The following is an excerpt from "Her Hand in Mine," a novella-length story I wrote in conjunction with my upcoming webcomic, "Wild Space Saga." Any critiques or requests to read the story are welcome.
The story is about a lonely scrap hauler named Jules who reunites with an alien friend from his childhood, and resumes their relationship, which has matured from the puppy love of their youth. Enjoy!
As it had done innumerable times that week, the incoming call hologram appeared on my phone as it lay upon the dresser across from my bed.
"Li-ah, why won't you turn that thing off?" Sar'vana murmured plaintively, her words coming in a background of soft, relaxed purring as I applied the detangling ointment to her fur and massaged it into her skin. It was a type of oil that Felyans used on themselves for personal grooming, but it was often customary for mates to apply it to each other. The process was very intimate, as I learned, like a full body massage when done correctly. And Sar'vana was a very good teacher. The scent, I learned, was the same familiar aroma that had constantly emanated from her and most other Felyans, something akin to baby powder.
"There might be an emergency," I replied as I finished applying the ointment to her tail, and reached for her brush.
"Well, so far, it's only been your friend, as usual," Sar'vana said, and hissed at the phone.
"He'll give up," I assured her.
"He hasn't yet."
I sighed as the hologram faded away. "You're right; he hasn't." It was the fourth day, I learned from viewing the timestamp on a previous attempt of Chester's that had occurred when we had last woken up. Time had otherwise blurred together in those endless hours, becoming meaningless as Sar'vana and I indulged ourselves in each other. "He's too damn persistent," I said with a deep, mildly annoyed sigh. "He knew that I'd be with you this week. He's got too much personality and not enough patience."
Sar'vana giggled at my remark, and then stiffened as my brush passed over the very sensitive base of her tail. She shuddered, and growled softly and deeply as I passed its fine bristles over her luxurious fur, being especially soft and gentle upon this part. Her reaction never failed to both amuse and arouse me, and my laugh was just as soft as her growl as I passed the brush several times upon the area.
"Oh, you're doing that on purpose, now," she said, trying to sound annoyed, but there was a betraying pleasured lilt in her voice that I could easily detect.
"Maybe," I said coyly.
Her tail slapped me upon my side as she hissed faintly. It was a playful, gentle slap, and I saw a faint smile upon her muzzle as she cast an alluring sideways glance at me.
"So are you really pissed, or are you just being frisky?" I asked, the scent of the ointment and the sight of Sar'vana's supine body building up the desire that my grooming of her had already thoroughly stoked.
"Well, now … that depends on whether or not you can finish the job without becoming 'frisky' yourself," Sar'vana said, and rolled over onto her back.
Laughing, I accepted her challenge, and forced down my desire as I went back to work.
"By the way, who is Keisha?"
That question was like a bucket of cold water on me, eliminating every vestige of my arousal, even as my hands neared her breasts. How could this have happened? I wondered, my mind racing with mixed fear and consternation. Hadn't I blocked Keisha's code from accessing my phone?
"Keisha…?" It was the only thing I could say. The name came out sounding incongruous and utterly stupid in my ears.
"I saw that your friend had left you a message last night," Sar'vana said. "You were still asleep. He said that Keisha was wondering where you were, and wondering why you never returned her calls."
I sighed with resignation. I'd expected this, of course; It wasn't as if I planned to keep this a secret. I knew that I'd have to tell Sar'vana about this before long, but I had hoped that it would have been on my terms.
I sat up in the bed, and curled my knees up to my chest. Sar'vana, noticing the doubtless troubled look on my face, turned over on her side, facing me.
"I don't know how you'll take this," I said. "You've probably already suspected that you're not the first woman I've been with, right?"
Sar'vana nodded without word.
I had intended to keep quiet about some of the things I knew, to soften the sting of my confession, but my lips overrode my intentions, as if an angel were forcing me to purge my conscience of all its sordid contents. I told Sar'vana everything. I told her about Keisha, the burn, our nights together, my confusion, and my regret. I couldn't bear to look directly at her as I spoke, yet I could feel Sar'vana's beautiful, violet eyes fixed upon me as I talked on, like a balloon inflated with sin releasing its contents through a tiny hole.
