Talking to the moon and other things

a small tribute and my Eightsquaredcon schedule

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 13:29:15 GMT

I posted a small tribute to Chinua Achebe on my wordpress blog yesterday, but didn't have the energy or time to crosspost it here. The link is here, if you'd like to read it. Yesterday, I found myself wondering how much different my writer's journey would have looked like if I hadn't come across Chinua Achebe's work at a crucial moment in my life. A great man who leaves behind a rich legacy for all the world. We are richer because of this.

Next weekend, I will be at Eightsquaredcon in Bradford. It's going to be an exciting trip for me as this will be the first time I travel by train in the UK. I've given myself enough wiggle room so I'll be certain to catch the train going to and from Bradford.

Here's what my schedule looks like.

Saturday 12 noon Non-Western SF and Fantasy in the Main room. I will be moderating this panel.

Saturday 5 pm Motherhood in SF and Fantasy

Saturday 7 pm Genre Get-Together: Science Fiction

Sunday 10 am Maiden, Mother, Who? Older Women in Genre Fiction

Sunday 7 pm BSFA Awards

Sunday 8 pm Sex in YA Lit.

It looks pretty busy, I know. To make it simpler: I'm on four panels, one of which I'll be moderating and since I don't have books to sign, I'll basically just be hanging out and handing out fliers for the Bloodchildren anthology.

I would love to chat and catch up with people who are going. Hope to see you there.

(also posted on http://rcloenenruiz.com)

Publications and updates

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:56:19 GMT

It's been a pretty busy and exciting two weeks with lots of things going on. On Saturday, I celebrated International Women's Day together with the Filipina women of Stichting Bayanihan. It was a good day focussing on gender consciousness. Not too high threshold but with enough material to provide good food for thought.

This week, I received news that the ISF 2012 Annual Anthology with my story, 59 Beads, is now free to download from the ISF site. I'd like to acknowledge Roberto Mendes and Ricardo Loureiro for putting this anthology together.

I also received word that Decolonizing as an SF Writer, which first appeared simultaneously on The Future Fire Blog and Kate Elliot's blog, has been selected for inclusion in Speculative Fiction 2012:The Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary. The list of contributors has been released and is viewable here. I look forward to reading all the pieces selected.

I've also received the contract for Dagiti Timayap Garda, a short weird/horror story that I wrote which was inspired by the shapeshifting Tikbalang and monster stories from my childhood. I'm quite excited about this sale and look forward to when I can announce everything about it here.

And I am completing work on a short story and am also completing work on the final draft of my novella. I'm really excited about both of these stories as they are both rooted in indigenous culture and in the case of the novella--very much inspired by Filipino history.

I have an unexpected free day tomorrow and I hope to finish one of these two things by weekend. I think the short story first and hopefully the novella before Eastercon.

(also posted to http://rcloenenruiz.com)

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:06:40 GMT

My dear friends have alerted me to the fact that the new Movements column is live. Woman's Work and the Woman of Color at Work grew from the interview I had with Jocelyn Paige Kelly. This doesn't appear in the interview I had with Jocelyn, but Jocelyn asked me the question that became the catalyst for this column as I reflected on the question of support for Women's work and how the answer to this is not really as simple as saying: yes, I support the work of women.

Hodan Warsame of Roet in Het Eten has put up a synopsis (in Dutch) of Radio Redmond's Broadcast from the 26th of February. The excerpt I read on Radio Redmond is also posted on the Roet in Het Eten website and you can read it here. The excerpt is from my Bloodchildren story, Dancing in the Shadow of the Once and you can find the anthology here.

In the after-the-show conversation, Hodan mentioned Intersectionality. I don't think we can ignore this when we talk about supporting women's work because the way we approach woman's work is influenced by more factors than identifying as woman. There's more to it than that and I know we would like to simply say--women's work is women's work and be done with it. But the truth is, it's more complicated than that and also the way we look at support and perceive support, the way we experience it, the way we give it is complicated by this strange notion people call "the culture of nice" wherein support has come to mean being positive and uncritical. It's still something I'm reflecting and thinking on and I suppose it's inevitable that I'll write about that in the future.

(also posted to rcloenenruiz.com)

Reading and Interview on Radio Redmond

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 15:59:15 GMT

It was wonderful to meet the brilliant and talented crew of Radio Redmond and Roet in Het Eten. I read from Dancing in the Shadow of the Once from the Bloodchildren Anthology. Here’s a link to the reading and the interview. The reading starts a little bit after 18 minutes. The rest of the broadcast is in Dutch. In short, we talk about the Octavia Butler Scholarship Fund, the need for diversity in the field of SFF and the themes that appear not only in Dancing in the Shadow of the Once but also in my other work.

After that first hour, another guest came on the show. Coring de Los Reyes. We discussed the state of undocumented migrant workers in the Netherlands and why it’s important for the Dutch government to ratify ILO Convention-189. Ratifying the convention will grant protection to the undocumented migrant workers and ensure protection for them.

Considering how progressive Dutch government and society claim to be, it will be interesting to see whether they live up to their reputation of being forward-thinking and humanitarian. I say, the Dutch government should recognize the contribution of these migrant workers and offer them the protection and the recognition they deserve.

(From L-R: Hodan Warsame, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz and Coring de Los Reyes. Photo via @roetinheteten )

(Also posted on http://rcloenenruiz.com )

Update: Roet in Het Eten and Radio Redmond

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 11:40:04 GMT

Hodan Warsame sent me an invitation to read and take part in Radio Redmond’s broadcast on Tuesday, the 26th of February. I will be reading and doing an interview and hanging out with some amazing people.

Roet in Het Eten’s website is here.

Roet in Het Eten is a collective that offers a unique and critical look at politics, popular culture, media, art and music through radio programs, online opinion pieces and analyses.

From Hodan’s Email:

Redmond is the new biweekly women’s show that discusses pop culture, politics, media, art and music from the perspectives of women. The programme brings you interviews, stories and music that centralises the experiences of (trans)women. Redmond focuses on gender issues.

The program takes place on Tuesdays from 17.00-19.00. The programs can be listened to live on 107.9 and 105.5.

The broadcast is also available via http://www.radiomart.nl and via this link. Fill in the date and times you are looking for. Broadcasts are in Dutch but are conducted in English and Spanish when needed.

(also posted on http://rcloenenruiz.com)

A quick update and sharing a bit from what I'm reading

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 08:07:45 GMT

I posted a quick report on the Paul Harland Day over at my website. The link is here.

I've been thinking a lot about women's work and how we as women support each other and on the work of women of color and how we support that work. And at the same time as all these things, I've been reading Leny M. Strobel's, A Book of Her Own, Words and Images to Honor the Babaylan.

I thought I'd post an excerpt from her book today as it deals with a number of things that I've been thinking about as well as I observe conversations around poc and the work of poc--and in particular the work of women of color.

My White Friend
(excerpt from A Book of Her Own, Words and Images to Honor the Babaylan by Leny M. Strobel)

He is often concerned that my work is too racialized; that it can't help but dissolve into dualistic antagonisms -- the very antagonisms I seek to transform. But why, I ask him, is it so difficult for him to listen to my story? What does it ask of him that he refuses to hear it? At some level we already agree on our vision of justice and peace, vision of spiritual awakening, vision of ecological justice. We already agree that there is racism still. Or that it is only now that white folks are beginning to acknowledge white privilege. . . so why does he always resist this?

updatery

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:04:46 GMT

Goodness. January has turned out to be such an exciting month. It's like I turn around and something exciting happens again. I've been tinkering away at my website, but I still haven't found a way to get this blog somehow simultaneously updated with wordpress...but it may actually not be possible. I think of the website as being like a professional entity. It's like the receptionist that says: "Welcome to World Rochita. I hope you enjoy a look around and here's where I post bulletins on what's going on in my professional life."

