BLOGS

All Posts (6431)

Sort by

Harlequin

Posted by mikodragonfly on October 3, 2009 at 6:30am

A clock-work doll sits atop a wobbly mountain of rubble. He has dry, empty sockets where his eyes should be. His smile is wide and full of teeth. A fat tear hangs in suspended animation, mid-dribble down one dirty cheek. The aging sun is going down on the distant horizon, casting its purple gaze across the broken remains of a barren metropolis. There's a tentative click, then the sound of slowly grinding gears.Suddenly, a sharp melody explodes into the air - a relentless, one-man merry-go-round of a carnival. It's that kind of song; the kind of song that spins you round and around in your nightmares before grabbing you by the throat and squeezing the breath out of your lungs. How many times has he played this tune? He has no one left to applaud his remarkable musical wit; no comrades, no culture.The ones who built and broke this continent have long since been forgotten by the insects that buzz there. Even the scum clawing its way up out of the ocean knows little of its sordid origin. Nothing animal moves in this derelict town without first, listening intently for the distant sound of thunder. All creatures here know that a certain rumbling in the sky always precedes the flapping of many gargantuan wings. They arrive, hawkish cries drowning out the mechanical man's tune. A seething cloud of arcuated eyes and rapacious beaks, they darken the sky. They descend in droves, adopting the military precision of the freight-trains and torpedoes of an era, long gone. In the heat of the hunt, they stir up chunks of history mingled with gritty particles from bones they already picked clean a hundred years ago.One majestic crow swoops down upon a crumbling spire and regards their sagging kingdom from his dusty perch. His menacing gaze fixes upon the blind harlequin, the jerky motions of its wiry hands; the pneumatic, spinning mechanism lodged in its skeletal chest. Its head tilts, one black eye reflecting the rising moon and the stirring stars. The crow contemplates the faint, alien sound threaded into the cacophony of winged beasts. It spreads its massive arms and dives down into the rising dark for the kill. The earth shakes. The music stops. It takes flight once again. The doll's iron bones stick in the crow's craw. The red wetness raining from the sky goes unseen. Darkness has filled the whole, wide world. The great beast plummets awkwardly to the stony ground, a multitude of bones cracking.The winged emperor now knows he will not live to see another ghostly dawn. He utters one long, mournful cry. The eager swarm hovers overhead, a pulsating mess of gleaming eyes and snapping beaks. They know no remorse, the voracious giants feasting on the flesh of their kin. They have not changed since they first dominated the earth, millions of years ago. This world was made for these birds. They've known that since the dawn of time.
Read more…

Postings at BooksofSoul.com

Posted by Eric at BooksofSoul.com on October 2, 2009 at 12:56am
Books of Soul (www.booksofsoul.com ) has posted interviews with multi-award winning author, Sharon M. Draper, and first-time author, Michele L. Waters.Sharon M. Draper is a highly regarded educator and author. She has been honored as the National Teacher of the Year, is a five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Literary Award, and is a New York Times bestselling author.Similarly, Michele L. Waters has achieved success in her own right as an entrepreneur. She has now struck out in the literary world with her first novel, Can't Let Go.These interviews, as well as interviews with new authors and with noted authors -- Shelley Parsons, Cheryl Robinson, Laura Castoro, Pamela Samuels Young, Leslie Banks, to name a few -- can be found at http://booksofsoul.com/category/author-interviews/.In addition to our listings of new and soon-to-be-released books, a monthly bestseller lists of black books is featured. This month's special feature is the top-selling mysteries of the year.Check out BooksofSoul.com for upcoming releases of black books and other literary works and to promote your new book.
Read more…

Prodigal sons

Posted by Geoff Thorne on September 30, 2009 at 1:00am
So this has been a crazy year. Not worth going into.Ups and downs; you know.So here's an up.My partner and I created a company called GENRE 19 which just means the two of us making comics together.We put together this thing called PRODIGAL which is jut straight up actiony fun. No superheroes. No super villains. No spandex. No secret IDs.Here's the cover of #1

It's officially coming out in February from APE ENTERTAINMENT. Two GIANT issues (48 pages each), one AWESOME story.
Read more…

