Join the Carl Brandon Society at WisCon 32

Are you heading to WisCon for Memorial Day Weekend? If so, be sure to connect with the Carl Brandon Society. Our schedule is posted below. You can also chat with steering committee members Candra K. Gill, Claire Light, Victor Raymond, Nisi Shawl, and Bryan Thao Worra. The steering committee will be wearing pins that say, "Color Me SF!"

Official Carl Brandon Society Events at WisCon 32

Friday, 7:30 - 8:30 p.m.
WisCon Opening Ceremonies

The Carl Brandon Society is hosting the Opening Ceremonies this year, so come help us kick off WisCon.

Friday, 10:30 p.m - Party

Join us on the sixth floor for our party with our co-host, the Speculative Literature Foundation. Talk with Carl Brandon Society steering committee members, make a crown, renew your membership, and check out the new Carl Brandon Society buttons.

Saturday, 10:00 - 11:15 a.m., Conference Room 5
Carl Brandon Society Update

Come to this panel to get a comprehensive update on the Awards and the Butler Memorial Scholarship. We're also looking for your input, so come ready to brainstorm with us.

Saturday, 2:30 - 3:45p.m., Conference Room 4

Carl Brandon Society Sponsored Panel. Program Description: You've heard of Octavia Butler, Samuel Delany, and Nalo Hopkinson as people of color who write SF/F. Let's talk about other writers of genre fiction who are people of color. Who are your favorites that everyone should be reading?

Sunday, 4 - 5:15 p.m., Conference Room 5
Some of Us Are Brave: Identity Intersections in an Election Year

Carl Brandon Society Sponsored Panel. Program Description: With the Clinton and Obama candidacies, there has been a great deal of discussion in the press about race and gender. Unfortunately, this discussion is often framed in terms of which is the so-called bigger issue. Black women in particular have been singled out as facing a perceived dilemma in terms of identity framed as an either/or situation. This panel will look at identity intersections - ands instead of ors - using the discourse around the Clinton and Obama candidacies as a framework.

Sunday, 5:30 - 7 p.m.
CBS Invitational Dinner/Mixer

Dinner with the steering committee and ongoing & prospective volunteers

For more information about WisCon, visit http://wiscon.info/

Black History Month SF Reading List

The Carl Brandon Society recommends the following books for BLACK HISTORY MONTH:

• So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy
• edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
• Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
• My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
• The Coyote Kings of the Space Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust
• Mindscape by Andrea Hairston
• Wind Follower by Carole McDonnell
• Futureland by Walter Mosley
• The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu
• Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

And the 2005 CARL BRANDON SOCIETY AWARD Winners:

PARALLAX AWARD given to works of speculative fiction created by a
person of color: 47 by Walter Mosley

KINDRED AWARD given to any work of speculative fiction dealing with
issues of race and ethnicity; nominees may be of any racial or ethnic
group: Stormwitch by Susan Vaught

Watch for future lists, and feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments.

Nominations for 2007 Awards Close July 31

Now is the time to make your nominations for the 2007 Parallax and Kindred Awards. Nominations for eligible works published in 2006 will close at midnight on Tuesday, July 31. Nominations made by U.S. Mail must be postmarked by that date, and online nominations must be received by then. The Awards will be presented later this year.
For more information on the Awards, or to make a nomination, see our Awards page.

Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Challenge Grant Met

We’re very pleased to announce that we have more than met the challenge issued by SciFi, Inc. As of Octavia’s birthday, June 22, we’ve received over $2200 in donations, far surpassing their $1500 goal. With SciFi, Inc.’s check that $2200 will become $3700. Thanks so much to everyone who helped make this possible.

We continue to accept donations to the Scholarship Fund online via the PayPal button on our scholarship page, and through the mail at: The Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund, c/o The Carl Brandon Society, P.O. Box 23336, Seattle WA, 98102.

