Maria Alexander's Blog

Brimstone & Blades Events

It’s going to be a busy couple of months! Check back here as the list grows.

May 29th, 2025 at 7:00p.m. PT on Crowdcast

Mystery Writers of America, Historical Mystery Writers Event (Virtual!)

Join us on Crowdcast for a fantastic lineup of award-winning historical mystery writers:

Naomi HiraharaAnne Louise BannonAmy DunklebergerPaddy HirschMaria Alexander

We’ll each be reading excerpts from our work for 5 minutes and then there will be 5 minutes for Q&A. I’ll be reading out loud a bit of Brimstone & Blades for the first time ever.

Here’s the link: https://www.crowdcast.io/c/historical-reading

June 7, 2025 at 4:00p.m. PT at The Open Book

Brimstone & Blades Book Launch at The Open Book in Woodland Hills, CA

6320 Topanga Canyon Blvd.
Suite. 1680
Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Phone: (747) 226-0334

First floor, right next to Wokano!

Join us for an interview, reading, signing, and devouring of delicious French delicacies as we celebrate the release of this exciting new book featuring the historic queer icon, La Maupin!

You’ll love Brandie June, author of young adult fantasies such as Goldspun, Curse Undone, and coming in October Magic At The Grand Dragonfly Theatre, as she interviews me about the book. I’ll then be reading an exciting excerpt, answering your questions, and signing.

There might be costumes. Just warning you.

June 12-15, 2025 at StokerCon

I’ll be at StokerCon in Stamford, CT. Schedule TBD.

My books will be available at eSpec Books in the dealer’s room. Get yourself a lovely copy of Brimstone & Blades or even Snowed and bringing it to me at the mass author signing!

June 21, 2025, 2:00p.m. at The Avid Reader

Join me at The Avid Reader in Sacramento, CA as I return to read an exciting excerpt and sign Brimstone & Blades in my hometown. (I’m a Hornet, baby!)

1945 Broadway
Sacramento, CA 95818
Phone: (916) 441-4400

More to come. Stay tuned!

You Can’t “Opt Out” of Meta’s Generative AI

Many people are just discovering that Mark Zuckerberg has declared war on the intellectual property of all Meta users. The new terms of service for Facebook, Instagram, and Threads declares the following:

A highly misleading blog post by a well-meaning author recently went viral. It supposedly tells people how to opt out of Meta using our post and photos to train generative AI. The problem is that the well-meaning author conflates personal data (e.g., birthdate, address, phone number, etc.) with intellectual property (i.e., your posts and photos). They are absolutely not the same thing. If you follow the instructions she gives, she merely leads you to a place on Facebook where you can report that you have seen your personal data appear in output from Facebook’s generative AI.

The truth is: in the United States, Meta users cannot opt out of generative AI. It’s currently impossible.

But Who Can Opt Out of Generative AI?

Only people in the European Union and the UK can opt out of Meta’s generative AI. Thanks to General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), they are protected.

Louder for those in the back: in the United States, Meta users cannot opt out of generative AI. It’s currently impossible.

So, if you live in the United States, what can you do about this?

There are answers. Some are hard and take action. I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m not gonna say I did the work for you so you don’t have to figure it out. You are going to have to do the work. And if you care about yourself and humanity, you will do it.

Option #1: Set your account to private

This isn’t a great option for those of us who rely on social media for business contacts. It’s especially shitty if you are an author or artist. But it is an option. And Facebook has gotten wise to this, so they’ve made it extra hard. You now really have to dig in the privacy settings, and it doesn’t say “set account to private.” It says friends-only.

Do it.

Option #2: Delete your account

I’m not being flippant when I suggest that you delete your account. Maybe you have lots of family and friend connections on Facebook. I get it. But maybe we need to dial back from this site that does nothing but violate us year after year. Maybe it’s not worth it. There must be other ways to stay in touch.

Option #3: Contact your representatives and senators

If you want this shit to stop forever, contact your congressional representative and your senator. Write an email to them and say the following:

Dear ,

Mark Zuckerberg is violating the copyright of his users with his latest change in terms of service for Meta. The new terms of service states that he has a right to copy our posts and photos into his generative AI product, Llama, without our consent. He gave no notice that this would start. And users in the United States have no way to opt out.

We feel deeply betrayed. This is very similar to what happened with Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm that exploited the personal information of millions of Facebook users without their consent. This time, however, it’s not a third-party. It’s Meta itself violating our rights.

Users in the UK and European Union are allowed to opt out of the generative AI thanks to the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). We in the United States need the same protections offered by GDPR. It is absolutely unacceptable that we are seeing a repeat of Cambridge Analytica, this time with our intellectual property. It’s clearly not enough that Mark Zuckerberg shows us ads. He has to steal our memories, too, all so that he can imitate us with his products. It is presumptive and hubristic that he declares generative AI is “good for humanity.” It’s only good for his bank account.