The Planet Star - Unfolding Prophecy

Posted by Cheryll M. Chakrabarti on September 24, 2009 at 11:54am
THEMATIC QUESTION(S)If events are permitted to occur naturally, would prophecies become realities? Can a prophecy be changed by manipulating events? Perhaps prophetic revelations come to fruition when a sequence of events is manipulated, and that prophecy is, in fact, contingent upon those alterations.SUMMARYA young widow leaves her home planet, heading out into the galaxy to a planet that will help her to reestablish her life as well as that of her young son. Unknowingly, she enters the snare of an evil lord who has, for many decades, been searching for “the prophesied widow”, whom he believes holds the key to The Planet Star that would destroy his empire. Shortly after the widow and her son arrive at their destination, they are brutally kidnapped by those in collusion with the evil lord, but his plans are foiled when his archenemy, King Ewlon, daringly rescues the widow and her son. Together, the King and widow cross the galaxy to his home planet and to his home which is the only place The Planet Star can be activated. However, their footsteps are continually dogged by the evil lord and his minions.Footnote: Throughout most of the book, the widow is unaware of the fact her rescuer is a king.Notation: kilo-tran is a little more than 1/2 mile.tran = 3.2 feetI have actually ( ) these calculations below. However, in the actual book the conversion is not given. Since the need to convert these measurements are so few, I have given that notation in a Reader's Description of Terms at the end of the book.Opening scene:Chapter 1 A NEW BEGINNINGShreela Bakra – Widow of TimaShreela Bakra leaned against the doorpost of her home,gazing at the purple dorfa tree saplings. Her long brown hairbillowed in the cool gusty wind and made her shiver. Wrappingher soft gray cloak tightly around her petite frame, she againrested against the doorpost so that she could spend a few moreprecious moments to enjoy her last sunrise in her belovedhome, gazing at the shimmering autumn scene.Shreela’s home located in the Province of Aurel onParamon’s moon, Tima, is about eight parsecs beyond thefringe of the Milky Way in the Gena Solar System. The hills andvalleys of the northern most area of Aurel were clothed in themulti-colored splendor of fall. A cool intermittent wind blew infrom the northwest causing the falling leaves to make a faintsnipping sound as they fell upon the crisp leaves already pilingup on the ground.This gracious Bakra estate lay sequestered deep within theAcacia Forest, isolated from the nearby town of Kalinif, overfive kilo-trans (approx. 3 mi) away. Despite the partially barren trees, thedensity of the forest kept Shreela’s home hidden from pryingeyes. Sounds of small woodland creatures skipping across thecarpet of dry leaves filled the air. A well-trodden pathwayleading to the mansion was covered with purple, blue, red, andorange leaves shed by the towering trees surrounding the home.Shreela looked up for a moment, watching the puffs of smokerising from the chimney, then quickly swept away by a gentlebreeze. Finally, she descended the front steps to take a shortturn around the house. Stopping for a moment and shading hereyes, Shreela watched the early morning sun rays stipplethrough the wall of trees on the southeastern side of themansion, revealing several large teardrop windows, recessed inthe sand-colored brick structure, highlighted by three toffeecoloreddoors. This majestic main entrance door, standing threetrans high (about 9.5 ft), was magnificently covered with handcrafted woodenreliefs.At the time of his death, Jor Bakra was a well-knownastrophysicist, and Director of Research and Development forAstrofi, a large science and aerospace engineering company onTima. Jor also ran his own private aerospace design businesswhere he developed and produced satellite containmentchambers. He was well paid for his services, both corporate andprivate, and Shreela lived a very comfortable life.During the second year of their eight-year marriage, Shreelaleft her career job as a full-time linguist, to give birth to theironly son, Soren. Since small in-home businesses werecommonplace on Tima, Shreela started her own business as alanguage consultant contracting with several small companies.In the beginning, her business kept her quite busy, but as theprice for translator equipment dropped, her business dwindledto almost nothing.Shreela went back upstairs and began pacing the veranda.With her head bowed, eyes closed, and arms folded across herchest, she thought about the drastic changes in her lifefollowing Jor’s death and argued with herself, justifying herdecision to leave Tima. I’ve spent almost all of the savings and creditsto pay off creditors for loans secured by Jor and for supplies necessary for hisresearch projects, she thought. Now I’m nearly bankrupt. Since I cannotreturn these supplies, I can only sell them for half the price which leaves mewith just enough credits to cover payment on this house, and maintenance,for about two cycles - three at most. With one-hundred-eighty cycles left topay, how can I carry the load without financial support?Shreela realized that she needed retraining before she couldreenter the professional job marketplace. She had already puther home on the market, hoping there might be some creditsleft after expenses. Shreela soon learned that she would still nothave enough left over to pay for the program on Tima, andsupport herself and Soren. However, there would be enough topay for a similar program on the planet Thesbis – the planet ofwidows - in the Unian Solar System.The particulars on the book are as follows:Title: The Planet Star – Unfolding ProphecyAuthor: C.M. ChakrabartiISBN-13: 978-1-58982-454-6ISBN-10: 1-58982-454-7Distribution: amazon.com, barns&noble.com, pdbookstore.comPublisher: American Book PublishingAs you know, the opening chapter is always the most difficult. I felt the need to allow the reader to see the environment of the widow, and understand her loss. Her change in status is acute. It is not uncommon that women who leave the workplace to stay home for a while with their children discover that when returning to the work place, even after a short span of time, they have become obselete. There are no social programs on Tima to help Shreela. She has no family on that planet. What can she do?
Read more…

Vision (by Valjeanne Jeffers & Quinton Veal)

Posted by Valjeanne Jeffers on September 23, 2009 at 12:00pm
Listen:Last nightI dreamtsensous and terribleof a man who cherished a womanwith every beat of his hearthe listened carefully whenshe whispered love --sexuality innocentas untouched snowAnd of a brotherwho plotted the destructionof them bothHis spirit was redeemedby glimpses from thepast:offeringschildrenembracethey speed togetherunitedacross timeacross galaxiesto fight...Is this memoryfrom my collective unconsciousa prophecy of our racedivine murmuringor only a dream?You tell meCopyright Valjeanne Jeffers & Quinton Veal 2009
Read more…

Nnedi in SF Signal's Mind Meld

Posted by Nnedi Okorafor on September 20, 2009 at 6:39pm
Excerpted from the latest Mind Meld:

Q: What book introduced you to science fiction?

Nnedi Okorafor

Nnedi Okorafor is a science fiction and fantasy novelist of Nigerian descent. Her books include Zahrah the Windseeker (winner of the 2008 Wole Soyinka Africa Prize for Literature), The Shadow Speaker (An NAACP Image Award Nominee) and Long Juju Man (winner of the Macmillan Prize for Africa). Her novels Who Fears Death (DAW) and Akata Witch (Penguin) and chapter book, Iridessa and the Fire-Bellied Dragon Frog (Disney Press), are scheduled for release in 2010.


The book that introduced me to science fiction was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It remains one of my all time favorite novels. I even give it a subtle (well, not that subtle) shout-out in my first novel, Zahrah the Windseeker. I was about twelve when I discovered The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

When I was growing up, I wasn't aware of the categories of science fiction and fantasy. However, I naturally gravitated toward books with speculative elements. I also liked nonfiction science books. My introduction to Isaac Asimov was through his nonfiction science books, not his science fiction. I picked up The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the library because it had that green circle monster with the big grin on it.

This creature highly amused me. I thought it was cute, funny, mysterious and strange. I didn't know what the book was about at ALL. I've never been too fond of stories about people on spaceships. They make me feel claustrophobic, as does the very idea of space travel. But this wasn't the case with the story of Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, and Trillion.