Think GalactiCon

Join many members of the Carl Brandon Society at Think GalactiCon this weekend at Chicago's Roosevelt University. The convention runs from July 13 through 15. Featured guests include Nalo Hopkinson (author), Jim Munroe (author/publisher), Nisi Shawl (author), Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu (author), and Gary K. Wolfe (critic). Visit http://thinkgalactic.org/convention.htm for more information.

"Animation and Allegory": Anand Parthsarathy writes about the Indian animation team that worked on "The Chronicles of Narnia"

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe combines live action with computer-generated graphics and special effects. An Indian team of animators in Mumbai did the core work.

Call for essays--Octavia E. Butler's work

(Thank you to Kalamu Ya Salaam and his e-drum for the information.)

CFP: I've been a woman I-don't know-how-many-times: A Critical Tribute to the Work of Octavia E. Butler

Essay collection, ed. Patricia Melzer

Over the course of twenty-five years, Octavia E. Butler published thirteen books and is the most widely known African American woman science fiction writer. The impact of her fiction has been significant both in popular and critical terms. Her compelling narratives reach audiences far beyond traditional genre classifications: she has gained dedicated readers outside the science fiction milieu and has achieved cult status across a variety of audiences, including feminist, African American, youth, and science fiction readers alike. Her narratives depict complex societies in which alien species force-breed with humans and humans mutate into alien forms, in which time travel and shapeshifters exist, and in which humans have telepathic abilities. Butler's science fiction narratives are intriguing because of the complex and at times contradictory reading experiences they offer; they juxtapose affirmation of difference with experiences of colonization and slavery. At the center of her narratives, which Ruth Salvaggio defines as stories of power, are the struggles of strong female characters who negotiate the contradictions created by colonial encounters and chaotic social upheaval. Butler's writing raises issues of how to resist racism, sexism, and exploitation in ways that elucidate many of the concepts we encounter in feminist thought, as well as in queer imaginations.

While not alone in re-imagining the ways in which race, gender, sexuality and nationality intersect, Butler's work is set apart from that of most other writers in her challenging and pleasureable engagement of simultaneous discourses. Above all, her work has ignited a significant critical resonance across disciplinary boundaries as few science fiction writers have, in particular in feminist studies of utopian thought, African American literary criticism, postcolonial discourse, and genre literature.

Until her untimely death in 2006, Butler's stories have inspired and influenced feminist debates, and they continue to impact readers' lives today. This volume aims to bring together for the first time a comprehensive collection of critical essays on Butler's writing. The anthology will combine previously published work that was influential in shaping much of feminist and -- more recently -- queer debates on Butler’s fiction with new scholarship engaging with Butler's writing. Those approaches may involve readings of any of Butler's works in terms of e.g. feminist theory, queer theory, science fiction studies, postcolonial theory, lesbian and gay studies, and critical race studies.

E-mail proposals for new articles as attachments to:

Patricia Melzer
Women’s Studies, Temple University
pmelzer@temple.edu
phone: 215.204.6953

Deadline for proposals (ca. 1000 words): March 30, 2007
Deadline for full manuscripts (ca. 8000 words): June 15, 2007

The editor, Patricia Melzer, is Director of Women’s Studies at Temple University and author of "Alien Constructions: Science Fiction and Feminist Thought" (2006).

Dr. Patricia Melzer
Director, Women's Studies Program
Temple University
1114 West Berks Street
816 Anderson Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19122
phone: 215.204.6953
fax: 215.204.9611

==========================================================
From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List

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e-drum is a listserv providing information of interest to black writers and diverse supporters worldwide. e-drum is moderated by kalamu ya salaam.
Read past messages or search the e-drum archives

Results of The Scientific Indian 2006 short story contest

The Scientific Indian: Science as a way of life.

Science Fiction Short Story Contest Results

First: 'The Asylum at Bergen'
by Aditya Sudarshan

Second: 'To Sleep, Perchance to Dream'
by Rohinton Daruwala

Third: 'Now We Live a Full Lifespan'
by Cyril M Gupta

Read the winning stories and others here.