And while I know this journal is also open to public eyes, I feel like the place where I wrangle with ideas and talk to friends and well I've found so many good friends on livejournal and so many inspiring people as well, that I just can't help but be more personal on here

That people are reading Sogn of the Body Cartographer and liking it is a marvel to me. I am filled with wonder and amazement at the legs on that story. But I've resumed work on the Body Cartographer novel and I thought I'd gather together the bits and pieces that I'd already written in that world so I have a clearer view on where and how I want the story to develop further. It's going to be quite an adventure.

On my website (rcloenenruiz.com) I've posted excerpts from two works-in-progress aside from the Body Cartographer novel. Yes, I just said novel and I didn't stutter. Good god. That's progress. I've been so terrified of novelling for so long that I just kept calling it that long novel-like thingy. But okay, I guess there's no going around it. It's going to be that after all.

The Banawor Dragons story is going to be novella-length and it is almost finished. I have a few more thousand words to go. While I was writing this, I realized that planning a revolution isn't easy.

Neh's story is on the back-burner for now, but it's at a point where it needs to be paused as I need more information from my brother and he's in the midst of preparing for his wedding. I hope that he'll be able to get back to me after he gets married.

I'm working on some shorts as well. Oh my. If 2011 was a fallow year, 2013 looks like it's going to be really busy. If you have time to drop by my website, I'd be happy to hear what you think of it. I hope everyone is doing well and I'll try to catch up as much as I can. I keep thinking of my friends here on lj and wishing I could meet you all in person someday. Well, I'm off again as I'm typing this while in the midst of cooking dinner. Late by Dutch standards, but hey...I am Filipino. ;P

BSFA awards shortlist has been announced

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 14:05:03 GMT

My PGS story, Song of the Body Cartographer made it to the BSFA shortlist. The complete shortlist is here. Winners will be announced at Eightsquaredcon which will be in Bradford, UK.

I will be attending Eightsquaredcon together with good friend and awesome author Aliette de Bodard whose short story Immersion is also on the shortlist.

It’s an honor to be listed along with all the other shortlisted nominees. Thank you for nominating my story. It thrills me that a story published in a Philippine publication has received all this attention.

It's disturbing when the language we use when referring to poc hasn't changed

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 13:53:14 GMT

I just finished reading a chapter on Colonial Domesticity from Vicente L. Rafael's White Love and other Events in Filipino History. I had to set aside this book several times while I was reading this chapter because it was just so painful to read. Kind of like peeling away the scab from a wound or rubbing sand into an open sore.

Anyway, here are a couple of choice excerpts from that Chapter on Colonial Domesticity and take note, these are from letters written by white women from the Philippines during the American occupation of the Philippines.

From a letter written by one Edith Moses:

Your first impression will be that we keep trained baboons to do the housework, for the probability is that a half-naked, dark-skinned creature is rushing up and down the hall on all fours, with big burlap sacks under his hands and feet. He is only the monkey-like coolie who polishes the narra floors.

From a letter written by a woman named Caroline Shunks: (talking about a houseboy who she considers to be badly behaved)

He stalks stolidly about in his shirt-tail, short drawers and bare feet, smoking cigarettes. He speaks not a word and looks an insurrecto of the deepest dye.

Here's a choice excerpt of Shunks again, writing of her favorite servant:

Houseboy no. 1 is a treasure. At seven o'clock, our dinner hour, he comes softly to the porch corner from which we watch the sunset and announces something which means, "Senora, dinner is served!" He looks like a hired mourner at a funeral, dressed in crisp, white clothing. We go out with all the ceremony attending a state banquet and Vincent stands at "parade rest" behind my chair. He serves quietly and well. Our table looks pretty, red-shaded candles, and a bowl of vivid red lillies...Lizards run down the walls to catch the insects attracted by the lights, great June bugs buzz noisily about and coming too near the table are deftly caught by the "boy".

To be honest, I'm not surprised at the terminology or the way in which these white women wrote home about Filipinos. I imagine that there are still white people who go to countries like mine and who look at it and see it as something placed there for their entertainment and they see the natives as simply these "creatures" who are meant to cater to their needs. After all, most white households in the Philippines have two or more maids, a driver and lots and lots of people who will go or come at their beck and call. (I know of more than one white missionary household who mourned leaving the Philippines because in America, they would have no more maids.)

When I read this, I can't help but find it disturbing that there are writers in this present day who still find it tolerable/excusable/allowable/justifiable to use these same objectifying terms when writing about people of color.

True story: Sometime ago, I sent Strange Horizons a story wherein I depicted my native people as being agile as monkeys (although I didn't use that word exactly). To me, it was an act of rebellion against the term I'd often heard used even by Filipinos from the lowlands when referring to tribal people. Filipinos tend to have a non-confrontational attitude and at the time of that writing I was feeling quite alone in my anger.

Obviously, Jed Hartman was pricked by my depiction because he wrote back pointing out that this was problematic. Which to me was enough. I haven't sent that story anywhere else and I haven't rewritten it. Do I plan to ever send it elsewhere? Do I plan to rewrite it? I don't know. I think that story has already served its purpose where I'm concerned. All I wanted was to find confirmation that my anger was not misplaced. I was right to be angry because the bestial depiction of colored/native races is deeply deeply problematic.

Anyway, back to the book. At the close of the chapter on Colonial Domesticity, a white woman writes about poignant separation scenes from their colored/native servants. My response is quite physical. I literally rear back from the depictions and swear out loud. These scenes which depict the servant as being continuously subvervient and loving towards the white master are familiar. They are the same scenes we see replayed and regurgitated in various media where colored servants adore their white masters/mistresses. It makes me physically ill.

This fantasy that the colonial masters feed themselves continues to be the same fantasy that many descendants of colonizers choose to believe. The fantasy that goes: "Oh, they love us and are grateful to us."

This perpetuated fantasy is the reason why colonizing countries express outrage when people from their colonies demand separation from the colonizer. What they fail to see is this--attachment is not love and a people who have been subjugated will always long for autonomy and freedom.

On twitter, I wrote about our ambivalent feelings with regards to the colonizers and in particular towards the American colonizers. As I said to Berit Ellingsen: It's like this: it's like you have this friend who you trusted and then that friend betrayed you.

**Should you want to obtain a copy of White Love and Other Events in Filipino History, it is available here.

first post of the new year

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 11:04:54 GMT

2013 is 6 days old and here I am, updating this sadly neglected journal. 2012 was quite a year, marking the resumption of getting new work out there.

It's still a pretty surreal feeling to see Song of the Body Cartographer on the recommended list for the BSFA awards. It does give me a kick to see Philippine Genre Stories as the only non-US/non-UK publication on there. http://www.bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-award-nominations-another-update/

I commented on it on twitter and the resulting discussion on membership, nominations, awards and how this all works was very enlightening. I made a comment as to how I couldn't help but think of the economics of nominations/memberships. I had been thinking of signing up for BSFA membership, but there's quite a difference between fees for UK residents and non-UK residents. The difference in fees has to do with the cost of sending things in the mail--perhaps offering an e-pub option to non-UK residents would push the cost down? Ian Sales speculated on that point and it will be interesting to see if costs do get pushed down if Vector goes electronic.

What I couldn't help thinking about was how much 40 pounds would be in say: Philippine pesos. It may not seem like much to people who work/live in the UK, the US and the EU, but a fan in Asia would probably choose to spend that amount on groceries or basic necessities. (The pound is still one of the strongest currencies out there and the exchange is huge: one pound=sixtysix pesos, figure out how much 40 pounds is.)

Of course, we can argue that the BSFA is really for British fans and whether fans in Asia can sign up for membership or not isn't something they should be worrying about. But we keep on talking about diversity and inclusivity--we want to be inclusive, we want the genre to be more diverse and when I look at it in this way, I can't help but think of how economics plays a role in these things.

I'm still thinking about inclusivity and diversity. But I'm hella thankful to you who nominated Song of the Body Cartographer--to me, seeing Philippine Genre Stories listed is like a fistpump in the air. :)

updates

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 11:00:23 GMT

It seems that there is no end to busyness, but I thought I should update this journal as things do happen. Maybe in a year or so I'll be able to keep a more regular journal.

First off: 59 Beads has been reprinted in ISF #1 and is now free to download. There are some interesting reviews of the issue available through the site. I'm happy to see this story reprinted here. Here's the download link, in case you're interested. I share the TOC with Joyce Chng and Marian Truta.

I'm now in the process of rounding up a roundtable discussion (it's in English and will be published online) with some of the writers and publishers of Dutch-languaged SFF. The discussion has been quite interesting and thought-provoking. Martijn Lindeboom who organizes the Paul Harland Prize put out a questionnaire that was put together with the help of Boukje Balder who is one of the major judges for the PHP. The questionnaire seems to have raised quite a good deal of interest and it will be interesting to see what the results are.

Aside from this work, I've been commissioned to put out a newsletter for the organization I volunteer for and for which I am now Secretary of the Board. Our organization has been chosen as recipient for the Banaag award for the 2012 Presidential Awards for Filipino Individuals and Filipino Organizations Abroad. While we can't all go home to receive this award from the President himself, two of the founding members of the organization will be going and my parents are going to be present at the awarding ceremony which will be held at the Malacanang Palace. (What a thrill for my mom.)

We put a lot of work into this and I spent a lot of weeks intensively engaged in translating documents, newspaper clippings, interviews, features from magazines, and other paperwork from Dutch into English. Phew...at the end of that, I was truly drained. On the plus side, I now know a lot more about the work the organization has done since its establishment 20 years ago. The amount of advocacy work, the lobbying for rights, the mediations, the interventions--I'm sure if we did a case by case study, it would have even been more intense.

But I'm glad we were chosen for this award as it's long overdue. We didn't even know of it until we were told that we'd been nominated for it and this was the paperwork they needed. Of course, everything we have is in Dutch--hence the huge amount of translation that needed to be done in a short time.

In the course of the week, I received word that two of my pieces are being picked up by Our Own Voice. I was so excited, I did a happy dance. :D Days later, I'm still smiling about it. The pieces they picked up were an essay I wrote on the adoption of third world babies and something I called a fractured fiction. I wrote this story sometime ago when I was wrestling with the distance between myself and my husband and how there didn't seem to be any way at that time to bridge it. I tried revising the story, but it seemed to work best in its fractured state. There are no neat resolutions--nothing gets solved and in a certain way, it's more like a poem than a story. I've been told it goes live sometime in December...

While trawling through my twitter feed I came across this article from the Guardian which I really liked and I thought I'd share it in case you hadn't read it yet. I hope you enjoy reading: Endless Fascination: in praise of novels without neat conclusions.

things that have happened and my first Strange Horizons column

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 09:19:46 GMT

Have been offline as our modem broke and it took a while for our server to help us. Being incommunicado heightened the claustrophia as our phone line is attached to the modem as well and if that's broken we have no way of calling out or being called. Added to all that, I contracted the flu and was down for a good number of days. Can I say argh.

Thankfully, we're no longer cut-off from the world and the flu has receded. I'm left with the residue: an irritating cough and the sniffles. I can go out though and I can get online. :D Yay.

Being offline did mean that I had more time to write--plus I had nothing else to do in the moments when I felt somewhat lucid. So, I finally got around to finishing the Artifact story. 8000+ words. One of the longest short stories I've ever finished and been happy with.

The amazing aliettedb sent me her thoughts on it and I'm going to do a very quick brush-up and its off to the antho it's meant for. *fingers crossed* I did miss the Crossed Genres deadline for the Winterwell theme. Something I really really wanted to send something to. Unfortunately, the story I was working on for that decided to go evil on me and it's turning into a monster of a story. Er...not saying it's a novel until it passes the upper word count for novella.

Came online to some really wonderful stuff. Woot. Lavie Tidhar's Osama won the World Fantasy Award for best novel, The Weird compendium by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer won the World Fantasy Award for best anthology and Ken Liu's Paper Menagerie won in the short story category. It surely does rock when people you know and whose work you love and respect win the big ones. :D Yay.

I also found out that Strange Horizons made their fundraising goal. Something I was thinking about before our modem went bonkers on us. I am very pleased they made it because Strange Horizons is one of the few professional publications that really goes out of its way to encourage diverse work.

Also, because I can sometimes be so out of it...I want to say thanks again to Aliette for pointing out that my first column has been published. I called the column Movements because well...I rather like the musical idea behind it: presenting a theme, variations on a theme, the aba, abbca, abca...you know what I mean...the way themes come and go and return in music. Also because movements has another meaning pertaining to revolutions which I'm rather obsessed about at the moment. <G>

My first Movements column is titled, Identity and Indigenous Thought. Yes...I am kind of nervous about what people will think of it. It's also something that I feel needs to be said. And yes, I am working on the next column already. <G>

If you have time to drop by and read, I'd love to know what you thought of it.

and the update

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 08:35:01 GMT

Yes. I have been very bad about replying and updating on this journal. I have promised myself to try and update at least once or twice a month depending on what's going on.

The news I was talking about (which I've already tweeted about): I recently signed a contract with Strange Horizons to write regular non-fiction columns for them. I just sent off my first column and received good word on it, so I'm really really pleased about that. I have to say thank you to Niall Harrison for giving me this opportunity and to Rebecca Cross, non-fiction editor at Strange Horizons. :D

I've been looking through my old files--good heavens, did I write all those things? These are files that got transferred to the external drive when our old computer crashed and I never revisited the files because I was busy writing new things. And all the while, I thought I'd only written a bunch of stories. Hahaha. Apparently, I've written more than a bunch, they were just all in another place.

Anyway, I've been hard at work--tinkering away at my way outdated website and now it looks much fresher and also reads better. I'm not sure what else I can do to make it more appealing or easier to navigate. I do want to put together a free sampler (as per aliettedb's advice). Hah. My tech skills are being put to test here.

Almost forgot to post my website address: It's http://rcloenenruiz.com (hehehe...I have a domain name now. How cool is that?)

In other news, fellow VD'er Gwen Ellery has written a romantic fun romp novella and she's offering it for free on Amazon.com. The title of the novella is Paris Brats and it's available here.

