BLOGS

Longer Lasting Lasers: I don't know if at our perception range as humans we can notice a pulsed versus a continuous laser. However, this is some good information if your fiction requires it as a background.

I actually pulled this off in a high school physics class demo of total internal reflection (though, I'm not sure the kids appreciated it):

AfroFuturism Transdisciplinary Seminar

PSAM 6700 CRN 6822

December 6th, 6pm-8:40pm

Tuesday evenings from 6 - 8:40pm

LOCATION:
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, 66 Fifth Avenue

ADMISSION:
Free; no tickets or reservations required; seating is first-come first-served

The Transdisciplinary Seminar in Fine Arts was implemented in 2009 to explore intersections of art and other forms of creativity and knowledge, from the natural sciences to social theory and various areas of design.

The Transdisciplinary Seminar on Afro-Futurism will consider how representations of science, technology and social engineering intersect with African diasporic cultural expressions. Science fiction will be the organizing trope that unites all the guest presentations and works under consideration. Visiting artists and cultural theorists will lecture on the role of futuristic projection in African diasporic art, architecture, film and music. The expediency of science fiction as both a fractured mirror of historical experience and a heterotopic projection of the collective desires of a displaced people will be discussed throughout the semester. Guest lecturers will present lectures that relate to the fields that are central to their research: painting, electronic music, film, video installation, and built environments.

Guest presentations will be interspersed with seminar-style discussions. Students will be expected to complete weekly reading assignments and write brief thought-papers in response to lectures. They will also be required to prepare questions in advance of guest lectures.

Guest Lecturers

1. Alondra Nelson, Associate Professor, Sociology, Columbia. U, editor of Social Text Issue on Afro-Futurism
2. Kodwo Eshun, Artist and Cultural Theorist, co-founder of The Otolith Group, Lecturer at Goldsmiths College
3. Mabel Wilson, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, Columbia U.
5. Julie Mehretu, Visual Artist
6. George Lewis, Composer and Cultural Theorist, Associate Professor, Columbia U.
7. Wanuri Kahiu, Filmmaker, Director of the award winning science fiction short, Pumi (in dialogue with NSGS Professor Sean Jacobs)

Been working on a new novel.  It's an alternate history crime drama.  I finished my sci-fi/fantasy novel not too long ago, and a friend is helping me edit it.  If any of my friends here on BSFS would like to help out.  Email me at gatecrasher6@gmail.com  Make sure to put Black Science Fiction Society in the title, and a note on which one of my BSFS friends you are :)

-Mick

I've been out of pocket at the 'Society for a minute and apologize for not giving my usual drops of info for my blog and the groups I sponsor. It's been a rough year on the homefront, but in the meantime I managed to knock out a short-story epic, some video productions and getting my third novel 'ready for primetime'. Now that I'm starting to see some daylight, the info drops will pick up in the coming months. That's the nature of the 'creative biz'. In spite of all the distractions and BS from the real world trying to get in the way, you just gotta' keep on creatin'!

This is the story about the young Shaman KaKo on his journeys to be initiated and what happens

all along his way!!

http://www.thecrocodilefactor.blogspot.com/

It starts like this...

Episode One

Introduction:

The Warrior-Equilibrium Chief's compound...All this is taking place in a Village called (WE-Village)

Warrior-Equilibrium Village, where all of the people are talking about "The Crocodile-Factor" because,

in the Chief's compound of WE-Village, there's a big, big crocodile roaming heavily and freely as the Chief wanted it to be so....

Please join D. Jahman Deidotree's blog and follow his saga!!!

http://www.thecrocodilefactor.blogspot.com/

Thank you...

J. Peterson

Quality Editing
at Affordable Prices

http://qandvaffordableediting.blogspot.com/

Manuscript layout

Proofreading services

Copy editing

PDF files sized to your specification

ebook formatting

Cover art

We will work within your budget!

Contact: Quinton Veal quintonveal@hotmail.com
Valjeanne Jeffers sister24moon@gmail

Quinton Veal is a poet, graphic artist and a student at Southwest Illinois College. Quinton designed the covers of: Her Black Body I Treasure, Immortal 3: Stealer of Souls, Probe and Grandmere's Secret (by Valjeanne Jeffers). He has also released his own book of erotic poetry and art, Her Black Body I Treasure, now available at Amazon Kindle and in print.