Submissions open for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards to Honor Works Addressing Issues of Racism and Diversity

Deadline: January 31, 2007

The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which recognize outstanding works that contribute to our understanding of racism or appreciation of the rich diversity of human cultures, is accepting entries. Now in its 72nd year, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards continues to be the only American book award designed specifically to recognize works addressing issues of racism and diversity. The awards are administered by the Cleveland Foundation.

Awards are given for both fiction and nonfiction. Award recipients traditionally receive a monetary gift of $10,000 from the Anisfield-Wolf Fund.

To be eligible, books must be written in English and published in 2006. Plays and screenplays are not eligible, nor are works in progress. Manuscripts and self-published works are not eligible.

Submission information and form, as well as a complete list of winners, can be found at the awards program Web site.

25 ways to tokenize or alienate a non-white person around you

... (or, 25 examples of the racism we witness on a regular basis)

by basil, billie, qwo-li, jenn and colin

Examples:

11. ask a native person; "do you make your own jewelry?"

12. use the identity of white anti-racist as a shield against accusations of racism.

(thanks to Walking the Walls for the pointer.

As a game, I started counting how many of the 25 I've experienced. Stopped when I'd gotten to 10 and was barely half-way through the list.

-nalo

"Persistence Overcomes Resistance": Thoughts On The Black Panel at Comic Con International, 2006

From the blog of Black. Geek. And Fine With That:

That woman stood in front of men from her community and said she wanted to see solid representations of black women in the books her men create. One of them told her to wait for the men to get situated, the other told her it's too hard.

Oh, wait. They didn't say that to her, only. They said that to all of us.

Interview with horror writer Brandon Massey

Via Monica Jackson's Books in Black. Excerpt:

Dean Koontz read an early draft of my first novel, gave me excellent critical notes, and I spent a year revising the manuscript according to his feedback. When I sent it back to him, he was so impressed by the newly improved book that he forwarded it to his own agent.

And the agent STILL rejected the book! This proves that whom you know can get you only so far.

Massey's website.

Charles Saunders is back!

Charles Saunders has just released his re-imagined Imaro, through Night Shade Books.

Imaro
Charles Saunders

Imaro is heroic fantasy like it’s never been done before. Based on Africa, and African traditions and legends, Charles Saunders has created Nyumbani (which means “home” in Swahili), an amalgam of the real, the semi-real, and the unreal. “Imaro” is the name of the larger-than-life warrior who travels across Nyumbani, always the outcast, searching for a home.

This novel tells the story of Imaro’s childhood, his exile from his tribe, how he grew to manhood, and how he found and lost the love of his life. Charles Saunders has followed in the footsteps of Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, creating an iconic hero along with dazzling, exotic, and mysterious world for Imaro to inhabit.

But like his contemporaries Karl Edward Wagner (Kane) and Michael Moorcock (Elric), Charles Saunders brings something new to the table. As a black reader of science fiction and fantasy, Saunders discovered that black characters and African or African-inspired settings were few and far between. The sense of being an outsider in one’s own “tribe” provided the core seed for Imaro. A broad knowledge of, and passion for the history and myths of Africa fertilized Charles’ imagination and led to the creation of Imaro… a heroic fantasy character the likes of which has never been seen.

Imaro is a rousing adventure... a tale of a young man’s struggle to gain acceptance amongst his people, and upon failing that, his continuing struggle to break the cycle of alienation and violence that plagues his adult life.

At the same time, Imaro is a metaphor for Charles’ experience as a black man in the white world of Science Fiction and Fantasy. It is a journey of alienation and reclamation. It is a story of triumph and discovery. A story that will dazzle, and thrill, and move you.

This is the author's preferred text, revised especially for our edition. With an introduction by the author and a foreword by Charles de Lint.

Cover art by Vince Evans.