There was lots of breathable space in this novel, even within the ship, ha ha. When I picked up this novel, I was really really into all the animal field guides. The idea of the Hitchhiker's Guide, a constantly evolving field guide about everything...I LOVED that; the very idea sent my mind soaring.

Also, my strongest subjects were math and science and even back then, I had a love for illogical logic. I went on to read all the books in the series, of course. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was the first book to make me laugh really hard out loud. And I thought hard about the Infinite Improbability Drive.

The whale and the petunias...priceless on so many levels. I played that scene over and over again in my head for years. Because I wasn't familiar with the science fiction tradition that the book was mocking, I read the book in a different way. It wasn't a satire to me, it was just this really f*cking weird hilarious novel that was different from everything else I'd read. Oh and I have to mention that because it had lots of aliens, I felt included. I was reading tons of novels (genre and non-genre fiction) and none of what I was picking up had any people of color in them. This bothered me on a subconscious level. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxywas about BEING alien.

Arthur lost his whole planet and then he was thrust into a "world" bigger than his earth and it was full of truly diverse "aliens". It was a refreshing read for someone like me. I first read it as a library copy. It was not until I was in my late teens that I got one of those copies with all the books in one volume. I now own several copies of the series along with an old original cassette recording of the BBC radio series (used book sales can be so awesome!). A few days ago my 6-year-old daughter said, "I really want to fly! Mommy, how do I fly?" What did I tell her? "Anyaugo, just throw yourself at the ground and miss!" That kept her busy for about an hour. Ha ha ha! Lastly, YES I plan to read the forthcoming And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer, the sixth installment in the series. It's not Adams, but it is Colfer doing Adam's characters, so I'll bite.

Read more…

eve of Jewish New Year

Posted by MariesDaughter on September 18, 2009 at 4:59pm
I am trying to feel “Happy New Year” when so much hate is creeping across the land. After all, I know so many good people. Even my workshop members who I drive batty.I got another call begging me to write or call my senator about health care. Done that 2 or 3 times already. I guess that I will take a page from my elders’ notebook and do it again--even if I don’t think they are listening. On Facebook, I pasted a phrase from Sh’ma which came, the essayist says, from Kotzker Rebbe: “Only God can fix the world using broken tools”.So here I am, broken. Use me well.
Tonight begins a new year.
Read more…