We demand that you immediately propose legislation similar to GDPR that will stop this abuse.

Sincerely,

Democracy is a verb, not a noun

Why should you believe me? I’ve seen some insanely great shit happen while working with grassroots organizations that have had a huge positive impact on California. I can tell you with 100% certainty that you can create change if you tell elected officials what you want. Repeatedly. That’s how they know how to act. That is how democracy works. If the elected officials don’t do what you want, you vote them out. But you have to let go of any shitty jaded thinking you have and tell them. You have to.

Otherwise, tech companies — and everyone else — will just eat us alive.

Stop being lunch.

National Poetry Month: Sighs from the Edda Over Iceland

Image by Tanja Schulte from Pixabay

This has been a splendid month. All artwork is used with permission. I’ve tried whenever possible not only to credit the artists whose work I’ve used, but also to donate to them for their work as requested. I thought I’d end by posting an old favorite of mine that I wrote on an international flight many years ago. It was first published in Dreams and Nightmares #67, January 2004, and republished a few times since.

Sighs from the Edda Over Iceland

God drags his knuckles
Over the vast drifts
Pressing his thumbs through
The pallid sheets
Until long splits run for miles.
Without warning,
The white hump of
A great snow whale
Breaks the clouds from below,
Shadowy ridges crisscrossing its back
Encrusted with below-zero barnacles.
And then I wonder…
What if these frost beasts truly
Swam beneath us in sluggish schools
Through milk and mist?
And what if the entire earth was
A puckered moonscape
Of powdered hills and craters?
Iceland conjures the palest sorcery,
A bleak, blissful nothingness
That threatens to turn everything
It touches ivory and alabaster.
So I place my chalky cheek
Against the window, close my eyes
And breathlessly envy the wing.

National Poetry Month: Souls

A very long time ago, when I was first playing with poetry, I wrote something that I posted for my friends on alt.fan.neil-gaiman. (Incidentally, don’t miss my husband’s The Gashlycrumb Endless poem, which Neil loved.) It was a wee poem that many there seemed to appreciate. Here it is. (Artwork by Lothar Dieterich.)

Souls

Souls do not have eyes
But rather consumption and digestion
Their diet of other souls
Blindly they eat
Blindly they know
Blindly they love.

National Poetry Month: Onna-musha Haiku

For several years, I studied Japanese swordsmanship. My practice of bushido and identification with the onna-musha (a female samurai warrior) was soul deep. But I wasn’t able to continue that journey. I have over the last two years been writing a modest collection of haiku inspired by some of the most beautiful katana made by modern Japanese sword makers. Along the way, I realized I was also writing about my feelings of being “ronin.” Here are just a few haiku from that potential collection.

Grief

Deep grief stains the sky
After a long lonely night
Sun kisses cold cheeks

Blossoms

The tsuba blossoms
Its heart pierced through by the blade
Flower and stamen

Cut

The wakizashi
Is shorter but delivers
The ultimate cut

Beloved

When clay kisses steel
It leaves bite marks on the neck
The beloved blade

National Poetry Month: Oops

Okay, I dropped the ball. Consider it a break between the paragraphs or one of those multi-spaced gaps between phrases in some poems. I was actually super sick on an international flight home. Eleven hours, nonstop, with precious few masks that I sneezed into regularly, stealing tissues from the airplane toilet and stuffing them into my pockets before I returned to my seat. The crew took little pity on me. At one point, I did get cognac to put into my tea. So, that’s something.

I couldn’t read, my eyes were so watery and swollen. Instead, I watched one movie after another:

3000 Years of Longing (beautiful, although not well paced)

Bullet Train (2nd viewing, one of my all-time favorites)

47 Ronin (2nd viewing, a treat even on the small screen)

Last Night in Soho (eh)

Lady Bird (eh, although the comment that Sacramento was the Midwest of California resonated)

More poetry tomorrow, I promise!

National Poetry Month: Pain is the Opposite of Thought

A while back, I participated in the Infernal Salon. Using prompts from CSE Cooney’s tarot deck, we wrote poetry live on Twitch for 20 minutes. The card I chose as a prompt read “Pain is the opposite of thought.” Here was the result.

Web of Splinters

The icy morning brightens
Between the blinds
Frost crackling on the bedroom window
A watery web of splinters
I crave a handful of snow to
Douse the heartache 
That smolders in my chest
As I remember how
Your words cut me open
Slice by slice
You then dabbed your fingers
In my blood
And painted the words on my skin
This is the last
You wrote that night
Our last time together
My tears could never wash away
Those stains
Yet you were right
And I returned the favor
Slice by slice
The Damascus steel stormy
Like our blended flesh.
Sometimes, I sleep with this souvenir
This morning
My hand aches more than my soul
So I let the blade roll from my grip

Later, I’ll visit your secret grave

(Screenshot of me writing on Twitch. Yes, that’s a kitty wearing a stuffed watermelon slice as a cone of shame.)