"Charles Saunders is one of the most innovative writers in the so-called Sword and Sorcery field. He was in the second wave of pioneers. Those who actually made what Robert E. Howard invented move into a new and equally exciting arena. I always loved his ground-breaking novels and stories. And it’s good to see him back."
—Joe R. Lansdale, author of Sunset and Sawdust and The Bottoms

"Lord knows, the field needs the fresh and discerning insights that only Charles R. Saunders can bring to it."
—Charles de Lint, author of The Blue Girl and Someplace to Be Flying

Cover by Vince Evans.

Elliott Bay Book Company donates to the Octavia E. Butler Scholarship Fund

In June, 2006, the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle will donate 20% of their proceeds from the sale of certain books to the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund of the Carl Brandon Society. Books must be purchased in person or over the phone, during the month of June. Online purchases do not qualify.

The donation will be made as part of Elliott Bay's "Books for a Change" program. Titles for June include Dark Matter II, edited by Sheree Renee Thomas; Fledgling and Kindred by Octavia E. Butler; The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan; Cinnamon Kiss, The Wave, and Fear Itself by Walter Mosley; Zorro and City of Beasts by Isabelle Allende; and many, many more.

For a complete list of the books that are part of the June donation program, please call the store at (206) 624-6600 or (toll free) 1-800-962-5311, or check the online list. Then, either place an order for any of these books over the phone, or buy any of them at the store to make your selection count towards the bookstore's total donation.

The Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund will support writers of color attending the Clarion and Clarion West Writing Workshops, beginning in 2007. It is administered by the Carl Brandon Society, a nonprofit organization focusing on the presence and representation of people of color in the fantastic literary genres. For more information about the Carl Brandon Society and the scholarship fund, please visit their website.

New York Public Library tribute to Octavia E. Butler

Sheree Renee Thomas blogs about the recent tribute to Octavia E. Butler at the New York Public Library.

The evening offered many jewels, too many to jot all down here, ranging from heartfelt testimony, illuminating and hilarious anecdotes, a couple of bizarre moments (oh, we are human, ain't we!), some fyah performances from Sonia Sanchez and Avery Brooks (Good Lawd!), and rousing musicmakin' from Toshi and Bernice Johnson Reagon that could only make Octavia smile.

"I"ll take two of those": The Cloned Cat, Sukumar Ray, and Putu (Amardeep Singh on Sukumar Ray)

(Illustration by Sukumar Ray, for one of his own books)

I was reading randomly in The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature, and I came across Sukumar Ray, a highly prolific writer of surrealist children's stories in the 1910s and 20s. He was part of the Presidency College circle of Bengali intellectuals in Calcutta, and he was the father of acclaimed film maker Satyajit Ray.

Click to read the rest of the post.

Amardeep Singh on Debjani Sengupta and early Bengali science fiction

From Amardeep Singh's blog, a post on early Bengali science fiction.

It seems a little hard to imagine people writing about electric doorbells and burglar alarms in the 1880s in Calcutta, but there you have it. (Doorbells were actually invented in 1830, so maybe it's not that shocking.)

Website: Speculative, Science and Fantasy Fiction in the Philippines (Freedom of Thought)

Speculative, Science and Fantasy Fiction in the Philippines (Freedom of Thought)

The Fantasy, Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction in the Philippines weblog is a repository of thoughts re: SSFF (speculative, science fiction and fantasy) productions made within the Republic of the Philippines, or by Filipino writers. It is currently maintained by Rebecca Arcega (Bhex), and is also a mirror for announcements made in the Philippine Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Yahoogroup. Its mission is to promote discussion and facilitate the spread of information related to the SSFF scene in the Philippines, and/or SSFF works published by Filipino writers. Comments are very welcome.

Comic Book Galaxy review of "Gunned Down"

Gunned Down is an anthology of ten Western short stories illustrated by Brazilian artists, published by Shane Amaya’s Terra Major Imprint.