Dr. Trellie Jeffers earned her doctorate in Humanites from Atlanta University. She has extensive experience writing grants, editing and proofreading theses and dissertations. She has also been published in numerous journals including: The Black Scholar.

Valjeanne Jeffers has been published in numerous anthologies including: Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology. She is also the author of the Immortal saga. Valjeanne works as an editor for Mocha Memoirs Press and is part of the Genesis Magazine editorial Staff (http://www.blacksciencefictionsociety.com).

I keep my eyes on the day star
Its light reaches through galaxies
It illuminates all dark places
I ramble through dark despair
Striving to reach its glow
Darkness of fear blinds me
But its brilliance lights my way
It is the most lustrous
It makes white of the night sky
Unobscured it shines to me
And like the day star I shine now too

Well after a long delay, I want to announce that I have completed the first book in my series of Novellas in the "LOST CHILD" Fantasy series: The HOUSE of GALES.

Rise in excellence, working hard on my next Novel 'N'. It is difficult to fully incorporate into the writing system of this planet but it is coming along regardless of the tendency to psychically project on paper and Microsoft word only to end up having my words visible only in the 5th dimension.

Anyway, I didn't come here today to talk about my challenges; other beings from my world already think I am a social-media-retard because I just won't mentally induct everyone into following me. I am here to wish everyone well and to remind those that have not checked out my website to do so....and no, there are no undercurrent 5th dimensional sentences in this post. Science Fiction Renpet Sci-Fi - www.renpetscifi.com

my blog on wordpress

the comic never got off the ground, but I dig his crazy urban energy and his ability to capture my characters. He did it for free. Dark Horse turned us down. Maybe someday when my money is right, I can hire him (but he may be too famous for me LOL)

My wife and I flew down from Maryland (boy, were our arms tired) to attend Alien Encounters II in the ATL. Last year, we attended "I"; "II" did not disappoint us.

Thursday featured a very moving tribute and discussion at the Hammond's House about L.A. Banks who passed away this summer. Leslie was a phenomenal writer and overall good person. She touched a lot of lives and broke many barriers for speculative fiction writers of color.

Friday, was devoted to "Griots" with a lively panel discussion and readings featuring the authors and artists from the book. Much love goes to the Davis and Saunders dynamic duo for putting together the first Sword and Soul Anthology.

Saturday afternoon was the most informative, entertaining and inspirational lecture I have been to in years. Scholar Kevin Sipp took us on a musical journey from ancient African drummers and chants to George Clinton's Mother Ship and the Hip Hop folks via "Black Noise Navigators". Brother Sip well-presented his extensive knowledge of Black music and how it has evolved to inspire and encourage us to live "outside of our bodies" and dream the fantastic.

My only regrets were missing Sunday's events due to travel plans; but we certainly plan to attend next year's Alien Encounters III.

I was pleased to attend the authors' discussion and book signing at Auburn Avenue Research library. This Alien Encounters topic was "Beyond Twilight and Harry Potter: Speculative Fiction for Young Adults of Color." The dicussion was timely, interesting, and important. I'm sad that I missed the other sessions, I was knee deep in finishing Breaking Free. Sadness. But what I heard at this panel was awesome.

If you'd like to read the rest of this blog post. Visit:

http://www.aliciamccalla.com/blog/59-alien-encounters-panelists-tackle-tough-issues-that-impact-ya-black-speculative-fiction

An erotic, science fiction tale of betrayal and rebirth.

"In the instant
before he lifted her face to his strange puckered mouth she saw them. Stripes of
brown and orange all over his body, and a dozen suction caps lined his chest..."

Allandra has always dreamed of life on other planets. But this mission she'll find more than she ever dreamed of. From the mind of Valjeanne Jeffers, author of the Immortal series, comes an erotic tale that's out of this world.

Good afternoon fam :) I've decided to give away 4 copies of a pdf of PROBE. PROBE is the first installment of a space opera I'm working on. So I'll give a copy to the first 4 folks that email me at sister24moon@gmail.com

Have a beautiful day :)!