I was looking for an old story that had been published in Flash Me Magazine, but which I can't find anywhere on the web. I wanted to post that story on here for a free read, but it's kind of late now as the story is sort of all-soul's day themed and it's November 2nd. Also, I haven't found my copy of it yet. But I will--once I go through the external drive. I seem to have had a penchant for awarding stories file names that are not the end name of the story. Way to go, Rochita.

In the meantime, I came across this one which I may or may not have posted before, but if I have I'm posting it again because my kids love Star Wars and Darth Vader in particular.

Grandfather’s Fight

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz

Grandfather moves through the house

on silent feet.

He is Shadow Ninja

on the prowl

his broomstick

is a trusty sword

and the shawl he wears

is his disguise.

Grandfather dances in the night

he evades searchlights

and sirens

with ease

he flings his cape across his shoulder

sings

the national anthem out loud

and tells us

the fight for freedom

is not yet over.

Grandfather writes a letter to Darth Vader:

“Come if you dare,”

He writes.

“My sword is ready

I am eager for a fight.

Enclosed please find

my self-addressed

stamped envelope.”

Everyday, he checks the mailbox.

He complains

he has been robbed.

Darth Vader

never

replies.

some kind of update

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:32:16 GMT

We've reached the end of the reading period for the Paul Harland Prize and after all the scores were added up, I was just ecstatic to find out that my top three stories landed in the top three spots and that these top three were also the same top three as my fellow-jurors.

#

I'm having to adjust certain things on my agenda. I had planned to be at Bristolcon and my membership is all paid for, but a family-related emergency has come up and I've lost all hope of making it this year. I emailed Joey Hall with my regrets and I feel really really bad about missing Bristolcon as I've been looking forward to going since Joey first blogged about it. I console myself with the thought that there is always a next year.

#

On the writing front: am I the only writer who gets all happy and excited when a story returns with a rejection? I'll admit I've been praying for this one story to return to me. I tried to forget all about it while we were in France, but when I returned home, I kept thinking of it and wishing I hadn't mailed it out because I really really wanted to do something more with it.

So when it came back, I actually cheered. Hahaha.

I'm a bit superstitious about unfinished stuff, so I won't talk about it until it's done. :D

#

I also have some nice lovely news, but I won't let out a peep about it because again I'm superstitious in certain ways. But I will certainly post and tweet and facebook about it soon. :D

Come to think of it, this isn't much of an update post, is it?

updating quickly

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 07:14:21 GMT

How time flies. It's been more than a month since I last updated this journal. I've been very busy and twitter has been much easier to use as a means of keeping up. I will be posting new fiction on here soon though. In petto are the Wasden Effect and another short piece--both of these are my way of thanking my sponsors for the CW writeathon.

I've been reading for the Paul Harland Prize which is probably the oldest Dutch language competition for short stories in the sf/f genre. A lot of writers seem to confuse sf/f with horror, and I find myself stumped sometimes because some of the horror is quite good. I find myself reflecting on the appeal of horror as a genre. In the Philippines, for instance, horror is a genre that is doing really really well. It seems that the same is true over here.

I'll probably do a more extended post on that sometime soon. I have to go back and reread some stuff as I haven't come up with the number of stories that must be pushed on to the final stage.

In the meantime, my essay on Hunting for Stories in the Philippines has been published at the Weird Fiction Review as has my Bestiary story, The Liwat'ang Yawa, the Litok-litok and their Prey. There are lots of other wonderful things on the Weird Fiction Review, so if you have time, drop by.

Well, this is a post and run kind of thing, but I'll be back soon.

Also, don't forget to read Aliette de Bodard's essays on Cultural Appropriation and Engineering in SF (really good and insightful stuff). I love the Engineering piece because while I don't have lots of engineering in my fictions, it's something that sticks and which I'll remember.

corrective note: I've just been duly corrected. The Paul Harland Prize is not restricted to SF&F, it also includes horror. Which explains a lot to me and is also helpful for grading/ranking purposes.

Weavers and Watchers of the Gods - snippet for the Clarion West Write-a-thon

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 23:01:14 GMT

I started out with the intention of writing another fun snippet, but I'll confess that I've also been preoccupied with world-building for the work-in-progress that somehow I ended up writing something that is quite different from the first two pieces that I posted for my Clarion West sponsors. I want to say thanks to Susan Gossman and Eileen Gunn for inspiring me to explore the world of Ayudan more. Here is more insight into the world of the Body Cartographer--into two personalities who move between the veils and the dwelling place of the highgods.

Weavers and Watchers of the Gods
For Susan Gossman and Eileen Gunn

Color danced between her fingers. Reds, blues, bright yellows and emeralds; rings of scarlet splashed across a broad field of white—the patterns of the Gossman tribe and of herself, the youngest Susan.

She looked up. The pattern would reflect on the final weaving. What happened in the veils, was mirrored beyond the veils,
this was how it had been and how it always would be. She took up the shuttle and wove it between the threads. This was the future, she thought. Bodies rose up from the threads, the shape of the future Timor’an, the Matriarch’s own elite.

Her fingers clacked against the frame. The future would unfold as it was meant to unfold, and she would remain faithful to the task laid out before her.

She was the Gossman of the gods. Her hands had been shaped to hold the shuttle and to resist the seduction of the loom. Her vision was a gift bestowed on her for she could see farther than even the keenest of the Nahipan.

Where the seers of the veils could see fold upon fold, her eye extended beyond that and each incident, each person’s destiny was a path in the weaving that could be unraveled or rewound as the gods willed it.

No easy task. The gossman thought.

But she would have it no other way. She had been born for this very purpose: to obey the command, to keep her eye on the movements of the world beyond, to catch the slack of the threads and wind them into the pattern harvested by the eye.

A disturbance in the weave told her of the arrival of the gunn. A farseer, this Gunn wielded the eye. Her wit was kin and her tongue was sharp. Blessed by the gods with strength and longevity, this Gunn had proven herself in countless battles and harvests. The Susan had met her during the trials when strength had been pitted against strength, and determination proven against determination. They were equally matched, and at the end they had exchanged true names. Of all the gossman, only she knew this Gunn’s true name.

She strode into the Gossman’s space now. Loose-limbed and confident, all sharp angles and shining surfaces. Her armor carved out of the smoothest and toughest wood that grew on the outskirts of Aliette.

“What news do you bring?” the Gossman asked.

“An uneasy peace,” the Gunn replied. “Aliette’s elders paved the way with their wisdom, but even as we speak, the foundations of that peace are undermined by things hidden to my eye.”

The gossman pondered the pattern, she traced the movement of scarlet. A bereaved heart set on a traitor’s path, one that brought bewilderment to the Timor’an and threatened the balance between Lower and Middle Ayudan.

“I cannot meddle,” the gossman said. “But the gods have granted you free movement.”

The Gunn looked up.

A smirk crossed her normally impassive face.

“An adventure,” she said.

#

There were four threads to capture within the weave. The gossman extended the clawed tip of her finger and pushed two colors onto a comb. A new pattern could be formed.

She folded her legs under her, the wings on her heels clapped together and a flutter of wind rose up. Gold dust layered the greens and the blues. The cartographer’s journey stretched out before her. A difficult path fraught with sacrifice and sorrow, for this the gossman felt a momentary regret.

Through the greens, she found a line of scarlet. This was the path the Gunn would have to tread if she was to join her fate to the Cartographer’s for a little while.

“Do not be carried away,” the gossman admonished.

Behind her, the Gunn sighed.

The Gossman cast a sidelong gaze at the farseer. There was strength in the Gunn’s profile, but there was passion there too.

“Have I ever lost sight of my mission?” the Gunn asked.

Susan’s eye caught the small movement in the Gunn’s right jaw. It betrayed irritation and something else.

She smiled.

“I know you have always been true,” she said.

The Gunn heaved another sigh and this time she dropped the mask of impassivity.

“Must I be tested at every turn?” she asked. “My word is my bond and I gave you mine when I gave you my true name years ago.”

Susan allowed serenity to flow from her as the wings along her arms fluttered open and shut.

“I know you as I know myself,” she said. “Be at peace. This is no test. Your path with the Cartographer will be short, but it must yield a good harvest if the unfolding pattern is to remain unsullied.”

The Gunn subsided. The planes of her face resolved into its usual mold.

She was truly marvelous, the Gossman thought.

She plucked the strings and moved her shuttle between them. The combs rose up, bringing the colored threads with them, a new path unfolded among the threads.

“Oh yes,” the Susan sighed.

It could be lovely. An inevitable grief, loss and sacrifice, and beyond that, beyond where the eye could see, her own vision opened up the folds of the weaving that was yet to come—there was a pattern waiting there, one that led to something more than ordinary joy.

She allowed the comb to descend and let the vision fade into eclipse. Soon the Gunn would see it too, but not before the eye was put to work and the harvest had been done.

“Well?”

She heard impatience in her partner’s voice, and she almost laughed at it. It was just like Eileen, she thought. Adventure lay ahead, and the course had been set. Not even Susan’s most seductive blandishments would keep the farseer here.
“Your passage has been cleared,” she said. “Go meet the Cartographer and return with a fruitful harvest for the looms.”

( I'm not sure if I'll continue this here of if you'll see the rest of this after I've finished writing the bigger work, but you will definitely see these characters again someday. ) :D :D :D

Reading for the Paul Harland Prize

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 07:25:36 GMT

While I'm officially banned from the internets for the duration of our family vacation (a rule I've been allowed to break for short periods), I've been reading books and reading the entries for the Paul Harland Prize. Giving grades to stories has never been my strong point. People I've critted on the Online Writing Workshop can attest to this. I've also never been big on giving grammar crits (except when something jumps out and really smacks me in the face as). So, if the Paul Harland entrants expect me to tell them when a sentence is properly constructed or not, they might be disappointed with my reading and my crits. What I do and this is where I do feel I am good at: is give crits on the story itself. I like to ask questions about the story more because I wonder why the author chooses to make use of certain stuff instead of other stuff.

I'm not going to give away much here, but say a writer chooses to make use of a certain trope. Say that it's a well-used trope. Say that it's a trope that's been done, time and time again. I'm very likely to pass on this unless the writer gives me a compelling reason to give this story a high rating.

I'm bound to ask questions. Why does the writer choose to use a certain triggering incident? Why not another? I'm particularly interested in the "why" if the writer shows a strong voice and yet fails in the delivery.

I've also realized that like editors out there, I am also rooting for writers to give me the story that I can't pass on because it has grabbed my imagination and my emotion that much.

So, what can the writers of the Paul Harland Prize expect from me? Well, even if you don't get the pass, I'll tell you what works for me and what doesn't. I'm going to ask questions and then I'm going to tell you why I'm not giving this story a grade that will push it on to the next round. What I hope to see writers do with this criticque is the same thing I've been doing with crits and rejections all of my writing life: take that crit, apply it to your next story, try harder, be more critical of your own work, open yourself up for criticism, and then go on to write a winning story that will knock off a reader's socks any day.

The Melendez in Mai's shed (part 2) end of story 2 for the Clarion West Write-a-thon

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 07:25:39 GMT

First of all, an apology. This second part of the Melendez in Mai's shed was delayed due to school closing and all the busyness around it. I wrote and rewrote a number of times before I was finally able to capture the fun spirit of the Melendez. On Monday or Tuesday, I'll be updating this lj with a fresh piece of fiction filled with new and fun creatures on an adventure. My thanks to Karina for your sponsorship. Maraming, maraming salamat. Thank you for encouraging me to write and have fun. :D

And now: part two of The Melendez in Mai's Shed

If she had not heard the sound
If she had not woken her sister up
If they had not gone down the garden path
If they had not opened the door
If she’d only paid more attention

All the ifs rushed through Mai’s brain because Aya had vanished and she was stuck inside one of the nets the Melendez had conjured for something she called training.

“Hello.”

Her voice bounced back at her through the tangle of stringed code.

“Aya? Karina?”

Code flew past her in a blur of florescent light. What was it Karina had said about cyberspace and navigating its nets?

“If you focus on a string, you can navigate your way through the net,” Karina’s voice echoed from memory.

She wished she’d paid more attention to Papa’s night time lectures, but was it her fault that music and arts appealed to her more than the abstract weavings of complicated equations? Her foot struck a line of code and it unraveled with a ping.

“Karina,” she shouted.

Surely the Melendez understood that Aya was the technical one. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“I wish I was back in my own bed,” she muttered.

She wondered if she was doomed to be stuck forever.

She sniffed and blinked back a tear. She wanted Aya. Even if Aya got exasperated at her dependence, she’d never ever left Mai behind. She sniffed again and reminded herself that Aya hadn’t done this thing deliberately. It wasn’t like her elder sister wanted to lose her.

She straightened her shoulders and narrowed her eyes. She would show them that she could do things on her own. She would too.

Her ears recognized a strand of sound as it zinged past her. Was that Pachelbel’s canon in D? She turned, stretched out her fingers and found purchase on the whirly end of a series of sixteenth notes.

At her touch, the code wound itself round and around. A bright cascade of tones rained around her, but she didn’t let go. Music welled up inside her and when she opened her mouth bars of music spilled out of her and filled the air with strangely beautiful dissonance. She lifted her hands. Her skin was glowing, she was splitting apart.

“Karina,” she yelled.

Just like that the Melendez was beside her.

#

In the darkness, the Melendez glowed. Her fingers moved quickly through the code surrounding Mai.

“I’m breaking apart,” Mai cried out.

“Not if I can help it,” Karina said.

Concentration shone in the Melendez’s eyes. Her fingers were swift and sure, pulling lines from the darkness, weaving together escaping bits of code.

“Where’s Aya?” Mai asked.

“Your sister is fine,” the Melendez said. “You’ll have to focus now and help me catch the last strand. I haven’t done musical code in quite some time and for all its simplicity, Pachelbel’s canon is a deceptive thing.”

“What do you want me to do?” Mai asked.

“Find the missing bars,” the Melendez said.

“How?”

“Don’t panic. Look and listen, you’ll find it.”

Karina reached out and took hold of Mai’s hand and squeezed it quickly.

She could do this, Mai thought. She might not be as technical as her elder sister, but she knew music and the canon was one of her favorite pieces.

She looked up. The Melendez had projected the music onto a screen so it was visible to her in a form she understood.

#

Later, Mai would wake up in the quiet of the night and listen for the sound of clacking keys. She would strain her ears for quick footsteps. She would dream of the Melendez sitting in front of her giant screen, her fingers plucking away at the code, untangling, unraveling and then weaving them together to form a net so intricate and complex, only another
Melendez could comprehend its design.