From Jim Witt's review of Gunned Down:

The anthology’s strongest stories are also two of its longest - Stagecoach Mary by Pam Noles and Bruno D’Angelo, and Indian Face by Shane Amaya and Gabriel Ba. These two stories alone make this collection worthwhile; despite the shortcomings of several of the other stories included, these standouts make Gunned Down well worth the price of admission.

Shane Amaya on "Gunned Down."

Photos from East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention

Thanks to Black. Geek. And Fine With That for the pointer to photos taken at the recent ECBACC (East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention).

Sold-out New York tribute to Octavia E. Butler today

New York tribute to Octavia E. Butler today

Monday, June 5, 2006
at 7:00 PM
Bruno Walter Auditorium at the Library for the Performing Arts. 111 Amsterdam Avenue, between 64th and 65th St

Seats are no longer available.

Writers and friends of Octavia E. Butler, who died in February, 2006, will gather to pay tribute to this internationally known science fiction writer whose evocative, often troubling, novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human. Publisher Dan Simon, actor Avery Brooks, publisher and editor Max Rodriguez, writer Harlan Ellison, Professor Sandra Govan, literary agent Merrilee Heifetz, poet Sonia Sanchez, writer Samuel R. Delany and special musical guests will honor Ms. Butler with reminiscence, music and readings from her work.


This event is co-sponsored by Seven Stories Press

About Octavia E. Butler

Octavia E. Butler is the author of eleven novels, including Kindred, Dawn, Parable of the Sower, and, most recently, Fledgling (2005), and one collection of short fiction, Bloodchild. Butler received a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, science fiction's highest honors--the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award--and numerous other literary awards.

According to her New York Times obituary, throughout Ms. Butler's career, the news media made much of the fact that she was an African-American woman writing science fiction, traditionally a white male bastion. But in interviews and in her work itself she left no doubt that her background equipped her spectacularly well to portray life in hostile dystopias where the odds of survival can be almost insurmountable. "I'm black, I'm solitary, I've always been an outsider," The Los Angeles Times quoted Ms. Butler as saying in 1998. Set in time periods ranging from the historical past to the distant future, Ms. Butler's books were known for their controlled economy of language and for their strong, believable protagonists, many of them black women. One of Ms. Butler's best-known novels, Kindred, told the story of a modern-day black woman who must travel back to the antebellum South to save the life of a white, slaveholding ancestor and, in so doing, save her own. Frequently assigned in black-studies courses, the book was rooted in the experience of the author's mother, who worked as a maid. "I didn't like seeing her go through back doors," Ms. Butler once told Publishers Weekly. "If my mother hadn't put up with all those humiliations, I wouldn't have eaten very well or lived very comfortably. So I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure." In an interview with The New York Times, Ms. Butler explained the deep appropriateness of her chosen genre as a vehicle for social commentary. "We are a naturally hierarchical species," she said. "When I say these things in my novels, sure I make up the aliens and all of that, but I don't make up the essential human character."

About Dan Simon

Simon is publisher of Seven Stories Press, Octavia's publisher for over 10 years.

About Avery Brooks

Brooks is the actor perhaps best known as Cmdr. Benjamin Lafayette Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

About Max Rodriquez

Rodriguez is editor of QBR: The Black Book Review, and one of the last people to interview Octavia.

About Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison, a science fiction writer, was Octavia's first teacher at Clarion writing workshop and was a great champion of her work. He will be reading by remote.

About Sandra Govan

Govan is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, with a specialty in American and African American literatures.

About Merrilee Heiftz

Heifetz is Octavia's longtime literary agent and executor of her literary estate.

About Sonia Sanchez

Sanchez is author of more than a dozen books of poetry, plays, and winner of several awards including those from the NEA, and a Pew Fellowship.

About Samuel R. Delany

Samuel R. Delany is an award-winning science fiction writer whose books include the novels Nova and Dhalgren, and the Hugo-award-winning autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water and, most recently, About Writing.