Banjo Strings - Ch. 1

Posted by Larry Winfield on September 16, 2009 at 8:37pm
(Note: this Sci Fi/Horror/Neo-Southern Gothic Fable is explicit and for mature audiences only...)Chapter 1Augustus Wainwright was having an old familiar dream, of when he was thirteen and caught the dark chocolate upstairs maid smoking in his mother's bathroom, her private sanctuary. He'd fancied that gal all summer, and now he had her, close enough to touch. His face stretched into a goofy grin, he ordered the maid to his room near the back of the mansion. He bent her over his desk, slid down her panties, undid his pants and just watched, breathing in the faint new aroma, entranced by his first real look at a woman's vagina. The best part of the dream came when she, realizing her position and resigning herself to it, reached back and took matters in hand. He shuddered in anticipation, and then an irritating noise, an itch he couldn't scratch, ice-picked its way from...where?He looked up, out through the window where he expected to see Mother bent over the azaleas in the garden, instead, he saw her standing, wearing an old-time plantation ball gown, passionately kissing a shirtless, barefoot black man. The noise scratched itself into a banjo being tuned, then strummed. It jarred him awake. He heard a murmur behind him on the bed, sat up and looked over to see Rebecca Sandiford, the girl from last night's party, curled up beside him. Damn, he groaned. She didn't leave when the cops ran everybody off. Downstairs, he heard a banjo being strummed. He blinked his eyes, looking over at the clock on the nightstand. 3:02 AM. "He'll come at three in the morning, the day after your birthday." Auntie Aggie's words spilled from his lips, underscored by the banjo...He slowly got out of bed, his heart beating faster as he watched the girl sleeping. He heard the first verse of "Dixie" softly playing and then repeating, at once coming from the parlor downstairs, and as if from miles away, bringing a heaviness that settled around him and squeezed. He fought to calm himself, force his breathing a little closer to normal. He went to the window, looking up and down the street in front for the county sheriff's car. It was parked outside when he told Rebecca to leave with the rest of his friends, half an hour later he'd passed out after finishing off another bottle of Jack Daniels alone. She must've hid, and no deputy either, he worried as the song began again, a dreamy echo outside the room.That goddamn cable show he'd been watching immediately sprang to mind. "The File Room...” He hated the show, though he'd watched every week for the past year, growing more and more alarmed as they proved this supernatural crap was real. Each episode that had a ghost in it filled him with sick dread. This will make one hell of an episode, though, he thought.For Augustus Wainwright, a life of luxury, parties, privilege, and being spared the burden of inheriting the family business, ended as his 20th birthday approached. A week ago, he was dragged from a beach bar in Rio and deposited in this small family-owned house on the west side of Liberty Plaines, in the kingdom of Wainwright County. It was his turn as the latest first-born son to go through this ordeal or be disowned. He was only 19 when brought before his Auntie Aggie, Agnes Wainwright, the matriarch of the family. She first spoke the names Jacob and Polly, and told him about the curse that afflicted the Wainwrights and the LeChettes, another old prominent plantation family in the county. She shared with him the part of the family history that had been kept from him his whole life.She looked deeply embarrassed as she told him that Jacob was a runaway field nigger who was caught by Justin Wainwright and Lucien LeChette in 1832. As they were bringing him back he put a curse on them and they killed him. Polly was just a crazy old kitchen slave who died when Justin was a boy, but she appears as a little girl and haunts Wainwright Park. Augustus could tell there was a lot more to it than that, but Auntie wouldn't say, though her face tightened with the knowing of it.His Auntie showed him manila folders containing the original sheriff’s reports for his late uncle Jeffrey Wainwright in 67 and Oscar LeChette in 83. The obituary pages folded inside listed their deaths as 'heart attack' and 'stroke' the morning after their 20th birthdays.Augustus never heard of Uncle Jeffrey. The family members never mentioned him, far as he could remember. He supposed the LeChettes never mentioned their first-born sons either, as if they didn't matter and would be forgotten soon enough. At 19 he realized that he was never challenged or encouraged in school like his siblings; he was indulged and entertained, treated more like a child with a terminal disease. Soon to be covered over and forgotten, like something shameful, like he was a part of the curse, just accept it and die and let them all move on.Well, two months ago he hired an attorney outside the family's influence and shared the shameful family history, and gave him a letter with instructions.He glanced over at Rebecca and grimaced as the music downstairs paused. In 83, Oscar LeChette had a young woman with him when the ghost twins visited. She didn't survive. The girl being here was bad...August Wainwright took a deep breath as the banjo playing started again, the sound crawling up and down his spine. He slipped on a night robe and walked slowly to the door. Opened it as quietly as he could, watching for any movement from Rebecca, he then eased himself out and closed it with a muffled 'click,' slowly crept down the hall then, paused at the stairs, the music drifting up from the parlor below. He started down, close to the wall but staying clear of the paintings and portraits of the proud lineage of Wainwrights through the past two hundred years, And down the wall were the smaller solitary portraits of the firstborn sons at age ten. Eight of them since the Northern Aggression and only two ever lived past the age of 20. His picture wasn't there yet, but there was space for it. The grim chain was begun by Beau II, the unfortunate first son of Beauregard T Wainwright. Augustus passed his portrait as he reached the bottom of the stairs, facing the entrance to the parlor.The banjo playing stopped abruptly. Upstairs, the sudden absence of sound stirred the girl awake. She reached out lazily for him, opened her eyes, finding the bed empty. She looked around the dark room, shadows draped over the Victorian and Colonial furniture. "Gus?"She'd hid in the upstairs closet as the deputy was breaking up the party, then went downstairs to the kitchen until Gus fell asleep. She had decided at the party that the ghost story was romantic, it made her like him even more, even though she'd never met him before tonight, but they both felt an immediate attraction when they met in the kitchen. On impulse, she decided to stay and give him a wake up present, then go with him wherever he would jet off to, whether it was Rio or Prague or Timbuktu. Rebecca was taking a year off from college and exploring all of her wild impulses. And she discovered Augustus liked to travel and party. But where was he?In the middle of the parlor, Augustus saw a young, powerfully built black man, the man who invaded his dream, barefoot, shirtless, his face sweltering from the sun. There was no sunlight in the room, but he could see it glinting off his back and arms as he swung a hoe in short, sure, down strokes, with a phantom blade that chopped into the fine oak floor, but made no damage. Old Jacob.... Augustus winced as he felt his heart squeeze again. It passed after a few seconds. He grunted, then straightened up, breathing hard as Jacob stood upright, letting the hoe slip from his hands and fade away as it fell.Augustus shivered as Jacob calmly studied him. Jacob himself looked no more than 19 or 20, his dark skin still shining from the hot sun of some long gone day in the fields. His face was calm, serene, but the eyes reflected all the ugliness and inhumanity captured those few years."You know who I am?" the ghost said. Augustus tried not to show his fear. "Yes," he said just as calmly. Jacob smiled. "Yo Uncle Jeffrey pissed hisself 'fore he could even speak." In a split second, Jacob was standing a foot in front of him. Before he could react, Jacob placed his broad dark hand squarely on his chest. "Time to see, Wainwright! See if you get a taste, or take a ride."The girl walked slowly from the bedroom to the top of the stairs, wondering did she really hear a banjo playing? She finished tying up her robe and, as silently as she could, quickly made her way downstairs, stopping at the landing. She saw Gus standing in the doorway of the parlor, shaking. There's somebody else in there, but she couldn't see. She inched around Gus, craning her neck to see into the dark. Rebecca and Jacob saw each other in the same instant.Jacob froze her in place with a forceful wave of his hand. He clawed the air in front of him the way you'd catch a fly, and she was instantly standing before him, immobile and trembling. Jacob turned to Augustus, his face registering disappointment. They know better than to have anybody else there, but they still do it. He looked around at the remains of a party decorating the parlor. Wainwright first born don't deserve birthday parties either, even one so sickly.He continued