“And now you understand a little bit,” the Melendez said to Mai after she plucked her from the web of musical code and after the sisters had been reunited.

“The web is a complex being. All these lines lead to somewhere and a disruption in the system could mean a disruption in the entirety of the web’s continuum.”

“I didn’t mean to disrupt,” Mai said.

The Melendez smiled. Her eyes glowed a bright green before they faded back to gold.

“Curiousity is always a good thing,” she said. “It’s what leads us to dig deeper, and sometimes breaking things can lead us to the creation of new and better things. That’s what’s so fun about being what I am.”

“Did we help you create a new thing?” Mai asked.

The Melendez didn’t reply. She only hummed at them, but Mai thought she saw a smile flit across Karina’s impassive countenance.

When they left the shed, the Melendez was at work again. She was fully focused on the screen in front of her, her fingers reaching out to touch code, weaving them into things of light and beauty.

“Will you tell me about your adventure?” Mai asked Aya.

Aya smiled.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”

<end>

The Melendez in Mai's Shed (part 1)-- snippet #2 for the writeathon

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 09:22:17 GMT

Yesterday's sojourn in the garden shed finally helped me bring together this fic that I was planning for my second writeathon sponsor. The fic is not yet finished. Turns out it's longer than a flash, but this creature and this story came to mind when I read who my second sponsor was. I have a feeling this is something my eldest boy will actually read and like. He liked the Jeff Spock story as well. This writeathon seems to be great at bringing out my resident child who wants to play. <g> Please feel free to sponsor me for the write-a-thon. I'd love to write a couple more of these fun stories. :D

The Melendez in Mai's Shed (part 1)
for Karina Melendez from Rochita

It was the crash that woke her up.

Mai sat up in and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. It was still dark out, but across from her she could just make out the shadow that was her sister.

Crash.

There it was again.

“Sssst,” she said. “Aya, wake up.”

“Huh?” Aya said. “What? What dream? Go back to bed.”

“I thought I heard a crash,” Mai whispered.

Aya didn’t reply, and after a while, Mail realized her sister had gone right back to sleep.

She stepped out of bed and padded to the window. Nothing moved in the darkness.

“Who’s there?” she said.

But all was silent in the back yard and no matter how much she strained her ears, she could hear nothing out of the ordinary.

After a while, Mail went back to bed. She willed herself to go back to sleep, but a part of her brain kept puzzling over the crash that she’d heard.

Pat-pat-pat.

Mai stood up again and went to the window. From her vantage point, she could look down the long length of the garden to where the shed was.

There was someone out there, she was sure of it now.

“Aya,” she whispered. “There’s someone out there. I know there is.”

With a huff, Aya came awake.

“I swear,” Aya said.

But she came out of bed anyway and joined Mai by the window.

They could see a blue glow emanating from the garden shed.

“Do you think it’s an alien?” Mai asked.

Aya shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s certainly not a thief. Papa set safeguards just the other day.”

Mai looked at her elder sister and Aya snorted. She pulled on her robe and slipped her feet into fluffy yellow slippers.

“All right,” Aya said. “Let’s go have a look.”

They slipped out into the garden as quietly as they could. Miraculously, the screen door didn’t squeak as it normally did during the day. It was a good thing too, Mai thought. Papa and Mama would be displeased if they caught Aya and Mai out of bed at such an hour.

She shivered inside her dressing gown. It was made of quilted green cloth. Dwarves and butterflies frolicked along the border of it. Whenever she wore it, Mai imagined that this must have been how the queen felt.

“If it’s one of Papa’s minions, I’m going to yell its head off,” Aya muttered.

She yawned and stretched like a cat.

They were up to the door of the shed now, and whoever was inside was totally oblivious to their approach.

Papa kept the doors to the shed well-oiled. The latch moved smoothly out of its berth and the door swung open without a sound. Blue spilled out of the shed and there in the middle of the blue was the strangest little creature Mai had ever seen.

It was just about the height of Mai’s knee. A smooth silver carapace covered its back, its upper arms and its legs. From the elbow on she could see twisted black cables with marks written on them in florescent green ink. The being was muttering to itself as clawed fingers moved in spiderlike motion across the virtual screen.

“It’s a Melendez,” Aya said.

There was awe in her voice and Mai stared at her elder sister.

She’d never heard of a Melendez before, but she supposed Aya must know better because while Mai loved to delve into the arts and the music, Aya had her nose forever buried in one of Papa’s scientific modules.

“What’s a Melendez?” Mai asked.

“It’s very gifted,” Aya said. “It reaches into hyperspace and couples and connects lines of code. It can break or make a net depending on the order given by its master.”

Mai was so busy paying attention to Aya that she didn’t notice the silence inside the shed.

“Pardon me,” a tiny voice spoke up. “But what are you two girls doing up at this hour?”

They turned to look towards the Melendez.

One of its hands rested in mid-air and it had one on what could have been hips if Melendezes had one.

“You . . . I. . .,” Mai began. ‘

“We’re sorry for interrupting your work,” Aya interrupted her. “Please do continue with whatever you were engaged in.”

The Melendez huffed.

“I can’t,” she replied. “Your presence has disturbed my line of processing. I’ll have to go back and start all over again.”

“I. . . we’re sorry,” Mai offered.

“No, no. Not your fault,” the Melendez said. “It’s not like I was making a major breakthrough or anything. I actually needed a break.”

“We have some energy bars in the kitchen,” Mai offered tentatively.

The Melendez smiled and Mai glimpsed small even teeth between her mandibles.

“I love energy bars,” the Melendez replied.

There was a slightly surreal feeling to sitting at the table with a creature who, as far as Mai was concerned, existed only in books.

“Of course, they wouldn’t tell you we’re real,” the Melendez said as it munched away on a spiced chocolate bar. “How do you think the world would feel if they realized the amount of work we do while everyone is fast asleep? Panic, that’s what.”

Mai turned to look at her sister. Aya was staring at the Melendez with an intent look in her eyes. Mai knew that look too well, it meant her elder sister was intrigued by the Melendez.

A feeling of dread settled in Mai’s stomach—maybe she shouldn’t have woken up Aya.

“I want to know more,” Aya said. “Don’t all Melendezes have real names? What’s yours?”

“It’s Karina 3PH,” the Melendez said. “You won’t tell your Papa you caught me in the act, will you?”

Mai shook her head.

Aya grinned.

“I won’t tell, if you show me how you do what you do,” Aya said.

Mai groaned.

“I knew it,” she said. “I should never have woken you up.”

( to be continued. . .)

Finding Jeff -- flash #1 for the writeathon

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 12:03:39 GMT

I did say I'd post a snippet/piece for anyone who sponsored me. <g> Today's little bit of writing is dedicate to Jeff Spock -- fellow Clarion West alumni, gifted writer and all around wonderful guy. I hope you appreciate the fluff, Jeff. :) And thanks for being the first to sponsor me.

#

FINDING JEFF
for Jeff from Rochita

There was a jeff in the ventilation pipe.

It was the first time Christine and Mary Ann had seen one up close. Mandy, the building supervisor, insisted that jeffs were dangerous and the walls had been sprayed with repellant to keep the creatures away.

But here was one, and it lay there fast asleep. A sweet round violet ball of fluffy jeff.

"What do we do?"Christine asked.