All LIVE from the NYPL events are general admission. Arrive early for best seat selection. Box office opens 2 hours before the event and doors open 45 minutes before the event. Management reserves the right to refuse admission to latecomers.

Asian Pop / Look! Up In the Sky! It's Asian Man!

(Thank you to sanmiguelmalo for the pointer to this article.)

By Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate

Diversifying the ranks of superheroes isn't just about pop-cultural social justice -- it's about providing minority kids with a narrative around which to shape their identities and build a sense of self-worth, even if they feel excluded, different or disconnected.

Blogosphere discussions on cultural appropriation panel at Wiscon 30

The panel that began the discussion:

WisCon Saturday:
Cultural Appropriation and Writing Fantasy Outside Western Tradition

Not all fantasy fiction is, or indeed should, came from faery, from Middle Earth, from Tolkien or from other Western European traditions. Not everything should be pseudo-medieval in nature, and it seems that more and more fantasy authors are drawing upon other cultural frameworks in fashioning their fictions. Yet, that comes with its own issues, such as cultural appropriation. A discussion of the embrace of neglected mythoi, and the pitfalls that may await the adventurous traveler there.

yhlee, one of the panelists, posts some thoughts on how it went. (This is the post as replicated at deadbrowalking, aka The People of Color Deathwatch; a Live Journal community.) An excerpt:

- When intent isn't good enough.
You can't judge intent from within the pages of the book, although I suppose you can guess. You can go into your writing with the intent of an angel and still emerge with subconscious racism or sexism or any other -ism. Or hell, what's just plain a bad book. (I'll spare you the examples.) I'm not arguing that it's a bad thing to go into writing about another culture mindfully; I think it should be done more often. But it seems (as we say in math) necessary-but-not-sufficient.

- Minority writers.
No one self-identifies as a "majority writer." That's a problem right there.

The Wiscon Live Journal community has a summary of some of the posts on the topic.

imagineNATIVE Call for Submissions for Film & video, Radio, and New Media

Call for Submissions for Film & video, Radio, and New Media Deadline June 1st, 2006

The
imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is an international festival that celebrates the latest works by Indigenous peoples on the forefront of innovation in film, video, radio, and new media. Each fall, the festival presents a selection of the most compelling, distinctive Indigenous works from around the globe. The festival's screenings, parties, panel discussions, and cultural events attract and connect filmmakers, media artists, programmers, buyers, and industry professionals. The works accepted reflect the diversity of the world's Indigenous nations and illustrate the vitality and excellence of our art and culture in contemporary media.

imagineNATIVE considers film, video, radio and new media works made by Canadian and international Indigenous artists. The festival strives to represent a diversity of ideas, themes and genres in its programming. The festival prioritizes works that balance unique content, cultural and social relevance, and a creative approach to form characterized by innovative expression, distinctive style, and personal vision. Priority is given to works that have not yet been broadcast in Canada. International and Canadian premiere status is also a consideration. imagineNATIVE charges no submission fees.

All entries selected for the festival are eligible for awards. Awards presented in 2005 were as follows: $1000 Alanis Obomsawin Award for Best Documentary, Sponsored by the NFB; $1000 Best Dramatic Feature, Sponsored by CHUM TV; $1000 Cynthia Lickers-Sage Award for Emerging Talent, Sponsored by Vtape; $1000 Best Radio, Sponsored by Standard Radio Broadcasting; $1000 Best New Media, Sponsored by Vtape; $500 Best Short Documentary, Sponsored by CBC; $500 Best Short Drama, Sponsored by CBC; $500 Best Experimental, Sponsored by the Images Festival; $500 Best Music Video, Sponsored by imagineNATIVE.

Submission forms for film & video, radio, and new media are available for download from
the imagineNATIVE website.

imagineNATIVE is held in Toronto – this year’s dates are October 18-22, 2006

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imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival