiting on the World to Change
If someone questions why there’s a need for more diverse representation (for example book covers and content) but also in other forms of media besides publishing, please refer them to this heartfelt speech by recent Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o. Nyong’o spoke at Essence magazine’s Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon, after winning the Best Breakthrough Performance award. She recalls a letter she got from a young girl, and how she could relate:
“ . . . I too remember a time when I would turn on the TV and only see pale skin. I got teased and taunted about my night shaded skin. And my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter skinned.
“The morning would come and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself before I was in front of a mirror, because I wanted to see my fair face first. And every day I experienced just the same disappointment at being just as dark as I had been the day before.
“I tried to negotiate with God. I told him I would stop stealing sugar cubes at night if he gave me what I wanted. I would listen to my mother’s every word and never lose my school sweater again if he just made me a little lighter. But, I guess God was unimpressed with my bargaining chips because I never woke up lighter.”
“ . . . And then Alek Wek came on the scene. A celebrated model, she was dark as night,” she said, adding: “I couldn’t believe that people were embracing a woman that looked so much like me as beautiful. Now I had a spring in my step because I felt more seen, more appreciated by the far-away gatekeepers of beauty.”
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The End of Men
Well, not really. It’s part of the premise of QUEENSREALM though.
So happy that I found photos which help bring this scifi military dystopian tale to life. I plan on using this one in the book trailer:
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I Scifi. Do U?
Gotta share this tumblr post by way of Racebending.com:
Let me tell you a story about media representation and how it informs creativity
I love science fiction. Octavia Butler and Ray Bradbury are a few of my early writing influences, and so we’ve got a couple of scifi offerings coming up this fall: QUEENSREALM and OFFWORLD
How to categorize these ebooks on Amazon will be a challenge, so don’t be surprised to see them bouncing in several different categories once they’re released. For example, my daughter and I decided to put HEAVEN in both African American women’s fiction and also a sub category of teen fiction, because of the adult content. However, whenever Amazon changes its algorithms (like this week, when the site went down without explanation) after making a comeback up the charts, we’re now working hard to regain the traction we had before Amazon’s site snafu.
More sneak peek offerings to come, which include a five chapter excerpt of OFFWORLD:
Pictured: from left to right: Kadek No’am, Janhoy 1st Class. Upper right: The Child King, Tydaris Ridae, Cura Regis Divine. Lower right: Leonidas Sinclair, Man of Many Centuries
Credits for Steampunk model with braids: wardrobe and styling: Kit Stolen.
Photographer: http://nadyalevphoto.com/?/projects/anachronaut/
Steampunk model with leather mouth piece: Famke Backx, photographer
Goggled hat Steampunk model: inhauscreative photography