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Author News, August: Tell Me Your Favortie Non-Eurocentric Stories
This issue:
* Tell me your favorite non-Eurocentric stories.
* Report from the Willamette Writers Conference
* Short story acceptance for anthology of spiritual literature
Full newsletter with links and stuff is here.
What Are Your Favorite Non-Eurocentric Stories?
Question of the month: What are your favorite non-Eurocentric stories? This mean stories that are not primarily from a Western Civilization frame of reference. They might be traditional narratives or recent science fiction, acclaimed best sellers or fan fiction. They might even by authors of Eurocentric descent if the story itself is located in a very different worldview (thinking Le Guin here, for example). Comment and I will put together a summary for the next newsletter.
Willamette Writers Conference, 2020
I was privileged to be part of a panel on worldbuilding at this year's Willamette Writers Conference along with Sarina Dorie, Emily Suvada, and Hannah Mann, all of whom had great insights to offer on worldbuilding and creating setting. As an attendee, I was humbled (this word is overused, but here I mean it) to attend the panel on Privilege, Politics, and Cultural Experience with Claudia F. Saleeby Savage, Kimberly Johnson, Shayla Lawson, and Jenny Forrester. I will not tell a lie: this panel brought me to tears, particularly in the midst of my own struggles with how to be an adequate parent as a white person raising two Black kids. The speakers did some useful, if painful, calling out of our own Portland, Oregon as a very racist space, even by white American standards. Well, we white folx have our work to do.
The conference was all online and went off impressively smoothly. My regards to Greg Gerding, Kate Ristau, and everyone who worked so hard to bring this event to life. It was also great to see Curtis Chen again, who I hear tell was attending two conferences at once!
Story Forthcoming in Anthology of Spiritual Literature
I am pleased as punch to announce that my short story "The Descent of the Wind" has been accepted for publication by This Present Former Glory: An Anthology of Honest Spiritual Literature, published by A Game for Good Christians. This quirky organization of Christians has a serious (humorous, and snarky) interest in delving deep into spiritual, Biblical questions; I might describe their tone as irreverently reverent. It feels like a good home for this particular oddball story, and I'm really looking forward to reading the full anthology. I especially want to thank my pastor, Jeanne Randall-Bodman, for her help with navigating the story's Biblical material, and also my dear friend, Z., who gave it a very encouraging read from a Muslim perspective.
* Tell me your favorite non-Eurocentric stories.
* Report from the Willamette Writers Conference
* Short story acceptance for anthology of spiritual literature
Full newsletter with links and stuff is here.
What Are Your Favorite Non-Eurocentric Stories?
Question of the month: What are your favorite non-Eurocentric stories? This mean stories that are not primarily from a Western Civilization frame of reference. They might be traditional narratives or recent science fiction, acclaimed best sellers or fan fiction. They might even by authors of Eurocentric descent if the story itself is located in a very different worldview (thinking Le Guin here, for example). Comment and I will put together a summary for the next newsletter.
Willamette Writers Conference, 2020
I was privileged to be part of a panel on worldbuilding at this year's Willamette Writers Conference along with Sarina Dorie, Emily Suvada, and Hannah Mann, all of whom had great insights to offer on worldbuilding and creating setting. As an attendee, I was humbled (this word is overused, but here I mean it) to attend the panel on Privilege, Politics, and Cultural Experience with Claudia F. Saleeby Savage, Kimberly Johnson, Shayla Lawson, and Jenny Forrester. I will not tell a lie: this panel brought me to tears, particularly in the midst of my own struggles with how to be an adequate parent as a white person raising two Black kids. The speakers did some useful, if painful, calling out of our own Portland, Oregon as a very racist space, even by white American standards. Well, we white folx have our work to do.
The conference was all online and went off impressively smoothly. My regards to Greg Gerding, Kate Ristau, and everyone who worked so hard to bring this event to life. It was also great to see Curtis Chen again, who I hear tell was attending two conferences at once!
Story Forthcoming in Anthology of Spiritual Literature
I am pleased as punch to announce that my short story "The Descent of the Wind" has been accepted for publication by This Present Former Glory: An Anthology of Honest Spiritual Literature, published by A Game for Good Christians. This quirky organization of Christians has a serious (humorous, and snarky) interest in delving deep into spiritual, Biblical questions; I might describe their tone as irreverently reverent. It feels like a good home for this particular oddball story, and I'm really looking forward to reading the full anthology. I especially want to thank my pastor, Jeanne Randall-Bodman, for her help with navigating the story's Biblical material, and also my dear friend, Z., who gave it a very encouraging read from a Muslim perspective.
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I would say that both The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson, and Air, by Geoff Ryman fit your desire for non euro-centric works.
I enjoyed both of them, but I haven't really been reading anything of late, so they are not fresh in my memory. I do note that Kim Stanley Robinson has a favorable blurb on the cover of Air. I would, however, recommend both of them, they did make an impression on me.
A lot of works that are nominally about alien civilizations are really just veneers, plastering our then-current political situations over creatures of varying levels of slime. And that's okay, in its way, there was a lot to be said in those indirect books.
Congratulations or both your panels and your recent publication! Will the anthology be coming out in a physical format? I do like my physical books!
(Spoon Knife 4 is one such volume that I have which is high on my to read list if I ever get back to doing that...
[ edited for a spelling error, there may be more I haven't caught... ]
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I'll be teaching his novel Aurora for the second time this fall. It provided good fodder for my Science and Science Fiction class last year.
Miss seeing you! We were very briefly in Cali in July, but with COVID, it seemed too complex to plan to meet. We saw our rebuild, though, which looks like, assuming it doesn't burn down again this fire season! Speaking of which, stay safe.
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Miss seeing you as well. Amusingly, in late July I ended up meeting my parents in Sonoma, and we ate at The Girl And The Fig, as it was a place I knew which had good patio dining.
Glad the rebuilding has been going good, I've been wondering about that. I do look at the maps with an eye to your house, but so far, they appear afraid of it, so that is also good.
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I'd invite you to go take a look at the build site, but it's actually a bit inhospitable. There's a chain fence across the road to help protect the equipment the crew leaves there. But hopefully in the next year or so, it will be looking better.
Hopefully in the next year or so, a lot of things will be better!