reading them; they weren't nowhere near as bad as some Wainwrights, so they would get off easy. He only had mild charms on him this time, as concession to the tearful pleas of Agnes Wainwright. Jacob pulled 'Gus closer until they were nose to nose. "You takin' a ride alright, but you might just make it. Only on account of your weak heart and her."His body glistened as he built himself up, his hands clutching the front lapels of the helpless pair's robes. Two specks of sunlight appeared before them, bright glowing embers. They began to shine and Augustus stared into its bottomless light, his eyes beginning to shine. A flash as his speck exploded and he suddenly gasped and began struggling against unseen bonds. Jacob released his grip on Augustus, watched him slowly fall backward, land gently on the floor.Jacob watched Rebecca's eyes as they glowed in reflection of her speck of light. After the flash he was completely caught off guard when he saw which ride she began. Not Emma Jane, an older woman caught alone working in a slave patch at dusk, forced to service two local town boys taking a shortcut to Maison Road. This was Annie's ride, one of the worst ones he had, but he wasn't carrying... He felt his pants pocket for the pouch, and the two bones within, then he felt it resting on top of the pouch. Annie's bone. He groaned, "Dammit, Polly..."Jacob pulled the girl close, shaking with anger and regret. This girl didn't deserve Annie's ride. Holding her head still, he whispered in her ear, "I'm sorry. I hope..." He released her, watched her settle gently to the floor beside Augustus Wainwright, who twitched like a fish on a hook.Jacob closed his eyes, began to search the surrounding countryside for his companion, sweeping his gaze through the small town, past the square, and out beyond the town to the farms and the old Maison Road that once connected three great plantation houses, to the park where the third and most beautiful mansion used to stand. There, on the swings beside a gazebo, a young teenage girl wearing just a shirt was in the middle swing, long dark legs kicking out as she swung forward. "What are you up to now?" he muttered. Just then, a car sped past, skidded to a stop on the road past the gazebo, then roared away. Polly smiled, jumped off the swing and started walking toward the road. When the car appeared back on the road approaching the park, Jacob waited, wondering who Polly was playing with.-------------Augustus spun, lost his balance, but didn't fall. He looked up, dazed, and saw his hands, feeling funny, smaller than before, bound to ropes. His arms were spread apart and tied to the large overhead branch of an old tree. The high sun dappled through the leaves. His eyes finally focused. His name was Samuel. And his skin was black as shit."...Tole you what I'd do if I caught you scratching on the ground again, Samuel. Young miss ain't here now, nigger!" Augustus felt the spittle of tobacco juice splatter against Samuel's bare back. The heaviness in his chest returning, he tried desperately to yell out, beg, scream, but the mouth had a mind of its own, refusing to open. He felt Samuel straining against his bonds until an ear-splitting crack exploded just behind his head. "Hold still, nigger..." Samuel froze. Augustus was reduced to shallow gulps. The frayed end of the whip exploded between his shoulder blades, two, three times. He writhed between the ropes as the overseer put just the tip of the whip next to the skin..."...Now you see why I run the yard for Master Beauregard, boy! He says 'don't make no long ugly scars, make little pretty scars, like spring blossoms..." Crack! Four and five split the air at Augustus' right ear. His head snapped away. Six snapped just above the base of his spine and his legs went numb. Augustus was in agony, struggling as a wave of pins and needles cascaded down his legs, then the maddening mix of intense pain and complete numbness swept in fading waves over his body. His mouth finally opened, and Augustus screamed out, but it didn't sound like him, but like a young boy. It was getting harder to breathe the dry, hot air. He slumped to one side, looking like a marionette dangling from its strings. The heavy weight on his chest allowed him small, gulping breaths.Seven, Eight. The overseer enjoyed this part of the job; it was why he was hired. Master Beauregard detested the long, ugly scars many slaves carried on their backs. He considered it a failure in livestock management. Still, slaves had to be corrected and trained. "Make the scars smaller," he insisted, firing three overseers until he found one with a deft touch and deadly accuracy.Nine.Ten snapped sharply at the base of the boy's skull. Augustus gasped in shock, inhaled too quickly and swallowed his tongue. He flailed, desperately, his blocked throat silent. He passed out at lash no. 13. He was dead by the time the overseer untied Samuel from the tree...----------------Rebecca came to running, stumbling to a noisy stop inside a line of trees, from the glow of the full moon into pitch darkness. She leaned unsteadily against a tree, her head spinning from being at Gus' mansion, then flashing eyes and sudden terror, and the sudden knowledge slammed into her head that she was also a Wainwright house girl named Annie, with a white man's blood on her hands, with her own blood staining her thighs. She looked back through the trees to the LeChette House, grand in its own way, but not as majestic as her Massa's House. Screams inside and four men tearing out the back door almost made her scream as she froze behind a tree. When they went back inside she turned and ran quickly and silently through the woods. South. Wainwright house is two miles south at the other end of Maison Road, Annie whispered to her. The three remaining cousins of Lucien LeChette, the Stonehill brothers, would be on her soon enough if she didn't keep moving. And they knew where she'd be running to.Rebecca had no control of the body as Annie worked her way well off the roads south to Wainwright House, but she saw, and felt the young house girl's terror of being caught again by those boys. She'd already been violated by Master Franklin Stonehill, him still roughly pounding into her on the floor of the upstairs bedroom by the time she got one of Mistress LeChettes' knitting needles into his neck. She pulled herself off of his rigid, trembling penis as she stabbed him a second time in the neck, shoving him onto his back on the floor, pushing down her dress and watched him, wiping the blood from her hand on his undone pants. He shuddered and came, arms flailing, grasping at the large needle, sputtering loudly as death throes increased the intensity of his last orgasm. The other brothers, still downstairs in the billiard room, laughed at Franklin's garbled outcry. He stopped gurgling and struggling finally, and bending over him, she took out the knitting needle. Blood sprayed from his neck, splashing across the front of her dress, sprinkling her face and neck.She sprang off him in a panic, scrambling to her feet. Heart pounding, she took the dress off, wiped the blood from her face, then tossed it on Franklin's exposed crotch. She found a plain yellow dress in mistress' wardrobe and put it on, panic clawing at her fingers as she struggled with the buttons. The other Stonehill brothers were just downstairs, any of them could come up any moment to join Franklin in "gittin' some high yella nigger juice...." Annie spent a long minute biting down on her terror, remembering the advice of Old Ruth: "If you ever wind up havin' to kill some damn white boy cause he won't leave you alone, only two things you can do. Run, and don't stop. If you can't run, child, use this..." Old Ruth reached into her bosom and took out a small leather pouch containing a single-shot pistol and five bullets. "If it comes down to it, save the last one for yourself, child..." The pistol, hers now that Old Ruth passed over last year, was back at the cabin, hidden underneath.She moved steadily, walking fast through the woods, running full out across the moonlit open fields at crossroads, until finally she reached the cabins back of the Wainwright smokehouse. No time for goodbyes or nothing, she thought, as she crept to the rear of Old Ruth's cabin and felt around for the hidey-hole. Make my way to New Orleans and disappear. In the city she could pass...Rebecca felt the anger that flared up in the girl at the thought of 'being able to pass', the monumental insult that being 'high yellow' was what drew the attention of the damned cousins in the first place. Two days before they were visiting young master Julius at LeChette House, stopping their game of billiards when she walked pass the doorway carrying a parcel for Mistress upstairs. They marveled at how similar she was to Alexander Wainwright's dear sister Athena, who was a lovely girl, but spent far too much time with her mother and her bible to be available, but this young lass was very available and couldn't say no...Annie found the pouch with the gun and bullets in a hole covered by a rock. Clutching it in her shaking hands, she crept around the cabins, scanning the yard between the cabins, the smokehouse and the main house. Her satchel, with all her worldly possessions, was in the upstairs sewing room. She dashed for the back door, praying the Stonehill boys weren't already at the front door...
Read more…