National Poetry Month: No Rhyme Goes Unpunished

A few years ago, I self-published a satire thriller called No Rhyme Goes Unpunished under the pen name Quentin Banks. It’s about how someone is killing the worst poets in L.A. and homicide detective Henry Cake is trying to stop them — even though nobody wants him to.

Here’s a quick outtake. Cake goes undercover as an emo poet to catch the killer at a poetry venue. Here he is delivering his first poem. Beside him is a goth girl he’s falling for.

Uh…

It was dark that night

We found the dead woman

Lying on the street

With her eyes open

Staring…at…the stars

She had lines on her arms

And bruises on her legs

I wondered if she’d had

Any family

A home

What her name was

But we never knew

What the heck happened

Just that someone

Probably didn’t pay

The piper on time

Meaning

The pipe person

You know

The guy who sells

Illegal stuff no one should

Be smoking

He gave them all a stern look, realized he’d just totally fallen out of character, and then slipped back into his fugue.

Uh…

Except cool people of course

Don’t get me wrong

And this woman paid all right

Paid with her life

One less star in the sky

One less light at night

Fallen from above

Lying on the ground

Like litter.

He paused, wincing at the truth of what he was saying, then added:

I’ve seen too much trash.

He put the microphone back on the stand and strode off the stage as the coffee crowd went bananas. Loud “Yeeeeaahs!” soared through the cloud of noise. All Cake saw was the look on Fuchsia’s face as he approached the couch: sheer surprise widened her eyes, her mouth slightly agape. It was the look that perps sometimes had when they realized they’d been caught fair and square while they were being handcuffed. 

“How’d I do?” he asked quietly.

“Did you just make that up?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow!” She planted a kiss on his cheek.

He grinned. The pink-haired girl was still looking at him. Crap! Did she recognize him? This was not good. He averted his eyes and flattened his smile until her coffee house fervor was re-ignited and she turned her attention fully to the roster at hand. They heard one poet after another — mostly bad although occasionally someone crept up to the microphone and read something that made Cake’s skin tingle. His hand moved closer to Fuchsia’s until he clasped it. Her delicate fingers clapsed back. He felt foolish worrying about whether or not a woman who’d tied him up and had sex with him twice liked him but he’d never met anyone like her before. Most women he’d dated were a bit passive, wanting an alpha male, which Cake wasn’t. Fuchsia’s general forthrightness turned him on.

National Poetry Month: The Stocking of Hate

I don’t know if the Vogon Poetry Generator is still around, but it once produced this bit of hilarity. Share and enjoy!

The Stocking of Hate

I’ll entice you till the fuse
Is grappled and perpetuated so as to hope
And the cold rocks go liking
Like the walnuts and the conspiracy.

The toes shall fly like sonnets,
For in my prongs I surrender to
The “STOCKING of hate”,
And the beautiful idiom of the solid.

Could but I do, within me
my lust and body;
To such a mammalian delight ’twould jostle me.

And because I am hard, and die and MIX snow,
You express, you see me so there can be no coffee,
And it is too hot to LOVE a singer: my rust and opportunity —
That does groan and leads the reason of thy sock.

And all who dreamed bedding should embarrass them there,
And all should fail, ahoy! Ugh!
His delightful liquids, his intoxicating a river!


Generated using the iPhone Vogon Poetry Constructor – http://bit.ly/VogonPoems

National Poetry Month: The Beast

He has carved a relief
in the fragrant balsa of my heart
with nothing more
than his physical beauty
and sexual intensity.
Despite his scales, claws, and brimstone,
the behemoth who hardly knows
I’ve been pierced by his flagging tail
captures my imagination
and seizes my sensitivity.
Unlovable and unthinkable,
he slips like eels
under the boat hull
and jams my rudder.
I should give him his sweet bread
to lick from his palms
and with my Hindi basket
turn to the pleading hands
of other wedding guests.
Ignore the insatiable flame
that consumes the blood
between my thighs.
Die every night
to the memory of his bare skin
gorging that flame like kerosene.
Dionysus closes his palm
over my Venus mound
as eyes like pale sapphires
flare into mine
from behind sandy strands.
Swear on my milky body.
Count me dead.
I need his skin like mine own.
If I stole it,
the Beast of Revelation
would turn a sickly amber eye
towards me and crush my skull
with a splintered hoof
stained with saintly blood.

And I not even remembered
in the jeweled windows of his temple…

I will wander
the dark tunnels of forgetfulness
until my feet are numb from
the icy puddles
scattered as mirror shards
under the moonlight.