"I'm not a virgin, Vani," I said in conclusion, "but I had little interest in women until I met you. And then … well … you know the rest." Drained and without excuse, my eyes tightened as I, guilty by my own word, waited for the storm of reproach that I was certain would come.
"Whom do you love?" Sar'vana asked.
Her question, spoken gently, and devoid of any judgment, caught me utterly and completely off-guard. I blinked the tears from my eyes as I once again settled my gaze upon Sar'vana. Like an angel, there was no look of anger in her lovely eyes, no condemnation.
"Who … whom do I…?" I sputtered.
"Whom do you love?" Sar'vana asked again, her voice without any betrayal of judgment.
"Well … you, of course," I said, still amazed that this conversation had even taken such an unforeseen turn. "I've always loved you."
"Are you certain of this?" Sar'vana asked.
"I've never been more certain in my life.
"And are you my li-ah as I am yours?"
I crawled to her, and took her hand in my own.
"Vani … If I had my pick of any woman on this planet, but was denied you, I'd choose celibacy," I said with earnestness that burned from the depths of my heart. "I would be sterilized before I'd choose any other girl. Were it allowed, and were it possible, I would have you bear our children. Li-ah … I've loved you since we were kids. And my only regret is not having had the courage to act on my feelings sooner."
"Then there is nothing to forgive," she whispered.
And just like that, it was over. And as we kissed, all the shame and confusion of the times of the burn vanished at her gentle touch. We fell into the soft sheets, reveling in that joy that I felt at her forgiveness, and sought to bring that joy … and that love … once again, into its fullest expression.
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12.12.12: The last time this date, or repetition of dates will occur again until January 1, 2101 (the 01.01.01 of the 22nd Century). The Astronomical Society of the Pacific proclaims today Anti-Doomsday Day. There's a concert for Hurricane Sandy relief.
AGU is the American Geophysical Union. Yesterday, I posted Scientific American's assertion that we've become essentially two camps: scientists and non-scientists, or (I think) more accurately: those who trust The Scientific Method and its conclusions, and those -- for various reason -- who do not.
Dan Satterfield is the author of the blog (link below). He is a meteorologist/weatherman with 32 years of experience.
He advises: read the blog post, then watch the embed Carl Sagan lecture from AGU's annual meeting.
"We've arranged a global civilization in which the most crucial elements — transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting — profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces." Carl Sagan
American Geophysical Union: IPCC Climate Forecast from 1990 - Amazingly Accurate
Astronomical Society of the Pacific: Anti-Doomsday Day
Related links:
#P4TC: Missing In Action
Hey, folks.
I'm looking for some readers for my work, so I can have some critiques. In exchange, I can do critiques of your work. Please let me know if anyone is interested, and I will post a few excerpts. Thanks a million!
-Brandon
Well, real life caused a little bump but we're back on schedule now. The newest "episode" of the GALATEA'S CROSS serial eNovel is available at AMAZON.
There's a little LOOK INSIDE action and you could jump on with #2 but i recommend starting at the beginning. They're only 99 cents and the novel will work as a season of a TV series if you stick with it.
If enough people buy it, I'll do another next year.
AMAZON LINK
Utopia Planitia (Latin: "Nowhere Plain") is the largest recognized impact basin on Mars and in the solar system with an estimated diameter of 3300 km,[1] and is the Martian region where the Viking 2 lander touched down and began exploring on September 3, 1976. It is located at the antipode of Argyre Planitia, centered at 49.7°N 118.0°E. It is in the Casius quadrangle and the Cebrenia quadrangle of Mars.
Many rocks at Utopia Planitia appear perched, as if wind removed much of the soil at their bases.[2][3] A hard surface crust is formed by solutions of minerals moving up through soil and evaporating at the surface.[4] Some areas of the surface exhibit what is called "Scalloped topography," a surface that seems to have been carved out by an ice cream scoop. This surface is thought to have formed by the degradation of an ice-rich permafrost. (Wikipedia) Also known in Star Trek lore, the place for building Federation starships.