She kept her voice at whisper pitch. Mandy’s admonitions rang in her memory and while the jeff looked harmless, she was afraid that it would wake up and prove to be everything Mandy said it was.

Mary Ann tapped at the screen in her hand, and looking over her shoulder, Christine caught sight of images flashing by before it settled onto an entry with a jeff that was the exact same color and shape of their sleeping jeff.

"It’s a spock," Mary Ann said. "According to this entry, the jeff spock is harmless unless provoked. Then, it turns into one of the fiercest fighters in the south quadrant."

Christine bit her lip and looked at the jeff. Would it be provoked by their presence? Would it uncurl and turn into a fierce ball of fighting claws and sharp teeth? She tried to imagine the cute ball of fluff turning into a horrible rampaging beast.

She shuddered.

Mary Ann gave the screen a satisfied tap.

"Found it," she said.

"What did you find?" Christine asked. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the jeff.

"Identification for our jeff," Mary Ann said. "Apparently, this jeff belonged to the First Mandate."

"What?"

Christine tore her gaze from the jeff and looked at her sister. The First Mandate was in-charge of the south quadrant. She was a cold woman whom they’d sometimes called the ice queen. Christine couldn’t imagine such an austere woman keeping something like the jeff.

"It’s tame," Mary Ann said. "We can keep it if we want because the Mandate released it. There’s a notice on the Mandate’s website. Whoever finds the jeff gets to keep it."

"Won’t it be expensive?" Christine asked.

Mary Ann shook her head.

"Nope. It comes with supply rations for life. Plus, according to this entry, it’s an excellent watchdog."

"But Mandy. . .," Christine’s protest died away when she saw the smirk on Mary Ann’s face.

"Mandy can’t ban this one," Mary Ann said.

"But we don’t know how to care for a jeff. We’ve never had one before," Christine said.

"Instructions are in the document," Mary Ann said.

It was only because she was attuned to Mary Ann that she caught the screen when her sister tossed it.

"You. . .," Christine swallowed her words. She wanted to tell off Mary Ann for her carelessness. If she hadn’t caught the unit, it would have broken and a broken unit meant months of scrimping and saving until they could afford another one.
She stared down at the words on the screen. There were illustrations as well. She touched the screen and the page slid away to reveal another.

Mary Ann had hitched herself up over the lip of the vent. She was making a high crooning sound that made the hairs on Christine’s neck stand up.

"Krrr. . .," the jeff said.

It uncurled at Mary Ann’s touch. It stretched out and yawned and Christine glimpsed the pink cavity of its mouth. It had sharp teeth, Christine thought. She could easily imagine the damage those teeth could do. Then a pair of bright blue eyes peered out through the fluff and blinked at them.

"Come," Mary Ann said.

Christine squealed when Mary Ann reached out and placed her hand on the jeff’s middle. She waited for the jeff to attack.
But instead, the creature crept up and curled around Mary Ann’s forearm.

"Aw," Mary Ann said. "You’re a sweet little creature, aren’t you?"

The jeff looked up and blinked. It bared its teeth in a feral grin.

"You’re ours now," Mary Ann continued. "We’ll protect you."

The jeff let out the most curious sound Christine had ever heard. It sounded like a cross between a purr and a bark. Then, it curled itself around Mary Ann’s arm and went back to sleep.

<<end>>

Did you enjoy this little story? Do you want one all your own? Go ahead, click on the link. It's only the first week of the Clarion West write-a-thon. Time enough for you to sponsor me or one of the awesome writers on the list. :D :D :Dnd

Song of the Body Cartographer

Sat, 16 Jun 2012 08:17:05 GMT

I've signed up for the Clarion West Write-a-thon and I hope to be more successful at blogging about my progress than I was last year. Of course, last year I had a spotty internet connection--so this year I have no excuse.

My Write-a-thon page is here and thanks to the repeated rt's, we've achieved the goal of 200 participating writers and in so doing some very generous sponsors are giving a total of 2000 dollars to the workshop. Yay!!!

I'm doubly pleased then that just as the Write-a-thon is getting off the ground, my short story, Song of the Body Cartographer, has been published and is now available for everyone's reading pleasure at Philippine Genre Stories.

I thought I'd blog a bit about Song of the Body Cartographer, not only because this is the first story I sent out after my fallow year, but also because this story represents a number of things to me. It's also an extracted story from my wip--so yes, it's part of something bigger. Writing this wip is a real challenge for me. It's probably going to be my longest story yet.

On the PGS site, the illustration used is Remedios Varo's Creation of the Birds. This picture inspired me to write a previous flash piece which was published by Byzarium (it's still available here), and perhaps this image sunk so deep in my mind that when Kenneth Yu asked if I had an idea for an illustration of the piece, I couldn't help but think of this painting and how I imagined the Timor'an would look somewhat like this. The painting does play a crucial part in the big world story--and its significance comes out partially in the section where Siren thinks about Corazon's depiction of the Qa'ta. I was trying to imagine how an artist from Lower Ayudan would paint a transformation, and it's still me conversing with this piece of art which Varo created.

But at the heart of the inspiration for Song of the Body Cartographer and the larger wip, are the conversations on women's bodies that we conduct back and forth as we reclaim ourselves. It comes from reading history, reading commentaries, reading poetry, and discussing with other feminists. It also comes from a weariness with having to surrender the body to male approval or to the male gaze and it is born out of this place inside me that wants to turn a deaf ear to what society and convention dictates as being the one true way of seeing story or living life as a woman.

I look at the female body and think of the power of the spirit inside that vessel and I think of how this vessel is subjected to so much outside pressure in an attempt to suppress and subjugate that power. I believe in women and in the things that we can accomplish when we band together because I have seen it with my own eyes. When we shed ourselves of the imposed guilt at being woman, when we choose to embrace our own definition of the right way to go about being women and being with women, we reclaim our power. We return to that image that is true woman: pure and unsullied, full of strength and light.

If you liked Song of the Body Cartographer, please consider sponsoring me during the Clarion West Write-a-thon. :) Thank you for reading.

Presenting the Cultural Imperialism Bingo Card

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 11:50:45 GMT

If you think colonialism is dead... think again. Globalisation has indeed made the world smaller--furthering the dominance of the West over the developing world, shrinking and devaluing local cultures, and uniformising everything to Western values and Western ways of life. This is a pernicious, omnipresent state of things that leads to the same unfounded things being said, over and over, to people from developing countries and/or on developing countries.

It's time for this to stop. Time for the hoary, horrid misrepresentation clichés to be pointed out and examined; and for genuine, non-dismissive conversations to start.

Accordingly, here's a handy bingo card for Western Cultural Imperialism--and we wish we could say we've made it all up, but unfortunately every single comment on this card was seen on the Internet.

Card designed by Aliette de Bodard, Joyce Chng, Kate Elliott, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, @requireshate, Charles Tan, @automathic and @mizHalle. Launch orchestrated with the help of Zen Cho and Ekaterina Sedia in addition to above authors (and an army of volunteer signal boosters whom we wish to thank very much!)

(In case card doesn't show up well, you can also view it here)

Returning to the indigenous body and the body's narratives

Tue, 22 May 2012 12:37:38 GMT

I sold Song of the Body Cartographer to Kenneth Yu of Philippine Genre Stories, which to me is a significant story because it represents a return to and a reclaiming of the body.