Sigh

Posted by MariesDaughter on September 14, 2009 at 11:30pm
Sigh--I went all "Black" on my writing workshop tonight.One tires of having to explain the substructure of a story. On the other hand, it is instructive to see much how they miss. I have more or less decided that I will explain, but I am not going to denature Black culture.In science fiction, you don't stop and explain how "ray guns" work, and I am not going to stop and explain that Texas Southern is a Black school and that maybe a character described as a student there might be Black too. If you don't know, go look it up. You're more likely to get an answer to that question than how ray guns work.That's not to say that there were not things that could be fixed. But I am tired of the complaint that they didn't know that a character was Black.Tired and going to bed......
Read more…

Scrapping and rethinking---------WarHammer Trials

Posted by Raymond Murray on September 11, 2009 at 1:54pm
Well sort of considering the fact I never really destroy anything-just rethinking the ordermy main focus now is trying to make everything fit....you know family trees timeline...that's really important to me..........So the next story will be Children of Fire and Ice it has been brought to my attention that my Queen Phenica character is of great interest on other websites of course) and I need to elaborate on her more.
Read more…

Goals

Posted by MariesDaughter on September 10, 2009 at 11:00pm
My blog is mainly over at LiveJournal, but perhaps I should double post here:Did I finish a story for workshop? Yes, I made my goal. A bit late. And it means that I didn't log on to "work" work tonight. But it was emailed out to members. Now I guess that I have to do real work. And think of another story.
Read more…

Black Jack - A Drama of Magic, Mystery, and Legerdemain

Posted by george patton on September 8, 2009 at 4:12pm
Wanted to let all the denizens of Black Sci-Fi SOCIETYknow that my novel is Now available on iUniverse.com AMAZON AND Barnes&Noble in 2 wks!I am excited to get this love story out: truly one of the greatest untold dramas of the 20th Century. I say this not because they are my relatives. Black Hermanis described by history books as the "first black superstar of magic". Eva, the "Woman Buried Alive"was his femme fatale, able to perform any trick hecould devise. Rising with Resplendence! I am grateful that I completed the telling of their saga in her lifetimeEva turned 110 this year! There is a reason!
Read more…

Penn Ave Mail Center Book Signing Appearance.

Posted by Barry K. Nelson on September 7, 2009 at 7:41pm
Everyone is invited to come down to the Penn Ave Mail Center in East Liberty for my 3rd book signing appearance. The Mail Center is located in the Village of the Eastside Plaza, 6393 Penn Ave. It's run by two friends of mine, Kirstin and Clarence Womack, who's business offer a variety of mail delivery services. So remember the day and time. Saturday, September 12. Time: 10:00 A.M to 1:00 P.M. And for those of you who live outside the Pitsburgh PA area, far outside, I suggest either Greyhound bus or U.S. air.
Read more…

Rosedust - Supernatural flash fiction...

Posted by Larry Winfield on September 6, 2009 at 11:10pm
Rosedusti like the dark, it's friendlyi am the darkhiding in dreams is exquisitehiding in his dreamswas the only way to keep him.She strolls in a garden at sunset, a walking, vibrating shadow. Her long robe made no sound, did not catch on the rose thorns she passed. Her bare feet rested on unbent blades of grass as she stopped before a perfect blossom, one of many on a waist- high bush. Her robe opened as she bent closer to it, almost brushing her nipples against the petals. Cupping the bloom in her hands, she whispered its name, watched as the entire plant shriveled, withered, sighed its death, root and all flowing up from the soil that closed up smooth and undisturbed at her feet. All but the flower she held, now impossibly beautiful. She touched it to her lips and it sighed into reddish dust, clinging lightly to her fingers, face and neck as she inhaled. She walked to a far corner of the garden, stepping through a shadow on an ivy-covered brick wall.She returned to his dreams, to the room she made, where a baby laughed and played amid huge golden pillows, gurgling and squealing in delight as she entered. She walked softly, floating over the cushions, settling beside him. She lightly rubbed the dust from her fingers over his face, breathing little clouds around him, his reddish-brown now redder still. She removed the robe and suckled him, smiling as stubby fingers and wet cheeks smeared red over her dark chocolate nipple.Smiles became cooing, teeth replaced gums, stubby fingers lengthened, he warmed to her caresses. Cooing erupted into moans, suckling spilled over into tonguing, lips playing, from one nipple to the other, a soft beard smearing red between them. Lips finding her neck, then her mouth, greedy tongues sliding together. The blackness drained from two hairs at her temple. Laugh lines and crows' feet creased into her face. She slid a moist red hand between them, grasped him gently, guided him inside.She shuddered, gasped, tightened and released until they found a slow, easy rhythm. The lines in her face smoothed, disappeared; the hairs stayed white, joining the already scattered salting at both temples. Inside the room, now full of shallow breathing and muffled squeals, they danced the song of life; outside, in his dreams, the man danced with death alone. An arrow piercing a buffalo soldier's neck. An infidel run through by a Crusader's broadsword. A tailgunner riddled with bullets, then blasted out of his B-17. A child playing, caught in the second sunrise over Hiroshima. Death after death roared through, quick and slow, peaceful and hideous, crashing. Inside the room each violent death made her spasm, clutching him ever tighter. The last annihilation consumed them both, waves of orgasms pounding, roaring.He never said a word; he never would in here, she knew. In here where he'll always be the gurgling baby boy she should have taken. She thought of that day, watching it play out in a corner of the room. An intensive-care maternity ward; a beautiful late spring day. She stood in a corner all that day and watched him, recalling the many children she'd taken by the hand through sickness, bad parents, bad neighborhoods, bad luck, so many never got to make ripples, and now this one, trapped in withdrawal, waiting for her touch. Looking so much like the child she would never have.When only one nurse was left to watch him she glided over to him, ready to reach past the tubes, wires, and monitors and take his brittle shaking head in her hands. She stopped, because he stopped trembling, opening his sweet, watery, tortured eyes, and smiled. The nurse thought it was for her and began crying: I knew it was for me, she thought. She ran from the room, hurried down the halls, trying not to pass through or brush patients or staff, touching some and giving chills, stepped through the cinder- block walls to the blazing daylight, floated toward it, then fled into a shadowed alcove behind the hospital, passed through shadows into secluded gardens and greenhouses until she found one bathed in first light, took an orchid, called it by name and breathed its life into the boy's sweet brittle soul. When he was strong enough, she entered his dreams, found him there floating and happy. She made a room there, filled it with pillows, brought him to it, suckled him, vowed to only bring him roses each day.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~She stands in a meadow aglow with ambient light, surveying the green expanse bereft of flowers, swathed in an aura of white from the hair on her head, brows, lashes, arms and legs, platinum curls around her tunnels of light. No more days, she sighed.Her regular duties - wars and riots, disputes and accidents - kept her from him more and more often, for days on end at times, but were not counted. Those were migraine days, toothache, sprain and backache days. She'd search for whatever roses she could find then: splattered, crushed, even orphaned petals, anything to ease the discomfort of his normal life. Anything to push the horrors back into his dreams when they made love, but no more. One month past a century and no more days.Her aura began to shine. She stepped forward through sunlight into a dark bedroom where he slept soundlessly. Still has his hair and teeth, she murmured, smiling. She entered his dreams where he stood in a meadow aglow with ambient light, a meadow covered in roses. She walked toward him unclothed, carrying a gurgling baby and a single orchid outlined against chocolate skin sheathed in light.Smiling, she took his hand, wrapped her fingers around his hand and the flower, crushing it between them, offered a breast to infant and old man. Gasped as they suckled, as the three were slowly consumed in the expanding aura, flesh and shadow, the green field, the expanse of rosesC. 1999, Larry Winfield.
Read more…