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| Utopia Planitia shipyards |
Hence, the appropriate title for the following from Scientific American:
In 1993, Americans elected the first physicist to Congress: Vern Ehlers, a Republican from Michigan. Just six years later, former assistant director of Princeton’s Plasma Physics Laboratory, Rush Holt, a Democrat from New Jersey, joined him. And in 2008, Fermilab physicist and Illinois Democrat Bill Foster joined them, only to lose re-election in 2010 before regaining his seat this year. At that rate, Holt joked to an audience of mostly chemists at Princeton University on November 9, “By mid-century, the population of Congress would be physicists.”
But that’s a “slow way” to inject scientific thinking into the political process, Holt argued. “I wish we could get more Americans and, hence, their representatives thinking like scientists, which means basing our conclusions on evidence,” he said.
That laudable goal may prove even more challenging than turning a physicist into an electrifying political speaker. Because humans are not born statisticians, thinking scientifically is both technically and psychologically challenging . We prefer a story (anecdote!) to a compilation of statistics (data!). The modern world, as Holt observed of C.P. Snow’s famous analysis decades ago, has become divided into two disparate camps: scientists and non-scientists.
This may be most apparent currently on the subject of climate change...“The evidence for climate change is strong enough that we should be taking very bold and very expensive action because the costs of not taking action will be even more expensive,” Holt argued, suggesting that legislation to combat climate change “probably will be undertaken again, I would guess relatively soon in the next Congress.”
Scientific American:
Representative Rush Holt's Advice to His Fellow Scientists on Politics
David Biello
So, I'm kinda a n00b here, but I decided that this would be a good way to get the word out about my stories. I'm a published author with 3 e-books on the way. The first is "From Slate to Crimson," a steamy romance involving a vampire and the human he falls in love with. The second is "The Hidden Meanings," a bittersweet detective story, the first in a series of stories I call "The World of Five Nations," a mash-up of fantasy and sci-fi in a world where technology and magic intermingle, where dragons and elves exist alongside humans and androids. The third is Elven Roses, a romance set many years later, involving the controversial relationship between an mysterious elf and an obselete android.
This has been a banner year for me as a writer, and I hope to share my works with all of you, as well as interacting with others in this group. Look forward to more!
-Brandon
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| Optics and Photonics |
Usually, if you blast enough light into an insulator, it will blow up quickly or break down slowly. But today, a pair of papers published in Nature describe using very intense femtosecond laser pulses that not only do not damage the material, but also induce electrical currents in an otherwise insulating dielectric—specifically a fused silica prism (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature11567; Nature, Advanced DOI: 10.1038/nature11720).
The work is exciting because insulators that can quickly change into conductors (and back into insulators again) could be used for signal switching. Today's fastest semiconductor switching is measured in terahertz, but light-induced switching in insulators, such as demonstrated in these papers, could work at petahertz rates—more than 10,000 times the rate of current electronics. In the near-term, it could also make possible petahertz (1015 hertz) metrology.
Optics an Photonics: Ultrafast Light Turns Insulator into a Conductor, Yvonne Carts-Powell
In 12 days...it will be the Winter Solstice for the northern hemisphere.
It will be the shortest day on the calendar; five days before Christmas/Saturnalia/Yuletide, Kwanzaa: it will be three days post the end of Hanukkah. It will be as it's always been.
Then, as it always has (and always will for some time), the days will start getting incrementally longer. Spring will arrive, temperatures will warm and flowers will blossom. We'll have to deal with the weather: post Katrina, post Rita, post Irene, post Sandy.
There is an eventual end of things just as there is an eventual end of us as living creatures.
Times arrow is orchestrated by entropy: the tendency for things to go from order to disorder, from hard, strong and young to the latter opposite as we age. Due to entropy, you can smell perfume sprayed out of a bottle (otherwise, it would either drop ungracefully in a lump on the floor, or never leave its container).
I am concerned...and saddened that so many young are led by this media hype to dread the future; to contemplate Hamlet's soliloquy. You have so much to live for...discover...enjoy. I lived with doomsday clocks and duck-and-cover drills due to a Soviet threat that now no longer exists.