This week, I spoke with one of my nephews and he told me that my sister had printed out Decolonizing as an SF writer and was busy telling the students in her class as well as our younger cousins that this was an essay that they must read. What will they think when they read Song of the Body Cartographer?

I am thinking of how decolonizing allows us to break away from the dominant narrative wherein women's spaces and women's bodies have been subjugated and devalued.

Some things I have been thinking on as I continue to read history:

- there is a colonialist narrative that shames the body. The object of this shaming is more often than not the body of woman--specifically, the indigenous woman. As a point of illustration, one of the acts considered important by colonists coming into tribal areas was to cloth the women in "modest" apparel. Records of colonizers refer to the upper body nudity of indigenous women and call them immodest and lewd.

White missionaries coming into the mountains consider it imperative to clothe the woman's body. I find myself asking--"Why?"

In the indigenous narrative, woman's body is beauty. There is nothing lewd or immodest about the natural body and there is no reason for shame or malice. We all have bodies, we are all connected to the earth and to each other. If I look on my sister with malice, it is a malice that comes from myself and not from the earth. I am the contaminated one and must cleanse myself.

- in colonizing the body of woman, the colonizer expresses shock and disgust at the open attitude of the woman towards sex and pleasure. It is unthinkable for woman to demand pleasure from the act of sex. It is unthinkable that man should go to so much lengths as to pierce himself with a foreign object in his desire to please the woman. It is unthinkable and unacceptable that the woman should demand or expect equal pleasure. This behaviour of woman is considered lewd, unnatural and of the devil.

To what extent has this damaged the way we look at sex? Some of us can't even speak the word without being embarassed. There is a saying: to the pure, all things are pure. I believe that sex is a pure thing. It is meant for pleasure and enjoyment--it's not just for making babies and ensuring the next generation. Where does the stigma come from? ( I have my thoughts on this as well, but I won't post them just yet.)

- The indigenous woman's narrative is one wherein the circle of women, the connection to other women is essential. Woman's mind is directed towards community, towards communion with sisters, brothers, family, the earth and the universe. Woman's influence is extensive and woman holds a position of power whether it is in the household or in the community.

-While there is no explicit mention of gendering, I get the impression that gender and sexuality are fluid descriptors. For instance, I read of males who adapt women's apparel and who act out in a feminine way. There is no stigma to these actions and it is not treated as deviant. In fact, the men who do these are men who want to tap into the source of power.

What does nature tell us about gender and sexuality? I think of the Wrasse fish and how it is the female Wrasse who is capable of changing genders when there is a shortage of males. Lots of food for thought there.

I find it interesting that in a lot of published sf/f males are invested with powers to commune with the dead/speak with the spirits/perform magic. I find it interesting because in the indigenous tradition, these are functions that are given to women. So...I'm just saying...maybe we have to think about why we as women choose to put male characters in central roles of power in the narratives that we write.

I want to say that there is beauty in this narrative of women. That there is beauty in human relationships and that it is natural for women to be strong and weak and to be intuitive as well as logical. And that even in science, not everything is explainable.

There's still a lot more that I want to write about and a lot more that I want to post, but these are the things my mind has
been dwelling on the past few days and I thought I'd just get them down and see what others think about them.

Decolonizing as an SF Writer

Mon, 14 May 2012 07:23:41 GMT

In the past few weeks, I've been quite preoccupied with conversations on colonialism and identity, so much so that I quite forgot to update here. I think twitter sort of took up my life for quite a while.

As a result of these conversations, I wrote an essay on Decolonizing as an SF Writer. The essay has been published by Djibril Al-Ayad (editor of the Future Fire) and by sf/f writer Kate Elliott.

You can read the essay and leave your comments at Kate Elliott's blog or at her livejournal (kateelliott), or you can go read it at The Future Fire blog and leave your comments there.

thinking aloud

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 11:51:33 GMT

aliettedb interviewed Fabio Fernandes and Djibril al-Ayad on their peerbackers project to raise money for the We See a Different Frontier sf anthology. Interview is here. Link to the project is here.

Jeff and Ann VanderMeer have launched a peerbackers project for a Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology. More details on that here.

The objectives of these two projects speak to me and I want to contribute towards these projects even if it's just a little bit. Since I'm not rich, I hope spreading the word through whatever means available to me will help towards making these projects come true.

#

I've been thinking about narratives since Eastercon, and I have to say that a lot of the discussions I come upon seem to circle around the subject of narratives as well. Narratives coming from insiders, narratives coming from outsiders looking in, narratives from the dominant group, and narratives coming from non-anglophones. It's an interesting subject and one that we could keep on discussing...so it's wonderful that people come along with concrete projects meant to address the questions of narratives that are rarely given space.

I have to think of Barbara Jane Reyes's essay at the Poetry Foundation blog where she talks about Filipino American writing and how our voices are made invisible by our absence from the mega bookstore shelves. We talked about suppressing women's voices and about the need for diversity in the genre--and I think Barbara Jane makes a great point there which can be applied to the suppression of women's writings and the invisibility of non-anglophone voices.

The challenge for us, extends beyond translation. In an ideal world, translation would be a two way street. We translate from English and English translates from us. Our thinking and our knowledge of other cultures and other lands would be shaped by hearing the diverse voices coming from each culture, because no one voice can claim to be the authentic and true story of a culture. It is the diversity of voices within a culture that give us a clearer picture of what that culture is really like.

I find myself enraged when I think of stereotypes because the Filipina is often subject to stereotyping. A recent television program featured three Filipinas and their Dutch partners and I found myself growing enfuriated by the blatant sexism and the obvious persistence on depicting relationships between Filipinas and Dutch as one wherein economics and sex (not true love) play a huge role.

It's true that there are Filipinas who enter relationships with white men because of economics, but these are not the only kinds of relationships that exist. To imply that these relationships are typical of Dutch-Filipina relationships reduces the Filipina to a commodity--an object that can be bought or tried out. I wonder how aware program makers are of the messages they send out and whether they are conscious of the role they play in contributing to false expectations and the rise in incidents of domestic violence between couples of mixed races.

It pains me, it grieves me and it enfuriates me because I have known a good number of women whose partners treat them as objects. Exotic objects (sorry for the E word) bought and paid for and put on display as proof of their superiority. Is it a wonder then when such marriages/partnerships often end in divorce or in domestic abuse?

That the media opts to present only one type of story, is an injustice because it paints all mixed race relationships with the same brush. The message such stories project is often this: We are all in it only for money or because we do not have a future back home.

As if marriage were not already a fraught experience where partners need to adjust and accept each other's flaws and foibles, the media insistence on stereotype adds the pressure of having outsiders looking at the partnership and judging it based on the story media has presented.

Memo to all: Not all mixed race partnerships are brought about by economic need or because we don't have a future back home. The majority of successful mixed race partnerships are brought about by mutual love and respect and by meeting of minds and true understanding of the sacrifices made in order for the partnership to work.

Someone told me that presenting the story of equals in mixed race relationships is just not sensational enough for the networks...and that is really, really sad because it relays a message of: we don't really care about presenting a diversity of stories because as far as we're concerned one story is enough.

I thought of this as I worked on this post and I thought of how important it was for us to read, not just the one story written by the one writer from said culture...it is important to read more than that one story...to read more than that one writer...to see not just through the eyes of the well-researched outsider, but to see also with the eyes of the insider as she or he reveals to us the country and the culture that is familiar and dear to their hearts.