The Story of Eve/A War from Within (con't)

Posted by Valjeanne Jeffers on September 6, 2009 at 3:00pm
"I feel that for White American to understand the significance of the [Negro Problem] . ..will take a bigger and tougher America that we have ever known... Our too-young America lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil...the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history...Therefore if within the confines of its present culture, the nation ever seeks to purge itself of its color hate, it will find itself at war with itself..." Richard Wright (1993) from Black Boy (American Hunger) (pp. 320-323).Our journey will take us into the midst of this war. The 1940s is the era of the New Negro. It is the era of the Black and White woman. But repression of Native Americans is in full force. Repression of Peoples of Latino descent has been renewed. There is war raging upon American soil -- one which has never really ended. The dynamics of sex, race and class are in furious dialogue upon the Silver Screen. Let us go into the midst of this conflict.Before American entered WWII in 1941 it was taboo for married women to work. This doesn't mean that they weren't working (by 1940 six out out of seven married women were employed) it was just taboo for them to do so. The cult of domesticity had endured: the mantra that a woman's proper place was in the kitchen, the nursery and the bedroom.But In 1941, American attitudes changed, seemingly overnight. Suddenly it became women's -- married or not-- patriotic duty to work. Men were being drafted by the thousands. Factories needed warm bodies to make bombs, guns, uniforms -- and they weren't picky about whose. As White women filled "men's professions" the so-called "women's jobs" opened up and Black women stepped up to the plate.It was during the WWII era that the so called "Problem Films" emerged: movies which made an effort to critique racism. How did Black women fare in these movies? Generally Black men were much more visible than women. Hollywood thrived upon sexism. And so it is no surprise that when the dream weavers began to depict racism they would ignore African American women. Yet two actresses did manage to break from the usual: Lena Horne and Hazel Scott.A proud and demanding performer, Hazel Scott was one of the first Black artists who refused to appear before a segregated audience (Bogle, 1973). She also refused to play a role in a film, well aware, as she informed Ebony in 1944 that Black women were often cast as maids or whores (Bogle, 1973). Instead she always appeared in movies seated at the piano just as she would be in a nightclub (Bogel, 1973). The dream weavers soon realized they'd bitten off than they could chew with Sister Hazel and her film career ended almost as quickly as it had begun (mid-forties).Lena became a star during the WWII era playing in classics like Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather. But Hollywood just couldn't seem to create a decent image for her -- what a surprise! Cabin the Sky, for instance, a popular Black musical is at its bare essence just more trouble in Black Eden jive, with Lena as the sexy mistress, Ethel Waters: the long suffering wife, and Eddie Anderson: the weak willed Black man.For the most part, women were thrust back into the twisted heart of film mythology. Film women of the 1940s were diabolical, double-crossing, murderous and very, very powerful. The curtain was pulled back to reveal Woman in all her splendor and wickedness.Even wives became "bitches" during the 1940s. Women and marriage were depicted in films as symbolic of everything the hero was on the run from: society, children, community (Woods, 1975). It was Woman who trapped the hero and made him give up his freedom. Thus during the 1940s, Hollywood really had a damned if you do, damned if you don't motif firmly in place. Men and women had two choices: be miserable together or be miserable apart.Mary was gone now. And Eve was large and in charge.Valjeanne Jeffers-ThompsonValjeanne Jeffers Copyright 1997, 2009 all rights reserved
Read more…

The Story of Eve/The Sexy Twenties (con't)