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| Merry-go-round |
I urge educators and parents to share the contents of the link below with your children. When the young are injured by myth as credible as Y2K was for spin, sport or ratings...it is no longer a game!
The surest cure to manipulated ignorance...is knowledge.
David Morrison
Director, Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe
NASA Senior Scientist
There is widespread and unnecessary fear of doomsday on December 21, 2012. Some people worry about a Maya prophesy of the end of the world, others fear a variety of astronomical threats such as collision with a rogue planet. Opinion polls suggest that one in ten Americans worry about whether they will survive past Dec 21 of this year, and middle-school teachers everywhere report that many of their students are fearful of a coming apocalypse.
SETI Institute: Doomsday 2012 Factsheet
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Contact: Quinton Veal quintonveal@hotmail.com
Valjeanne Jeffers sister24moon@gmail
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The sisters watched wide eyed as a woman fell to the ground and became a serpent… as another transformed into a growling panther…
They never forgot that wonderful night. Years later, Simone dismissed it as imaginary, “just moonlight and drums,” she’d scoffed. But Michelle knew better.
The couple spotted her, still leaning against the tree and smiled. She glared back. You don’t belong here!
They coming Cherie, you best make ready. It was her grandmere’s voice, speaking as if she was
standing right beside her. The girl froze whipping her head around. But there was no one
.The couple climbed the steps, unlocked the door and walked inside. Papa gave them keys? They can’t have bought it so soon!
I don’t want no strangers in my house, non.
Michelle bit her lip hard. Be quiet now! You’re not real!
A moment later, the woman, elegant and dark hairedpushed the screen open and stepped out on the porch, looking at her. She gazed at Michelle slyly and for a moment, she felt as if the woman were looking right through her with her gray eyes – as if sheknew her secrets, her pain. She smiled widely revealing fangs, and licked her lips. Michelle eyes widened, she was frozen to the spot, held captive by the woman’s strange eyes, as she moved slowly toward her.
Run Cherie!
Angelique’s voice broke the spell. Michelle backed away, turned and ran to her car. With shaking hands, she unlocked the door of her Honda and got inside. She glanced back at the porch, and there was no one there.
Shock, that’s what it is. So much has happened. And we were lucky —
Luckier than those trapped for weeks after Katrina in that damned super dome, and those shelters.
Michelle drove to the New Orleans business district parked and caught a streetcar into the French Quarter. On Bourbon street, the carnival streamed past: monsters, Zulu stilt dancers, Vikings… She kept an eye out for Cindy and Greg. They recently moved to Louisiana and they were all quiver about seeing their first Mardi Gras.
“Michelle…!” to her left, Greg and Cindy grinned and waved making their way through the crowd, as a man brushed past her.
She spun her head to the right, her greeting dying on lips. She stared as the old man, his skin the color of midnight, used his twisted cane to propel himself to corner.
Previously published in Genesis Science Fiction Magazine 2010
Cover art and design by Quinton Veal
Copyright 2010, 2012 Valjeanne Jeffers all rights reserved
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| Physics World - a 'solar energy funnel' |
Computer simulations by researchers in the US and China could lead to solar cells that work efficiently across a broad range of the solar spectrum. Dubbed a "solar energy funnel", the new concept offers a way of using strain to modify the band gap of a semiconductor so that it responds to light within a range of different wavelengths. However, the funnels have yet to be made and tested in the lab – some researchers suggest using them in practical devices could prove problematic.
The basic operating principle of a solar cell is that an electron in the valence band of a semiconductor material absorbs a photon and jumps across an energy "band gap" into the conduction band. The result is an electron and a positively charged hole, which do not move separately through the semiconductor but instead form a bound state called an exciton. To extract electrical energy, the electron is collected at one electrode and the hole at another.