African-Americans Wield Considerable Consumer Power
Source: marketwire.com

African-Americans' buying power is expected to reach $1.1 trillion by 2015, according to 
The State of the African-American Consumer Report, released today, collaboratively by 
Nielsen, a leading global provider of insights and analytics into what consumers watch 
and buy, and The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a federation 
of more than 200 Black community newspapers across the U.S. This growing economic 
potential presents an opportunity for Fortune 500 companies to examine and further
understand this important, flourishing market segment. Likewise, when consumers are 
more aware of their buying power, it can help them make informed decisions about the 
companies they choose to support.
"Too often, companies don't realize the inherent differences of our community, are not aware 
of the market size impact and have not optimized efforts to develop messages beyond those 
that coincide with Black History Month," said Cloves Campbell, chairman, NNPA. "It is 
our hope that by collaborating with Nielsen, we'll be able to tell the African-American 
consumer story in a manner in which businesses will understand," he said, "and, that this 
understanding will propel those in the C-Suite to develop stronger, more inclusive strategies 
that optimize their market growth in Black communities, which would be a win-win for all of us."

And who will get this profit.....them or us???


This is still the challenge of the Black Age. To break the boycott and secure victory in the war for minds and market shares.
How many of us here buy Black on purpose? Sell Black on demand? Praise Black on recognition?  

To this end ONLI STUDIOS is bringing its Chicago centric distribution experiment to a conclusion. It has been a success and will be re-organized 
to a more official practice over the next six months. We gratefully appreciate the few indie publishers that allowed us to purchase their products wholesale to test in this situation.
We recently re-organized our annual Black Age Convention to a partnership with the DuSable Museum which gives direct support to the Black Age products we sell there and has it as a feature in its annual Arts & Crafts Festival. The DuSable Museum hosts thousands of paying visitors from around the world weekly. We will win the war for minds & market shares!!!

www.blackageofcomics.com

www.onlistudios.com

www.dablackage.blogspot.com

"Indie today: Black Age forever!!!!!!"  

There is no power in this game like a rack dedicated to the Black Age! When was the last time you were able to spin through a rack of 
Black Age greatness and then go look at the works of the so out of styled mainstream? Talk about a let down.

We feature racks in NY Harlem at the Hue Man Book Store

Chicago at the DuSable Museum of African American History along with several other locations.

Punkin

BLACK SUPER POWERED ADVENTURER

 

i have been creating for myself and other professionally  for over 15 years now, primarily in the pen and paper role playing gaming business. i have had the opportunity to be exposed to a great many artistic styles over the years from 70's sci fi to steampunk and I have taken pieces from them all to create my style. I happily include anime and manga in my bowl full of influences as I have been reading and watching since the early eighties. 

However, over the last few years, I have noticed that young people have increasingly incorporated the Japanese Aesthetic into their art. This in and of itself is not a problem, as I have clearly illustrated, we artists incorporate a great deal of what we have picked up through observation into our work. My issue lies elsewhere and it is a problem I have on the Macro with a great many of us black creators and on the Micro specifically with the black anime and manga crowd. A have observed that lot of us black artists tend to gravitate toward a few mindsets.

1.Either we reject our cultural artistic heritage in favor of a more eurocentric asthetic." MACRO"

2.We celebrate the aesthetics of asian artists, particularly the Japanese "MICRO"

3. We overcompensate by Egyptifying our work, when Egypt was just one of the great many advance African civilizations

4 We use the urban expressionism and the visually artistic elements of  hip hop culture to express ourselves. 

While I have either large or small issues with each one these manifestations, I find our celebration of all things Asian, TO THE EXCLUSION of our own culture ghastly to say the least. II have meet very well respected artists of African decent who have extolled the artistic and social virtues of the Japanese the exclusion of all others. Some I have talked to have visited Japan , basically, as tourists or in finite programs. So they ultimately have no idea what day to day life is for people of non Japanese decent. 

While it is fine to like an aesthetic, it is my personal belief that no aesthetic holds rank superiority over another.So when these individuals essentially viliify anything not having to do with ASIA artistically, they not only pigeon hole themselves as artists, they fail to see what their own culture contributes to the artistic mix. Thus these people are just as maliformed artistically as a guy who thinks that western art styles are the end all and be all. Or a black guy who feels he has to create a black version of the popular white superhero.

We should sit back as artists and examine what truly motivates us. We as black people suffer from Stockholm Syndrome and it is no surprise that we don't like anything that looks like us  but gravitate towards things created by people who  look totally opposite. 

We just have to be honest about this as artists, so we can use our art to examine who we really are.