Posted by Valjeanne Jeffers on September 5, 2009 at 6:30pm
"Gee Brown boy/I loves you all over...Take my hand and I will read you poetry...Fill your throat up with laughter and your heartwith song..."Harlem Renaissance poet Helene Johnson (Giddings, 1988; p.185).The first Black screen goddess, Nina McKinney, made her debut as "Chick" in King Vidor's musical Hallelujah (1929). Hallelujah took as its theme the age-old problem of the good colored boy gone bad and the battle between the callings of the spirit and the temptations of the flesh (Bogle, 1973; p. 29).The film opens on the idyllic little Johnson farm, where the family -- Pappy Johnson,Mammy, their adopted daughter, Missy Rose, their eldest son Zeke, and their youngerboys -- energetically gather the cotton harvest. Nearing the last rows the group burstinto song, singing to the heavens...Good gentle folk, the Johnsons are pictured as sereneand uncomplicated -- as long as their baser instincts are keep in check. When these areunleashed, however, trouble's a -brewin'! (Bogle, 1973; p. 29).Director's King Vidor’s portrayal of Black folks was both racist and sexist. And the characters he portrayed in Hallelujah were depictions not based on real people -- but hallucinations based upon his fantasies. Thus their problems did not spring from oppression, but from their own animal instincts gone awry.This same surrealistic approach was used to create "Chick" -- a character conjured from Vidor's imaginings. She was his dark meat fantasy. Vidor would pull this same stunt with Native American women in Duel in the Sun (1946) -- branded in “Lust in the Dust” by facetious film critics. For Vidor women, sexual women -- and by definition this meant any woman of color -- were the embodiment of evil and the foil of mankind: the gateway that opened the door to mankind's base instincts.Chick is trouble in paradise. She is Vidor's dark Eve.Chick is a liar and a cheat. She is also a mulatto and thus a woman at war with herself. Her white half represented her spiritual aspect, the black half the animalistic side of her nature (Bogle, 1973). Against Chick's simmering sexuality Vidor placed Hallelujah's good girls: Zeke's childlike asexual true love Missy Rose, and American mythology’s own special blend of mother-virgin, Mammy; who is also asexual. Everyone even her man, calls her "Mammy."African American and White liberal critics did not take kindly to Vidor's portrayal of Black folks. One letter to the editor of a Black paper charged that Vidor's "filthy hands were reeking with prejudice" (Leab, 1975; p. 93). Another writer referred to the movies insulting "niggarisms" (Leab, 1975; p.93).Tragically, King Vidor's intention was to create a film that would dramatically break from Hollywood's mythology of Black Americans. Yet Hallelujah was little more than a remake of Birth of a Nation with Chick starring as the uppity negress.As the British critic John Grierson later remarked: "I note from a publicity puffthat King Vidor freed the Negro from misunderstanding just as Abe Lincolnfreed him from slavery. Both statements are exaggerated" (Leab. 1975; p. 93).Copyright Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson 1997Valjeanne Jeffers 2009 all rights reserved
Read more…

The Story of Eve pt 6/The Sexy Twenties

Posted by Valjeanne Jeffers on September 5, 2009 at 11:30am
"The key is in remembering what is chosen for the dream. In the silence of recovery we hold the rituals of dawn..." Paula Gunn Allen, Laguna Pueblo and Sioux writer (Amott and Matthaie, 1991 p. 61)"The business of films is the business of dreams..."Michael Woods (1975) American in the Movies (p. 16)Mary Pickford was Lillian Gish's successor and she soon became a star playing childlike, plucky virgins (Leish, 1974). Pickford stared in such nauseating family classics as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Poor Little Rich Girl. At the opposite end of the purity spectrum stood Theda Bara, who made her debut on the silver screen as a sexual vampire in A Fool There Was.Native Americans also made their debut on screen shortly before the 1920s: as savages attacking White women and helpless settlers in covered wagons. Of course these weren't real Indians -- they were White actors in red face. And they appeared in films just as the radial Pan Indian movement of the 1920s was taking shape. Draw your own conclusions about this "coincidence." Native Americans had drawn attention to the kidnapping of their children, as well as reservation disease and poverty (Amott & Matthaie, 1991). And by 1928, Senate investigations were being conducted.Yet as films edged into the 1920s, a curious thing happened. The dream weavers got raw: the 1920s has been described as one of the most liberated eras in film history. Let's just take a peek shall we?Enter "Flappers:" wild, young women who liked living on the edge. Flappers drank liquor from silver flasks, rode with young men in fast cars, and had sex -- and plenty of it. OK what's the catch? Did Flappers die in car crashes or wind up in poverty? Or were they cruel monsters like Bara who sucked the life from men? The answer is none of the above.And Hollywood didn't stop there. The dream weavers began to portray unfaithful wives in movies such as Male and Female, Three Weeks and Don't Change Your Husband. In these films sex-starved wives had affairs because they weren't receiving satisfaction at home (Leish, 1974; pp.45-54). Even more amazing they were depicted as perfectly justified (Leigh, 1974)!What on earth was going on? The answer lies in the economy which was booming. World War I was only recently over, and the war had generated jobs for everyone. The Great Migration (1910-1930) had already begun and Black folks were leaving the South in droves to escape poverty and racism. After WWI Black folks -- last hired first fired -- especially Black women began to lose their jobs. White folks however did not (Giddings, 1988).Films were reflecting this zeitgeist in their generous attitude towards White women: a generosity which would end during the Great Depression and infamous 1930 Production Code. American films would witness two more similar transformations during the 1940s and the 1960s.The catch was that Hollywood's portrayal of Peoples of Color hadn't changed a bit -- except for the depiction of Black sexuality on the Silver Screen -- a depiction colored by racism. As history tells us where there is slavery for some, there can only be so much freedom for others. It wouldn't take Hollywood long to begin demonizing White women. But for the time being they were free.And the first Black love goddess made her debut.Copyright Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson 1997, 2009 all rights reserved.
Read more…