Light from the Sun comes in a range of wavelengths and therefore an ideal solar cell should be very efficient at converting this broad spectrum into electricity. Unfortunately, semiconductors with a fixed band gap are not very good at doing this. In particular, longer-wavelength photons do not have enough energy to make an electron to jump the band gap and will not be converted into electrical energy. Photons with energies greater than the band gap will be converted, but regardless of their energy they will only create just one electron–hole pair. Any excess energy will be dissipated in the semiconductor as heat.
Physics World: Semiconductor funnel could boost solar cells
Sun Ra has always been a tough listen for me. Out from his disciples though I found vibes I could comprehend. I couldn't do John Gilmore (will have to) but Archie Shepp strikes and explodes my imagination. The album "On This Night" I play over and over again. What is crazy is when you listen so many times you submerge down into the texture of the playing. I done the same with John Coltrane. Now he said in his interviews that he had a number of musical devices that he is experimenting with. From that I tried to identify them. I listen to Coltrane play "My Favorite Things" at different periods of his life side by side. Not just his searching growth comes out, his musical devices. Now John Coltrane was on a quest and I'd say a spiritual one.
My other two favorite sax guys were different. Archie Shepp was/is an explorer, an adventurer. Eddie Harris the inventor. Archie Shepp in his most lyrical used the Sun Ra sound as the instrument. He zooms in and out of noise, texture, tune and percussion. Hisssss, growl, sing, hummm, croon.........
Now Eddie Harris was a different sort. His use of the electronic sound on sound (echo) and multi-channel effects on wind instruments was cutting edge. I wonder why musicians playing electronic wind instruments today don't pay him greater homage. He could ballad, blues and jive but to me his spacey techno grooves are the blade. He practiced with Coltrane, I heard, and he did some tunes that Trane would approve, Eddie had some skills. He also had this desire to do funk, I don't know why?
Wayne Shorter is another guy I listened to. He passed through the Art Blakey school. He has some wonderful vistas and Weather Report still haunts me. I saw them play in person.
I listen to others and because of my immersion into the aforementioned I appreciate a greater depth.
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| Physics World - How ULAS J1120+0641 may have appeared |
For the first time, astronomers have determined the chemical composition of gas from the first billion years of the universe's life. The gas consists mostly of neutral hydrogen atoms, which means that it may mark the era before stellar radiation began ionizing the universe. Furthermore, the gas shows no signs of the heavy elements that are forged in stars so it may contain only the light elements produced by the Big Bang.
"We are starting to look back to the epoch that is probably when the first stars were turning on," says Robert Simcoe, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who built the instrument that acquired the spectrum of the far-off gas. "This is the very first [chemical] measurement that anybody has made in any environment at these early times."
The Big Bang, which occurred 13.7 billion years ago, showered the cosmos with hydrogen and helium. Aside from a trace of primordial lithium, heavier elements – which astronomers call metals – arose later, after stars formed and exploded, casting oxygen, iron and other metals into space. Furthermore, the first stars radiated extreme ultraviolet light that ionized gas, tearing electrons from the hydrogen nuclei. The universe is still ionized today.
**********
"And we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos we've begun, at last, to wonder about our origins. Star stuff, contemplating the stars organized collections of 10 billion-billion-billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet Earth and perhaps, throughout the cosmos."
Physics World: Ancient gas sheds light on universe's first billion years
from NASA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/8246896057/
Black Marble - City Lights 2012 [hd animation]
The night side of Earth twinkles with light, and the first thing to stand out is the cities. “Nothing tells us more about the spread of humans across the Earth than city lights,” asserts Chris Elvidge, a NOAA scientist who has studied them for 20 years.
This new global view and animation of Earth’s city lights is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite. The data was acquired over nine days in April 2012 and thirteen days in October 2012. It took satellite 312 orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of Earth’s land surface and islands. This new data was then mapped over existing Blue Marble imagery of Earth to provide a realistic view of the planet.
The nighttime view in visible light was made possible by the new “day-night band” of Suomi NPP’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as city lights, auroras, wildfires, and reflected moonlight. This low-light sensor can distinguish night lights with ten to hundreds of times better light detection capability than scientists had before.
Named for satellite meteorology pioneer Verner Suomi, NPP flies over any given point on Earth&rsquos surface twice each day at roughly 1:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. The polar-orbiting satellite flies 824 kilometers (512 miles) above the surface as it circles the planet 14 times a day. Data is sent once per orbit to a ground station in Svalbard, Norway, and continuously to local direct broadcast users around the world. The mission is managed by NASA with operational support from NOAA and its Joint Polar Satellite System, which manages the satellite's ground system.
NASA Earth Observatory image and animation by Robert Simmon, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data provided courtesy of Chris Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center). Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA, and the Department of Defense. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.
Instrument: Suomi NPP - VIIRS
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
Click here to view all of the Earth at Night 2012 images
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| Physics arXiv |
Part of science is the point/counter-point of differing views. It is part of the process of the Scientific Method. Famous recollection: the argument between Einstein and Bohr on Heisenberg and Quantum Mechanics. Now an accepted part of physics, Einstein ultimately lost.
To the Google-it-downloading public, this can be confusing and frustrating. However, this is science: examination leads to different theories; theories are vigorously debated, verified or refuted. Then, everyone in the science community decides to go in the direction of the new paradigm. Probably why a lot of scientist (at least in the US) don't go into politics.
One of the driving forces in modern science is the idea that the Universe “computes” the future, taking some initial state as an input and generating future states as an output. This is a powerful approach that has produced much insight. Some scientists go as far as to say that the Universe is a giant computer.
Is this a reasonable assumption? Today, Ken Wharton at San Jose State University in California, makes an important argument that it is not. His fear is that the idea of the universe as a computer is worryingly anthropocentric. “It’s basically the assumption that the way we humans solve physics problems must be the way the universe actually operates,” he says.
What’s more, the idea has spread through science without any proper consideration of its validity or any examination of the alternatives. “This assumption…is so strong that many physicists can’t even articulate what other type of universe might be conceptually possible,” says Wharton.
Physics arXiv: Why The Universe Is Not a Computer
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| Curiousity - AAAS Science Mag |
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA—The first full analysis of martian soil by the Curiosity rover has detected simple carbon compounds that could be the first traces of past martian life ever found, NASA scientists announced here today at a press conference at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The catch is that Curiosity team members can't tell yet whether the organic matter was once alive, was never alive and drifted onto Mars from space, or was simply cooked up in Curiosity's analytical instrument from lifeless bits of soil. Figuring out the ultimate source of the carbon in this organic matter—biological or not—will take time. "Curiosity's middle name is Patience," cautioned Curiosity project scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
AAAS Science Mag: The First Signs of Ancient Life on Mars?
I’m too excited about my interview with author Kenya Wright. She’s agreed to give away a free e-copy of her book. I’ll also give away one e-copy of her book. So I’ll announce two winners on Friday after 5pm from the commenters on my blog about her interview. So, get your questions and comments ready. Here’s her interview.
I tried this intuit contest where I sent in my own admission. I want to create an online review that covers the work of black writers. There used to be a magazine that did that but it went out of business. I figured out that it wouldn't take more than $6000 dollars to recreate the number and even the quality of reviews that this now defunct magazine -- I think it was Black Issues -- used to do.
I was going to go the Kickstarter route which I may do eventually but this Inuit idea came up so I submitted my idea. What I didn't tell them is that I'm primarily interested in promoting the work of genre writers such as Steven Barnes or Chip Delaney. I could also use the site to review up and coming writers like the people who post here.
So if anyone here wants to help here's the link. If I understand this contest the more votes I get the more likely I'll be selected. So your votes would be appreciated.
You can vote for the idea here:
https://www.facebook.com/intuit/app_280813488703650?app_data=us_showcase_3153
Philip Shropshire
www.threeriversonline.com
PS: I'm a professional reviewer, former newspaper person and prolific freelancer. I'm probably up for the job.
Here's a review that I did that was turned into a podcast, not African American related but it shows my chops:
http://jazropo.blogspot.com/2006/11/my-review-of-thomas-friedmans-world-is.html
And here's a review of "Charisma" (and other books) that I wrote a long time ago for BET, when they gave a frak about books and such.
It is on my page as an exclusive and available to read.
